In Catherine Newman's third novel, Wreck, a winsome sequel set two years on from Sandwich, a family encounters medical uncertainties and ethical quandaries.

Rocky is a 50-something writer and mother of two young adults. After Rocky's mother's death, her 92-year-old father moved into Rocky's in-law apartment. Rocky and Nick's son, Jamie, now works as a junior analyst for a New York City consulting firm. The engaging plot turns on two upsetting incidents. "In one single day, in two different directions, my life swerves from its path," Rocky divulges. First, she notices a mysterious skin rash, which, along with abnormal blood work results, eventually points to an autoimmune liver condition; second, news comes that Miles Zapf, one of Jamie's high school classmates, has died in a collision between his car and a train. Was it suicide or an accident? A moral complication arises: Jamie's firm advised the railroad company.

As one New England fall unfurls, leading to an emotionally climactic Thanksgiving Day, Rocky airs her fears over her prognosis, her father's infirmity, and her children's future. Empathy is a two-edged sword--she can't stop imagining what Miles Zapf's mother is going through. Newman (We All Want Impossible Things) writes autofiction that's full of quirky one-liners and will resonate particularly with anyone facing mental health and midlife challenges. There's family drama aplenty but also the everyday coziness of family rituals, especially those involving food. This warm hug of a novel ponders how to respond graciously when life gets messy and answers aren't clear-cut. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Mai Mochizuki's soothing J-healing feline series began with The Full Moon Coffee Shop and continues with an inviting second volume, Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop. The continuing premise repeats on the first page: the pop-up shop run by cats "has no fixed location" and doesn't take orders because the staff creates "desserts, meals, and drinks--selected just for you" while they "help those lost souls seeking solace."

Christmas hustle bustle is the setting here for three linked stories of women facing crossroads. Satomi treasures her independence as an events manager for a Tokyo ad agency and is unsure how she'll respond to a likely marriage proposal on Christmas Eve from her longtime boyfriend; a date with her young niece, Ayu, offers new clarity. Koyuki, Satomi's co-worker, has avoided celebrating the holiday with her family since her father died in a Christmas Day accident when she was eight, but an unexpected reunion finally sends her home. Junko, Satomi's sister-in-law, reluctantly visits her estranged father in the hospital with daughter Ayu. There, she gets the opportunity to fulfill a café reservation made for her 21 years ago by her beloved childhood pet to whom she was never able to say goodbye. For this trio of seekers, feline encouragement will help hone their true, best wishes.

Jordan Taylor comfortably translates Mochizuki's light, chatty prose. Mochizuki's ongoing fascination with astrology manifests in her out-of-this-world staff--Luna, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Venus (missing are "old man Pluto and oddball Neptune"). But her vulnerable stories of humans longing for understanding and connection are what will capture readers' hearts. --Terry Hong

Analog Days, the plotless first novella by Damion Searls (translator of Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse), is a challenging read, a dismal catalogue of inescapable crises. Brisk prose encapsulates a generation's irrefutable struggle with an oblique and unforgivingly dark destiny.

Shaped by brief diary entries, spanning from June 22 to July 20, 2026, by an unnamed narrator, the novella's digressive reflections of disturbing diurnal slices of life are grounded in the political history and social climate of 12 Gen X friends in New York City. The friends mourn for the time before the web and YouTube, replaced by living in an "age in which despair and material comfort, technological wizardry and political malaise... were mixed together... [with] weariness of the present, and pessimism for the future." Quotidian demands overwhelm them. Arizona wildfires, Baghdad bombings, Louisiana and Minnesota police brutality, the murder of a member of the U.K. Parliament dominate global tragedies. The group anxiously anticipates frightening consequences of fall's presidential election if the candidate with the "gravitational narcissistic pull" wins. Searls softens the onslaught of gloom with a few uplifting moments of digression:  a child on the subway sneaking a snapshot of the narrator's feet, the pleasure of "summer bees."

A compelling core of the novella is Searls's creative analysis of Jim Jarmusch's eerie 1995 black-and-white cinematic allegory, Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp as William Blake, a Cleveland accountant journeying to the frontier West, where he encounters a Native American. Blake's Stygian odyssey seems to parallel the narrator's life. Despite its overall bleak tone and subject matter, Searls's somewhat surreal cinema counterpoints add a metaphysical grasp to his attention-grabbing theme and voice. --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic

Before the Mango Ripens, Afabwaje Kurian's debut novel, follows the complex human dramas unfolding between white missionaries and the residents of a small town in Nigeria in the 1970s. It's a layered story full of interpersonal tensions that mirror deeper political conflicts as Nigeria tips toward self-rule.

Jummai is a beautiful young woman whose life is diverted by pregnancy. Tebeya is a competent doctor who has come home to her small town in the hope of taking the lead in the mission clinic, but she meets resistance from the white doctor running it. Zanya wants more agency in the mission church, run by a white reverend uninterested in sharing power. In one of the novel's central conflicts, Zanya is tasked with managing a group of laborers and fellow locals as they build the mission a new church. But when a dispute grows over their low pay, he becomes caught between them and the reverend who controls his future prospects. It's a gripping struggle made deeper by Zanya's own flaws: he's lying about miraculously surviving being set on fire, preaching his own story in an attempt to ascend to the position of pastor.

Before the Mango Ripens presents characters who are complex and multidimensional as they struggle with the colonial institutions of power standing between them and autonomy. Kurian writes gorgeous details that enliven the setting as well: "He began to see how the tree boughs, verdant and tangled, arching silhouettes on the walls of the houses and huts, could become chilling, stark limbs in the moonlight." This is a sharply insightful and elegantly written debut. --Carol Caley, writer

Boy, give a guy a little criticism, and all of a sudden, he's tumbling down a philosophical rabbit hole and questioning the nature of identity. Sound like Pirandello? Good guess. In One, None, and a Hundred Grand, a 1926 novel written by Luigi Pirandello and translated from the Italian by Sean Wilsey, metatheater's great farceur presents a rich, idle 28-year-old whose self-image doesn't jibe with the person others perceive. As Vitangelo Moscarda looks into a mirror and admires his nose, "if not beautiful, at least wholly inoffensive," his wife, Dida, catches his vanity off guard by telling him it leans to the right. His eyes, she adds, were "crowned by brows like circumflex accents," and his "ears were off-kilter, one more exorbitant than the other." The worst part? "I had to concede the accuracy of all these observations."  

Thus begin the musings of a young man living off money earned by his late father, who co-founded a bank and made a bundle through usury. What passes for plot involves Vitangelo's dealings with two men "who've seen to [his] affairs since the death of [his] father" and his efforts to evict an artist who has lived rent-free in one of Vitangelo's properties. The novel is an excuse for Pirandello to expound upon the difficulty of truly knowing oneself and the irrevocability of one's actions, which, Vitangelo states, "envelop you like cords and tentacles; they hold you down." Like Vitangelo's nose, the story is slightly askew, which is what makes it so satisfying. This cerebral workout is a delight. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Peggy Townsend's smart, wry fifth novel, The Botanist's Assistant, follows researcher and lab manager Margaret Finch as she investigates a murder--and discovers the perils and pleasures of stepping outside her carefully ordered routine.

For years, Margaret has relished her work assisting Professor Jonathan Deaver: keeping his lab in order, managing unruly graduate students, and nurturing the botanical samples critical to the lab's work on drugs that treat cancer. But when Deaver is found dead in his office, Margaret senses foul play, and she's distressed and outraged at the administration's efforts to cover up any unpleasantness. Along with Joe Torres, the department's new custodian, Margaret digs into Deaver's work and life to catch his killer.

Townsend (The Beautiful and the Wild) creates a likable protagonist in Margaret, who arranges her wardrobe by the day of the week and organizes her life to minimize waste of all kinds. Of course, a murder investigation inevitably gets messy--whether the mess is a stray button, smashed lab glassware, or the growing conviction that the killer wants to stop Margaret's sleuthing. Though she is taken aback, Margaret responds to these shocks (as well as the arrival of a stray cat) with her usual efficiency and logic, to entertaining effect. Townsend's narrative pays tribute to the meticulous dedication of research scientists and pokes gentle fun at their quirks, while exploring the hidden motives--jealousy, revenge, ambition, and love--that drive their work, sometimes to deadly ends.

