Sonya--unmarried, childless and in her 40s--is in a rut. Her learning to drive forms the basis of Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, a richly drawn novel by Danish author Dorthe Nors (Karate Chop) and translated by Misha Hoekstra. Sonya has never felt at home in metropolitan Copenhagen. She longs to return to the Jutland countryside, where she grew up--even more so now that her beau, Paul, has dumped her for a 20-something. Sonya is burned out in her job translating violent crime novels from Swedish into Danish. She suffers spells of vertigo exacerbated by stress. And she can't seem to connect with her sister, Kate, who is a happily married wife and mother with a "golden retriever and a membership in a gymnastics and fitness club. She bakes kringles and knits woolen stockings." Sonya is determined to conquer her fear of driving. However, her inability to shift gears becomes a metaphor for change in her life. And change is never easy--especially for someone as complicated and lost as Sonya.

 

The loose plot of Nors's compact, minimalistic story--her first novel to be released in English--is enlivened by flares of deadpan wit and a well-developed cast of secondary characters: two male driving instructors--abrupt Jytte and Folke, with whom Sonya flirts--and Ellen, an outspoken massage therapist, who prods Sonya for being a "tight-ass" with her feelings. Nors's exceptional writing and her insightful grasp on the human condition bolster the heartbreak of Sonya's isolated, solitary existence. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Rachel Cusk's trailblazing novel Kudos begins with a deep conversation among strangers on a plane and sustains the same searching, sometimes surreal spirit of travel until its last indelible passage.

 

Kudos is the last in a trilogy of novels, after Outline and Transit. The first-person narrator, an English writer named Faye, is headed to a writers conference in Berlin and along the way meets a host of characters: strangers, other writers, journalists, old acquaintances. In between these encounters, Faye ponders her divorce, her second marriage and her relationship with her son. These personal concerns are interwoven with questions of art, literature, representation and womanhood in modern Europe. The elusive nature of success is also a major theme.

 

Kudos works like a panoply of postmodern parables. Each character gives their own story as Faye nears her destination. A male colleague is praised by peers for his writing that focuses on domesticity rather than archaic male subjects. A female journalist discusses the fraught realities of sex appeal and power politics in her field. Faye muses on her own brand of feminism, which allows her "to get the better of those laws... by living within them."

 

It's clear Faye is on a journey, in more ways than one, but Kudos's oblique, manifold narrative precludes drawing any easy conclusions about its characters or their destinations. It's the mysterious nature of storytelling--the narrator's self-conscious interplay between internal and external voice--that makes Kudos such a fascinating and memorable read. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset

Author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz has just completed the manuscript for A House Called Silk, the first Sherlock Homes novel officially commissioned by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate, and he's looking at rewrites for his script of Tintin 2, to be directed by Peter Jackson. But before he can commit to his next project, he's approached by Daniel Hawthorne, a detective inspector who advised Horowitz on a TV drama, to collaborate on a true crime book about the case Hawthorne is investigating.

 

A woman named Diana Cowper walked into a mortuary to make arrangements for her own funeral, and six hours later she was murdered inside her home. How did she know her death was imminent? Or did she?

 

Despite Hawthorne's prickly nature, the case intrigues Horowitz. He agrees to shadow the detective and write up an account of the investigation, whatever its outcome.

 

While everything in the first sentence of this review is true of Horowitz, in real life and in The Word Is Murder, Hawthorne and Cowper are fictional, though they interact with Horowitz in the book. Confused? No worries. Horowitz makes it all clear while weaving fact with fiction in a novel way and poking fun at himself, relegating his alter ego to playing Watson to Hawthorne's Holmesian detective. Fans of Horowitz's screen work will get a kick from the multiple references to the films and TV shows he's written (Injustice; Foyle's War). None of this meta story would work, however, if the central mystery isn't satisfying, and it is. The word is clever. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

In 2002, Sergeant Zheng Haoming of China's Chengdu police department closes in on a man soliciting the names of people online. He's looking for people who have committed grievous crimes but have escaped the law. This digital vigilante calls himself "Eumenides," after the Greek goddesses of vengeance. Eumenides took credit for a warehouse bombing that killed two innocent victims in 1984 by issuing "death notices"--a bombing Zheng and Longzhou police captain Pei Tao know of all too well. Before Zheng can make the connection, he is found dead in his apartment by Pei, who now holds the key to taking down Eumenides.

 

Chengdu police chief Han Hao assembles a task force with Pei as a member. Quickly, more death notices appear, listing the name of the accused, the crimes committed, the time of punishment and the executioner: Eumenides. As promised, these punishments are meted out; the gruesome murders of vengeance are committed right on schedule. The task force is not short on talent, but they're outmaneuvered. And as Pei's tangled connection to the 1984 bombing is revealed, the question becomes: Is Pei really part of the investigation, or being investigated himself?

 

Death Notice, the first of three bestselling volumes in China, is the first to be translated, by Zac Haluza, into English. Zhou Haohui delivers the goods for fans of crime fiction with a tightly plotted, rapidly paced story with plenty of twists and turns. While the novel doesn't reinvent the genre and the dialogue is occasionally clichéd, it boasts an intricate plot, builds suspense and never loses its focus. --Frank Brasile, librarian

Thirty-two-year-old Frank Lundquist, who's in the midst of a divorce, is working as a psychologist at Milford Basin Correctional Facility, a women's prison in New York State. Imagine his surprise when his crush from Lincoln High walks into his office. Miranda Greene, who has until recently been employed at a marketing firm, is now an inmate serving 52 years with no parole for second-degree murder following a botched armed robbery.

 

It's not only Miranda who has fallen from grace: a year ago, a lapse in Frank's professional judgment had tragic consequences, precipitating the end of his private practice. He's well aware that not telling Miranda that he knows her--knows about her extracurricular activities when they were classmates, about the rise and fall of her father's political career--qualifies as another lapse. Frank's lapses don't end there.

 

The Captives's curious dynamics and collected plot points, which include the decades-ago death of Miranda's older sister, amount to a powder keg, but Debra Jo Immergut (Private Property) holds off on throwing the lit match. The book takes its time, letting Frank and Miranda tell their stories in alternating chapters that gradually disclose how it is that Frank ended up at Milford Basin, and how "once again, [Miranda] was contemplating placing her fate in the hands of an extremely flawed man." Immergut's absorbing first novel employs unostentatious but occasionally glimmering prose to ask what makes a person truly dangerous, and her gasp-worthy reveals are up to the standard of the best thriller writers. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon's uplifting and inspirational memoir traces his success back to his Grandma Mamie (who raised 13 children) and his single mother (who gave birth to him when she was 15 years old). "I was raised by two amazing women," he writes, "and I live in the aftermath of their love, care, and wisdom." But his childhood was not idyllic. By 19, his mother had three children, so she left four-year-old Kenny with his grandmother and moved 300 miles away to start a new life with his sister and baby brother. He was reunited with them four years later. 

 

After college, Leon dropped out of law school to follow his interest in theater--first as an actor, then a director. During his 11 years with Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, he directed the premieres of Disney's Aida, Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo--which all moved to Broadway. He forged a 20-year friendship with playwright August Wilson ("the most important professional influence of my career") and eloquently explains his love of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun--which he directed twice on Broadway and once for TV. His directorial advice is equally applicable for life situations ("You must work to really understand people that are different from you. You don't learn a lot in your comfort zone.").

 

This motivational memoir will inspire readers to follow their dreams. And theater buffs will appreciate his astute takes on acting and directing. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

In her emotionally startling memoir, criminal justice reform activist Donna Hylton takes readers from humanity's dark evils to its shining inspirations. And the two exist opposite where most people expect them to thrive.

 

The first half of Hylton's story is heartbreaking and difficult to consume. There is a complete lack of love and safety in her life: an unstable mother who sells Hylton as a young girl; adoptive parents who abuse her; people who violate her trust, raping her body and soul. The realization that such horrors can and do happen in the United States is alarming and unsettling. But A Little Piece of Light shines a brilliant beam directly on them.

 

As a result of her tumultuous youth, a 19-year-old Hylton winds up in the middle of a kidnapping that ends in murder. A jury convicts her for her part in the crimes, and she's sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But behind the barbed-wire fences and cinderblock walls of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York, she finds the family she's so desperately desired. Caring for a fellow inmate with HIV, creating a program to counsel and educate prisoners about AIDS and participating in a domestic violence group, Hylton finds meaning in her life. The compassion and kindness of those around her allow Hylton to blossom and realize her potential.

 

A Little Piece of Light is a big reminder of how people share much more in common than not. Even more importantly, it's a beacon capable of leading others out of the darkness that Hylton endured. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

"I am always happy when my body remembers to feel things other than scared."

 

Growing up, novelist Amanda Stern (The Long Haul) felt safe inside her house and in the shared garden behind it, but the "street side of life" seemed packed with potential dangers. Any time she was separated from her mother, something terrible happened to one of them. Any moment she forgot about the terrors of the world could be when they'd come for her. Her fears seemed proven when Etan Patz, a boy close to her age, disappeared a few blocks away. Stern's anxiety was constant but ignored by the adults in her life, who meant well but never fully grasped the depth of her feelings. Instead, she was tagged with learning disabilities and believed that she was stupid, and it wasn't until after college that she was properly diagnosed with a panic disorder.

 

Against the backdrop of 1970s and '80s New York, Little Panic is a vivid, candid and often funny chronicle of living with anxiety. Most of the narrative follows Stern's childhood, though select chapters show her as an adult--particularly her relationship with a man who she thought would give her a family of her own. Her panic is instense throughout, and it's heartbreaking to see her as a child immobilized by dread. She takes on the voice of a young girl without being cloying, and her retelling of her childhood memories is thoughtful and complete. It's an eye-opening and beautifully written memoir of struggling to understand the world despite a fear of it. --Katy Hershberger, freelance writer and bookseller

The recent North American surge in opioid addiction and fatal drug overdoses has been devastating. In 2017, opioid overdoses became the leading cause of death for U.S. citizens under the age of 50. Cities across the continent have begun to search for new approaches that turn the focus from criminal punishment to saving lives. The successful and radical "harm reduction" model developed in Vancouver has attracted much attention from health officials and legislators, as well as opposition from those who believe it will promote drug use. "It's a simple yet revolutionary idea: that everybody deserves a home regardless of their drug abuse or destructive behaviour, and that an addict is a human being who should be treated with dignity."

 

In Fighting for Space, Canadian journalist Travis Lupick tells how a group of activists in the poorest neighborhood in Canada demanded and won a new approach to drug addiction as an illness rather than as a moral failure or a crime. He incorporates the individual stories of addicts, nurses, counselors and activists into case studies of Vancouver and six U.S. cities, some more successful than others.

 

Lupick has reported on drug addiction, mental illness and harm reduction for years. He documents how previous approaches such as one-for-one needle exchanges have failed, and how programs have worked to keep users alive, housed and relatively healthy, and make treatment available without coercion. This is a vivid portrait of the people on the front lines of the North American overdose crisis, and a vital resource for activists and policy makers seeking the best way to save lives. --Sara Catterall

When Rick Bass arrived at the home of Denis Johnson and his wife, the Johnsons were naked. At least, that's how Johnson suggested Bass depict their evening together--one of more than a dozen visits Bass undertook following a heart-wrenching divorce, to find intellectual and emotional sustenance through cooking meals for writers whose words had sustained him.

 

In The Traveling Feast: On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes, Bass (For a Little While; Wild to the Heart) invites himself, and his grad student mentees and daughter, into the presence and pantries of the greats. He likens their literary quests to birds flocking to feeders. Those feeders included Peter Matthiessen, Lorrie Moore, Gary Snyder, Joyce Carol Oates, Terry Tempest Williams and more. He explains, "To stand in the presence of living greatness has inexplicable and inexhaustible value." In his Subaru and at the table, Bass and his crew explore life's hungers, delights and disappointments great and small. A failed pine nut tart. A failed opportunity to ask a question of a dying man. A failed marriage. A failed trip to the Corn Palace.

 

Some moments reverberate with shy courage. Others whoosh by, eliciting bursts of laughter. Some do both: see the essay on Bass's attempt to cook a dozen quail, "the haiku of poultry," for David Sedaris. Others acknowledge time and its cruelties, the steamroller of change, the weight of grief. Above all, Bass's prose, powerful and poignant, is a reminder of mortality and the feast that comes first. Dig in. --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewer

Della Kelly is burdened by a secret she can't share with anyone, not even best friend Arden: her mother's mental illness, under control for the past four years, is starting to recur. Della's father, already stressed by drought conditions on their North Carolina farm, is not ready to face what's happening. "It's important for your mama to have dignity," he tells Della. "[L]ots of people, they don't understand an illness like... schizophrenia.... They... start to use hurtful words, like 'crazy' and 'psychotic,' and start seeing a person as just a disease, not a human being." Since the original illness was triggered by Della's birth 12 years earlier, she feels responsible for finding a solution. She thinks working harder around the house and farm, caring for her toddler sister and taking on more chores will help. When this doesn't work, she runs away, believing her mama will be forced to rise to the occasion of behaving like a mother again. Most of all, though, she hangs her hopes on the legendary miraculous qualities of the honey from the local Bee Lady. It's only when her mother goes from bad to worse that Della and her father must come to terms with what will likely be a lifelong condition and find the strength to ask for help.

 

Cindy Baldwin's graceful debut novel is an ode to family and community. Although Della longs for her own mother, she's surrounded by "other mamas" who look out for her, who "sing a song to that little fluttering thing [hope] in [her] soul." Hints of sweet magical realism touch Where the Watermelon Grows, balancing this exquisite novel's bittersweet authenticity. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

With A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, editors Ellen Oh (Spirit Hunters) and Elsie Chapman (Along the Indigo) deliver a captivating collection of East and South Asian myths and legends written by 15 renowned #ownvoices middle-grade and young adult authors, including Roshani Chokshi, Melissa de la Cruz and Cindy Pon.

 

The short stories in A Thousand Beginnings and Endings come from the Filipino, Chinese, Hmong, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Gujarati, Korean, Japanese and South Asian traditions. In Cindy Pon's "The Crimson Cloak," a feminist update to a Chinese legend gives a formerly silenced goddess a voice; Preeti Chhibber's "Girls Who Twirl and Other Dangers" is an interpretation of a Gujarati epic in which the divine battle between good and evil is played out on the dance floor during a Hindu festival. Each selection is followed by a short exposition by the author about the origin of the story and their connection to the work.

 

The countries and social identities from within the Asian diaspora represented in this collection act as mirrors for readers who rarely get to see themselves in Eurocentric myths, legends and stories. Many of the stories in this compilation were passed down through oral tradition, and their reinventions here, specifically by Asian artists, mark a step forward in nuanced representation. With native languages, pop-culture references and an abundance of food imagery throughout, the stories have universal themes that also highlight important cultural distinctions.

 

Intentional and brilliantly curated, this collection should be given its rightful place on shelves alongside other celebrated explorations of humanity, unrequited love, warring deities and undying hope. --Breanna J. McDaniel, author, freelance reviewer

It's Adam Rex's (Nothing Rhymes with Orange) turn to take on a pop-culture figure from the Star Wars franchise in Are You Scared, Darth Vader? Darth Vader finds himself faced with a wolf man, a vampire, a "spooky ghost" and a witch, as an omnipresent narrator repeatedly asks if he's scared. With his trademark stoicism, Darth Vader is not scared, and is confused as to why he should be. "It's a wolfman. Are you scared, Darth Vader?" the narrator taunts. "I am not afraid of a wolf, and I am not afraid of a man," Vader responds. "It could bite you," the narrator counters. "It could not," Vader says. "I am wearing armor." Vader fears nothing, including spiders, black cats, public speaking and the dark.

 

The narrator invites the creatures to remove their costumes, revealing children who climb all over Darth Vader and steal his light saber, making him "most displeased." The children eventually exit but the narrator points out one child still present: the reader of the book. This child has the power to end the story, trapping Darth Vader in the pages, "[a]lmost like [he's] frozen in carbonite or whatever." Now a certain someone is scared.