Mysteries don't get more surreal than Sunbirth, a marvelously dreamlike novel by An Yu (Braised Pork). The setting is Five Poems Lake, a small, remote village that feels gray, "like everything had been drawn in pencil," and has been in decline for years. Among its residents are the novel's unnamed narrator, who runs the family pharmacy, and her older sister, Dong Ji, a beauty and massage specialist at a wellness center. The village has bigger problems than grayness, however. Twelve years ago, residents woke to discover that a sliver of the sun had disappeared. "Since then, from time to time, entirely unpredictably, a little ribbon of the sun would vanish again." Half the sun is now gone. The weather is perpetually cold, even in August.

As if that weren't strange enough, residents start emitting a bright light from their open mouths, a transformation that inevitably turns each head into a vibrant sun that earns the victims the pejorative term "Beacons." This phenomenon, as readers discover in this ingeniously plotted work, has a connection to the sisters' father, a former police officer who died years earlier as he investigated two missing persons cases. Much of the plot centers on the sisters' attempts to find out what happened to their father, and whether he is somehow responsible for the village's darkness. Family skeletons, police misconduct, and more figure into the mix. Haunting and beautiful, Sunbirth is an unsettling mystery that's also a tender work about the pain of watching the degradation of a homeland one loves. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Comedy can be a double-edged sword. The best comedians often address weighty matters more effectively than anyone else, but some audiences won't take seriously works that make them laugh. Readers dismiss at their own peril the warnings in People Like Us, Jason Mott's painfully funny and justifiably scathing portrait of the contemporary United States. This excellent novel vacillates between storylines about two Black authors Mott (The Returned; The Crossing) introduced in Hell of a Book. In the first, divorced North Carolina author Soot travels to a Minnesota college, the site of the latest school shooting, where he's been asked to "talk about America through the lens of his Black skin, his fear of police, and his loss." That loss is the suicide of his daughter at age 16.

In the second, another Black North Carolina author, unnamed until the end, won the National Book Award but has major problems, including a Black man with "scars on scars on scars" who threatens to kill him. The author buys a gun, "as American as apple pie, student loan debt, and truck nuts," but a seemingly lucky break may render it unnecessary. A French billionaire makes him an offer: stay in Europe, write whatever he wants about the U.S., and he'll be paid handsomely. The only catch is that the author can never go back.

Racism, active shooter drills, disaffected expatriates--they're all here, along with trenchant commentary on the United States. Solace is scarce in this bracing novel, but those who feel they don't belong anywhere will find plenty of commiseration. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Seven intriguing stories compose Taiwanese American author and screenwriter Elaine Hsieh Chou's first collection, following her lauded debut novel, Disorientation. She opens with "Carrot Legs," about a precocious 13-year-old Taiwanese American visiting her grandparents in Taipei. Sharing a bedroom with her 16-year-old cousin, LaLa, encourages sharing and secrets until a new boyfriend drives the girls apart. A potential love interest also causes a disturbing rift in "You Put a Rabbit on Me," featuring a pair of meta-doppelgängers. American Elaine arrives in France to work as an au pair. She meets her exact mirror, French Elaine, in a grocery store's yogurt aisle. An inseparable bond is inevitable--one that's at first devoted but turns punishing when a dating app match upsets their surreal pairing.

Chou sets the collection's novella closing, "Casualties of Art," in a writing residency, capturing pivotal moments of a tumultuous affair between an as-yet unpublished Korean Chinese author, David, and an adopted Korean American artist, Sophia, visiting her white writer husband. Their brief relationship provides David plenty of fodder for a story he plans to submit to a prestigious contest.