With a clever protagonist and a satisfying plot, The Botanist's Assistant is highly enjoyable reading for science nerds and mystery lovers. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Amy K. Green (The Prized Girl) presents a twisting puzzle of a thriller with Haven't Killed in Years, starring a woman whose hidden past resurfaces in bizarre, gruesome, and often funny ways.

Gwen Tanner has a boring office job, an unremarkable one-bedroom apartment, and no serious relationships. From the outside she appears to be "your standard almost-too-basic law-abiding woman approaching thirty. On the inside? Eh, not so much." Gwen was born Marin Haggerty. When she was nine, her father was convicted on eight counts of first-degree murder (eight being just the ones they could pin on him) and both parents went to prison (her mother for aiding and abetting). Marin became Gwen and disappeared from the public eye. She has spent the past two decades building a resolutely ordinary life, hoping to avoid the fate her father intended for her: to be just like him.

But now a severed arm turns up on her doorstep, with a note: "Hi, Marin." Her safe, staid lifestyle is disrupted; and more than that, Gwen is offended that someone thinks they can get the better of her. She sets out to investigate, but the clues and the characters just tangle her up further. She mostly accidentally finds herself making friends--who are also suspects. Is it time for Gwen--Marin--to come into her own as her father's protégé? Or is she going to surprise herself and set out on her own path?

In Gwen/Marin's dryly cynical voice, these madcap events hit tender and comic notes. Despite instances of poignant suffering and a noteworthy serial killer, Haven't Killed in Years is weirdly, deeply fun. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Vanessa Lillie sends archeologist Syd Walker into the world of privileged campers and their wealthy, connected parents in The Bone Thief, a gripping, twisty mystery that poses questions about legacy, violence, power, ancestry, and attempts to control or suppress Native culture throughout U.S. history. Syd is called to a Rhode Island summer camp to investigate newly discovered human remains on the premises. When the remains vanish and Syd catches wind of a missing Native teen from the nearby community, she enters a web of powerful families with white-knuckle holds on their lineage, which dates back to the earliest New England colonists.

The Bone Thief, sequel to Lillie's 2023 novel, Blood Sisters, is both a continuation of Syd's story arc as archeologist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and a satisfying stand-alone work. Syd, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, lives on unceded Narragansett land in what is now Rhode Island and works for the federal agency that partners with and empowers tribal governments across the United States. This complexity is a crucial piece of the novel, which is both a riveting mystery and a poignant reflection on the far-reaching legacy of historical violence. Syd declares, "The American Dream... only came true by making it a nightmare for those who were already here." Her investigation into the dual puzzles of the missing remains and the missing teen is packed with action and subterfuge. It races toward a shocking conclusion without ever letting up on the bigger issues of truth, sovereignty, and tradition lost to centuries of American colonialism. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Gilly MacMillan's The Burning Library cleverly combines elements of history, puzzles, artworks, and secret organizations in a thrilling plot.

Oxford University graduate student Anya Brown's unprecedented translation of a cryptic and rare medieval manuscript that had been considered indecipherable brings her an onslaught of attention. Lucrative job offers from top-tier universities in the U.K. and the U.S. come at the right time as Anya is "as flat broke as any PhD student." But she needs to stay in Great Britain because her mother is seriously ill and her boyfriend, Sid, is finishing his computer science studies. Anya chooses the small but prestigious Institute of Manuscript Studies in picturesque St. Andrews, Scotland; the job includes a high salary, a cottage for two, a job for Sid, and it can accommodate traveling to London. Unknown to her, Anya is targeted by two shadowy rival women's organizations, the Fellowship of the Larks and the Order of St. Katherine. Both covert groups believe Anya can help find and decipher the ancient and long-lost artifact known as "The Book of Wonder." Ruthless manipulation by both of the centuries-old groups reaches the highest political and elite strata. Entering the fray is Scotland Yard detective Clio Spicer, whose mentor warns her about the groups shortly before she is killed. With Clio's aid, Anya and Sid maneuver through the groups' deception and violence as more murders occur over the course of the complex but cohesive plot.

MacMillan's strong characters make her dark-academic approach work despite occasionally bordering on unrealistic. MacMillan (The Long Weekend; The Nanny) artfully imbues The Burning Library with medieval history, ancient and contemporary codes, and family issues. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

In The Everlasting, a provocative, heartrending fantasy by Alix E. Harrow (The Once and Future Witches; A Mirror Mended), a historian learns to question the purpose of legends after being sent to the past to record the story of one inspiring knight.

Owen Mallory first fell in love with Sir Una Everlasting in a children's book adaptation of her legend, which he read when he was nine. Around a thousand years after Una's tragic death in service to the country of Dominion, her picture on a recruiting poster inspired Owen to join the military, and when he returned to academia, he specialized in her legend. When a book--the original account of Una's story, thought no longer to exist--is delivered to his hands, he discovers the shocking truth: his task is not to translate it but to go into the past and write it, and to make sure that Una dies as she should.

Starting with the trappings of Arthurian-style legend, Harrow tells a powerful tale of sacrifice, love, and defiance. As Owen is sent back in time repeatedly, he at first reshapes Una's story to make her death fulfill a purpose for the nation she served. But after lifetimes of love and loss accumulate and begin to coalesce in Una's memory, the two of them must fight for the chance to not sacrifice her life for Dominion and instead learn what is worth risking their lives for. Harrow demonstrates the impressive breadth of her powers for this romantic saga and brutal critique of the misuses of patriotism. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

Georgia Summers (The City of Stardust) renders an enchanting world of self-sabotage, romance, deadly ink magic, and dearly beloved bookstores in her sophomore novel, The Bookshop Below. London was once full of shops where books and the magic they held could be exchanged for the priceless: self-extracted teeth, a lock of hair. In contemporary times, the force that imbues books and bookshops with their power, through the particular magical workings of booksellers, is fading.

Summers's enchanting fantasy opens with Cassandra in great danger, called to return, reluctantly, to the bookshop where she was raised, trained, and then banished by her mentor, Chiron. She was once his protégé, destined to become an owner one day. Now, she finds herself reinstated, struggling to rehabilitate Chiron's decayed shop "and all its finicky, unpredictable moods." Cassandra must manage a bookseller she feels lucky to hire, a wonderfully capable woman named Byron; a handsome, magnetic rival named Lowell Sharpe; and the duty she feels to solve the mysteries of what happened to Chiron and why the magic bookshops are disappearing. Cassandra is not sure she wants to be here at all, let alone on the hook for saving everything she knows from destruction. But she feels she owes a debt. She finds she cares about people she never expected to. And she uncovers an enormous secret about her own origins that upends the stakes entirely.

The Bookshop Below offers a delicious combination of shadowy, sinister magic, wistful romance, propulsive action, and the utter reverence one holds for the right book. Summers excels at transporting her readers to a dreamy otherworld where anything is possible. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Farah Heron creates a warmly textured winter romance in her delightful novel A Little Holiday Fling. The vivacious Rubina "Ruby" Dhanji dreams of leaving Toronto and her luxury retail career behind for a chance to fulfill her and her mother's dream of opening "an inn or a bed and breakfast in the English countryside." Although her mother died of breast cancer years ago, Ruby has now laid the groundwork--and gained access to a trust her mother left her--so she can move to the U.K. Six weeks before leaving, she meets Rashid Hakim, another Ismaili Muslim, who looks "like a Brown Clive Owen." Unfortunately, he's also a grinch who seems to hate everything Ruby loves, including Christmas, spontaneity, and seasonal drinks. However, he's determined to help his recently separated sister, Jasmine, and twin nieces have a decent holiday season. Cue Ruby introducing him and the girls to the wonders of a secular Christmas in exchange for a recommendation to their family's U.K. hotel group.

Heron (Jana Goes Wild; Accidentally Engaged) deftly builds this rom-com on complexities that add depth. For instance, amid Ruby's burgeoning romance with Rashid, she must face her difficult father, who left her mother when she became ill and unable to work, cook, or clean. The novel also explicitly contends with class as Rashid, a dermatologist from a wealthy family, doesn't realize his biases until Ruby, who grew up working class, points them out. The outcome is a multilayered and heartfelt seasonal treat. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

Nellie and Noah haven't seen each other in years as Nora Dahlia's Backslide opens. Their intertwined high school friend groups brought them together in 1990s New York City, and their tumultuous teenage relationship was full of adolescent awkwardness and intense first-love feelings. But when high school ended, their once-burning passion turned into searing hatred.

Two decades later, they are forced to spend a week together to celebrate the vow renewal of their childhood best friends, Cara and Ben, who have invited their closest friends to commemorate their love in Sonoma, Calif. The beautiful scenery, warm weather, and overflowing wine glasses sound to Nellie like the perfect week away from New York--if it weren't for Noah, now referred to as "he who must not be named."

Long-harbored anger from the events that turned their romance sour fills the pair's reunion with witty quips and snide remarks, but nostalgic moments, sweet gestures, and obvious lingering attraction make Nellie and Noah wonder if they can give each other another chance. Alternating perspectives and timelines capture the naïve volatility of young love and the complexities of adult relationships. Cara and Ben's festivities cause Nellie and Noah to confront their past and decide what--and whom--they want in their future. The celebration also rejoices in the platonic love of lifelong friendships that spanned awkward phases, heartbreaks, and growing up in New York. Nora Dahlia successfully combines the delicious suspense of a second-chance romance with the electrifying fun of an enemies-to-lovers relationship. --Clara Newton, freelance reviewer

"Again and again I fumble with needle and thread. This is a love story." So begins writer and editor Maddie Ballard's slim, gentle Patchwork: A Sewist's Diary, which reflects on years spent learning to sew and how that journey ultimately came to mean much more than the clothes she made. Following instructions she didn't understand, "certain [she was] doing something wrong," as she and a former partner hunkered down at his parents' home during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ballard slowly learned the warp and weft of fabric, how to coax it into something new, each time finding the transformation miraculous. As her life changed--a breakup, a relocation to her grandmother's house, a new job, and graduate school in a new city--she lugged her sewing machine from place to place. Ballard charts her path in short chapters centered around specific garments made during each period.

The patterns for Ballard's dresses, jackets, pants, and tops are illustrated throughout in simple black-and-white by Emma Dai'an Wright, accompanying musings on how to participate in an industry that struggles with sustainability and how slowly constructing item after item of clothing is a lesson in patience, learning the contours of one's body, and building confidence and a wardrobe to carry forward. As accessible for readers who don't intend to ever sew a stitch as it is appealing to seasoned sewers, Patchwork is an affectionate look at how making something intentional and imperfect by hand connected her to herself, and the world. After all, Ballard writes, "My body is my only lasting home, I remember--I want, I need, to love it." --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

In a heart-wrenching, frank, and humorous memoir, actor Jesse James Rose, known on Instagram and TikTok as @jamesissmiling, tells the stories of her childhood sexual abuse on 9/11, rape as an adult, gender transition, grandfather's death, countless Grindr hookups, and more. Graphic in places yet incredibly tender, Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex will bring readers to tears with its loving descriptions of caring for an aging grandparent and fill them with joy as Rose finds herself as a beautiful transgender girl.

Rose writes prose so beautiful it reads like poetry: "the first waking moments are oft the most fragile, before reality can dust through the corners of his mind." It's also made up of scripts for plays, Grindr messages, and even a section modeled after Choose Your Own Adventure novels. Moving back and forth in time, Rose takes readers on an extraordinary journey. Alternating between reminiscences of bookstore visits and hot chocolate with her grandfather, New York City orgies, and an imagined conversation with Osama bin Laden, Rose ensures that each page is a surprise.

Readers are encouraged to take the warnings in Rose's opening author note seriously. Rose handles each tough subject with grace and humor, with every detail--including those violent and explicit--serving a purpose. Her longtime social media followers will adore her candor, and new fans will fall in love with her vulnerability. Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex is a remarkable and absorbing memoir. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller

Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs) is known for his biographies of great people; in The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, he takes on an even more formidable subject: the Declaration of Independence. More specifically, he unpacks the document's powerful second sentence--which he calls "the greatest... ever crafted by human hand"--breaking it down clause by clause and offering it as a reminder of the shared foundational values of the United States.

