An orphan working at a tea stall in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, grows up to become head chauffeur for a feudal family in Daniyal Mueenuddin's contemporary epic This Is Where the Serpent Lives. Spanning six decades, set in Pakistan, with scenes at a college campus in the U.S., this finely textured generational saga probes with rich irony the power dynamics between Western-educated Pakistani elites and the deferential but shrewd underlings who manage their agricultural estates and serve their tea.

The story opens in 1955 when a child found abandoned on the roadside is taken in by a kindly shop owner. When the boy, Bayazid, grows up, he is hired by the Atar family in Lahore and rises swiftly up the ranks. Hisham Atar considers himself "free from old-fashioned views of the relation between master and servant." He met his brilliant wife, Shahnaz, when they were undergraduates at Dartmouth College. Enjoying the "frictionless ease" of exceptional staff like Bayazid and his protégé Saqib, the Atars' marriage, an intriguing partnership, stays on a low, indifferent simmer until a stinging betrayal spirals into a crisis.

Mueenuddin--author of the award-winning story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders--juxtaposes depictions of simple rural life at the Atars' farm with their extravagant, cocaine-fueled parties and art deco homes in the city. The central conflict in This Is Where the Serpent Lives unfolds with fable-like simplicity: Will Hisham and Shahnaz, with their Dartmouth education and modern sensibilities, embrace change when challenged or will they fall back on the harsh feudal ways that have kept their family comfortably on top for generations? Crafted with elegant prose, Mueenuddin's conclusions are infused with thrilling tension. --Shahina Piyarali

In the opening scene of Emily Austin's fourth novel, a librarian named Darcy narrates her response to a patron watching porn in the library (mainly, per policy, to leave him be). From here, Darcy's story unfolds to grapple with love, grief, mental health, the importance of libraries, and the navigation of personal, professional, and public relationships. Is This a Cry for Help? continues in the vein of Austin's winsome work (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead) with a disarmingly candid narrative voice, outrageous humor, and serious thinking on tough topics.

At Darcy's public library, she gets to help a cross-section of humanity: not only the toddlers, book clubs, and precocious teens she originally imagined, but also people who lack stable housing or who struggle with substance abuse or mental illness, job seekers, immigrants, and people with opinions different from her own. She has a wonderful wife with whom she shares her authentic self, two cats, and a lovely home. But when Darcy learns of the death of her ex-boyfriend, she is thrown off balance. The disruptions to her carefully organized life are often hysterically funny even as they are harrowing and tragic.

Darcy's not at her strongest for the challenge of an alt-right self-appointed journalist harassing the library or an attempted book ban. Her first-person narration shows her puzzling through the motivations of those around her, parsing social cues and questioning her own choices. Is This a Cry for Help? portrays a stressful period in Darcy's life, but one she ultimately inhabits with wisdom and grace. Hilarious, wrenching, endearingly odd, Darcy's story is both enlightening and somehow comforting. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

What is it about the future that freaks out so many people? Fear? A perceived threat to one's hegemony? Whatever the reason, the question is multifaceted. Belgian author Jean-Philippe Toussaint explores those facets in intricate detail in The Emotions, an erudite novel that prods feelings and intellect in satisfying ways. The novel consists of three episodes, all centered on Jean Detrez, a European Commission employee. In the opening section, it's the day of the Brexit vote. Jean is separating from Diane, his wife of 10 years, and is about to move out of the Brussels apartment they share. He must go to Paris for a conference on futurology, where he meets a "self-effacing young woman" in a mohair vest who he hopes offers an escape from his uncertain personal future.

This section contains marvelous set pieces, including the arrival of a pompous know-it-all hired to lead the conference's sessions. The second deals more directly with Jean's personal life, focusing on his recently deceased father, a former European commissioner, and the question of what Jean's own children will think of his legacy when it's time to stand by his casket. The final installment concerns the European Commission's 2010 response when an Icelandic volcano erupts, and the chaos that volcanic ash wreaks on once-futuristic technology such as airplanes. Toussaint addresses provocative questions throughout, all of them involving various forms of agitation. Some readers may embrace the future, others may be terrified, but all will find plenty to discuss in this innovative work. --Michael Magras, freelance

Rosie Storey's debut, Dandelion Is Dead, is a glittering riot of grief, laughter, missed connections, absurdities, and the joys and pains of life's many facets. From one unexpected turn to the next, this story will keep readers emotionally engaged and yearning alongside its protagonist.

Poppy Greene is 37 years old and deep in mourning. It has been 231 days since her older sister, Dandelion, died "and, somehow, it was spring again." Without Dandelion, Poppy (a professional photographer, ever the observer) is unmoored. Going through her sister's phone, she clicks on a dating app and, on a whim, answers a message from a year-old match. When Jake asks for a date on Dandelion's 40th birthday, it feels like fate, or magic, or Dandelion's mischievous hand from beyond the grave. Poppy does not set out with the purposeful intention of impersonating a dead woman, but she finds Jake incredibly magnetic, and soon begins a romantic relationship in her sister's name. Dandelion Is Dead alternates between Poppy's close third-person point of view and Jake's, revealing his own intense attraction to the woman he knows as Dandelion, and his own past traumas. Poppy and Jake are both awkward, ungraceful, and heartfelt in their romance; both commit dishonesties that threaten everything they value.

The aptly named Storey excels at whimsy, delightful comedy, and pathos. Her plot is composed of debilitating losses, madcap adventures, treacheries, secrets, love, and striving. Dandelion Is Dead is a scintillating achievement in emotional range, humor, and wisdom. Poppy Greene thinks she is the less magnetic sister, but no one who meets her will easily forget her. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

The Italian Secret, Tara Moss's taut third mystery featuring Australian PI Billie Walker, takes its protagonist from the wealthy suburbs of Sydney to the bombed-out streets of Naples, Italy, as Billie wrestles with a difficult domestic violence case and searches for answers regarding her late father.

Moss (The Ghosts of Paris) begins in 1948 with a high-drama incident: a client's cheating husband threatens Billie at her office. Though more worried for her client than herself, Billie is nevertheless set on edge by his visit. Her tension grows when, sorting through her father's case files, she finds an envelope of letters from Italy that contain potentially explosive secrets. Billie books passage for herself and her mother on a cruise from Sydney to Italy, hoping to find the woman who wrote those letters and her connection to Billie's father. But her Sydney case may follow her across the ocean--and the cases may be linked in ways Billie can't yet see.

Though mainly focused on Billie's two quests, Moss's narrative also touches on wartime life in Italy, taking readers into Naples's network of underground tunnels where residents built makeshift homes during World War II. Moss also explores Billie's sense of duty to her clients, the sexism she faces in her investigative work, and the tricky emotional territory she navigates as her father's Italian secret challenges what she thought she knew about his past.

Sharp and well plotted, The Italian Secret is a satisfying international adventure with a complex family story at its heart. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In debut novelist Jared Poon's witty, engrossing urban fantasy, City of Others, a paranormal catastrophe erupts in Singapore and thrusts a midlevel civil servant who manages the supernatural into a dangerous investigation.

Benjamin Toh is a team member at the Division for Engagement of Unusual Stakeholders (DEUS) in Singapore's Ministry of Community. In other words, his government-appointed duty is to provide services and regulation to the many and diverse paranormal beings who call Singapore home, supported by a team composed of Jimmy the office psychic, Mei the "spell-slinging bomoh," and Fizah, a young jinni interning at DEUS. Ben himself is a Gardener, his inner landscape filled with a magical forest that gives him superhuman strength. When an entire residential block vanishes under an inexplicable wave following a "ghosty" energy spike, he finds himself trying to balance his investigation of the phenomenon, a new romance with a gorgeous man, and pressure from his elderly, widowed father to be at home more. Ben's greatest challenges will not lie in office politics or paranormal combat, but in the complex patchwork of grief and love that motivate the human heart.

This mix of action and adventure, magical metaphysics, and deep emotional journeys has excitement and grit to spare, plus a strong element of swoonworthy romance. Poon's sense of humor shines when he plays up the juxtaposition between dire supernatural peril and the mundanities of civil servant life. Reminiscent of urban paranormal series of the late '90s and early aughts combined with contemporary workplace comedies, City of Others will resonate with fantasy fans and anyone who recognizes the importance of an unofficial office group chat. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

An erroneous obituary reunites former high school friends in Olivia Dade's sugary, sexy Second Chance Romance. When audiobook narrator Molly hears that Karl has died, she immediately flies across the country from Los Angeles to Harlot's Bay, the Maryland town she called home for a few of her teenage years. When it turns out that grumpy baker Karl--and the spark between them--is very much alive, she decides to stick around for their 20-year high school reunion, which is just a few weeks away.

Karl has never forgotten Molly; he has listened to all the books she's narrated, happy to have some part of her in his life. Now that she's in town again, he's determined to convince her to stay for good. But after supporting her ex-husband as he attended medical school and dealing with the awful way he still treats her, Molly doesn't trust men, and she doesn't trust herself. Even if she's not happy in Los Angeles, she can't let herself be charmed by Harlot's Bay again, and definitely not by the boy she once loved.

As always, Dade (Zomromcom; Spoiler Alert) is body positive and generous with her characters, providing them with thorough backstories and satisfying character arcs. The supporting cast shines, replete with fully realized characters, including some who spar with one another by exchanging profanity-laden cakes. Sensual descriptions of Karl's baking and some heated scenes between Molly and Karl will have readers hungry for more. Second Chance Romance is perfect for fans of Sarah Adams and Amy Lea. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian

Ian Frazier has been writing for the New Yorker since his first "Talk of the Town" piece in 1974. The 46 career-spanning selections collected in The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism offer a generous sampling of his work for that magazine and others, demonstrating the encyclopedic breadth of his curiosity and the versatility of his writing.

Of the three categories identified in the book's subtitle, more than two-thirds of the pieces gathered here fall under the heading of reporting, but there is significant variety within its scope. The shorter offerings, touching on subjects like a rodeo in Madison Square Garden and the pool hustler Minnesota Fats, depend more for their appeal on Frazier's observational skill, keen wit, and economical prose than they do on one's interest in their occasionally dated subject matter. However, they are consistently pleasing nonetheless and whet the appetite for the more substantial journalism to come.

The examples of Frazier's long-form writing include historical excursions to the 13th-century Mongol Empire, alongside "Frogpocalypse Now," a sometimes tongue-in-cheek examination of the cane toad, whose members "sit and look at you as if you owe them money" as they overrun southern Florida's housing developments and shopping centers.

Frazier is equally adept at the personal essay, and he reviews a biography of the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, among the several examples of his criticism featured here. The seeming ease with which Frazier writes about such a variety of subjects might cause some to devalue his work, but his ability to sustain such high quality, informative, and entertaining journalism for half a century speaks eloquently to his talent. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Illuminating one of the most consequential yet unexplored relationships in her subject's career, Gerri Kimber's Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life offers an intriguing and expert lens through which to appreciate the innovative literary icon's legacy.

At the heart of Kimber's elegant narrative is a charismatic outsider from New Zealand whose "storyettes" made waves in England and whose "disappointing" second marriage to John Middleton Murry left her craving stability. While earlier biographers were restricted to Murry's highly edited editions of his wife's work, Kimber took timely advantage of Mansfield's newly transcribed letters and recent annotated editions of her work to craft a revitalized portrait of the young writer. These materials disclose the true depth of Mansfield's marital unhappiness and in particular reveal her exceedingly close friendship with editor A.R. Orage, an association Murry downplayed. Kimber skillfully draws out subtle yet telling details about her subject's close "sexual and intellectual" association with Orage. It was he, in fact, who helped Mansfield find supporters in France near the end of her life.

Kimber charts Mansfield's arrival on London's literary scene through the eyes of "Bloomsbury gossipmongers" and includes her rivalry with Virginia Woolf. To illustrate her subject's brilliant wit, Kimber shares a letter Mansfield wrote to Princess Elizabeth Bibesco, Murry's mistress, gleefully describing it as "one of the most effective slap-down letters in twentieth century literary history."

This is a pleasurable deep dive sure to be appreciated by readers of previous Mansfield biographies and an excellent introduction for those new to her work. --Shahina Piyarali

The Wildest Thing by Emily Winfield Martin (The Imaginaries; The Wonderful Things You Will Be) splendidly depicts one quiet girl's dream of "wild things" welcomed into her heart and home.

Eleanor "dreamed of things... with fur and fin./ And when the/ sun came up/ the Wild had come in." Bunnies hop through her bedroom, squirrels skitter through her kitchen, and her couch has turned into a bear. But Eleanor wants to be wild, too, so she flutters her wings, hides in a den, and howls. Deer, foxes, and wolves all join Eleanor for tea and cake, after which she pounces, hops, and "prowl[s] around the room." She flips, flops, unfurls, and she "bloom[s]!" As night falls Eleanor takes a tumble, after which she's ready for her bath (with a swan and cygnets, a bunny, and some fish nearby, of course) and climbs into bed under a full moon, where "in the place between awake/ and dreams not yet begun," she hears a voice that loves her say, "Good night, my wild one."

This idyllic story springs to life through Martin's radiant colored pencil, gouache, and acrylic art, wherein daytime pastels are bookended by the deep blues and greens of magical night. The author/illustrator's ravishing art, soft and sweet, yet solid and precise builds a believably whimsical world in which Eleanor's adventures come alive. Martin's rhyming text has a gentle cadence that rises and falls as the wonders of Eleanor's day unfold, making The Wildest Thing a delightful dream of creativity, imagination, and getting wild. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

In How to Have a Thought, Sibert Medalist Nicholas Day (A World Without Summer; The Mona Lisa Vanishes) and illustrator Hadley Hooper (Jump for Joy) give young readers an inspiring nonfiction picture book biography of Charles Darwin that uses his well-known meditative walking practice as a kickoff point.

"First you need a rock.... Next, find a stick.... Finally, trace a loop." This, Day says, is how Charles Darwin, the naturalist and "scientist of nature," found his way to "hard thoughts." Darwin often "found a few rocks... took a stick" and walked "the Sandwalk" path around his estate in the English countryside to contemplate what he had observed during his voyage on the HMS Beagle. What follows is a gentle speed-through of Darwin's life as an explorer--finding fossils of giant sloths in Argentina, studying the beaks of finches in the Galápagos, and considering the bones of a flightless bird--and how he eventually arrived at the idea of "natural selection."

By inviting young readers to participate in the spirit of Darwin's discoveries, Day skillfully makes narrative nonfiction accessible and engaging. The book's back matter extends Day's part-biographical, part-philosophical approach, giving historical context and reminding readers that they, too, can "end up somewhere no one else has been." Hooper's mixed-media illustrations are dynamic, both enhancing Day's text and visually completing jokes, such as Day's refrain "(And here is Charles Darwin.)." The illustrator depicts Darwin's walking path with swooping, looping blue lines, a recurring motif that captures the bursting energy of his creative ritual. Fans of Candace Fleming, Deborah Heiligman, and Melissa Sweet's nonfiction will likely enjoy Day's insightful take on Darwin. --Cristina Iannarino, children's book buyer, Books on the Square, Providence, R.I.

Walter Award-winning and National Book Award-longlisted Sherri Winston (Shark Teeth; Lotus Bloom and the Afro Revolution) enters the middle-grade fantasy space with the irresistible and enchanting Destiny of the Diamond Princess.

Twelve-year-old Zahara-Grace Jones has, until the past year, felt content with her devoted adoptive family: a loving mom and charismatic grandfather. She's always been pleased with how much she and her mom look alike, though Zahara-Grace's blue eyes sometimes make her self-conscious ("when you're a Black girl with big blue eyes, people notice"). Recently, however, Zahara-Grace has "felt like a piece of me is missing." When she completes a DNA test her grandfather gives her for her birthday, the utterly unexpected occurs: Zumari Babatunde, king of the small African nation of Maliwanda, bursts into her dressage competition and announces (over the microphone) that Zahara-Grace is his granddaughter. Overnight, Zahara-Grace is thrown into the national spotlight and expected to take on the role of princess. To complicate matters further, Zahara-Grace learns there is an ancient curse connected to her recently discovered legacy--and she may be the only one who can break it.

In this outstanding adventure Winston delves into African history and myth while developing a contemporary protagonist with very understandable excitements and concerns. Winston carefully explores the nuances of adoption, belonging, and heritage as the reader watches Zahara-Grace juggle accepting love from and for both her families as well as her friendships. Destiny of the Diamond Princess is a great read to hand to young Black Panther fans. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer, freelance reviewer