While deftly exploring diverse genres--coming-of-age, speculative, contemporary realism, auto- and meta-fiction--Chou convincingly interrogates and exposes unsettling relationships between family members, lovers, and former strangers. Beyond her multi-layered narratives (race, privilege, sexism, and identity are all contained here), she also notably, slyly inserts a sense of unreliability in her storytelling. Meanwhile, her novella offers a non-ending in five potential variations, adding numerous possibilities but never easy clarity. Yes, fiction is imagined and created, but Chou also manages to shrewdly, impressively deceive. --Terry Hong

Inspired by notes from her grandfather's caregivers, Swedish author Lisa Ridzén's debut novel is a realistic, poignant retrospective on the last months of a life. When the Cranes Fly South is 89-year-old Bo's first-person meditation during his final summer, from May through October. His carers' brief, perfunctory reports introduce each passage and contrast with Bo's vivid memories and hopes for his last days.

As his body grows weary, Bo is secure in the home he grew up in and shared with his beloved Fredrika for almost 60 years until he reluctantly agreed with their son, Hans, to move her to a home for people with dementia. His narration of richly detailed recollections is addressed to her. His reliable comfort is his faithful elkhound, Sixten, who lies on the daybed with Bo, making few demands. But Hans has determined Bo can't care for the dog and plans to re-home him. The heartbreaking possibility of losing Sixten exacerbates the rocky relationship between Bo and Hans, angering Bo but also reminding him of "the deal I made with myself... that I don't want there to be any hard feelings between us at the end." Bo recalls his tyrannical father and gentle mother, musing, "I regret never thanking her for being her." While a gentleman to his kind caregivers, Bo generally seems curmudgeonly and resentful, but his thoughts belie this gruffness. When the Cranes Fly South meditates on a long life lived with care, a deep appreciation for natural surroundings, and a commitment to leaving a legacy of love. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

Kate Riley's debut novel features Ruth, a member of an intentional Anabaptist community, whose fumbling faith and irreverent curiosity will captivate even as she mystifies those seeking tidy conclusions. Readers follow Ruth from her birth and naming in Gracefield, Mich., through Shalom (the confederation of young single people in the community), marriage, and motherhood within the Dorfs.

In some ways, Ruth is no different from her sisters in community: tying her kerchief and submitting to Saturday work assignments; requesting baptism and praying for God's will; marrying her husband, Alan, after weeks of written communication guided and edited by the elders, three days of engagement, and a New Year's Day wedding shared with another young couple. But Ruth's voice and her experience in the Brotherhood is singular as she vacillates between wonder, boredom, and despair. She is awed by "how beautiful the world had become. God was the trees and the sky and line where they met" and driven by an intense curiosity "inflamed by deviance," which is tempered by the benevolent patience of the community, tolerant of her many failures to meet expectations. Perhaps it is this gentle acceptance that keeps Ruth enfolded in the Brotherhood, even when its stays tighten uncomfortably around her.

Though countless members, including her eldest, Jamie, leave the community, Ruth remains. Riley's Ruth is a baffling character at times, especially as she accepts notions of submissive womanhood that defy feminist power. But throughout the novel, Ruth is a force, proving she can be no one but herself--an unlikely adherent, her rebellious heart committing to obedience. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

A basement renovation in an old London townhouse unravels long-buried secrets in The Midnight Hour, an enticing thriller by British novelist Eve Chase. Told in dual timelines 20 years apart, the novel follows a Paris-based writer named Maggie Parker and the romance with a mysterious youth named Wolf that altered her life forever.

In 1998, teenage Maggie is living in London's Notting Hill neighborhood when her mother, Dee Dee, a famous model, goes missing. Maggie's brother, Kit, who was adopted, is six years old, and only a serendipitous meeting with an enigmatic young man prevents Maggie from falling apart. Wolf, employed at his dodgy uncle Gav's antique shop, captivates Maggie and is adored by Kit. But a violent encounter with a menacing stranger leads to tragedy and a hasty cover-up, and Maggie is left heartbroken and burdened with a dangerous secret. Two decades later, the renovation of the Parkers' Notting Hill townhouse by its current owners means the deception Maggie concealed will come to light, with catastrophic consequences for all concerned--especially Kit.

A master of low-simmering tension, labyrinthine subplots, and evocative settings, Chase (The Wildling Sisters; The Birdcage) infuses her scenes with Notting Hill's bohemian charms, "grand villas," and the "chattering length" of its famous market, as well as Paris's glittery skyline "twinkling like a net of fairy lights." As the past encroaches on Maggie's present and she returns to London, her arrival sets into motion revelations that force an overdue reckoning with Dee Dee's past, Kit's parentage, and Wolf's shocking true identity. --Shahina Piyarali

A 27-year-old woman with a week to live races to solve her own murder in Holly Jackson's twisty, addictive Not Quite Dead Yet. Characterized by the same propulsive plotting as her young adult novels, Jackson's first foray into thrillers for adult readers is a stunner.

When Jet Mason returns to her family's home after the annual Halloween festival they host, she's bludgeoned from behind and left for dead. Jet wakes up in the hospital and learns that she has two choices: immediate surgery that will almost certainly kill her, or a deadly aneurysm that will kill her in a week.

Jet chooses to skip surgery and use her last week of life to find her attacker. Was it her ex-boyfriend, who left town the night she was attacked? One of the many people with reasons to hate her powerful family? Or could it be someone even closer to home? As she searches for clues, she finds more questions--and more crimes.

Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder) has crafted a layered whodunit, with several leads that result in shocking betrayals and an ending that will leave readers gasping. Jet is a wisecracking protagonist who dishes out morbid humor to balance her anger, and there's an unexpected bittersweetness in the caretaking relationship that develops with her sleuthing partner, Billy, Jet's childhood best friend who is the son of a local police officer.

Jackson's legions of fans will love Not Quite Dead Yet, but the novel is sure to win the author a new readership as well. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer

Thoughtful and intricately plotted, Hollow Spaces by attorney Victor Suthammanont combines a riveting legal thriller with a complex domestic drama. The compelling debut follows two adult siblings investigating the murder their father was acquitted of when they were still children.

Suthammanont skillfully alternates dual timelines in a narrative that shifts seamlessly between several perspectives. The novel starts with John Lo, the only Asian American partner in his law firm, who stands trial for the murder of an associate, Jessica DeSalvo, with whom he was having a passionate affair. John is acquitted of the murder but his life is destroyed: his wife won't speak to him, his children are traumatized, and he is removed from his own firm. The second timeline picks up 30 years later. John's daughter, Brennan, is now an attorney, and his son, Hunter, is a war correspondent. The siblings are divided on their father's guilt. Hunter has always believed that he committed the murder while Brennan is convinced of his innocence. This friction has created an emotional gulf between the two, but when they reunite at their dying mother's bedside, they decide to investigate the old case together and discover the truth.

Suthammanont's ability to balance the essential mystery of the story (readers are never sure, until the very end, whether John is guilty) with his brilliant study of flawed characters and how bad choices, trauma, and racism travel through generations makes Hollow Spaces a fascinating and unusual thriller that is as cerebral as it is suspenseful. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor

At the start of Charlie Jane Anders's Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Jamie's mother, Serena, is struggling. Since the death of her wife, Mae, six years ago, simultaneous with Serena's career imploding, Serena has been holed up with her grief in a one-room schoolhouse in the woods. Now Jamie, wrestling with her dissertation on 18th-century literature, has decided enough is enough. In the interest of pulling Serena out of her black hole, Jamie's finally going to tell her mom her big secret: Jamie is a witch.

But teaching Serena some nice, wholesome, positivity-based magic misfires, because Serena is prickly, powerful, and pissed at the world. Learning magic proves hazardous, to her and to Jamie. As the younger witch attempts to teach her mother the rules of magic (which self-taught Jamie has defined for herself), the women must confront relationships past and present, with each other and with their partners. Serena and Jamie are a prickly and troubled duo but are earnestly trying to come together. They will face challenges to their love as well as to their personal safety, as the stakes rise in a world of bigotry and social injustice, but they will also form stronger bonds with each other and other strong women.

Anders (Never Say You Can't Survive; All the Birds in the Sky) excels at dialogue and the portrayal of relationships both loving and thorny. Amid the profoundly serious dangers, there are frequent notes of joy, fun, and intimacy throughout. Lessons in Magic and Disaster features the magic of spells and charms but also that of human connection, and readers will be richer for the experience. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

In their first full-length novel, Cassandra Khaw (The Salt Grows Heavy; Hammers on Bone) goes to the deepest levels of horror, subverting dark academia tropes of the allure of privilege in this carnival of gore. The Library at Hellebore finds Alessa Li forcibly conscripted at the titular school, a magical institute for the dangerously magical. It quickly becomes clear that the so-called school isn't all it seems and is even more dangerous than anyone could have imagined.

Alessa is a trust-no-one loner whose acidic tongue hides the occasional tender inclination she'd rather no one knew about. She's been on the wrong side of the powers that be since using her magic to kill her abusive stepfather, after which she was on her own. That is, until she gets trapped at Hellebore, sparring with the literal children of gods and demons until the faculty show their true colors and the situation devolves to battle-royale levels of chaos.

Khaw's language is fabulous--inventive and delightfully gross. They render Hellebore with such decayed-elegance detail that their novel would be worth reading just to spend time in rooms with ceilings "frescoed with dead men swaying from nooses of their own intestines" and "black-haired, blank-­faced women who had the eyes and wings of wasps."

The Library at Hellebore takes readers to a thoroughly imagined setting of dark magic that sinks its many teeth into themes of gender violence and female rage. Khaw has a talent for creating subversive female characters, and Alessa is another intriguingly layered personality persevering through impossible circumstances. --Carol Caley, writer

A healer dedicated to curing poisoned patients is swept into a royal mystery in Hemlock & Silver, an eerie and clever dark retelling of "Snow White" from fantasy and horror novelist T. Kingfisher (A Sorceress Comes to Call).

Anja has just finished dosing herself with snake poison when the king arrives to ask for her help with his daughter, 12-year-old Princess Snow, who is slowly dying of an unexplained illness. He suspects poison and wants an expert opinion. Anja, whose passion is developing cures for poisons, agrees to investigate, though with some worry for herself should she fail in her mission. But Snow's symptoms provide little clue, and Anja's unease is worsened by the princess's aloof manner and the oversized mirror in her assigned bedchamber, a treasure from the dead queen's dowry. Catching onto one of Snow's secrets leads Anja to fall through a mirror into a strange gray world. At first the disquieting reflected world seems empty, but she comes to realize it contains a force that could upend reality forever. Anja will need all her prowess at experimental design as well as the support of silent but steady royal guardsman Javier and a talking cat to save their kingdom and her own life.

Kingfisher smashes the well-known "Snow White" story and reworks it into a shadowy mosaic underpinned by its original themes of envy and usurpation. Anja's irreverent narration, bashful romance with Javier, and unabashed fascination with poisons provide a humorous counterpoint to the story's more frightening elements. Readers looking for a menacing, off-kilter fantasy that keeps some lightness will enjoy peering into this glass. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Myth and folklore, the rippling fabric of time, and the immutable nature of love bridge the nearly limitless distance between two pairs of sisters in the elaborate, dreamlike fantasy novel Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (The Liar's Weave).

Sisters Laleh and Myung live within the whale of babel, a vast "baby universe" filled with chambers the size of galaxies. They have met only each other, but curious Myung believes other people exist. Laleh, content to live in the whale and tell stories of their creator, is heartbroken when Myung leaves. Years later, Laleh travels through a dream and finds Myung on a sentient island populated by a living keeper and her ancestors' ghosts. "What appears story-less is only unknown," and the origin of the whale, the sentient island, and a metaphysical museum slowly come to light through the story of two more women, lost to the centuries: another set of sisters who reshaped space and time and were torn from each other along the way.

Mehta's ambitious, sprawling fantasy will invite comparisons to Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, not only because its settings are vast, unmapped rambles of wonder and danger but also for the author's clarity of voice and ability to evoke a precise emotional mood. Fans of Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea will also enjoy the nesting-doll effect of the stories within stories. This mad, magnificent trip through other worlds has an unhurried, indulgent quality that invites surrender to the experience. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

What happens when utopia meets dystopia? Mattie Lubchansky's electric graphic novel, Simplicity, explores this question and others in bright, digitally created, cartoon-style art rife with NSFW scenes. Lubchansky (Boys Weekend), associate editor for the comics site the Nib, uses humor, horror, and themes of sexuality to tell the story of Lucius Pasternak, an anthropologist in 2081 who's sent from the Administrative and Security territories of New York on a fieldwork assignment to the exurb zone--picture a journey from a fortified New York City filled with surveillance and ads to the rural Catskills region. It's a vision of the future that's bleak, but not preposterous.

Lucius arrives at Simplicity, a commune in operation since the late 1970s, to gather interviews and firsthand experience, ostensibly for a museum funded by Dennis Van Wervel, a despicable mayor also known as "the worm," who has his hands in many projects. At first, Lucius is treated as an outsider. No one will sit for an interview, though he is allowed to witness the sexual exploits of what the community calls the "Mutual Rite," an evening free-for-all in which commune members release tension. However, as Lucius puts in sweat equity, the community opens up to him, and strange dreams become mingled with waking hours. Before long, violence strikes Simplicity, the commune devolves into chaos, and Lucius embarks on a journey to find what's attacking the place he now feels loyal to. In this post-societal breakdown tale, Lubchansky's imagination and expressive powers are at their finest. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

Playwright, poet, author, and activist James Baldwin holds an unrivaled position in the history of American literature, one that biographer Nicholas Boggs thoroughly examines in Baldwin: A Love Story. As the title suggests, Boggs's work distinguishes itself from prior biographies by using Baldwin's primary romantic, platonic, artistic, and intellectual relationships as the organizing principle. Depictions of relationships, such as with his lover artist Lucien Happersberger and enduring friends like Beauford Delaney breathe life into every page of the work.

Boggs uses new archival material and fresh interviews with people close to Baldwin throughout his life, resulting in an impressive and kaleidoscopic exploration of Baldwin's origins, his intellectual and artistic evolution, and the ever-expanding ripples of his influence across tumultuous artistic and political landscapes. Boggs meticulously charts Baldwin's early literary efforts, the formation of his unmistakable voice and how he would "transmute his psychological and emotional wounds into writing." Baldwin sensitively explores Baldwin's sexuality and lifelong quest for a long-term partner. Far from a footnote, his identity as a gay Black man is shown to be foundational in his understanding of otherness, of love in all its incarnations, and of societal constructs that label and diminish people. The biography navigates Baldwin's complex interactions with political leaders and fellow activists, showcasing his unwavering commitment to justice while also revealing the personal toll of such a public life.

Nicholas Boggs has undertaken a biography of immense scope and profound insight that deepens our understanding of Baldwin and his work. For longtime admirers and new discoverers alike, this is an indispensable companion to the ever-relevant legacy of James Baldwin. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

If a 20-something, British Carrie Bradshaw narrated a London-set Kitchen Confidential, it might read something like Tart: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef, an uproarious, unrepentantly lusty memoir by a young woman who writes under the name Slutty Cheff. As she explains in Tart, "There are two things in my life that are a constant reminder that pleasure exists: food and sex," and throughout the book she has frequent large helpings of both.

As Tart begins, the author, who left the corporate world for cooking school, is about to do a trial shift at a celebrated London restaurant. She's thrilled to land a chef job, but the intensity and the 60-hour weeks gradually break her, and she quits after seven months. She escapes to Cornwall and takes a lower-level, part-time restaurant job but grows bored. After she returns to London, she lands another high-stakes, physically punishing chef gig, and life is once again blissful ("I love London and I love my job and I love my roommate and I love my grown-up life"), until it isn't.

Slutty Cheff is conscious of her status as the lone female chef in each London restaurant's kitchen, and she knows that this invites a feminist reading of her life, although her relationship with feminism is still developing ("I wondered, for a moment, if that was liberating or highly demeaning"). Tart's best sections are Slutty Cheff's documentary-style descriptions of herself at work making kitchen messes that are for readers to enjoy and, mercifully, the author to clean up. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Actor Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) cultivated a tough-guy image, but when he got together with director John Huston (1906-1987), Bogie was like a kid brother to the rascally younger man, and like brothers, they squabbled. Nat Segaloff explores the pair's enduring alliance in the well-considered Bogart and Huston.

After devoting a biographical chapter to each man, Segaloff examines their six collaborations, working chronologically from 1941's The Maltese Falcon ("the first 'Bogart picture' that was truly a 'Bogart picture'  ") to 1953's Beat the Devil ("unquestionably an acquired taste"). Segaloff, whose previous books about Hollywood include Mr. Huston/Mr. North, identifies some commonalities among the six movies (they "broke molds and showed the way for maturity, boldness, and moral complexity"), but his true interest is Bogie and Huston's personal relationship.

Both men liked to drink (Segaloff's bottomless research finds his subjects resolving one heated conflict over scotch), and both men leaned politically left (they protested the House Un-American Activities Committee's efforts to tank the careers of Hollywood's perceived Communist sympathizers). But they generally didn't fraternize unless they were doing a movie together, and sometimes not even then. Segaloff reports that when rain waylaid shooting The African Queen (1951), Huston went hunting, but not Bogart: he "was a homebody to whom Africa was an inconvenience." With authority spiked with wit, Bogart and Huston captures a noteworthy working friendship that served both men, not to mention the film-viewing public, well. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Historian Henry Wiencek's Stan and Gus brings to life the Gilded Age relationship between architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Both men were instrumental in creating iconic works in a period that became known as the American Renaissance, 1880 to 1920. White and Saint-Gaudens had a 30-year relationship, and their creative and often sexual partnership changed the face of New York City.

Wiecek (Master of the Mountain) discusses grand designs of Fifth Avenue mansions and public monuments such as the Washington Square Arch, as well as intimate details of the men's personal lives and creative struggles. He meticulously chronicles how White and Saint-Gaudens's collaborative exchanges, artistic debates, and shared pursuit of beauty--often alongside copious amounts of Champagne and spirited debauchery--defined an era of unparalleled artistic patronage and ambition, sometimes at great personal cost: "They struggled to reconcile the contradictions of the era, contending forces that they themselves embodied--wretched, bloated excess and a search for transcendence."

Their friendship continued through both of their marriages, and endless affairs and dalliances, until White's shocking, notorious 1906 murder, at age 52, at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden, a building he'd designed.

There's plenty here to engage readers of all persuasions, but those with a keen interest in American art history, the Gilded Age, and scandal among the talented and successful will find Stan and Gus an absolute delight. It will also appeal to readers interested in the social history of New York City during its most transformative period. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb, a comprehensive and riveting historical account. Culled from a first draft of "over 1.4 million words of quotations, reports, testimony, and firsthand accounts," Graff (UFO; The Only Plane in the Sky) leaves no stone unturned in this deeply informative and thoroughly captivating read. Though much of his focus is on the scientists and the political and military figures driving the top-secret project, Graff refuses to exclude other vital participants, such as the many women in the secret cities of Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Los Alamos, N.Mex., and the Japanese Hibakusha, the "bomb-affected people."

Graff's skillful interweaving of these voices feels like eavesdropping on a wide-ranging conversation, with each person's reflections addressing those of another. This dialogic style is especially effective in the foreword, which offers an account of the Trinity test, when the team at Los Alamos proved the weapon could work. Graff re-creates the intensity and drama of that fateful morning by layering each participant's experiences, including details of the chilly air, the dance music over the loudspeaker, and the uncanny silence in the final seconds before impact. The book's later sections lose some of this energy but gain in gravity as readers must wrestle with moral questions and pleas from survivors including Etsuko Nagano, who asks, "Please help us be the last victims of the atomic bombs," and Sunao Kanazaki, who insists, "No A-bomb must ever fall again. We don't need any more survivors." --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Thomas Chatterton Williams's Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse is a persuasive work by a liberal about liberalism, and it will likely upset some liberals. Despite and because of this, it's an important book.

Williams (Losing My Cool; Self-Portrait in Black and White), born in 1981 to a Black father and a white mother, travels in "progressive circles" but has noted what he considers the deleterious effects of social justice orthodoxy. Summer of Our Discontent is, according to its preface, "an argument for why we must resist the mutually assured destruction of identitarianism--even when it comes dressed up in the seductive guise of 'antiracism,'  " to quote a portion of one of the long but finespun sentences Williams favors. He expands on his thinking in chapters covering racially and culturally charged events, among them the staged assault on actor Jussie Smollett in 2019 and George Floyd's 2020 murder. Williams sees the liberal cause cheapened by white people's "performative allegiance" to fighting racism, and he believes that cancel culture helps explain the Republican Party's appeal to working-class Americans, "many of whom feel alienated from ever-shifting, frequently counterintuitive elite manners and etiquette."

Williams isn't the first to articulate these ideas, but it would be hard to find someone who lays them out better. Liberal readers who assume a defensive crouch going into Summer of Our Discontent would do well to understand that the book isn't a scold: it's a cri de coeur from a left-leaning ally. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Ann Bausum (Ensnared in the Wolf's Lair) intends to set the record straight about the War of the Rebellion (i.e. the Civil War), its cause, and its aftermath; her nonfiction YA title White Lies guides readers through the battlefields of one of the U.S.'s most contentious periods. Bausum employs extensive research to systematically dissect and debunk the falsehoods that created the Lost Cause narrative, a story that continues to endanger lives in the United States more than 100 years later.

The book is structured around 20 major deceptions, or "white lies"; each begins a chapter and provides the section's foundation and content. Bausum highlights historical narratives that downplay or distort reality, such as the subtle lies that revolve around word choices ("rebel" suggests Confederate soldiers "were engaged in the worthy fight of defending their new country") and phrasing (the "War Between the States" suggests that "the warring factions had fought as equals").

At the heart of all the fabrications is the subject of slavery, the true cause of the Civil War. While many insist the cause was "states' rights," Bausum proves this to be one of the largest white lies: "Before the war began, countless White southerners had spoken out repeatedly in support of both slavery and secession. They believed they could only preserve the one by undertaking the other." And as Bausum explains, "Americans continue to be misled about basic facts of U.S. history because of the states' rights lie."

White Lies is an accessible and enthralling work of nonfiction that fans of Candace Fleming, Carole Boston Weatherford, and Steve Shusterman should definitely read. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

The enchanting early chapter book Witchycakes #1: Sweet Magic by Kara LaReau (Rise of Zombert), with art by debut illustrator Ariane Moreira, begins with a poem: "In a village by the sea live a witch and a witch-to-be." Said "witch-to-be" is young Blue, who works alongside their Mama Moon, witch and head baker of Witchycakes.

Cerulean-haired Blue bicycles around town delivering baked goods, encountering customers who each have a unique problem in need of solving. Blue's first attempts at using their budding magic skills for good always go awry, leaving the neighbor even more distressed. "Oh, raisins," a disappointed Blue mumbles. But with support from their seagull familiar, Gully, an idea will start "bubbling in their brain"--one more try, and Blue is ultimately successful.

LaReau excellently depicts Blue's efforts at using "helping magic" as an echo to many children's (and some adult's) well-intentioned attempts to chip in. Their use of regulation techniques--such as slowing down and focusing--act as a useful model for how to react when things don't go as planned. Moreira's digital illustrations beckon readers into the dreamy seaside town of Shellville with spreads of pastel-hued shops and sun-kissed kitchens. Author and illustrator work together to make sure there is unexpected and heartwarming magic: the narrator explains that "a few months ago," local grocery owner "Mr. Haddock's best friend [Marina] died. It's been sad for everyone in Shellville." The page turn reveals a framed photo of Marina, a smiling pug.

LaReau and Moreira invite readers in and convince them to stay a while with bewitching characters, delectable landscapes, and just the right amount of wonder and whimsy. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher, co-creator of Gender Inclusive Classrooms

An 11-year-old used to taking care of herself learns to be both nurtured and nurturing in the charming, cheering middle-grade fantasy The Library of Unruly Treasures by National Book Award-winning author Jeanne Birdsall (The Penderwicks series), illustrated by Scott O'Dell Award-winner Matt Phelan (The Storm in the Barn).

Gwen MacKinnon was supposed to live with her father but, without warning, he announces he will be "separating from his current (third) wife and that Gwen's mom" will need to "keep her" until he gets settled. This is an impossibility, though, because Gwen's mom is headed to Costa Rica with her new boyfriend "to start a farm or something." Gwen is sent to stay with estranged Great-Uncle Matthew and his "peculiar" dog, Pumpkin, in Dalgety, Mass., a small town with a "sturdy and graceful" library, where the child finds a "long-forgotten contentment" living with a grownup who cares for her. Most peculiar of all, though, is what Gwen finds in the MacKinnon library: the Lahdukan, magical "eight-inch creatures with wings and turquoise hair." The Lahdukan are in trouble, and they say that Gwen is destined to help them. But what can an 11-year-old do--especially one who is leaving in a couple of weeks?

The Library of Unruly Treasures introduces readers to a brilliant new world hidden within our own, where magical creatures are everywhere but can only be seen by children and the chosen. Birdsall brings together familiar fantasy tropes and always focuses on developing an enchanting world where a child can be both protector and protected. Phelan's broken-lined black-and-white illustrations feel spontaneous and natural, helping to make this title a treasure full of wonder, mystery, and found family. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras and award-winning author Jennifer Swanson (Outdoor School) team up to help kids explore 50 of humanity's greatest discoveries and inventions in the informative and wry middle-grade nonfiction guide The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide to Inventing the World, with welcoming illustrations by Ruby Fresson (Spin to Survive series). Thuras and Swanson create a rough sketch of human history not in chronological order, but "back and forth through time and around the world," connecting ideas that build on each other across decades.

A cheeky packing list at the beginning (readers will need a time machine, a lead apron, and samurai sword, among other items) sets the irreverent, enthusiastic tone for this excursion through history. The authors offer the latitude and longitude for the birth of each invention, encouraging readers to look up where in the world video games or steel was invented and to visit museums to learn more. Fun facts about each location, such as an on-site crypt or a "really cool old spiral staircase," add to the allure. Thuras and Swanson don't shy away from exploring complicated technologies or real-world struggles affecting scientists and museums, trusting their readers to keep up with the big ideas. Full-color illustrations in a style reminiscent of Hergé's Tin Tin adorn every page, comfortingly grounding readers in visual representations of inventions and locations. Backmatter includes explanations of measurements, an extensive glossary, and a recommended reading list. The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide to Inventing the World is a must-have for any kid interested in history, technology, or how things are made. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer

A Monstrous Bedtime by Kerilynn Wilson (The Faint of Heart) offers a tender and comically off-kilter look at bedtime routines and how they unravel when a monster needs help falling asleep, too. A child is tucked in by loving adults with a comforting routine and the familiar refrain: "Close your eyes. Time to sleep." But when the grown-ups leave, a shadowy octopus-shaped monster sniffling under the bed confesses it can't sleep either. In an imaginative role reversal, the child repeats each step of the bedtime routine--water, fan, story, song--but with chaotic results. A cup of water leads to a soaked kitchen floor, a whirring fan nearly sends the monster flying, and the stories and song are far too exciting, sending the family cat scrambling out of the room. In a sweet final act of care, the monster carries the now-sleepy child back to bed, where they start the routine again. This time, it works.

Wilson's illustrations balance warmth and mischief. A palette of cool blues, warm coppers, and pinks evokes both nighttime calm and the energy of play. The monster, all round limbs and dot eyes, stays on the gentler side of scary, and comic-style speech bubbles keep the tone breezy. Repetition in the text gives the story a gentle rhythm, even as the visuals spiral into delightful disorder.

With playful details, like the cat, surrounded by mess and stuck wide awake under a copy of The Magical Art of Tidying Up, A Monstrous Bedtime is a cozy, subversively funny look at the comforts of bedtime, the bonds of care, and the joy of making a mess on the way to sleep. --Julie Danielson