Isaacson starts, appropriately, with the first clause, "We the people," acknowledging the hidden limitations of that supposedly inclusive phrase while asking for patience: "We'll deal with that when we get to the discussion of 'all men.' " Of that phrase, he later asks, "Did they mean it to refer to all people?" and then answers, bluntly: "Actually, no." Isaacson's respectfully neutral tone allows room for thoughtful criticism of the Founding Fathers without contradicting the patriotic sentiment that infuses his work, especially when he pivots away from language and focuses on broader ideals such as "Common Ground" and "The American Dream."

While some might find Isaacson's earnest urgings naïve in the face of deep political divides, he believes the United States might begin to heal "by reflecting on our fundamental principles, the ones proclaimed in the Declaration's great sentence." A timely accompaniment to the 250th anniversary of the country, the book also includes appendices containing additional primary sources, such as excerpts from works by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration, making this a helpful, pocket-size reference for those interested in U.S. history. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Influential beauty executive Anastasia Soare shares her improbable journey from communist Romania to Southern California in Raising Brows: My Story of Building a Billion-Dollar Beauty Empire. Trained as an artist, Soare is founder and CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills, a "global beauty empire." She is known in the industry as "the Queen of Brows." Her A-list clientele includes Jennifer Lopez and Oprah Winfrey.

Soare is an animated narrator, combining her Macedonian roots and rebellious family spirit into a riveting origin story that captures the "twists and turns of extreme joy and difficulty" of her life as an immigrant, mother, and businesswoman. As a schoolgirl, Soare worked in her mother's tailoring shop and learned what it means to "show up at your best." Leaving Romania and immigrating to the U.S was a dream come true, one Soare nurtured by watching bootleg copies of American movies such as Pretty Woman.

Each chapter outlines the purposeful steps and serendipitous moments that led to the launch of Anastasia Beverly Hills. There is an appealing simplicity to Soare's business strategy, which includes a focused passion on customer experience and a recognition of the power of kindness at every level of her organization. Soare created industry awareness of how eyebrow shape can impact a face and is credited with applying the golden ratio (inspired by how Leonardo da Vinci utilized it in his own work) to her clients' brows to enhance their natural features.

Brimming with inspiration, practical advice, and entertaining anecdotes, Raising Brows offers the intimacy of a memoir and an invaluable blueprint for building a business from the ground up. --Shahina Piyarali

"Beauty abounds even as the world burns." Steph Catudal's resolute first poetry collection, Radicle, offers hope of renewal despite burnout, bereavement, and fear.

The poems fall into three sections representing stages in a plant's life: "Germinate," "Grow," and "Anchor." Sarah Kellogg's black-and-white illustrations depict the step-by-step development of a juniper from seed to mature tree. A radicle is the root of a plant embryo, but it's no accident that it's a homophone of "radical." Catudal bravely confronts her worries for her daughters and the wider world. "Peacebuilder" reads, in its entirety, "how do I tell my daughter/ there's peace to be found when/ her body is/ the battleground." "Hollow Bones" opens with the image of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. Catudal extends the maternal protective instinct "to keep them safe, sheltered/ in this wicked world" to the strife of modern war zones, thinking of "the mother and/the mattress she/ pulls over her children/ as the mortar crumbles,/ futile against phosphorescent rain."

Nature imagery brings majestic landscapes to life. "Saudade" and "hiraeth" (connoting homesickness and longing in Portuguese and Welsh, respectively) lend their names to wistful verses. Catudal's previous memoir, Everything All at Once, chronicled her father's and first husband's deaths from cancer. While "wondering/ who would I be if/ cancer hadn't eaten/ my family," she redeems the grief by planting "iris and poppy atop the ash/ to remind myself/ something beautiful/ still lives inside these ruins."

Alive to nuance and suffering, these poems affirm goodness and rejuvenation. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

In the titular poem of Hannah Rosenberg's debut collection, Same, she writes, "I still haven't figured out how to keep/ my shower floor clean or make morning/ smoothies or respond to stress calmly./ Same, same, same, my friends tell me,/ a love note of sorts." The love note is the connection offered, the hand extended to remind the poet that she is not alone in grappling with the mundane challenges of the everyday. Every poem in Same is also, by Rosenberg's own description, "some kind of love letter," extending that same compassionate hand in solidarity to readers facing increasingly challenging and complex days and yet yearning for connection, for love, for joy. "Women at a restaurant" asks, "Have you ever been made to feel that your life, just as it is,/ is not poetry? That your words are not art, that eating/ isn't beautiful? I'm here to tell you it is, that it is divine."

In tender and timely poems grouped by relationship--to younger selves, to families, to lovers and spouses and friends and children--Rosenberg tells readers they are not alone. "I will continue to search and to seek out the/ feeling of being in a room of women who talk and listen, listen/ and talk to each other." For those for whom this room feels out of reach, Same can be that space: a collection in conversation with the ordinary experiences of women as friends, daughters, mothers, lovers, often buried under the weight of expectations. Rosenberg's poetry is as reflective as it is reassuring, a balm of community and companionship in a fractured world. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

The 28 poems in Laura Read's wry, perceptive fourth collection, The Serious World, engage with the works of women writers who inspire her, including Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, and especially poet Sylvia Plath.

Read (But She Is Also Jane) builds her portraits through allusion, biographical information, occasional direct address (e.g., two poems entitled "Dear Sylvia"), and quotation from the authors' work. "Oh Sylvia, I wish you would have lived,/ but I do admire your self-expression," the poet confesses. Whether their life experiences run in parallel or diverge, Read considers Plath a cherished literary ancestor. As the poet navigates midlife, parenting, depression, and the male gaze, she hopes to follow in Plath's footsteps by choosing rebellion over conformity. Even so, she acknowledges an irony: "Sylvia, I don't think we would have liked each other// in Real Life."

"Appearance vs. Reality" is "the theme for every story," Read's high school English teacher said, and it's a frequent trope here, along with the question of how to conceive of the past. Beauvoir depicted childhood as a universal tragedy, whereas Read makes of it a basis for compassion: "I'll say, Oh, you're a child! I was one once!// And the way I am now may or may not be my fault!" Of Duras, Read writes, "I need Marguerite because I need someone// with whom to grow old." For Reed, Duras's very name embodies her (pleasingly alliterative) traits, "obdurate and durable."

Channeling feminist role models, these droll poems find dignity in the everyday. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

In Broken, the exceedingly talented X. Fang (Dim Sum Palace; We Are Definitely Human) passionately describes a dramatic incident in which Mei Mei breaks Ama's cup. How the cup--and Mei Mei--are subsequently made whole again involves glue, understanding, and cake.

Mei Mei is bored while visiting Ama. So, "naturally," the child decides to scare Ama's cat, Mimi. Mei Mei jumps out and bumps into a table; Ama's patterned yellow mug flies "up, then down, down, down, until CRASH!" Mei Mei doesn't know what to do, so runs "far away," believing Ama will get mad or yell. Instead, Ama asks Mei Mei if she would like tea and cake. The mug is gone but Mei Mei's guilt remains. "Mimi," Ama says while cuddling the cat, "You broke my cup!" But Mei Mei and Mimi know the truth. Finally, the guilt overwhelms Mei Mei, who hides in a dark closet. Ama finds the kid and Mei Mei confesses. But Ama isn't angry. Ama, who is a "fixer," glues the cup back together "piece by piece": "every repair tells a story," and now the cup has one, too. Finally, there is cake.

Fang's strong text, strong feelings, and strong art all acknowledge that mistakes are made, but kindness and compassion rule the day. Direct, first-person narration in the voice of tempestuous Mei Mei holds nothing back, and the digitally colored, graphite pencil-on-paper illustrations include plenty of extreme closeups, child's-eye-views, and even one invitation to turn the book 90 degrees for dramatic effect. Ama's cheerful warmth nicely balances Mei Mei's passion, and readers will surely feel all Mei Mei's feels, then cheer when the child finally gets cake. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Author and poet Amber McBride's bewitching, breathtaking debut, Me (Moth), won a slew of awards and was a National Book Award finalist. Her third novel-in-verse for young adults, The Leaving Room (also a National Book Award finalist), is a mere hair's breadth away from the majesty and sheer power of her debut.

Gospel is a Keeper, a being made of "only atoms,/ matter & some otherness." She lives in "a closet that you can't escape" that she has covered with paintings and filled with soft furniture, making sure the kettle is always on and the kitchen stocked. Gospel doesn't know how other Keepers greet their Leavers, "but only children come to [Gospel's] Leaving Room.../ & children require dessert, moonsets & warm blankets." It is Gospel's job to convince the dead to move on through the Leaving Room, though she herself, soulless as she is, may never leave: "there/ are/ no/ doors." And then, suddenly, one appears.

McBride is without doubt a talented poet, but it is her plotting, world building, and the way she formats her work that makes The Leaving Room an extraordinary, irresistible read. The book is broken into eight parts, each with a title, name, or stage of grief, a description, and a number that shrinks as the story continues: "Stage 1: Denial/ (Maple, Age 5)/ 03:30/ Denial, n.:/ Avoiding the exactness of reflections." McBride's text is brilliantly sparse as it builds its central mystery, but there is wholeness in the space between the words, a place that binds. This book is for young poets and children and teens who love the written word. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Neurodivergent storyteller, playwright, breakbeat poet, and author Idris Goodwin (Your House Is Not Just a House) has written a YA novel-in-verse that pulses with the authentic rhythm of a young Black mind navigating the complexities of undiagnosed ADHD, summer school, and self-discovery. King of the Neuro Verse is a celebration of neurodiversity wrapped in bars so tight they could stop traffic.

Sixteen-year-old Pernell has a brain that "spins and twirls and flips." It's 1999, everyone is talking about Y2K and whether the world is about to end, and Pernell is in summer school for the third consecutive year. But this summer feels different. Pernell is learning about the power of rap cyphers: "the circle where we just rhyme." While he sometimes has trouble with lyrics--the letters of the words fly away--"the cypher is a haven for that kind of activity." The way that Pernell's mind works becomes his greatest asset in the world of freestyle rap, where quick thinking, wordplay, and spontaneous creativity reign supreme.

Goodwin's use of verse mirrors the rapid-fire thoughts and associations that characterize ADHD while creating an accessible, energetic read for teen audiences. Ultimately, Pernell's goal to become the "Cypher King" serves as both a literally obtainable status and a metaphor for claiming his rightful place in a world that too often overlooks neurodiverse voices. King of the Neuro Verse stands as both mirror and window that offers neurodiverse readers the gift of recognition while inviting all readers into a world where difference is power, creativity is currency, and every mind has its own perfect rhythm.--Shannan Hicks, librarian

Author/illustrator Pam Fong (The Little Cloud), who spent decades working in the art world, lets her background in and appreciation for art shine in The Clock, a distinctive and atmospheric narrative nonfiction picture book about the life of a grand clock in Paris, France.

Fong's title character begins its life in 1900 at the Gare d'Orsay where it "ticked to control the crisscrossing of trains" and "tocked to signal new opportunities." The clock kept the "station humming, and the world moving." But while the clock continues to tick and tock, the "fast-changing city outgrew the station." Paris abandons both, and the Gare d'Orsay stands dark and empty for decades. The clock "was abandoned.... But it was not forgotten." In 1986 the newly renovated building opens as a museum, the Musée d'Orsay, and the clock is again given a place of prominence. Now the "clock keeps a world-class art museum humming... and stops the world from moving."

Fong's text is concise and poetic, and she excludes details to maintain her economy of words. Instead, she uses backmatter to explain the names, dates, and locations shown in the book. Much like the inner workings of the clock itself, each piece of the book's design fits neatly within the whole and works seamlessly with the other components to make magic happen. From opening endpapers depicting the Orsay as a train station to closing endpapers, showing the Orsay as a museum, Fong's illustrations are clever, precise, and affecting.

The Clock is extensively researched, intricate, and a celebration of art in many forms; the simple text and detailed illustrations are likely to keep young audiences enthralled. --Jen Forbus, freelancer