Charley Sutherland is a literary scholar and prodigy with a secret gift: he can bring characters from books to life. As fun as a visit from the Cat in the Hat or teatime with Sherlock Holmes might sound, Charley's older brother, Rob, knows better--it always means trouble. But Uriah Heep from David Copperfield appears as one of Rob's law firm interns, and the brothers later discover an entire Dickensian street filled with characters Charley swears he didn't create. Suddenly what used to be a nuisance turns into a dangerous adventure as they realize other summoners exist.

Charley attempts to understand the origin of the street, the threat of a rumored fictional "new world" and the identity of the other summoner (all while surviving attacks from the Jabberwocky and the Hound of the Baskervilles, among others). Meanwhile, Rob digs further into reality and discovers even deeper mysteries surrounding their own family. It comes down to whimsical Charley, practical Rob and a wild cast of literary characters brought to life to save the real world from complete fictional takeover.

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep, H.G. Parry's debut novel, is a Dickensian booklover's delight, filled with the most popular characters from Western literature, from Heathcliff, Dorian Gray and five brooding Mr. Darcys to more modern characters like Matilda and the Implied Reader, all navigating their own stories as well as the real world they've come to inhabit. Anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with the Artful Dodger or to hold the legendary Excalibur in their hands will be in excellent company in the pages of this delightful literary fantasy. As one fictional creation puts it: "I think we've found ourselves in the middle of an adventure." --Jennifer Oleinik, freelance writer and editor

Australian YA author Jaclyn Moriarty (The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars) soars in this raw, dryly funny adult debut.

Since the age of 16, Abigail Sorensen has lived under the shadow cast by the absence of her twin brother and best friend, Robert, who disappeared on their birthday. Despite years of searching, Abi's family and the authorities never found him, leaving her with a grief too tainted by questions and residual hope to ever heal.

Now a cafe owner and single mother, 35-year-old Abi travels to tiny Taylor Island to solve the other great mystery of her life. For years, chapters of a cryptic self-help book called The Guidebook have shown up in Abi's mailbox, unsolicited and unexplained. Wilbur, the writers' son, has invited all Guidebook recipients to the island. In a setup evocative of an adult version of The Westing Game, Abi and a small handful of strangers will compete to learn the truth about the book, with bizarre results. The comradeship she forms with the other Guidebook readers, including attractive but distant Niall, regret-filled Nicole and disgruntled Pete, lead Abi back through a past filled with mistakes, open wounds and the ever-present specter of her lost brother.

In Gravity Is the Thing, Moriarty offers an examination of modern womanhood, a satire of the self-help industry and a searing exploration of unresolved grief. Redemptive and hopeful, this novel announces the arrival of a fresh, funny and perceptive voice in adult fiction. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

When World War II broke out, women served the war effort in different ways. While not officially part of the military, female pilots were instrumental to the air force, training new male pilots and transporting planes and goods between bases. More than 1,000 women served in this way, and when the war was over, the women went, unrecognized, back to their prewar lives. In her debut novel, The Flight Girls, Noelle Salazar paints a sweeping portrait of the brave Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), the friendships they formed in this extreme circumstance and the dreams and lives that were forever changed.

Each woman has a different reason for joining up and background with flying planes. Audrey Coltrane is fearless, a skilled pilot who has the clear goal of purchasing and running the small airfield back in her Texas hometown. A husband and children are not priorities, and she's determined not to acquiesce to anyone's expectations for that more traditional path. Yet when she meets Lieutenant James Hart, she's surprised to find that it is her own unfamiliar feelings that may stand in her way. Through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the sexist assumptions and treatment of female pilots, the loss of close friends and the varied flight assignments, Audrey continues to learn and grow, as a woman, a friend, a daughter and, most importantly, as a pilot.

Thirty years after their service to the U.S., President Jimmy Carter granted the women of WASP full military status for their service and, in 2009, President Barack Obama and Congress awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal. --BrocheAroe Fabian, owner, River Dog Book Co., Beaver Dam, Wis.

Parents have long told their kids to beware of strangers. In her heart-thumping thriller A Stranger on the Beach, Michele Campbell reminds readers why that lesson should be heeded. 

Caroline first saw Aidan on the beach outside her newly built seaside mansion. Or so she says. As the novel unfolds, the two become friends and then more than that, though Caroline is already married. But no matter how close they get, neither can be fully trusted--not with their feelings or their words. Caroline and Aidan take turns narrating the chapters, their stories rarely matching. Is Aidan a possessive stalker? Or a dim-witted but well-intentioned boyfriend? Is Caroline a passionate lover who's afraid of her violent husband? Or a loyal wife afraid of the stranger she met on the beach? 

A former federal prosecutor in New York City, Campbell draws on her experience with the law to keep readers guessing what's truth and what's fiction, even as blood is spilled and the mystery deepens. As in her previous novels, including She Was the Quiet One and It's Always the Husband, Campbell fills Stranger on the Beach with twists and turns until its truly shocking end.

At a time when more attention than ever is being paid to women's tales of sexual assault--and whether they should be believed--Campbell has delivered a realistic story that reveals just how complex such stories can become. Fans of Ruth Ware (The Woman in Cabin 10) and Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train) will not be disappointed. --Amy Brady, freelance writer and editor

Teenager Cyrus Haven returned home from school one day to find his parents and sisters shot to death and his brother with a big smile on his face, calmly watching television. That moment haunts Cyrus into adulthood, but also spurs him to become a police profiler with an uncanny ability to solve confounding murder cases.

Evie Cormac also experienced trauma as a child, found hiding in a trunk in the house where her long-dead kidnapper's body was discovered. Now she's incarcerated at a juvenile facility for dangerous teens. Cyrus is brought in to determine whether she should be released or remain behind bars until she turns 21. Complicating the matter is the fact no one knows Evie's real age.

Cyrus's task is sidelined when the police seek his help in finding the killer of a local teen ice skating star, Jodie Sheehan, last seen leaving a party and taking a shortcut through woods. Cyrus soon realizes neither Evie nor Jodie are what they seem, and Evie might be instrumental in finding out what happened to Jodie.

Michael Robotham's writing is achingly beautiful in Good Girl, Bad Girl. He shows the redemptive power of love and trust on broken people who don't know how to ask for help. He also digs deeply into how well-meaning adults can hijack the aspirations of adolescents, causing irreparable damage. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Continuing the noir bromance of last year's Hope Never Dies, Andrew Shaffer again plucks Joe Biden and Barack Obama out of retirement and into their new roles as detectives. Hope Rides Again is another action-packed mystery rife with close calls.

While their first case was in Biden's Delaware, this time there's trouble in the Windy City, starting at Obama's Rising Hope Economics Forum. Joe arrives amid the hoopla of St. Patrick's Day, uneasy with the crowds of leprechauns clogging the streets. At the Forum, instead of the anticipated intro to a potential campaign supporter, there's a shooting--of a young "Rising Star" volunteer.

"There was no injustice too small to right if I had the chance," Joe thinks, and he sets out to confirm his suspicions: this was not gang related, which means sleuthing is in order. His BFF Barack joins the chase, and their investigation propels them to the sketchiest neighborhoods in Chi-town, a bizarre trek through a University of Chicago tunnel, a visit to a "strip club" (with "Gal Capone") and a speedboat pursuit on Lake Michigan (interrupted by "pirates"). Hope Rides Again and so does the intrepid team, but tensions are high on the path to justice. So, too, are wisecracks, puns and plenty of observations on the current state of White House affairs.

Shaffer writes slapstick noir that plays off of the Obama-Biden friendship, dropping names along the way (Rahm and Michele appear), yet doesn't require serious thought about 2020. In this light novel, Joe Biden is just a former veep with a passion for mystery. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

"Pretend," Malin Ahlberg's father whispers in her ear as her parents drop her at Hawthorne College, a small liberal arts school in the Maine backwoods. For the next four years, from that first day through the tragedies that befall her friends on Senior Day in 2011, Malin takes his directive to heart. 

Cambria Brockman's debut, Tell Me Everything, ultimately does tell all; yet, in line with psychologically twisted college clique tales, not before putting the reader through a maddeningly enjoyable wringer. Malin is patently unreliable, but in a wonderfully fresh, clear-headed way. She is not influenced by drugs or alcohol; quite the opposite, in fact. Malin is about control, with an unknown but definite method to her madness.

Coming from Texas, as something of a fish-out-of-water, Malin surprisingly finds herself part of an intimate yet disparate group of six friends. Living together in a house purchased by one set of wealthy parents gives Malin constant access to and insights into their secrets, changing dynamics and intimacies. 

Weaving through three main timelines--Malin's childhood, freshman year and senior year--Brockman slowly exposes the meaning behind Malin's father's whispered instruction and her ongoing manipulations. Some minor plot points and discrepancies in the character depth of the six friends create minor hiccups in the flow, but Brockman has turned in a compelling slow burn with focus justly on its furtive protagonist. Malin's retelling of each period in her life is fraught with competing control and unease that make for a dynamite combination. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

Mark Greaney (the Gray Man series) and Marine lieutenant colonel H. Ripley Rawlings IV offer a fast-paced, riveting story about heart and courage taking a stand against impossible odds in Red Metal.

A mine in Kenya holds 60% of the world's known supply of essential minerals. Russia discovered, purchased and developed the mine, but is now ordering Major Yuri Borbikov and his troops, who have been guarding the mine, to leave, for reasons he doesn't fully understand. As he and his men file past the Kenyan, French and Canadian soldiers taking over control of the mine, Borbikov is pelted with jeers and fresh ox dung. He vows revenge.

Two years later, a pivotal election is being held in Taiwan. Seeking to reunite Taiwan with China, Chinese special forces assassinate the pro-China candidate, leaving behind evidence framing the Taiwanese government as evil. NATO sends a large military presence to defend Taiwan against Chinese retaliation. Knowing the world will be distracted, Borbikov, now a colonel, pitches a long-gestating plan to Russian president Rivkin on how the country can revive its failing economy by taking back the mineral mine in Kenya. Rivkin gives the go-ahead to the bold plan, which involves an invasion of Europe.

Despite an abundance of detailed military jargon, the writing is taut. Saving the world are a handful of individuals--including an old, forgotten French spy; his military captain son; a tank mechanic; a feisty submarine commander; a helicopter pilot named Glitter; and a Polish barista--suggesting that heroes are made when all hope is lost. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Screenwriter, novelist and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski reveals his origin story in Becoming Superman, and it's more harrowing than most superheroes endure. The creator of TV's Babylon 5 and Sense8 was conceived in a whorehouse and raised by a raging, abusive and alcoholic father and mentally unstable mother who tried to smother him as a baby and pushed him off a rooftop when he was six. His family moved 21 times over 18 years. When his grandmother tries to seduce him, he realizes that she had done the same thing to his father growing up. Brutalized at home and at school, his escape was through superhero comic books. "That ethical core meant everything to a young kid trapped in a family that operated without any sort of moral compass," he writes.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen," he explains later, "is how I trained for a career as a television writer." Writing for TV was almost as painful. His first three animated TV series (She-Ra, The Real Ghostbusters and Captain Power) each debuted as the top-rated kids' show. But network demands for misguided retooling made Straczynski jump ship after single seasons. By putting his self-worth first, he continually found success. He began writing graphic novels for Marvel Comics, which lead to screenplays for feature films (including Clint Eastwood's Changeling and Kenneth Branagh's Thor).

This hard-hitting and fearless gut-punch of a memoir will inspire future writers to follow their dreams and value their instincts. Becoming Superman is an amazing story, told with verve, humor and bravery. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

This second collection of poetry from Jana Prikryl (The After Party), senior poetry editor for the New York Review of Books, is a playful and melancholy reordering of everyday life in the metropolis. In Prikryl's city, David Bowie gives mobile tours and the ancient characters of the Aeneid slip into the background of modernity. The binaries of the world collapse within No Matter, or perhaps they were barely in place to begin with. Titles reappear over and over in unknown patterns. Even the language is slippery and unpredictable, as Prikryl stacks incongruous lines and stanzas on top of one another in a moderate cut up: "when was it I gathered that dissolve/ was native to them, how long after/ I gave myself away in the corner." This is poetry as jazz: loose and prone to chaos. Prikryl is creating work that reads as totally, hauntingly melodic.

No Matter is arguably not for readers new to poetry; this is challenging work even perhaps for veteran bibliophiles, but that's a good thing. These are poems of urban spaces unstuck in time and known to few. (The lyrics of Astral Weeks come to mind.) Yet Jana Prikryl gives the interested party a chance to explore them and experience something new. This is a book of ordinary moments turned into catastrophe, where leisurely walks down the streets become literally explosive. A superb feat of insight, "distinctions/ and an amazing capacity for imagining" that shouldn't be missed by those with a taste for something bold. --C.M. Crockford, freelance reviewer

In the dead of night, a goblin named Kull creeps into Endsborough, "a quaint community teetering on the edge of what could be only generously termed civilization." Kull's world is slowly losing magic, victim to an intangible villain known only as the Thing. But Kull has a plan: a goblin changeling, "the living embodiment of goblin magic," has been born and he intends to exchange it with a human baby. The Old Ways say that this switch will revive magic and restore Kull's people. Unfortunately, Kull is interrupted as the changeling takes on the human baby's appearance. Unable to tell the two apart, he flees, leaving both babies behind. Annie Burton sees the new baby in her newborn's crib and knows it must be a changeling. She can't figure out which one it is, so she raises them as twins. Now nearing their 13th birthday, mischievous and rambunctious Tinn and Cole know about their origins, but neither knows who the changeling is. When a strange note beckons the changeling to enter nearby Wild Wood and reunite with the goblin horde to save magic (warning that if he does not, there will be "lots of death"), the boys decide they'll go together.

William Ritter takes familiar pieces of lore and infuses rich new life and magic into them. The characters of Changeling, both human and magical, are complex and multi-faceted: wildly brave single mothers, rowdy sensitive boys, goblins yearning for forgiveness and redemption and a Thing whose power is limited by its own insecurities. Wonderfully written, with powerful messages of love and the importance of family, Changeling is a bold start to a promising series. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

Eighteen-year-old Maia Tamarin "was born with a needle in one hand, a pair of scissors in the other" and dreams of being the emperor's master tailor. However, because she is a girl, the best she can hope for is to "marry well." When her frail father, a once highly respected tailor, is summoned by the emperor to the palace, Maia poses as her brother and takes his place. Upon arrival, she learns she will be competing against 11 others to become the court's imperial tailor. Maia manages to survive the sabotage, treachery and deceit of the cutthroat contest, but her ultimate undoing may be the impossible final challenge: journey through the kingdom to collect materials from the sun, moon and stars, and make three dresses "no human hands had ever made."

A contest that hinges on a dangerous journey, an inadvisable romance, a world filled with ancient magic and legends.... In her epic first novel, Spin the Dawn, Elizabeth Lim balances it all, effortlessly knitting together magic, romance, political intrigue and mythology. Lim's superior storytelling is rich with detail ("When the bridge collapses, the stars will bleed dust from the sky") and her use of tailoring metaphors--"trees that were sleeved with red, gold, and orange leaves"--feels like a natural extension of Maia's being.

While this impressive series opener deserves its comparison with Mulan, it's important to note that Lim's world is wholly her own, populated by characters who live, love and fight by the dictates of their fictional universe. Lim uses the girl-dresses-as-boy trope to kick off Maia's intense, high-stakes competition, then puts it on the back burner as act two unexpectedly explodes into action. Throughout, Maia discovers that she not only has worth, but that her talents are, in fact, priceless. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

Journalist Sam Quinones's lauded 2015 Dreamland was, according to our review, "a comprehensive and empathetic investigation into the Mexican pipeline feeding the United States heartland's growing appetite for opiates." This adaptation, pared down for a young adult audience, is a sharp, engrossing work of narrative nonfiction.

Dreamland snares the young reader immediately with the story of Matt Schoonover from Columbus, Ohio, who began using prescription opiate painkillers in high school, became addicted and moved to black tar heroin when the "street OxyContin" became too pricy. A day after returning from three weeks in rehab, at the age of 21, Matt fatally overdosed. Quinones's account speaks directly to teens about the opiate crisis by placing young people (the "new addicts") at the center of the narrative. He makes the nationwide problem personal through the experiences of Tyler Campbell and Chris Jacquemain, football teammates who both died of heroin overdoses; Kathy Newman, a cheerleader who became addicted to OxyContin after being convinced by friends to visit a Portsmouth, Ohio, pill mill; and Enrique, from Nayarit in Mexico, who began dealing black tar heroin at the age of 14.

Quinones has skillfully reworked his absorbing work of nonfiction for a teen audience, with the narrative divided into three parts (instead of the original five) grouped together by related content. With this edition, Quinones was able to include up-to-date information, as well as new reporting focusing on affected teens. Photographs, an epilogue, a reading guide and source notes round out this gripping, perceptive book. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness