In Ruin, critically acclaimed novelist and founder of the Anarchist Review of Books Cara Hoffman (Running) offers 10 unexpected and whip-smart stories about uneasy realities and the seemingly eccentric, yet deeply vulnerable, everyday acts of the people who reside within them. The first story, "Waking," introduces readers to a group of nameless teenage girls; they watch old films on shabby projector screens to try to catch a glimpse of magic they don't experience with the boys who flit in and out of their lives. "History Lesson" provides snapshots of what may or may not be the end of the world through the eyes of a couple who are both disturbed by and accustomed to living in a city built on destruction. A precocious young girl in the standout "Childhood" becomes convinced that she is an old man and begins to see the world--and her parents' relationship--accordingly.

Each of Hoffman's concise tales offers a haunting and provocative glimpse at a world aligned with our own--but slightly off-kilter. Some, like "History Lesson," become explicitly apocalyptic, whereas others--as in the story "Ruin," in which a seemingly uninterested artist finds her camera fixated on the man she just slept with--are more catastrophic in tone than actuality. All 10 stories--surreal and affecting--are dedicated to a fascination with disorder. Hoffman's prose itself reflects this with its quick cuts, unsettling juxtapositions and hypnotic images. Despite the pervading atmospheres of horror, each story offers a small gem of hope, a blinding flash of human vulnerability and desire. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

Denizens of the grungier side of life dominate the assured stories in Heartbroke by Chelsea Bieker (Godshot). The protagonists portrayed here, most of them California women, lead lives dominated by addiction and despair and are often unaware of the implications of their actions. These are stories of women with unrealistic dreams who turn to God to provide solace, mothers and children with difficult relationships, a "lady bartender" who snorts cocaine and hopes to "get me a job doing up ladies' faces at the mall" and a brothel madam whose mother was kidnapped and never found. Readers also meet boyfriends wedded to the notion that they have to be so-called real men and husbands who throw their wives into trash bins--or are given dishes rather than paper plates to eat from so they'll have something to destroy besides their wife's clothes.

Sound depressing? It could have been, but with Bieker's gift for apt descriptions, readers will likely be enthralled instead of downcast. Uses of the vernacular, as with the woman who had "never seen purple eyes on no person" like the hot cowboy she meets while working at a feedstore, make these pieces sparkle with rough glamour. The lady bartender falls for a hydroelectric miner, who tells her, "It's fun to make people think you're one way and then boo! You're another." Stories by good authors pull off that conjuring trick all the time. Bieker shows how satisfying it can be. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Lian Dolan takes readers on a whirlwind journey of art, loss and family secrets in her engaging fourth novel, Lost and Found in Paris. Dolan's narrative follows Joan Bright Blakely, who hops a plane to Paris as an art courier after her marriage implodes spectacularly. After a romantic night with Nate, her seatmate from the flight, Joan wakes to find that the valuable sketches she's transporting have disappeared. In their place is a cryptic note and a page from the notebooks of her father, an artist who died on September 11, 2001. With Nate as an accomplice, Joan races around Paris, pursuing a trail of poetic clues that may lead her not only to her father's notebooks but also to unexpected revelations about her family and herself.

Dolan (The Sweeney Sisters) creates compelling, likable characters. Joan and Nate, as well as Joan's ex-supermodel mother and various secondary characters, form an entertaining cast. The narrative's breezy style mirrors the breathless pace of Joan and Nate's journeys around Paris. As she comes closer to solving the mystery of the notebooks, Joan also begins to deal with some of the long-held grief that has kept her stuck since her father's death. Dolan writes sensitively about the challenges of having (and losing) famous parents and re-examining past events in light of new information. With wit, insight and compassion, Dolan's novel deftly combines a high-stakes art chase with an exploration of loss and the hope of multiple fresh starts for her main character. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Canadian artist Jessica Campbell (XTC69) introduces Rave with a provocative epigraph from controversial televangelist Pat Robertson that condemns feminism as "anti-family... encourag[ing] women to... kill their children, practice witchcraft... become lesbians." The graphic novel's opening image is of a church, the first text an "Amen!" But Campbell's potent coming-of-age narrative quickly turns subversive.

The sermon specifically addresses teens: "Sexual urges! Impure thoughts." The minister confesses to his own explorations with pornography and masturbation and then makes an example of his heavily pregnant 15-year-old daughter, Amber, by coercing her into bearing witness onstage to "God's love." Lauren watches, expressionless, from the audience. At school the next morning, Amber responds to Lauren's "Hey" with a "Fuck you," while blowing cigarette smoke in her face. Lauren is later paired on a class project about evolution with Mariah, whose home is where the girls meet to study; it's a weekend and Mariah's mother is away. Everything about Mariah seems antithetical to Lauren's beliefs: Mariah keeps a Wiccan altar by her bed, shoplifts and initiates kissing. While Lauren tries to reconcile her constricting religion with new feelings, Mariah disappears.

Presented in stark black and white, Campbell's coming-of-age story is also a remarkable visual overview of transforming perspectives. Most pages consistently move the story forward in six panels. Pivotal moments zoom in to a full page (Lauren staring into Mariah's bedroom) or zoom out to scenes cut into 12 panels (Lauren walking home alone from the school bus). As Lauren's awareness shifts, so, too, do the very pages, heightening Campbell's narrative and artistic synergy. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

Meditating on family's "pronged, bloodshot legacies," these visceral poems pack a punch. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

There are few images more idyllic than cooking over an open fire, but re-creating that experience for oneself might seem daunting. The Pendleton Field Guide to Campfire Cooking, the third in Pendleton's series of accessible handbooks on camping, offers an "evergreen helping hand for every camp cook's journey... designed for beginners and seasoned cooks alike," and provides all the information needed to cook gourmet meals over an open fire or camping stove.

A checklist of basic needs for campfire cooking, which includes cookware, appears before the recipes. There is also an explanation of types of fires, an illustrated guide on how to estimate measurements while cooking outdoors, and tips on setting up a camp kitchen and pantry. The recipes are grouped into three thematic sections: the forest, the shore and the desert. The writers--the recipes are by Sarah Keats and Lindsey Bro--also emphasize that this is, above all, a guide, and readers should feel free to improvise, modify, forage (if they are experienced and can do it safely) and make their food an opportunity to connect to the outdoors through all five senses.

The flexibility of the recipes is their real strength. Campfire cooking takes a certain degree of planning and preparation, which most recipes detail with sections labeled "before you head out." That flexibility is not limited to the campsite: because of the way the writers construct the recipes and instructions, those who feel a little less adventurous can also experience the delights of Blackberry and Herb Pancakes or Simple Mushroom Shakshuka from the comfort of their own kitchens. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

French illustrator Pierre Le-Tan's parents cultivated his interest in art from an early age, even taking their young son to the residence of a Monsieur Wu to view catalogues of the astonishing porcelain collection the man once owned. Le-Tan's fond memory of this visit is one of 20 illustrated reflections on private art collections, including his own. Translated from the French by Michael Z. Wise, A Few Collectors is, by turns, wry, serene and melancholy.

Each slim chapter features Le-Tan's distinctive illustrations, elegantly crosshatched and gingerly tinted, of work that he saw in art-bedecked spaces; objects that his reminiscences call to mind, such as the red scarf reliably worn by one collector; and the oft-eccentric art owners. Le-Tan doesn't love all the collections that he writes about ("Everything was impeccable," he writes about one, "but it all had the same tenor as elevator music"), nor does he limit himself to collections comprising art in the traditional sense. Collectors he features include an accumulator of dolls, crumpled paper and 19th-century wax replicas of the heads of criminals.

The sole criterion for a collection's inclusion in Le-Tan's book seems to be his fascination or bemusement with the collector; regarding his own attitude toward art collection, he explains that it's "both essential and completely useless." There's both humor and a wistfulness to Le-Tan's late-in-life remembrances--he died in 2019 at the age of 69--that will incline readers to consume A Few Collectors as both a work of art and an elegy for vanishing splendor. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Three gutsy girl witches must defeat a legendary monstruo in this frolicking fun middle-grade Latine fantasy.

During the Black Moon Ceremony in Ravenskill, young witchlings are placed into covens. Twelve-year-olds Seven Salazar, Valley Pepperhorn and Thorn La Roux aren't assigned spots--they're Spares, outcast witches with weak magic. Worse, this puts the girls into a coven together that they fail to close, meaning they will lose their magic completely. Seven cannot abide being magicless, so she invokes the Impossible Task: they must fell a Nightbeast for another chance to seal their coven, or become toads forever. The girls are determined. "We're gonna prove every ugly butt-toad in this town wrong."

Unfortunately, the giant wolflike monstruo isn't taking their bait. And weirdly, the field of flowers that, if dead, would indicate the Nightbeast's presence has been enchanted to seem uneaten. Meanwhile, the Nightbeast's minions keep attacking nearby towns when their councils are voting to expand Spare rights. The witchlings suspect it's all connected, but the more pieces they uncover to the sinister puzzle, the more impossible their task seems.

Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega (Ghost Squad) is nonstop fun. Ortega's worldbuilding is charming: the girls read Tween Witch! magazine and use the witchernet; distances are measured in toadstools and toad racing is a sport. The girls' sometimes tense, often hilarious attempts at magic demonstrate that being willing to make mistakes promotes learning and that trusting in a friend's knowledge facilitates teamwork. The way Spares are mistreated ("Your kind should be illegals") underscores how barriers to equality are harmful. Witchlings heralds the importance of giving everyone a chance to shine. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle is the heartwarming debut picture book from Printz Award-winning author Nina LaCour (We Are Okay) about a girl who misses her mommy while she's on a work trip.

For the young protagonist, the perfect spot can always be found right in between Mama and Mommy. But when Mommy leaves for a work trip, the girl can't get comfortable. As the days go by, she goes to school, runs errands and watches movies with her Mama. The two even video chat with Mommy but the girl is too sad--she misses Mommy "as deep as a scuba diver down in the ocean." On one of their walks to school, the girl shares an idea with Mama for a welcome-home surprise for Mommy. When Mommy finally returns, though, the little girl's joy is soured by the memory of missing her throughout the week.

Accompanying LaCour's comforting text is the cozy art of Stonewall Award-winning illustrator Kaylani Juanita (When Aiden Became a Brother). Juanita's distinctive mixed-media illustrations match and reflect LaCour's writing style, with comforting soft colors, realistic figures and tons of details. The artist visually connects the characters to each other through the girl: her hair, worn up in a puff that matches fair-skinned Mama's bun, has a white patch in the front that's twisted with a bead, just like Mommy, who's Black. LaCour's representation of a two-mom family in Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle allows young readers, regardless of the gender of their parents, to relate to this sentimental, delightful story. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer