Laleh Khadivi's A Good Country is the third in a loosely formed trilogy (after The Age of Orphans and The Walking) featuring three generations of Iranian men. In this final volume, 14-year-old Reza Courdee walks a careful line between his parents' Iranian heritage and his desire to fit in at the Laguna Beach, Calif., high school he attends.

As A Good Country unfolds over the span of his adolescence, Reza transforms and transforms again. He is a pot-smoking, partying, surfing American teen; then the dutiful student who befriends others from similar backgrounds; and then a college-bound young man on the cusp of adulthood. As he changes, so does the world around him: frequent terrorist attacks raise fear and suspicion of anyone from Muslim descent. Reza, his family and friends are subjected to increasing instances of hatred and racism. Though not raised a practicing Muslim, Reza becomes drawn to Islam as a source of peace and clarity in a world dominated by chaos. When that calling evolves into an imperative to travel to Syria to join the fight, Reza must decide what it is that will make him a man: Love? Independence? A battle for what he believes in?

Khadivi's prose offers lyrical depictions of California's vast beauty and ocean aside clipped descriptions of the violence and hatred Reza experiences from his once-friends and neighbors. As Reza comes of age, A Good Country proves a riveting, heartbreaking portrait of one young man's yearning for a good country to call his own, "a life made of family and God and love." --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Edward Kelsey Moore revives the appealing characters introduced in The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat for his second novel, The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues. When wandering bluesman El Walker returns to his hometown of Plainview, Ind., to play at an old friend's late-in-life wedding, his presence shakes things up for a lot of people. His estranged son, James, for example, and wife Odette (who can talk to ghosts), as well as Odette's best friend, Barbara Jean, whose mother, Loretta, knew El when they were young. Meanwhile, Odette, Barbara Jean and their friend Clarice--known collectively as "the Supremes"--are dealing with other major struggles. 

Moore alternates between third-person narration and first-person commentary from Odette, whose frequent visits with her deceased mama (now hanging around the afterlife with Eleanor Roosevelt) provide wry comic relief. As Odette deals with the effect El's sudden reappearance has on her usually unflappable husband, Clarice prepares for a big piano performance (battling a serious case of nerves), and Barbara Jean talks with El about the mother she struggled to love. Several running subplots, such as the ministerial ambitions of Clarice's cousin Veronica, round out the story, and El's melancholy blues music, including the titular song, runs throughout the narrative.

Like its title, Moore's story encompasses both happiness and heartache, but the end result is warm and satisfying, like the cherry pie at Earl's diner. This is a heartwarming story of friendship, reckoning with the past and learning to forgive (even when holding a grudge is more appealing). --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

If the summery title and perfect seaside cover don't make it clear, The Summer House is beach reading at its finest. Hannah McKinnon (The Lake Season, Mystic Summer) creates a hilarious clan in the Merrill family. Flossy Merrill, the matriarch, has summoned her grown children back to the family's summer house in Rhode Island for a week, to celebrate their father's 75th birthday. The occasion will also celebrate their last summer with the house--though the children don't know it--because Flossy and Richard have agreed to sell it to help fund their retirement.

Their three children are already tense. Paige, the eldest, is a veterinarian with a busy practice, two teenagers and a husband out of work. Sam, the only boy, and his husband have hit a snag in their adoption plans since the birth mother changed her mind. And Clem, the baby of the family, has suffered an unimaginable loss and is still grieving.

Paige, Sam, Clem and their respective spouses and offspring gather for a crazy week of party planning, swimming, family dinners and more than a few family arguments. For years, sibling rivalries have simmered beneath the surface, and as the end of the summer-house era nears, tensions finally boil over.

Poignant and funny, with well-crafted prose and charming characters, this novel is completely absorbing. Sure to appeal to readers of Elin Hilderbrand and Dorothea Benton Frank, The Summer House is an intriguing glimpse into a complicated yet still loving family. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

When novelist Madison Smartt Bell (All Souls Rising) gets into something, he goes long. His trilogy of novels about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution ran to more than 2,000 pages. With similar immersion in history and legend, Behind the Moon digs into Native American mythology and symbolism, and weaves them gently into a story about a group of high school kids out for kicks in the Dakota Badlands. This time, however, Bell tells his compelling story in only 280 pages.

Behind the Moon begins simply enough with two girls and three boys cutting Friday classes to camp out, drink some beer and mess around. When Julie realizes that her best friend's boyfriend, Sonny, and his buddy Marko have more in mind than camping, she has already innocently drunk from a water bottle laced with Ecstasy and LSD. While head tripping and running from the boys' crude attempts to coerce her into a pornographic video, she falls into a dark cave filled with ancient Indian drawings. Only the third boy, Jamal, searches for her and eventually walks to town to get help. Julie's plight, Jamal's friendship and the thuggish boys' attempts to hide their involvement make for a compelling and mystical experience for readers. Furthermore, Bell's challenging dip into magical realism to describe the girl's visions and their transformative effect on her self-discovery give Behind the Moon heft and strength. Bell can mesmerize even when his novels run short. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

A lawyer, a businessman accused of killing his family and a lifelong criminal walk into a bar in 1950s Scotland. This isn't a joke, but rather the captivating opening gambit of Denise Mina's standalone psychological thriller The Long Drop. Fresh from prison, Peter Manuel claims to know who murdered William Watt's family. When Watt's lawyer departs, the remaining pair leaves the bar together and spends the next 12 hours drinking and scheming, each trying to gain the upper hand.

Manuel clearly has knowledge only the murderer should know, and Mina (Gods and Beasts) weaves the men's cat-and-mouse night out with Manuel's trial on several counts of murder months later. Those familiar with Scottish serial killers may know how events unfold: The Long Drop is based on a true story, with names unchanged, and the book's title is its own spoiler alert. But the gift here is not in the creation of a new tale so much as it is in the layered telling of one based on fact and the inspired reimagining of its details.

Mina is at her finest in form and substance. The alternating timelines escalate the tension as the investigation and trial spool toward a verdict. The courtroom scenes are particularly engrossing. Mina's matter-of-fact style gets more poetic as the trial proceeds; her ability to finesse a fully framed portrait of each witness with few words is on grand display. The Long Drop is a fascinating story of murder and madness, two guns with varied histories, multiple confessions and one man's plan to outsmart everyone around him. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

Journalist Amy Ettinger dishes up ice cream in Sweet Spot, an adventurous, thoroughly researched exploration into the U.S. love affair with frozen sweet treats. Ettinger is a self-proclaimed ice cream connoisseur turned ice cream snob and addict: "Ice cream is more like a drug than any other food... the more ice cream you eat, the more you have to eat it to regain that 'high.' " Ettinger consumes ice cream almost daily and stocks between $15 and $30 worth in her freezer at all times. Her richly entertaining, easy-to-read narrative is infused with history, recipes and the science behind what makes for delicious--and sometimes not-so-delicious--flavors. She also looks at innovators and imitators, and how the ice cream business continues to evolve.

The philosophy and wisdom of past and present ice cream makers--along with segues into soda shops and fountains, sundaes and floats, ice cream sandwiches, cones, frozen yogurt and the gelato craze--are swirled into Ettinger's tasty quest. What rises to the fore, however, are sections devoted to Ettinger working alongside fellow ice cream aficionados and business people--and her enrolling in "the world's most famous ice cream making class" at Penn State. There, she learned the fascinating ins and outs of pasteurization, flavoring, potential hazards, short cuts and tricks of the trade--both good and bad. Ettinger piles on double and triple scoops of fun information that offers literary deliciousness for ice cream lovers everywhere. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Novelist (Summer of the Bear) and journalist Bella Pollen's memoir opens with her believing she's being visited by an incubus, a demon intent on having sex with her at the awful hour of 4 a.m. Writer's block quickly follows, and Pollen realizes that in order to get rid of her nighttime visitor and move on, she must reexamine her past, beginning with her childhood.

Humorous, self-deprecating and filled with odd moments one might expect from a person who believes she was haunted, Meet Me in the In-Between takes readers into Pollen's formative years, when she tried to get kidnapped by an old man in Central Park and her father kept an alcoholic parrot. She quickly moves on to her early marriage and children with an Italian art dealer, and the extended family that could be taken from the Godfather movies. Other adventures include a trip with women friends in the wilderness of the American West, a second marriage and more children, and the fondness she shared with her father for going to the movies during the day. She also indulges an intense desire to cross and recross the border between Mexico and the U.S., using several illegal methods and befriending smugglers obsessed with Pink Floyd. Carefully blended with these escapades are Pollen's reflections on motherhood, family and her fear of confinement and entrapment. The effect leaves readers wondering: What comes next for this woman willing to risk so much to avoid banality? --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Actor and playwright Wallace Shawn is best known for his small comedic roles (he'll probably be forever recognized as Vizzini in The Princess Bride). But theater lovers have likely admired his disturbing, witty political plays since the late 1970s. Night Thoughts isn't drama, but it does touch on politics, pondering the meaning of modern life in the face of the destruction it has wrought.

Framed as a meditation while sitting in a hotel, Night Thoughts reflects on Shawn's youth and his erstwhile commitment to civilization. Now, in his 70s, he's well aware the benefits that he enjoyed as a white male came at a cost to others he'll never truly have to reckon with. Musing about a possible future uprising by those with little power, wealth or stature, Shawn admits he'd open his door to them, allowing them to take his home and property, none of which Shawn seems to think he really deserves. It's one thing to decry inequality, but Shawn's sanguine response to revolution is probably why Night Thoughts is being released by the radical independent publishing house Haymarket Books.

Bloody revolt aside, Shawn has a way of pulling the reader into conversation, making the experience of Night Thoughts feel like more than moving through an extended essay by an important American playwright and actor. Somewhere, as one reads it, the feeling of friendship appears, as if Shawn has known you for years, and now, late in his life, he's decided to tell you what it's all about. --Noah Cruickshank, adult engagement manager, the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.

Edward Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe) looks back on the surprisingly elusive mystery of human reproduction in The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From.

Dolnick surveys the various wrong-headed theories, blind alleys and occasional moments of experimental genius that marked the scientific road to understanding. He drops in on Leonardo da Vinci and the anatomists, whose macabre investigations revealed much about the inner workings of the human body. Readers are introduced to William Harvey, who famously proved the heart's purpose as a muscle and came tantalizing close to discovering mammalian eggs at a time (the 1600s) when "witches still flew through the night." Leeuwenhoek and his famous microscopes lead to a heated centuries-long debate between "ovists" and "spermists," as well as the fantastical-seeming theory of pre-existence. Even the era's successes are often marked by oddities--an experiment that entailed sewing tight-fitting boxers for frogs comes to mind.

Dolnick demonstrates how scientists were often influenced and misled by their deep religious beliefs, as well as their prejudiced attitudes toward women, but he also emphasizes the enormous barriers to understanding they faced. Dolnick explains that modern people are beneficiaries of a scientific revolution, a victory "so complete that we take it for granted, to the point that we scarcely remember that we've built our homes on what was once a battleground." Dolnick is an entertaining guide to a small but significant corner of that revolution. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Glamorous transgender actress Candis Cayne believes beauty and confidence come from within. Her upbeat and empowering self-help guide, Hi Gorgeous!, begins by helping readers dismantle their insecurities (fed by a body-shaming media) and build up their self-confidence. "If you don't believe you're beautiful or even worthy of beauty in the first place, you're never going to experience the absolute joy that comes from living a life of radiance, happiness, and especially freedom," writes Cayne. Mixed into these opening chapters are Cayne's memories of growing up effeminate in Hawaii. "I knew in my heart and soul that I was born to be a woman," she writes. "These feelings, though, confused and angered people, so growing up was not always easy."

Cayne details how inner beauty can be achieved through yoga, visualization, exercise, meditation and diet. Steps toward outer radiance include skin care, makeup tips, hair care, clothing for every body type, jewelry/accessories and essentials for a complete wardrobe. The final chapters offer advice for online dating and for projecting confidence at job interviews.

Hi Gorgeous! is welcoming and useful to trans and cis readers alike, with the beauty and makeup sections striving toward Cayne's classic elegance. Cayne and coauthor Katina Z. Jones's energetic and encouraging advice is complemented by Frances Soo Ping Chow's fun book design and Kourosh Sotoodeh's stunning photos. This is a thoughtful, generous and helpful guide that offers solid steps to embracing and showcasing your inner and outer beauty. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Roguish Henry Montague, his younger and more intellectual sister, Felicity, and his biracial, very sensible best friend and secret crush, Percy Newton (who suffers from epilepsy), are off on their European Grand Tour, a common event among the upper classes in 1720s Europe. Monty, an English earl's son, has his mind more on vice than virtue: sex (with both men and women), drinking, smoking and gambling are his proclivities and constant subjects of banter. But his interest in Percy--who Monty is not even sure is attracted to men--is something beyond lust. In the first paragraph of the novel, Monty, thinking of Percy asleep next to him, has a "disorienting moment" in which "it's unclear whether we've slept together or simply slept together."

While at the Palace of Versailles, Monty gets in trouble with the Duke of Bourbon ("advisor" to the young, unhealthy king Louis XV) when he steals a special box--locked with a code--that has a key inside. Soon after, they are beset by highwaymen (including the disguised duke) and forced to continue on without funds. The undaunted teens travel through France to Spain, where they meet the daughter and son of an alchemist who has developed a panacea: the reason for the Duke's single-minded pursuit. The Duke wants the "cure-all" for the king, and Monty wants it for Percy; who will be the first to reach the tomb on the sinking Venetian island where the alchemical miracle can be found?

In The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzi Lee (This Monstrous Thing) combines her knowledge of European history with a contemporary, comic sensibility to create an over-the-top romantic adventure complete with cliff-hanging chapter endings and sometimes outrageous narration. Monty is a licentious, flawed and engaging 18th-century hero. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer

"One dark night, in a house on a hill," two children ask Papa to tell them a bedtime story. Grace, the older of the siblings, wants it to be a scary story (she has her wand, after all, and scary stories are okay when one has a wand on hand). Papa begins: "One night, two brave explorers and their dog were walking home through the forest. It was very, very... dark."

"Too scary!" Walter, Grace's little brother, exclaims, and Papa eases the fright factor and brings in the fireflies. Over and over, Papa weaves a scary story to please Grace and then adjusts to quell Walter's fear. Bethanie Deeney Murguia's page turns are impeccably timed in The Too-Scary Story: as Papa rapidly recalibrates, the page turns whip the reader back and forth. On one page, Grace, Walter and Papa are bathed in the warm, gentle colors of a brightly lit bedroom. On the next, the sentence completes in the deep, dark blues and blacks of an inhabited forest at night.

As Grace grows weary of Papa's shifting narrative and starts to complain, the too-tame story becomes overly scary--even for Grace. The dusky blue-green backgrounds of Walter's firefly bedtime story shift to blue-black and shadows reach from the edges, encroaching upon the children's space. Luckily, though, Grace has her wand. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness