Opening in the last days of World War II, when the Polish resistance was fighting the Nazis and the Red Army, The Girl from the Train by Irma Joubert mingles historical details with a delightful story of love, patriotism, religion and politics.

The story focuses on Jakób, a Pole who hates the Communists and fights with the Resistance, and Gretl, a six-year-old German Jew being transported to Auschwitz along with her sister, mother and grandmother. Determined to stop a German troop train, Jakób sets a bomb along the train tracks, but Gretl's train reaches the spot first. She is the only survivor of this unintended disaster, and Jakób is filled with guilt and the desire to look after Gretl. With the help of his family, he manages to care for her, but eventually realizes he must find her a new home. Shipping Gretl off to South Africa with other German orphans hoping to be adopted, Jakób believes he will never see her again, but fate has a way of twisting their experiences.

Joubert creates a believable world filled with the passion of disparate religions and clashing political beliefs, as seen through the eyes of two highly likable characters, both of whom grow in age and maturity as the story progresses. Interesting supporting characters and great visual details of the Polish and South African countryside embroider an exciting historical romance. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Originally self-published a few years ago, M.J. Pullen is making the jump to the traditional publishing world. Her first book, The Marriage Pact, is a romance/popular fiction crossover.

Marci Thompson has just turned 30. She's working as a temp, living in a tiny apartment, and having an affair with her married boss. She's not sure how she let circumstances get to this point. She hates being "the other woman," but can't seem to break up with Doug. Her job is boring, and her apartment is terrible, but she feels stuck in Austin.

Until, that is, the day her old friend Jake sends her an e-mail reminding her that 10 years earlier, when they were in college, they made a drunken pact to marry each other if they were both single when they turned 30. When her relationship with Doug ends abruptly, Marci flees back home to Atlanta and the comfort of Jake's familiarity. But will she regret it?

While Marci initially comes across as rather whiny, Pullen does a great job of drawing the reader into Marci's world and empathizing with her dilemmas. The two men in her life are complicated for different reasons, and watching Marci work through her difficulties is entertaining. With a few laugh-out-loud moments, and several silly side characters, M.J. Pullen's novel is a very enjoyable read. Fans of Jane Green or Emily Giffin are sure to enjoy The Marriage Pact. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

Following-up his first historical novel, Hard Twisted, C. Joseph Greaves gives readers a front row seat to one of the greatest courtroom dramas in U.S. history: the 1936 battle between gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano and the special prosecutor determined to bring him down, Thomas Dewey.

Greaves has meticulously blurred the lines of fact and fiction in Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo), which reads with the momentum of a legal thriller and throws back the curtain on a range of political shenanigans. Braiding the plot together with the perspectives of Tom and Lucky, as well as the talented defense attorney George Levy and the prosecution's star witness, Cokey Flo Brown, Greaves delves into the "compulsory prostitution" trial of the notorious mob boss. While building the background of each character takes time, the result is a robust view of a highly flawed case.

In an especially effective approach, Greaves opts to tell only Cokey Flo's story from the first-person perspective, lending the drug-addled con woman credibility and empathy while casting greater suspicion on both defendant and prosecutor. Still, Greaves doesn't let the reader forget Flo's motivations or her checkered history. There are no white hats in this New York courtroom.

The trial transcript and character dialogue work to re-create the unsavory atmosphere of New York's mob network as well as the Depression-era privations. And the fastidious research enables Greaves to meld seamlessly the four lives into one engrossing story.

Whether readers have an interest in the time period, gangster fiction or historical novels, they will find plenty to captivate them in Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo). --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Charles McCarry has been writing international spy thrillers since the early 1970s, including The Shanghai Factor. A former CIA operative and now in his 80s, McCarry permeates his fiction with hands-on knowledge. The Mulberry Bush takes us inside the recruiting process, with its security-scrubbed data thumb drives and its field operatives with their burner phones, "assets" and nondescript hotel rooms, from which they send secrets back to Headquarters and arrange to take out high-level objectives.

The unnamed recruit of The Mulberry Bush has a knack for languages and a Ph.D. in Islamic history. His father was a renowned agent until the CIA tossed him for one too many renegade pranks, his career tanked, and he died homeless on the streets of D.C. The protagonist is determined to avenge his father and punish the Headquarters staff who destroyed him. After years in the Middle East proving his mettle ("where there are suicide bombers and boredom"), he is sent by Headquarters to Buenos Aires to infiltrate a disbanded former Communist terrorist cell and turn its local players. He does the job but also falls upside-down in love with Luz, the voluptuous daughter of the charismatic revolutionary leader who was killed by the agency. She readily joins his mission to bring down Headquarters.

McCarry's complicated plot, with lots of shadowy side players, drunks and mercenary thugs grinds slowly in the novel's middle, but the narrator's driven pursuit of revenge carries the day--that, and his near-priapic lust for Luz. A little Ian Fleming, a little Charles Cumming, a little Barry Eisler--McCarry is in fine company. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Made to Kill, the first in the planned L.A. Trilogy from Adam Christopher (Empire State; The Burning Dark), is set in 1960s Los Angeles. The city of Christopher's imagination is the L.A. of history, with one noticeable difference: Raymond Electromatic, the world's only robot detective and last functioning robot to survive the collapse of the robot boom 10 years prior. Ray was programmed to solve crimes, while the computer system that he was paired with (named Ada) was instructed to make money doing so. But as Made to Kill opens, Ada has turned her programming--and Raymond's--to new operations, making Raymond the world's only robot detective and the world's only robot assassin.

When a girl wanders into the office looking for someone both to find a missing person and summarily kill that person, it seems like the perfect job for Ray and Ada. But the more Ray discovers about the assignment--the actor he's been assigned to find and kill, the ways Ada manipulates his programming, the political forces at play in the city--the more the job feels like a set-up. And perhaps it is.

Christopher notes that he was inspired to write this novel when considering what it might be like to read an unknown science-fiction epic from Raymond Chandler, and that inspiration shows. Made to Kill evolves over the course of the story from science fiction to a noir-style mystery and back again, never missing a beat in the process. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Blackthorn the healer and her travelling companion (and former cellmate) Grim return to solve another fairy-tale mystery in this second installment of the Blackthorn and Grim series from Juliet Marillier (The Dreamer's Pool).

Irascible Blackthorn continues to fulfill her seven-years geas (a magically imposed obligation) and serves the people of Dalraida while not seeking vengeance against Mathuin, the chieftain who killed her husband and baby before wrongfully imprisoning her. Stoic Grim remains her devoted helpmeet. When beautiful, mysterious Lady Geiléis from the northern border begs their prince for help banishing a plague on her land, Blackthorn and Grim travel to her holding to perform a cleansing ritual.

Joining them is Flannan, a friend Blackthorn had thought dead. Although Geiléis honestly reported the source of her land's distress--a wailing monster trapped in an island tower encircled by poisonous thorn bushes--Blackthorn and Grim sense more to the story when they meet small fairy people who warn them to go home. Blackthorn soon comes to wonder how Geiléis knows so much about the ritual to banish the monster when she claims to know nothing about its origins or why it is haunting her people. However, Flannan's efforts to convince Blackthorn to come home with him and call Mathuin to justice distract her, especially since following the impulse would mean leaving Grim.

The spotlight shifts to Grim's tragic past in this volume, and fans will find his story worth the wait. Marillier again successfully layers the mystery and fantasy genres, this time contemplating the sacrifices inherent in true love. An exquisite story about loyalty and resilience. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Former special forces operative Jake Carter works as an electrician in the New York City subway. When his ex-girlfriend Sophie Keane contacts him about a conspiracy involving The Hidden, a mysterious group out to control the world, he's understandably wary, since he hasn't heard from her in 10 years. As he delves deeper into the strange goings-on around New York--dogs howling in the streets, hieroglyphic graffiti painted on city walls, birds dropping dead from the sky, massive power outages--he realizes that Sophie may not be as crazy as she sounds.

She does know what's going on--and attempts to escape the clutches of this secret organization she's been a willing agent for until a recent change of heart. When she contacts Jake, her handlers come calling with deadly force.

Finn Walsh, an archeologist who specializes in lost languages and civilizations, is researching a mystery of her own, a submerged yet perfectly intact lost city with Mayan and Egyptian symbologies, featuring some of the same characters Jake has seen deep in the tunnels below New York.

The Hidden are taking out military targets and hacking into financial centers around the world. Are they causing the weird behavior worldwide, or just taking advantage of it? Who is ultimately in charge? How can a handful of people like Jake, Finn and Sophie stop such a well-funded and expert organization? Their search for the answers to these questions fill Sunfail with excitement and tension, leading to a thrilling conclusion ripe for a sequel. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Author and cartoonist Derf Backderf has never shied away from quirky stories. In his dark, autobiographical memoir, My Friend Dahmer, he illustrated a psychologically astute narrative about Jeffrey Dahmer, Backderf's high school classmate who became one of the world's most notorious serial killers. In Trashed, Backderf fictionalizes his own experiences as a garbage man and channels them through three 20-something friends--J.B., Mike and Magee--who take jobs as trash collectors in their small Ohio town. Over the course of one year--through stifling summer heat to the deep freeze of winter--readers experience episodes with the trio as they cart away everything from dirty diapers, dog poop, condoms, stacks of porn magazines, maggots and dead animals to appliances, furniture and even a piano. Along the route of their comic, often putrid, adventures, they come up against bratty kids, mean dogs, an imposing garbage truck named "Betty" and crowded landfills. There are also problems with public workers and politicians, demanding townsfolk, a tyrannical boss and the eccentricities of coworkers and other friends.

Backderf's illustrations are lively and carefully composed to enhance the highly charged, briskly paced narrative. Occasionally, Backderf gives readers tidbits of history and facts about garbage and garbage collecting from 3000 B.C. to the present. By integrating this information in a playful, entertaining way, the microcosm of Backderf's humor-rich, coming-of-age story expands toward larger social and cultural themes, including the idea that "we all contribute to the staggering, never-ending accumulation of waste on this planet." --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

If ever there was a human capable of superhero feats, that would be Stan Lee, the co-creator of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. Lee's ideas redefined comics for the modern era, and his autobiography, Amazing Fantastic Incredible, published as a full-color graphic memoir with the help of writer Peter David and illustrator Colleen Doran, provides insight into Marvel Comics and its remarkable cast of artists.

Lee recounts his origin story--how he got into the business--of first serving as assistant to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at Timely Comics, and then his promotion when Simon and Kirby quit. Drafted during World War II, Lee served his time creating venereal disease warning posters. When the war ended, Lee returned to Timely Comics (which became Marvel Comics) and evolved into the ideas man; artists such as Steve Ditko and many others turned these ideas into art, and elevated these characters to pop culture legends. Lee railed against strict comics regulations and dared to tell stories that involved serious issues, single-handedly changing the face and voice of comics by infusing his characters with an element of humanity. Lee also covers the rise and fall of the comics industry--its descent a result of mass production, and its second coming in the early 2000s with the revival of Iron Man and The Avengers film franchises.

Lee's boisterous, charismatic and hammy personality adds to his already mythical stature, while Doran's reproduction of classic Marvel covers is breathtaking--almost a good enough substitute for owning the actual books. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

Actress, writer and director Illeana Douglas possesses an unbridled love and enthusiasm for motion pictures, and her chatty, endearing and upbeat memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper, collects decades' worth of anecdotes from in front of and behind the camera. When she was a teenager, her grandfather Melvyn Douglas invited her to the set of the movie that would win him his second Academy Award. "Being There permanently shifted my view of movies from outsider to insider," she writes. "Now I was going behind the curtain, inside the movie looking out. I would never be the same."

"I have always loved film history, and I thought it was important to try to get stories from all of the greats of Hollywood so that those stories remain alive," Douglas continues. There is no bitterness or cynicism in the tales she spins. While working as a secretary, she slips her résumé to Martin Scorsese, who's editing The Last Temptation of Christ in the same building and is intrigued that she lists "Special skills: Great legs, blood-curdling screams." Soon, she's recording background voices for the film and beginning a decade-long romance with the director.

Among Douglas's best recollections: being seduced (on camera) by Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear; starving and freezing while filming Alive in the Canadian Rockies; and her 12-hour lunch with Marlon Brando. Hopefully, this is the first of many volumes from Douglas, who promises in her next book she'll tell how Elizabeth Taylor's nose got broken while visiting her. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

The world is a dangerous, messy place for humans in My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson (Tiger Lily; the May Bird trilogy).

Dragons, sasquatches, mermaids and other monsters are as real as the nearby Taco Bell in this parallel universe, but they rarely come to Cliffden, Maine. Twelve-year-old Gracie Lockwood begins her new diary lamenting that "nothing terrible or exciting" ever happens in her town, although "last week one [a dragon] burned down the T.J. Maxx in Valley Forge." Far more troubling than monsters are the unstoppable Dark Clouds that come to take people when they die. When one appears in Gracie's neighborhood, she knows it must be after her sickly little brother, Sam. Determined to escape the Cloud, Gracie's physics-minded father pins his hopes on the Extraordinary World, a legendary land beyond "the edge of the world," where Sam will be safe. Packing into an old Winnebago, Gracie, Sam, her perplexing 16-year-old sister, Millie, her parents, and her strange new classmate Oliver Wigley (recently orphaned by a sasquatch attack) set out into the unknown. It will take courage, trust and the love of family to survive this wild world.

Spanning from Maine to the Smoky Mountains to San Cristobal, Anderson's charming novel is part road-trip adventure, part maritime quest and part coming-of-age story. Gracie starts out loud, "kind of fiery" and unforgiving, but wises up considerably as she realizes even sasquatches deserve a second chance. Gracie starts to see that the extraordinary is everywhere, and "sometimes, the way everything looks--who's the beast and who isn't--depends on where you're standing." --Kyla Paterno, reviewer

"On a small patch of sidewalk, there once lived many teeny, tiny red spiders." All the spiders are happy except for Harry. (A magnifying glass on a page speckled with red dots reveals a goofy-looking spider with a jester-like hat and an orange sword.)

Harry is so unhappy, in fact, that he has a foot-stomping fit, during which he loudly announces his intentions to see the world and "become the most famous spider to have ever lived." All the other spiders look alarmed. Harry's green-hatted grandfather says "go right ahead," but warns Harry that it'll take him a year just to cross the park. Harry is undaunted, boasting that he'll sail on a boat in a river of raindrops to the ocean, then go deep into the jungle and be a famous hunter and explorer. Harry's imagined exploits become more and more ambitious, even taking him to outer space. The late Italian artist Giuliano Cucco's playful, color-soaked illustrations make the outlandish scenarios leap to life, whether Harry is circled by ferocious jungle animals or performing as a flea rider in a circus. Throughout Harry's tirade, his grandfather calmly warns the wee mite of the dangers that may face him--"fleas like to eat little red spiders," for instance--but heroic Harry has his escapes planned out, too.

John Miller's Red Spider Hero was written more than 50 years ago, but its appeal is timeless. Harry's desire to be something bigger, something grander than his very small self won't be lost on young readers. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

With two Zs in her name, 16-year-old Zoë Zindleman is used to being last, but being the very last soul living in her neighborhood is not something she wants to get used to. Readers have no idea where the residents of Zoë's street have fled, or why, after being forced to graduate early, Zoë is now obligated to work at either Q-MART or AllMART as an entry-level MARTian. Even more baffling is why Zoë's mother felt she had to leave her daughter stranded.

Blythe Woolston (The Freak Observer; Catch & Release) creates a dystopian, near-future world with an atmosphere of absolute uncertainty laced with menace, desensitized cruelty, asinine media interruptions from Channel 42 and a dose of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Timmer, an AllMART employee (and self-appointed protector of stray people in need) bulldozes his way into Zoë's life, but she's so alone she can't see how to protest much: "Given the choice, I don't stir up a Dumpster of raccoons. I feel the same way about Timmer." In a numb daze, she moves with him and a few other abandoned children into a grim, deserted mall. Woolston's wry sense of humor and mesmerizingly spare style distinguish this story of how Zoë adapts to her strange new life at AllMart and her budding friendship with Timmer, whose kindnesses prove him to be an unlikely hero.

The parody of media manipulation, commercialism and retail psychology (as parroted by the savvy, order-seeking Zoë) is often laugh-out-loud funny, but underneath the satire of MARTians is the story of girl in search of love and family wherever she can find it. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness