May 1, 2025: Volume XCII, No. 9

MAY 1, 2025 | VOL. XCIII NO. 9

FEATURING 295 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s, and YA Books

REBECCA STEAD TAPS INTO CHILDHOOD FEELINGS The Newbery Medalist makes a moving picture-book debut with Anything

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. A trio of new memoirs embody the fantasy—and the reality—of strivers who come to leave a mark in the city’s most glamorous industries.

As a young man coming of age in Canada, Graydon Carter enumerated things that would give him happiness. Number One: “Living in New York. Greenwich Village, specifically.” Number Two: “Becoming the editor of a big, general-interest magazine.” When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures in the Last Golden Age of Magazines, written with James Fox (Penguin Press, March 25), is the story of how he achieved those goals, first at the satirical

magazine Spy, and then at the king of celebrity glossies, Vanity Fair.

The book is chock-full of good anecdotes, but none better captures the mercurial nature of the magazine world than Carter’s arrival at Condé Nast, the magazine company where he’d been offered the editorship of the New Yorker, only to learn at the last minute—via a phone call from Vogue editor Anna Wintour—that chairman Si Newhouse was moving him over to VF instead. “Act surprised when he tells you,” Wintour advised. There’s never a dull moment in this lively memoir.

Restaurateur Keith McNally was born into a working-class family in the East End of London; he arrived in New York in

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1975 with “vague plans of making films” but instead landed a gig shucking oysters at a fashionable restaurant called One Fifth.

As chronicled in his blunt and entertaining memoir, I Regret Almost Everything (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, May 6), he’d go on to open such legendary Manhattan eateries as Odeon (immortalized on the cover of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City), Lucky Strike, Café Luxembourg, and Balthazar, the downtown brasserie where supermodels and pop stars rubbed elbows with artists and film directors.

There’s plenty of dish in these pages—John Belushi cooked hamburgers for adoring Odeon staff after hours; Patti Smith was “incredibly rude to the servers” at One Fifth—but also some introspection.

McNally suffered a debilitating stroke in 2017 and later tried to commit suicide; he’s painfully honest about the challenges of his life now. He’s also terrific company.

Designer Prabal Gurung came from even farther

afield—he grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, bullied for his effeminacy, and studied at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi before enrolling at the Parsons School of Design in New York in 1999. “The New York hustle, at least for immigrants with brown skin, was real,” he writes in Walk Like a Girl (Viking, May 13), recounting his apprenticeships at Cynthia Rowley and Bill Blass, as well as the hurdles he faced as a person of color in a very white industry. But he has talent and just enough insouciance—wearing flip-flops to a meeting with Wintour at Vogue—that he’s able to launch his own line, a “hey kids, let’s put on a show” presentation during New York Fashion Week that lands the cover of Women’s Wear Daily.

Soon he’s dressing Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Zoe Saldaña. New York dreams really do come true.

TOM BEER K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

NEW YORK STORIES

Contents CHILDREN ’ S

FICT ION 4

Editor’s Note

5

Reviews & News

14

Q&A: Aaron John Curtis

27 Booklist: New Perspectives on WWII and Its Aftermath 39 On the Podcast: Laila Lalami NONFICT ION 40

Editor’s Note

41

Reviews & News

50

Q&A: Bonnie Tsui

63 Booklist: Drawn to the Page 77

Audiobooks

One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit.

OUR FRESH PICK An ocean-dwelling ghost girl confronts powerful forces.

Read the review on page 79.

PURCHASE BOOKS ONLINE AT KIRKUS .COM

78

Editor’s Note

79

Reviews & News

88 On the Cover: Rebecca Stead 99 Booklist: Tender Tales for Mother’s Day

YOUNG ADULT

116

Editor’s Note

117

Reviews

124

Q&A: Candace Fleming

133 Booklist: Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage INDIE 134

Editor’s Note

135

Reviews

ON THE COVER: Rebecca Stead, illustration by Lauren Mortimer. Background by Fons Heijnsbroek via Unsplash.

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MAY 1, 2025

1

Co-Chairman HERBERT SIMON

Co-Chairman MARC WINKELMAN

Publisher & CEO MEG LABORDE KUEHN mkuehn@kirkus.com

Editor-in-Chief TOM BEER tbeer@kirkus.com

Chief Marketing Officer SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com

President of Kirkus Indie CHAYA SCHECHNER cschechner@kirkus.com

Publisher Advertising

Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK lmuchnick@kirkus.com

& Promotions RACHEL WEASE rwease@kirkus.com Indie Advertising & Promotions AMY BAIRD abaird@kirkus.com

Author Consultant KEELIN FERDINANDSEN kferdinandsen@kirkus.com Lead Designer KY NOVAK knovak@kirkus.com Magazine Compositor NIKKI RICHARDSON nrichardson@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor ROBIN O’DELL rodell@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor MARINNA CASTILLEJA mcastilleja@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Production Editor ASHLEY LITTLE alittle@kirkus.com Copy Editors ELIZABETH J. ASBORNO LORENA CAMPES NANCY MANDEL BILL SIEVER

Nonfiction Editor JOHN McMURTRIE jmcmurtrie@kirkus.com Young Readers’ Editor LAURA SIMEON lsimeon@kirkus.com Young Readers’ Editor MAHNAZ DAR mdar@kirkus.com Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE mlabrise@kirkus.com Senior Indie Editor DAVID RAPP drapp@kirkus.com Indie Editor ARTHUR SMITH asmith@kirkus.com Editorial Assistant NINA PALATTELLA npalattella@kirkus.com

Indie Editorial Assistant DAN NOLAN dnolan@kirkus.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Writers GREGORY MCNAMEE MICHAEL SCHAUB

Contributors

Kent Armstrong, Mark Athitakis, Nada Bakri, Audrey Barbakoff, Nell Beram, Elizabeth Bird, Elissa Bongiorno, Jennifer Brough, Jessica Hoptay Brown, Kevin Canfield, Timothy Capehart, Catherine Cardno, Hailey Carrell, Tobias Carroll, Anastasia M. Collins, K.W. Colyard, Rachael Conrad, Jeannie Coutant, Kim Dare, Michael Deagler, Cathy DeCampli, Dave DeChristopher, Elise DeGuiseppi, Suji DeHart, Lisa Dennis, Steve Donoghue, Melanie Dragger, Anna Drake, Eamon Drumm, Robert Duxbury, Jacob Edwards, Gina Elbert, Lisa Elliott, Lily Emerick, Joshua Farrington, Eiyana Favers, Margherita Ferrante, Katie Flanagan, Catherine Foster, Mia Franz, Ayn Reyes Frazee, Laurel Gardner, Cierra Gathers, Chloé Harper Gold, Carol Goldman, Melinda Greenblatt, Michael Griffith, Christine Gross-Loh, Vicky Gudelot, Tobi Haberstroh, Alec Harvey, Peter Heck, Lynne Heffley, Loren Hinton, Zoe Holland, Abigail Hsu, Julie Hubble, Ariana Hussain, Kristen Jacobson, Wesley Jacques, Deborah Kaplan, Marcelle Karp, Lavanya Karthik, Ivan Kenneallym Lyneea Kmail, Andrea Kreidler, Susan Kusel, Alexis Lacman, Megan Dowd Lambert, Christopher Lassen, Tom Lavoie, Judith Leitch, Maya Lekach, Seth Lerer, Maureen Liebenson, Elsbeth Lindner, Coeur de Lion, Corrie Locke-Hardy, Sarah Lohmann, Patricia Lothrop, Mikaela W. Luke, Wendy Lukehart, Kaia MacLeod, Michael Magras, Joan Malewitz, Mandy Malone, Thomas Maluck, Joe Maniscalco, Emmett Marshall, Michelle H Martin, J. Alejandro Mazariegos, Breanna McDaniel, Kathleen McLaughlin, Zoe McLaughlin, Don McLeese, Cari Meister, Kathie Meizner, Tara Mokhtari, Afton Montgomery, Clayton Moore, Andrea Moran, Michelle Moyd, Molly Muldoon, Liza Nelson, Mike Newirth, Therese Purcell Nielsen, Katrina Nye, Connie Ogle, Mike Oppenheim, Emilia Packard, Derek Parker, Hal Patnott, Deb Paulson, Rebecca Perry, John Edward Peters, Jim Piechota, Christofer Pierson, Shira Pilarski, Margaret Quamme, Carolyn Quimby, Kristy Raffensberger, Kristen Rasmussen, Matt Rauscher, Maggie Reagan, Darryn Reams, Stephanie Reents, Sarah Rettger, Jasmine Riel, Amy Robinson, Lloyd Sachs, Bob Sanchez, Keiko Sanders, Julia Sangha, Will Schube, Jerome Shea, Kerry Sheridan, Leah Silvieus, Linda Simon, Laurie Skinner, Wendy Smith, Leena Soman, Margot E. Spangenberg, Andria Spencer, Allison Staley, Allie Stevens, Mathangi Subramanian, Jennifer Sweeney, Eva Thaler-Sroussi, Bill Thompson, Dick Thompson, Lenora Todaro, Bijal Vachharajani, Katie Vermilyea, Barbara Ward, Sara Beth West, Wilda Williams, Paul Wilner, Kerry Winfrey, Marion Winik, Carrie Wolfson, Bean Yogi, Jean-Louise Zancanella, Natalie Zutter

LAURIE MUCHNICK

THER E’S SO MUCH great fiction coming out in May that it’s hard to know where to begin. If only this column could take a hint from Florence Knapp’s debut novel, The Names (Pamela Dorman/Viking, May 6), and go down three different paths. I’ve always been a fan of novels that explore alternate lives for their characters resulting from a single decision, such as Carol Anshaw’s Aquamarine (1992), which follows an Olympic swimmer through three possible lives after losing the gold medal.

In Knapp’s novel, the future of Cora and her family hinges on the name she chooses to give her new baby: Will it be Gordon, her husband’s name, as he wishes; Julian, the one she prefers; or Bear, as her 9-year-old daughter suggests? Gordon is a tyrant, and going against his wishes will have consequences—but so will acceding to them.

Rather than dividing the book into just three sections, as Anshaw does, Knapp creates a complex structure of chapters that 4

MAY 1, 2025

each jump ahead by seven years until Cora’s son is 35; within each chapter are three sections, one for each name. As our starred review says, “the boldness and thoughtfulness of Knapp’s plotting add complexity and a welcome unpredictability…inviting the reader to think about not just the ripple effects of a single decision and the workings of an abusive family but also about a profound and classic concern of fiction: How things we can predict and/ or control in life interact with things we could never have seen coming.”

There are fascinating characters to meet in many of this month’s releases, beginning with Alison Bechdel, protagonist of the autofictional Spent (Mariner, May 20). While Bechdel’s earlier books Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother (2012) were billed as memoirs, this one is fiction and stars a version of the author who’s running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont. (Is Bechdel actually doing that? Alas, no.)

“Alison and her friends are

beautiful and ridiculous… and Bechdel is…a master of her craft,” says our starred review.

Genevieve, the narrator of Jemimah Wei’s The Original Daughter (Doubleday, May 6), defines herself against her sister, Arin, who’s the product of their grandfather’s secret second family. They were close as children but have been estranged for years, and Genevieve wonders if it’s that very distance that has allowed Arin to become a successful actor. “Wei’s novel glistens with often profound insights about the complicated relationship between a person’s identity and the dynamic forces of family and friendship,” according to our review. “A moving debut

novel about sisterhood, ambition, and the quest to become one’s true self.”

We meet two fascinating women in Susanna Kwan’s debut novel, Awake in the Floating City (Pantheon, May 13): There’s Bo, an artist whose family is urging her to leave the f looded dystopia of San Francisco, and Mia, her “supercentenarian” neighbor—she’s about 130 years old—whom Bo stays to care for. Our starred review calls it “a marvelously graceful debut [that] looks to the future with an arc of emotions ranging from existential panic to quiet moments of hope.”

Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

CHOOSE YOUR OWN READING ADVENTURE

FICTION

EDITOR’S PICK A missing teenager is at the center of a densely populated plot that bobs, weaves, and levitates around a boxing gym in Austin, Texas, from 1998 to 2014.

Perhaps not since Nathan Hill’s The Nix (2016) have we seen a debut as hugely ambitious as this one, pulling out all the stops to tell a unique version of the American story. Though there are more characters, more subplots, and just plain more than can be outlined here, the novel revolves around a miserable 16-year-old nudnik named Nathaniel Rothstein of Newton, Massachusetts, who’s sent to live with his Uncle Bob in Austin for the summer of 1998. Bob gets him a volunteer job at a rehab center with a friend of his from Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym, a charismatic

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

Haitian immigrant named David Dalice. David becomes a mentor to the boy, intent on furthering his worldly education with lectures on matters such as “Have you ever licked the sweetness?” Nathaniel channels this inspiration into an obsession with “Sasha,” the voice on the other end of a 1-900 phone sex hotline of which he becomes a daily devotee.

But one day in August, Nathaniel goes out and doesn’t come back. In the course of finding out what happened to him, we will meet many, many people: a rookie female cop; a Playboy-model-turned-­ beautician and her unhappily gendered teenage son (who has just changed from Charles Rex to “X”); various denizens of the boxing gym, including an

6

The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen

By Shokoofeh Azar

7

There Are Reasons for This

By Nini Berndt

8

The Catch

By Yrsa DaleyWard

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The Slip Schaefer, Lucas | Simon & Schuster | 496 pp. $29.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781668030707

unhoused man who’s allowed to bunk there and his twin, literally an evil clown; and a depressed woman in the rehab who is rediscovering her Italian American identity. Identity: There’s a good place to stop, as it is the unifying theme of the entire 500-pound gorilla. Schaefer, who’s white, is bold in his approach to issues of

8

The Death of Us

By Abigail Dean

32

Fog and Fury

By Rachel Howzell Hall

36

Katabasis

By R.F. Kuang

13

That’s All I Know

By Elisa Levi; trans. by Christina MacSweeney

19

These Summer Storms

By Sarah MacLean

37

Angel Eye

By Madeleine Nakamura

Blackness and whiteness, and has invented a truly wild plot in service of exploring them. He is equally fearless in writing about gender and sex. And the solution to the mystery is a trip and a half.

Swings for the fences, makes it at least to third.

Franzen/Roth/Irving comparisons earned and deserved.

34

Red Water

By Jurica Pavičić; trans. by Matt Robinson

21

Bring the House Down

By Charlotte Runcie

21

North Sun

By Ethan Rutherford

22

Long Distance

By Ayşegül Savaş

5

The Slip

By Lucas Schaefer

23

Twelve Post-War Tales

By Graham Swift

24

The Book of Records

By Madeleine Thien MAY 1, 2025

5

FICTION

A wildly ambitious novel about Iran’s past, present, and future.

THE GOWKARAN TREE IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR KITCHEN

Room on the Sea: Three Novellas Aciman, André | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (272 pp.) | $27.00 June 24, 2025 | 9780374613419

In search of lost selves.

In three somber novellas, Aciman reprises themes of longing and memory that have informed his previous memoirs and fiction. “The Gentleman From Peru” is Raúl, who befriends eight young Americans at a resort in southern Italy. A healer and prognosticator, he reveals intimate, unsettling details about their lives, and uncanny revelations about himself. All people, he claims, contain multitudes: a shadow-self, a bygone self, a self living elsewhere, a self that beckons to the future. Raúl singles out Margot, the most skeptical of the group, meeting her for lunches, swims, and walks, and taking her to the house where his family spent summers. As Raúl unfurls the mystery of his connection to Margot, though, what might have been a haunting tale is flawed by a convoluted web of coincidence. Similarly, in “Room on the Sea,” a tender encounter between Paul, a retired lawyer, and Catherine, a soon-to-be-retired psychologist, is undermined by stilted interchanges. They meet in New York awaiting jury duty assignments, and over the course of lunches, coffees, walks on the High Line, and visits to art galleries, they confess frustration with their lives. Both in stale marriages, they seem to be, as Paul puts it, “waiting for something unforeseen to come along.” Catherine agrees: “What I 6

MAY 1, 2025

find difficult these days,” she admits, “is being who I am, who I want to be, who I could become.” It’s a difficulty shared by the febrile young narrator of “Mariana,” enraged over having been abandoned after an intense, brief affair.

She knew her lover was a womanizer, but he awakened in her a newly discovered passion that she does not want to let go. “It’s me I miss,” she writes to him, “the me I didn’t know existed”: a rapturous, ecstatic self.

Uneven meditations on aging, regret, and loss.

Kirkus Star

The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen Azar, Shokoofeh | Europa Editions (528 pp.) $28.00 | May 6, 2025 | 9798889660972

Azar explores the roots of the Iranian revolution and its aftermath through the spiritual journey of one young woman.

Given that Azar left Iran after several arrests and now lives in Australia, and that her translator is anonymous “for security reasons,” it’s no surprise that her romantic and spiritual fabulism is steeped in resistance to the country’s oppressive government. The influence of both García Márquez and Pasternak whispers throughout. Narrator Shokoofeh begins her decades-long story in 1976, when she’s 15, living in the family mansion and obsessed with the concept of love. Her father is a professor at the University of Tehran

and the family is Zoroastrian, members of a religious minority in Iran. Many of the supernatural events in the story relate to Zoroastrian mythology: The boundary between the living and dead, who appear in multitudes, is permeable; Shokoof is loaned a magical Ball of Light; the Lord of Worlds has a love affair with Eblis, a mysterious woman of mythic power who appears in different guises in other scenes. More straightforward is Azar’s retelling of the 1979 Revolution, which was closely followed by the Iran-Iraq War. The author makes a strong case against the misgovernance, brutal oppression, and general chaos of the regime, focusing on fictional characters but also naming real names. The spine of the novel is Shokoof’s spiritual and physical journey as she searches for her missing brother on the front lines of battle and navigates a romantic love triangle with two cousins. One is her “restless lover” Behnam, an idealistic, communist-­ leaning intellectual to whom she’s committed her life, the other Bahnam, a ruthless Revolutionary Guard whose unrequited love for Shokoof never dissipates. Although readers may sometimes get lost, especially when the author’s imagination spirals in multiple directions at once, they can expect impassioned, gorgeous writing.

A wildly ambitious novel about Iran’s past, present, and future filled with longing and fury.

In the Family Way Becker, Laney Katz | Harper/ HarperCollins (304 pp.) | $30.00 June 3, 2025 | 9780063423244

A group of women deal with the social changes of the mid-1960s in Becker’s brightly polished novel.

In Akron, Ohio, in 1965, 26-year-old Lily Berg is happy to consider herself a housewife. Married to a busy physician, she has a toddler and is pregnant with another child.

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FICTION

Her sister, Rose Seigel, two years younger, is married to an attorney and working as an elementary school teacher. Lily meets regularly to play canasta with three of her neighbors, and they pass around copies of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, which Lily finds at first horrifying and then intriguing and even comforting. To help around the house, Lily enlists the aid of perky 15-year-old Betsy Eubanks, on loan from the local home for unwed mothers while she waits to deliver her own baby, and the two mothers-to-be become surprisingly close. Over the course of the next few months, Lily and the other women in her circle face a series of challenges, including domestic violence, the need for an illegal abortion, infertility, and divorce. The novel rotates in brisk, snappy chapters through the points of view of Lily, Rose, and Betsy. To some extent, it suffers from a tendency to condescend to its characters for behaving and thinking in ways the author seems to view, from her present-day perspective, as less than enlightened. Becker makes it clear that, though the characters don’t know it, Lily’s willed joy in playing housewife and Rose’s determined rationalizations of her husband’s increasingly abusive behavior are doomed from the start. The various storylines are also wrapped up with tidy efficiency and unlikely positivity.

But aside from one thoroughgoing scoundrel, the characters are charming and likable, and readers should enjoy spending time with them. Becker doesn’t allow her consideration of social issues to overwhelm a brisk narrative in which the characters are too competent and spunky to get caught more than temporarily in melodrama.

Historical novel with a feminist bent and heart to spare.

For more by Laney Katz Becker, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

There Are Reasons for This Berndt, Nini | Tin House (240 pp.) | $17.99 paper | June 3, 2025 | 9781963108262

This slim dystopian novel imagines a world of environmental collapse and the feel-good pharmaceuticals people use for coping.

In a climate-­ ravaged Denver—­ there’s unrelenting heat, toxic rain, dust, and lightning storms that can kill—21-year-old Lucy spies through her apartment’s peephole on her neighbor, Helen. Helen comes and goes, as do the pretty girls she brings home. Two years ago, Lucy’s older brother, Mikey, escaped the stranglehold of their eastern Colorado home, promising Lucy that she could join him as soon as she was old enough.

But he died mysteriously, and now, having finally made it to Denver, all Lucy has are memories of their daily phone conversations about his life as an artist and his friendship with Helen. Loneliness pervades this Denver: The population is in sharp decline, wild dogs roam the streets, robots staff the few restaurants still open. But loneliness creates new opportunities for humans. Helen is a professional cuddler, petting the foreheads of the rich; Lucy is a granddaughter for hire. Meanwhile, everyone takes the new federally approved drugs to escape existential dread; having failed to control the climate disaster, the state has opted for controlling the general mood.

Nominally structuring her story as a mystery—what happened to Mikey?— author Berndt is really intent on exploring the possibility of love and longing when all else seems to be screeching to a halt. Imaginative and brooding, the novel toggles between Lucy’s childhood memories of her beautiful brother and Helen’s recollections of a troubled Mikey. Helen and Lucy tentatively move toward love, but

Lucy has been keeping a secret—that she’s Mikey’s sister—and its revelation may destroy everything.

Poignant and sexy; brilliantly captures the hushed nihilism of living on a dying planet.

The Scrapbook Clark, Heather | Pantheon (256 pp.) $27.00 | June 17, 2025 | 9780593701904

A woman’s love affair is shadowed by the legacy of a tragedy a half-century earlier.

The first novel by literary critic and historian Clark—author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2020)—is narrated

by Anna, looking back at her relationship in the late 1990s with Christoph, a young German man. Anna is a budding English scholar graduating from Harvard, but Christoph, visiting a friend in Cambridge, waylays her broader ambitions with his charm and intellectual depth—much to the concern of her Jewish friends, who suspect he hasn’t shaken off his family’s toxic Nazi history. Christoph’s grandfather served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht during World War II, while Anna’s grandfather was a U.S. soldier who helped liberate Dachau. (The scrapbook of the title refers to photographs of Holocaust victims he kept tucked away.) Does a family history of wealth that “came off the backs of murdered Jews” disqualify Christoph as a partner? How much does it cloud Anna’s affections for him?

As they struggle through a long-­ distance relationship, the two are forthright about the challenges they face on that front—Clark is thoughtful on postwar Germany’s efforts to move beyond its Nazi past without ignoring it—but their relationship also faces some more conventional hassles in terms of betrayal and emotional distance. Clark writes about this milieu with grace and elegance, MAY 1, 2025

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FICTION

capturing Anna’s emotional frustration in acute detail. That largely rescues the novel from a plot that sometimes feels forced and potted; flashbacks featuring the pair’s grandfathers are rich in historic detail, but also feel pat. Still, Clark ultimately sells the idea that a present-day relationship can be shaped by forces that reside in a past we’d prefer to ignore.

An imperfect but ambitious take on the intellectual love story.

Kirkus Star

The Catch Daley-Ward, Yrsa | Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) $28.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781324092513

An inventive novel about family from a risk-taking writer.

Daley-Ward memorably played with structure in her memoir, The Terrible (2018), which combined prose and poetry to tell the story of her fraught childhood and young adulthood. Her debut novel finds her using a similar toolbox, but in a very new way.

The book follows 30-year-old twin sisters Clara, a writer whose debut novel is making literary waves, and Dempsey, who works an uninspiring administrative job. The two aren’t close, and haven’t been since they were adopted into different families as children after their mother was found dead on the bank of the Thames. Clara was “the chosen one,” welcomed into a wealthy family, while Dempsey was adopted by a single man, a member of the local council—the twins are, as Clara says, “opposite halves of a strange truth, both born from a force unknown.” Clara is shocked when she sees a woman shoplifting at a department store and believes it’s her long-dead mother, Serene, somehow brought back as a 30-year-old with no children. Clara stalks the woman, and they eventually become friends, to the horror of Dempsey, who thinks her sister—a 8

MAY 1, 2025

prolific drinker—is losing her mind.

The novel switches perspectives between Clara, convinced that she’s found her mother, and Dempsey, just trying to live her life, as Clara and the mystery woman enter into a bizarre and intense relationship. Daley-Ward explores the tension between the twins beautifully, with Dempsey struggling to pull her sister from the brink; both harbor barely concealed grudges against the other. (“Sometimes, I could happily decapitate my sister,” muses Dempsey at one point; not long after, Clara thinks, “Sometimes, I could happily strangle Dempsey.”) The novel ends with a genuine shock, but it’s earned—it’s a surprising conclusion to a beautifully written and structured book.

Elegant and unpredictable in the best possible way.

Lie in the Tide Danvers, Holly | Severn House (240 pp.) $29.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781448315987

Four high school friends reunite on Cape Cod, where nothing goes as planned.

Schoolteacher Calista Moore and her husband, Kirk, live in a charming suburban Massachusetts home with their son, Devon.

Remi Toussaint, who owns a Florida yoga studio and gym with her husband, Gabe, has been hesitant to attend the reunion, but Gabe, who attended the same high school, encourages her to go.

Avery Williams lives on an Iowa farm with her husband and children. Despite their encouragement, her life now appears vastly different from those of her friends. Mori Hart, the final member of the group and arguably the most successful, is an author and friend of the wealthy and famous. Along with her Martha’s Vineyard residence, she enjoys the use of a friend’s Cape Cod beach house gratis. On the arrival of everyone but Calista, the others chat about their lives over the past two decades. Meanwhile, Calista reaches out to Gabe, a

lifelong friend, insists that he fly up to meet her at Boston’s Logan Airport, and then reveals that Devon is his son. At the same time, on the Cape, numerous glasses of wine encourage further startling revelations. Remi discloses that she’s pregnant with another man’s child.

She and Gabe want a child of their own, but an accident has left Gabe sterile.

Against the advice of her publisher, Mori decides to write a true-crime book, while Avery is gradually losing her sight. When Calista fails to show up, the friends grow increasingly anxious, and the police become suspicious of Gabe. When Calista’s body is discovered on the beach, the friends realize that their unique knowledge might well solve the case.

An exciting thriller with a shocking denouement few will anticipate.

Kirkus Star

The Death of Us Dean, Abigail | Viking (336 pp.) $30.00 | April 15, 2025 | 9780593831137

A London couple struggles with the aftermath of a violent crime and an upcoming trial.

In a sea of thrillers that feel dishearteningly similar or too reliant on shocking twists, this book stands out, not only for its propulsive energy but also for its riveting, unorthodox examination of the devastating aftermath of violence. Isabel and Edward, a young married couple in London, learn the truth of this firsthand.

In 2001, a man who will become known as the South London Invader breaks into their home. He forces Edward to tie up Isabel and drags him to another room, then returns to the bedroom to assault Isabel. The couple survives the attack— later, as the Intruder’s crimes escalate, other victims will not be so lucky—but their marriage eventually crumbles, annihilated by trauma, fear, and Edward’s inability to discuss what happened (particularly to him).

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Twenty-five years later, a retired police officer named Nigel Wood is on trial for the rapes and murders, and Isabel and Edward, now divorced and in their 50s, find themselves repeatedly thrown together as they wait with other victims to give their statements in court. But though it touches on the courtroom drama, this is not a legal thriller: Dean focuses on the years before and after the attack, revealing how violence exposed cracks in the marriage and destroyed the lives of all involved. She doesn’t tell the harrowing story in chronological order, but the narrative is easy to follow, and she builds a startling level of tension as the moment nears for Isabel and Edward’s testimony. She invests readers not only in the outcome of the case but also in the fates of two people split apart by terrifying events outside their control.

An intriguing thriller that explores the toll violence takes on its victims.

Welcome to Murder Week Dukess, Karen | Scout Press/ Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) | $28.99 June 10, 2025 | 9781668079775

A young woman travels to England after discovering tickets to a murder mystery week purchased by her estranged late mother.

Thirty-fouryear-old Cath Little lives a quiet life in Buffalo, New York, inhabiting the Victorian house she inherited from the grandmother who raised her and running an optician business she acquired from her retired neighbor. It’s been several months since a stroke killed 55-yearold Skye Sanders Little, and Cath is still reluctant to go through the boxes left to her. Having survived a lonely childhood that featured brief, intermittent visits from the itinerant Skye, Cath has mixed feelings as she finally tackles the remnants of her mother’s possessions. But amid the unpaid bills and other detritus, Cath finds a receipt showing that her financially strapped K IR KU S R E V IE W S

A subtle portrait of friendship, marriage, and parenthood in New York.

AMONG FRIENDS

mother paid for two tickets to “solve a ‘genuine fake English-village murder mystery’” in the Peak District.

Reluctant but curious, Cath is soon sharing a cozy cottage in the village of Willowthrop, teaming up with housemates Wyatt Green, who unhappily works in his husband’s birding shop in New Jersey, and Amity Clark, a divorced romance writer from California. The trio’s quest to solve the fake mystery also becomes an investigation of the real-life mystery of Cath’s mother. What was her connection to Willowthrop? Along the way, Cath enjoys a romantic fling with a handsome maker of artisanal gin. Dukess follows up on her touching coming-of-age debut, The Last Book Party (2019), with a charming and funny homage to cozy mysteries. All the genre’s tropes are here: the clever amateur sleuths, the quaint setting, “the vicar, the nosy neighbor, and the village doctor.” But this is also a poignant, redemptive tale of a griefstricken daughter reconciling her troubled past with her promising future.

An entertaining whodunit with a touch of heartwarming pathos.

Among Friends Ebbott, Hal | Riverhead (320 pp.) | $28.00 June 24, 2025 | 9780593854198

A subtle, keenly intelligent, psychologically deft—and deeply grim—portrait of friendship, marriage, and parenthood among the New York upper crust.

Emerson and Amos met and bonded three decades ago in college,

and their families—wives Retsy and Claire, teenage daughters Sophie and Anna—seem happily entangled, mutually supportive. As the novel begins, they’ve assembled at Emerson and Retsy’s country house to celebrate Emerson’s 52nd birthday. But tensions simmer beneath the surface: between the men, within the marriages, even in the relationship between the daughters, which has entered the awkwardness of late adolescence and may or may not survive. In a “friendly” tennis match against Amos, Emerson suffers an ankle injury that, as a memento mori and a reminder of ancient rivalry, exacerbates the tensions both within and without. Before the weekend is over, a spontaneous act of violence and violation will threaten not only to destroy the long friendship but to jolt both families from the comfortable orbits of their privileged, on-the-surface untroubled lives. It’s a prospect Claire in particular seems ill-prepared for. This is the kind of book Tom Wolfe used to write, and debut novelist Ebbott definitely has the talent and brio to carry it off. “Unflinching” is a label often applied to such works, but that word’s not nearly strong enough for what happens here; this is a very smart book, but at its center is a ruthlessness that can be hard to look at. Whether that’s a compliment or not may depend on the reader.

Ambitious, penetrating, occasionally brilliant—and a little cold.

For more fiction reviews, visit Kirkus online.

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FICTION

Gingko Season Elegant, Naomi Xu | Norton (264 pp.) | $19.99 paper | May 20, 2025 | 9781324086147

A young woman tries to move on after a difficult breakup.

Penelope Lin, who grew up in Beijing, loves Philadelphia, the city she calls home. She’s passionate about her job at a museum, where she gets to research foot-binding practices and handle historical relics.

Some good friends from college live nearby, and she has roommates she likes as well. By chance, she meets a young man she’s drawn to, but even as their connection deepens, she pines for another chance with her ex-boyfriend.

It’s the fall of 2018, two years into the first Trump administration, and the midterm elections are coming up.

Politics feel inescapable even for Penelope, who thinks of herself as apolitical. Partly because of her new love interest’s interests, she volunteers with a group of activists trying to unionize the workers of a popular hotel. Penelope and her close friends don’t always agree on politics or what they should be doing with their lives as they approach their mid-20s, but they share their points of view and grapple with choices around careers and dating. Penelope has the added complication of confronting, for the first time as an adult, aspects of her relationship with her parents she’d rather not face. The story is narrated by Penelope, and debut author Elegant writes long, rhythmic, fluid sentences.

She and her protagonist are tuned into the five senses, making the book’s descriptive paragraphs a pleasure to read. Penelope loves history in general and Napoleon Bonaparte in particular, resulting in long passages related to the Napoleonic era, the history of Philadelphia, different Chinese dynasties, and more. In keeping with the tradition of coming-of-age novels, Penelope is nothing if not idiosyncratic, but the book plays it safe, focusing on small internal moments of reflection and 10

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questioning rather than conflict among characters or the consequences of actions taken or not taken.

This feels like a beautifully wrought short story extended into novel form.

Hellions Elliott, Julia | Tin House (256 pp.) | $17.95 paper | April 15, 2025 | 9781963108064

Childhood is full of dark magic in this collection of gothic stories.

In “Hellion,” a girl named Butter with a pet alligator and a wild streak seeks out a mystical creature she calls the Swamp Ape. “You think it’s a real monster or just a crazy person,” asks the boy her great-aunt has asked her to entertain for the week. “A person can be a real monster too,” she answers.

Indeed, monsters come in all shapes and sizes in these stories; some of them disrupt the status quo while others are products of stultifying domestic situations. In “Arcadia Lakes,” 16-yearold Fern’s life has fallen apart—her parents are at war, and she’s a lonely, awkward adolescent—when she discovers a mysterious sea creature with tendrils and tentacles and a warbling voice in the receding artificial lake in front of her house, while in “All the Other Demons,” watching The Exorcist offers a family of six a brief reprieve from their escalating domestic squabbles. The children in “The Mothers” run wild, pursuing ever more dangerous fun while their distracted mothers drink too much and toil away at laughably puerile projects at an artist’s colony. Elliot’s prose is immersive and lush, with all the

wonders and unexpected surprises of an overgrown patch of woods. In the best of these stories, the fantastical elements create a new language that makes the familiar strange again. The Wild Professor in “Erl King” is an all-too-recognizable type: a lecherous older man who preys on young women.

But in Elliot’s retelling of the tale, the narrator and her older lover are both capable of transforming into wild animals, which ultimately makes them equals and allows the narrator to leave when she’s ready.

The path forward is not always brightest in these transporting tales.

Circular Motion Foster, Alex | Grove (368 pp.) $28.00 | May 13, 2025 | 9780802164483

When the Earth starts spinning just a bit faster, three people from a small Alaska town find their lives intertwined with each other’s and the fate of the planet.

Foster’s debut novel has grand ambitions, which are made intimate through a close examination of the characters at its core.

Twenty-year-old Tanner wants to escape Keber Creek, a town of 900 people, and especially his father, so he reaches out to a fellow Keber Creek native, Victor Bickle, a former Columbia professor of mechanical engineering, for advice.

Tanner quickly finds himself working as Bickle’s assistant at the Circumglobal Westward Circuit Group, where Bickle has parlayed his internet success into a job as host of the company’s new series, Professor Bickle’s Science Hour, where he

Childhood is full of dark magic in this collection of gothic stories.

HELLIONS

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bounces between acting as a spokesperson and scientist. The days are growing shorter, though, and opponents of CWC suggest that its pioneering travel program, which can jet people across the world in less than an hour, is the root cause. The clear connection between hyperspeed travel and rapidly shortening days is clear to activists across the globe, and it’s a cause taken up by 15-year-old Winnie, another Keber Creek resident, as a way to make friends during a lonely high school experience. She and her friends protest this pursuit of profit over global stability, and her world slowly begins to find its way to Tanner and Bickle’s, with Foster artfully weaving their stories together. Winnie spends much of the book desperately pondering her existence in relation to her mother, who haunts the novel like a ghost after trying to take her own life, unlikely to emerge from her coma. She was looking, explains Foster, “to deny that she was in this world deeply and truly without a reason.” While a definitive reason never arrives, Winnie might take heed of one of Tanner’s observations during the novel’s waning pages: “In Greek, ‘apocalypse’ means an uncovering or unveiling; it means something brought into view.”

Equal parts ambitious and intimate, with enough humanity and empathy to keep weighty themes from swallowing it whole.

Where I Went Wrong Galef, David | Regal House Publishing (248 pp.) $19.95 paper | May 6, 2025 | 9781646035861

A frustrated young man mulls his many mistakes.

In New Jersey in 2000, Tony Mazza (like matzah, only not, ha ha) stumbles out of a courtroom, wondering where he’s gone wrong in his life, and his narrative provides a thousand answers ranging from funny to sad. He relates his life in reverse: 2000 becomes K IR KU S R E V IE W S

1994, then 1991 and so on, going back to his birth, which Mom fills him in on. Tony can’t keep even an entry-level job, as reporting to work on time at IHOP is a nagging issue. Surrounded by bad influences like his father and his lifelong friend Sandy Quade, he screws up by the numbers but only blames himself: “Where did I go wrong?” he asks himself over and over. In 1990, “the unemployment rate’s low enough for you to step over,” and yet he’s “thirty-one, divorced and jobless.”

Loser isn’t tattooed on his forehead, although readers may wonder why not.

Along the way, he peppers his narrative with lame jokes. “I know a bunch of jokes about being unemployed. But none of them work. Ha ha ha.” At times it feels like Tony has memorized his childhood joke book and wants to share every damned gag. (One or two fewer groaners would’ve been nice.)

But then lines like this more than compensate: “That voice, sweet with an edge, is like orange juice left out too long.” Typical Tony: He makes a date with a girl and then forgets to show up.

In high school he’s casual about punctuality, arriving at “Ms. Rosen’s Western Civ. class in time to be fifteen minutes late.” He could be a decent student—for example, his comments in English class about Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye are perceptive: “It’s what Salinger thinks a rebel kid should be.” And yet a quiet tragedy lurks in the background of the Mazza family’s lives. Tony’s younger sister, Angela, has been missing for two decades, and all hope of finding her is lost. When the story circles back to 2000 no one is looking for her anymore, and Tony faces possible jail time on a low-level drug charge. One thread leads to a shock, the other to a glimmer of hope.

Clever storytelling with an over-thetop protagonist.

For more by David Galef, visit Kirkus online.

Hazel Says No Gross, Jessica Berger | Hanover Square Press (352 pp.) | $28.99 June 17, 2025 | 9781335015129

A high school senior is propositioned by her principal on the first day of school, and she says no.

For Hazel Blum, newly transplanted with her family from Brooklyn to Riverburg, Maine, there is a before and there is an after. The watershed is the moment when the principal of her new high school closes his office door, begins stroking her leg, and says “Every year I choose one student to have sex with. This year, I pick you.” Through the emotional turmoil of the moment and all her fears and worries and stress about the power that this man has over her life and her future college acceptances, Hazel says no.

The resulting story is one that covers the highs and lows of the following year—the accusations, the denials, the embarrassment, the investigation and all the uproar it causes to her and her family: her mother, Claire, a former clothing designer trying to get her inspiration back; her father, Gus, a college professor with a new job who’s trying to do his best after a poorly planned first lecture; and her brother, Wolf, a sixth grader who is desperate to make friends and, hopefully, be cast in the middle school’s production of Charlotte’s Web while dealing with being the only Jewish kid in the school.

But the turmoil grows ever bigger, involving people from the Blums’ new small-town community and beyond. This is a book that doesn’t shy away from the emotional trauma created by terrible situations, but it also embraces the joy and light that can be found in moments both big and small. It explores guilt, victim-blaming in its many shapes, and the stress caused by moving from a big city to a small town and having to navigate the dense, interconnected web of relationships in that community.

An engaging, stressful, glorious examination of the aftermath of an awful event.

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FICTION

Their Double Lives

tale runs distinctly lower on energy and ingenuity, though not on casualties.

Hendricks, Jaime Lynn Scarlet (304 pp.) | $17.95 paper May 20, 2025 | 9781613166048

An elaborately planned murder at an exclusive New Jersey country club leaves the wrong person dead. And that’s only the beginning.

Kimberly Valva is the world’s most unlikely hired killer.

Self-employed graphic designers who make ends meet by serving guests at country clubs and praying to put away enough money for the surgery that would save their ailing goldendoodles’ lives don’t fit the profile. But Kim’s unlikely credentials, combined with her need for quick cash, may be exactly what attracts The Stranger, a computerized telephone voice that offers her $20,000 if she slips a lethal dose into new member Anthony Fuller’s drink. There seems to be just one glitch: Unknown to everyone else, Anthony turns out to be a cleaned-up version of Tony Fiore, the bad boy who was Kim’s first love back in their Brooklyn high school. Kim’s unwillingness to poison Tony leads rapidly to a second glitch when his fiancée, Poppy Jade Walsh, keels over instead. The series of flashbacks that rapidly alternate with developments in the present reveal that Kim wasn’t the only aspiring killer on the murder scene: PJ, aided and abetted by her friend Matt Mazzucca, who’d relocated from Texas specifically to help her, had been planning for over a year to target Tony, who’d killed PJ’s mother in a robbery back in 2006. More threats and surprises will follow at a brisk pace that flags only in the final chapters, when the

Fans will enjoy each wildly implausible twist as reassuring evidence that none of this could ever happen to them.

The Family Recipe Huynh, Carolyn | Atria (320 pp.) $28.99 | April 1, 2025 | 9781668033043

Five estranged siblings must uproot their lives in order to win their father’s inheritance.

Jude, Jane, Bingo, Paulina, and Georgia Trân have never been close. Their mother, Evelyn, disappeared when they were young, leaving them in Houston to be raised by their father, Duc, the head of a banh mi shop empire.

The four daughters spent their youth just waiting to turn 18 and leave home; Jude, the lone son, was the only one to stay behind, siding with their father. Now the siblings, in their 20s and early 30s, have been called back to the family home by Huey Ngô, their father’s lawyer and best friend, who informs the five siblings that in the next year they must each accomplish a task that’s been set by their father: All four sisters are being sent to a failing shop—one each in Houston, Philadelphia, San Jose, and New Orleans—and told to make it successful again. Jude, meanwhile, has to get married. Whoever finishes first wins the entire inheritance. As the siblings start on their projects, they re-examine their lives, their relationships, and what their family actually means to them. Huynh jumps among the characters’ perspectives as well as jumping in time, slowly

Two sets of siblings head overseas to meet Jane Austen’s surviving brother.

AU S T E N AT S E A

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revealing the story of the Trân parents’ origins from the time they fled Vietnam to the morning Evelyn left; the story also moves forward as each sibling learns from their ordeal. While this book is clearly filled with love for its characters and Vietnamese American culture, it’s an epic family drama squashed into the length of an average novel. The ideas and the writing are good, but they needed more room to breathe.

A family story big on plot but short on characterization.

Austen at Sea Jenner, Natalie | St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $29.00 | May 6, 2025 | 9781250349590

Two sets of siblings—­ unmarried sisters Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, and bachelor brothers Nicholas and Haslett Nelson— make their way overseas to meet Sir Francis Austen, Jane Austen’s last surviving brother.

The year is 1865. The Civil War is coming to a close, emancipation is on the horizon, the evolution of women’s rights is on everyone’s minds, and Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson— the headstrong and independent daughters of a well-to-do Massachusetts Supreme Court justice—have a secret.

Both avid fans of Jane Austen and her work, they have conspired with the author’s last surviving brother, Francis, to visit him in England. Little do they know that they aren’t the only Austen fans in touch with Francis. At the same time, down in Philadelphia, Nicholas and Haslett Nelson, two handsome Civil War veterans and rare book dealers, have also been corresponding with Francis, who has promised them access to an Austen artifact that could change their lives forever. Together, the Stevensons and the Nelsons—accompanied by an outlandish and somewhat befuddling cast of literary characters, including the likes of Louisa May Alcott—make their way across the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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ocean to England. The story that unfolds here moves at a rapid-fire pace and is convoluted at best. The result lacks the emotional depth and wit of the Austen novels it’s paying homage to, and will leave readers struggling to connect.

A rushed and emotionally flat story.

Felony Juggler Jillette, Penn | Akashic (240 pp.) $26.95 | May 6, 2025 | 9781636142388

An ambitious but aimless street hustler becomes a rolling stone when he’s dragged into a bank job gone awry.

What to make of a character who’s so much like his creator—gifted in weird and dazzling ways, prone to misadventure, and with a persistent habit of talking about his junk? This could be the fictional biography of the verbal half of Penn & Teller had things gone badly wrong once. Here the raconteur injects himself into lead character Poe Legette, a well-meaning ne’er-do-well making his way through the rock ’n’ roll 1970s. Poe is a graduate of clown college—really—who’s raking in fat stacks as a comic juggler in Philly.

Things go awry when a pal ropes him into a half-assed bank robbery, during which a bystander is killed. Panicked and on the run, he heads for the first place that comes to mind: Hibbing, Minnesota, birthplace of one Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan (“I didn’t have a guitar, but I had balls”). There, he changes his name, falls in love with an implausibly oversexed librarian named Marion, and reinvents himself as a Renaissance Faire axe-juggler. But when the consequences of his actions follow him to his newly adopted home, Poe must rely on his loud mouth and quick wits to get out of mortal danger. Since his debut novel, Sock (2004), Jillette has generally married his whip-smart, raunchy sense of humor to hard-boiled plots, but there’s less gunplay and femme fatales here than you’d expect from this sort of thing. We do learn lots K IR KU S R E V IE W S

of fascinating shop talk, from the nuts and bolts of juggling to “cold reading” a mark to crowd work. What remains is a very funny, oft-vulgar cautionary tale that doesn’t pull any punches, even about ol’ Bob himself. “The whole idea of genius,” Poe scoffs. “Everything is just hard work. Everything is juggling.”

A fast-talking, ball-juggling tall tale about long shots, escape attempts, and other bad decisions.

A Hired Kill Konkoly, Steven | Thomas & Mercer (397 pp.) $16.99 paper | May 27, 2025 | 9781662524455

A righteous FBI agent is both hunter and prey as he fights international cabals.

Garrett Mann’s second adventure picks up just where his debut appearance, A Clean Kill (2024), left off, with Mann, the head of FBI task force ARTEMIS, and his partner, Catalina Serrano, in an underground facility in New Mexico full of ill-gotten cash. Roughly interrogating captive Elena of the deadly Juárez Cartel, they extract a promise of her assistance. The subsequent action-packed plot is twisty rather than complex. As he pursues various members of villainous cabals, whom can Mann trust? Konkoly introduces an overwhelming number of faceless, largely interchangeable characters and an alphabet soup of acronyms, some familiar (FBI, CIA, SWAT, ICE, ICU, ATF), some less familiar or invented (SCIF, AXIOM, LABYRINTH, BOLO, DOMINION). Readers who let these details slide and follow the driven Mann on his mission will be rewarded with punchy prose, rhythmic scenes of hand-to-hand combat, high-tech wizardry, sophisticated weaponry, and so many surprise reveals—you know, those moments when we learn that a supposed ally is actually a sworn enemy—that the story often feels like raw material for a graphic novel. While

Mann and Serrano pursue La Triada, a Mexican crime syndicate, a cabal of bureaucrats bolstered by some UK mercenaries implement a risky plan to wipe out Mann’s ARTEMIS. Will Serrano’s thirst for revenge against La Triada undermine her rationality?

A feverish international thriller that perpetually reshuffles its focus and allegiances.

Kirkus Star

That’s All I Know Levi, Elisa | Trans. by Christina MacSweeney Graywolf (192 pp.) | $17.00 paper May 20, 2025 | 9781644453377

A young woman recounts the strange story of her life at the edge of a forest.

What does it mean for the world to end?

Spanish author Levi’s novel takes up that question both literally and figuratively. Largely structured as 19-year-old narrator Little Lea’s tale of her life, which she’s recounting to a man in search of his lost dog, this novel reckons with the appeal and dangers of home. “I don’t know how it is where you’re from, sir, but when you escape from here, you don’t return,” Little Lea explains to her partner in conversation. She’s talking about the remote town in which she grew up, as well as the dangers that lurk in the surrounding forest. This idea of abandonment as deeply final echoes the apocalyptic imagery that runs throughout the book and the outright belief among some characters that the world is about to end. In some ways, Levi’s novel is a familiar coming-of-age tale, navigating Little Lea’s troubled relationship with her family, marijuana-­ fueled contemplation, and infatuation with Javier, an old friend. Eventually, Little Lea reveals that her older sister Nora’s disabilities have upset a balance within the family: “With Nora and her damaged brain, my mother >>> MAY 1, 2025

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F I C T I O N // Q & A

THE KIRKUS Q&A: AARON JOHN CURTIS The author of Old School Indian on illness, healing, and his roundabout path to autofiction.

BY MARK ATHITAKIS

What does it mean to be the “quartermaster” at Books & Books?

The quartermaster is the guy in the Army who, anytime someone had to requisition something, you went to him and he would bring in whatever it was you needed. With indie bookstores, everybody wears so many hats that it’s impossible to say, “I cover this” or “I cover that.” Some people would hand out their 14

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business cards, and there would be a little paragraph under their name with all the stuff that they took care of. I didn’t want to go that route, so I picked a big, all-­encompassing title.

In the novel, Abe is diagnosed with a fictional disease, Systemic Necrotizing Periarteritis. In real life, you had Polyarteritis nodosa. How similar are the two?

They’re very similar.

There’s a line in the book about how “1.5 million people have rheumatoid arthritis, but only four people have what you have.” That was something my rheumatologist told me.

It’s a scary thing. I worried about writing about it, because by the time I got around to finishing the book, it was under control—they had me on an injection that tamped my immune system down. It was going very well for me, it was working for me. But as for Abe, well, he needs to have his journey.

How did the diagnosis impact your writing of the novel?

There was a lot of beating myself up at the time: What have you done now? You’re gonna die. I was in a writers’ group, so all of that fear and panic just came out [in the writing]. They really enjoyed

it. And they were like, “Keep going with this, flesh it out.”

The first version of the novel was in first person, and I think it had to do with the fear of death and the guilt over how much time I felt I had wasted, thinking that nothing would ever come of this effort. There was a lot of anger, and it was directed towards the reader, and I needed to get away from that. Diana Abu-Jaber [a novelist and member of my writers’ group] said, “Go to the third see what that unlocks.”

But you kept the first person in interludes narrated by Dominick Deer Woods, Abe’s poet alter ego.

He brings the humor, as opposed to the anger.

Because you can have both, as well as the grief and all that wrapped up in one book. But it goes down a lot easier with a joke.

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Cac á Santoro

Aaron John Curtis is a Miami-based bookseller of Native American (Kanien’kéha) heritage who faced down a rare autoimmune disorder while getting his start as a writer. Abe, the hero of his debut novel, is also a Native American bookseller in Miami who aspires to be a professional writer.

But Curtis’ path to autofiction wasn’t as straightforward as those storylines suggest.

“I had it in my mind that if you’re writing fiction, it had to come 100% from your imagination, or it wasn’t a valid piece of writing,” Curtis says via video chat from his home in Miami. In the novel, he explains, Abe originally worked in insurance and lived in Tampa. But a colleague at Books & Books, the landmark indie store where he works as “quartermaster,” told him, “Just go full autofiction with this.

Write what’s going on with you and just see what happens.”

What happened was the novel Old School Indian, which Kirkus, in a starred review, calls “an affecting tale of loss and healing that thrives through its seriocomic style.”

In this interview, edited for length and clarity, Curtis discusses the novel’s circuitous development, its relationship with other works of Native American fiction, and the one change that made everything click into place.

Q & A // F I C T I O N

The book has examples of Abe’s poetry. Do you consider yourself a poet?

I’m the child of an alcoholic. When I was younger, I would go to Al-Anon and Alateen meetings, and I wrote some poetry during that time to kind of process everything. So it’s always something I’ve done. But I’ve never called myself a poet, and I’ve never had a poetry group. I’ve had essay groups, and fiction groups. But you just can’t get any four poets to agree to a certain date at a certain time [laughs]. So the poetry is what I’m honestly the most worried about. Originally, my idea was that as Abe got more

effective as a poet, the poetry in the book would get better. The first ones were gonna be rough, and then by the time you got to the end of the book, it would be the best he could do. And that got thrown away pretty quickly. I just really tried to make every one the best I could.

There was a poem that I thought was one of the strongest, and I loved it. And during one of the last passes through [the manuscript], where you’re more focused on grammar and not rewriting anything, it just jumped out at me. Like, This is not it. This poem is standing in the way of the right poem that’s behind it. I

rewrote the entire thing. And [the editors] didn’t change a word of it. They were just like, “The first one we loved, but this was a showstopper.”

The novel deals with Abe’s attempts to heal via Western medicine but also with folk healing through his Great Uncle Budge. It’s a little similar in some ways to Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony.

There’s a story Budge tells in the novel about breaking the world that’s very similar to a story Silko tells in Ceremony. And what’s funny was my uncle had told me that story, but he never said, “I read this in a book.” It was one of the

I had it in my mind that if you’re writing fiction, it had to come 100% from your imagination.

Old School Indian Curtis, Aaron John

Zando | 352 pp. | $28.00 May 6, 2025 | 9781638931454

scenes that has always been there, since Day 1 of the book. I was googling Tommy Orange to see what he was doing, and he’d written this article about Ceremony and talked about that scene. I had never read it; it was always on the about-to-read shelf.

I pulled it out and read it and I’m like, Oh my God, I just ripped this off.

What Native American writers had you been reading?

Sherman Alexie and Louise Erdrich were the two big writers in our family.

Especially Erdrich. My mom would always say, “I haven’t thought of this story since I was a kid” when she was reading her work. I love Tommy Orange, Morgan Talty, and Oscar Hokeah.

Oscar’s novel, Calling for a Blanket Dance, is also a story about healing, kind of similar to Ceremony. I guess it’s just a thing. Like, we’re all kind of trying to work on healing generational trauma, [to work on] getting better, and it’s showing up in our work.

What are you working on next?

A few things. I keep them on a vision board—some of it looks like a note from a serial killer [laughs]. It’s too soon to talk about. But I also have wellness stuff on there. The book tour is on there, reminding myself to be in the moment and enjoy the process. I don’t know how much I’m going to like it. I’ve seen [book tours] from the other end so many times, so I’m dying of curiosity.

Mark Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix.

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F I C T I O N // I N T H E N E W S

IN THE NEWS

Dag Solstad

Dag Solstad Dies at 83

Dag Solstad, the Norwegian author known for his gloomy and sometimes dryly funny novels, has died at 83, the Guardian reports.

Solstad, a native of Sandefjord, Norway, worked as a journalist and teacher before publishing his first book, the story collection Spiraler, in 1965. He would go on to write more than two dozen books.

His works to be published in English include Shyness and Dignity, translated by Sverre Lyngstad; T Singer, translated by Tiina Nunnally; Armand V, translated by Steven T. Murray; and Novel 11, Book 18, also translated

by Lyngstad.

In a 2016 interview with the Paris Review, Solstad said that he had been lucky as a writer.

“Some passages I’ve written have made me doubt—Can I publish this, can I live with this being out there? And

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I’ve thought, I really can’t, but I’ll keep it anyhow. Generally it has worked out well. That’s luck, because I could just as easily have deleted those pass­ages. I have deleted a lot.”

Solstad’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, novelist Brandon Taylor wrote, “RIP Dag Solstad, one of the best weird guys of literature.”

And the account for U.K. publisher Harvill Secker posted on Instagram, “We are saddened to hear of the death of our author Dag Solstad. One of Norway’s most celebrated writers, and the only author to have won the Norwegian Critics prize three times, his legacy endures in his inimitable writing. Our thoughts are with his family.”—M.S.

Rober to Ricciuti/Get t y Images

The novelist was one of Norway’s most celebrated contemporary writers.

For reviews of Solstad’s books, visit Kirkus online.

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A W A R D S // F I C T I O N

AWARDS

Fiona McFarlane wins the Story Prize The Australian author took home the award for Highway Thirteen.

was already an incredible honor.”

Judging this year’s prize were writers Elliott Holt and Maurice Carlos Ruffin and bookseller Lucy Yu. In a statement, the judging panel said, “Fiona McFarlane writes with psychological precision and a masterful sense of suspense. Each story is artfully constructed and the way they fit together, spanning seventy-eight years, is nothing short of dazzling. Fiona McFarlane’s book is a tour de force about the stories we tell, the surprising ways our lives connect, and the ripple effects of violence.”

The Story Prize was established in 2004.

Previous winners include Claire Vaye Watkins for Battleborn, Elizabeth McCracken for Thunderstruck, and Ling Ma for Bliss Montage.—M.S.

Beowulf Sheehan

Fiona McFarlane has won the Story Prize, given annually to an outstanding short story collection, for Highway Thirteen.

McFarlane’s book, published last August

by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, follows the lives of people affected by a serial killer who terrorized an Australian town years before. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master.”

“When you send a book of short stories out in the world, you’re never quite sure what will become of it, and I’m very grateful that this particular book has brought me here,” McFarlane said, accepting the prize at a private Fiona ceremony in March.

McFarlane “Being on this shortlist alone

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For a review of Highway Thirteen, visit Kirkus online.

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learned that life can be cruel and that prevented her happiness from developing.” In MacSweeney’s translation, Little Lea’s voice—at once casual and haunted—emerges as a compelling element, both casual and occasionally jarring, as when Little Lea’s struggles with her sister culminate in an image both visually stunning and deeply transgressive. Much like the forest that surrounds the setting here, this is a novel capable of lethal shocks and bold transfigurations.

An unconventional and memorable coming-of-age story.

Women Like Us Lief, Katia | Atlantic Monthly (272 pp.) $27.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780802164926

In this follow-up to Invisible Woman (2024), Lief explores the effects of family trauma on a trio of strong, flawed women.

Five years after she killed her husband, Joni Ackerman has found some modicum of peace: She’s running a successful production company with her daughter, Chris, and best friend, Val, and she spends most of her time in her airy Malibu house, only returning to New York for business every now and then.

She’s not dating, or interested, but she’s cultivating herself as a strong, independent, single woman, knowing that she’ll never completely let go of either her guilt or fear of her own darkness.

When her estranged brother, Marc, turns up on the doorstep looking for a place to crash, she’s hesitant at first, as their relationship, grounded in a traumatic childhood, has never been close. But soon he’s knitting with Chris and cooking gourmet meals. When Joni has to head to New York for a week, she feels okay asking Marc to stay in her house and dog-sit for her beloved goldendoodle, Stella. But then Val discovers what Marc is running from. For the rest of the novel, Joni’s private detective pursues Marc, who 18

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Lief explores the effects of family trauma on a trio of strong, flawed women.

WOMEN LIKE US

seems to have a source keeping him one step ahead of the chase. Despite this drama, the novel, like its predecessor, is really about navigating the world as a woman of a certain age, now in a seemingly post #MeToo world: the challenges, the choices, and the freedoms. It’s more noticeable in this novel, though, that the path is more easily walked by women of a certain socioeconomic class; Joni and Val undoubtedly have problems, but they also have the money to mitigate them.

Still, their complicated friendship, their ability to both love and hurt each other, testifies to the message at the heart of it all: sometimes, friends are true soul mates, capable of accepting even the darkest parts of each other.

Lief celebrates the power of female friendship, especially in middle age.

A Family Matter Lynch, Claire | Scribner (240 pp.) $24.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9781668078891

Minds can change over time—but can hearts?

Two stories unfold in British author Lynch’s debut novel, a straightforward but searching story of family, love, and loss. Heron is a divorced older man who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis and reacts to the news by keeping to his regular routine of grocery shopping—until he deposits himself into the frozen food case of his local supermarket. After being hauled out of the freezer by market employees, Heron continues life in his usual way. He delays

sharing his diagnosis with his adult daughter, Maggie, since some things are best “papered over.” Interwoven with Heron’s story is one from 40 years prior, when a young wife and mother, Dawn, encounters another young woman at a community jumble sale. The growing friendship between Dawn and newcomer Hazel leads to an “earthquake” when the women kiss and begin a physical relationship.

That Dawn and Heron were once married is no secret, nor is the fact of their divorce. What is shrouded by years of silence, however, is the reason for Dawn’s disappearance from the family’s life. As Maggie slowly comes to grips with Heron’s condition and helps sort through, literally, the accumulated paperwork and detritus of a life, she is also negotiating her own way though middle age, haunted by a vague feeling that there is more to life than endless chores. Recalling her now-ill father as the parent who stayed with her and raised her post-divorce, Maggie believes she’s repaying a debt of love. Lynch subtly untangles the threads—completely severed by 2022—that tied Maggie, Heron, and Dawn together as a family in the 1980s and exposes the forces that cut those ties as she raises thoughtful and heartbreaking questions about what really is in a child’s best interest.

An affecting exploration of the shelf life of love.

For more debut fiction, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

These Summer Storms MacLean, Sarah | Ballantine (400 pp.) $30.00 | July 8, 2025 | 9780593972250

After her tycoon father’s death, a woman reunites with her estranged family for a dramatic week on their private island.

Alice Storm hasn’t visited her family in five years, but this is no normal house she’s avoiding. Her father was Franklin Storm, founder of a world-changing technology company, and their home is a private island off the Rhode Island coast. When Alice went against her controlling father’s wishes, she was cut off and banished. She’s been supporting herself as a teacher and artist, trying her best to forget that she was ever a Storm—that is, until Franklin’s death.

Now she’s back with the family she hasn’t spoken to in years—her icy mother, Elisabeth; rule-following older sister, Greta; bratty, power-hungry older brother, Sam; and spiritual younger sister, Emily, who never met a crystal she didn’t like. Among them, Alice is the rebel—the only one who managed to ignore their father’s wishes and escape the island. But it turns out that, even in death, Franklin is still calling the shots.

He’s left them challenges they must complete if they want to earn their inheritance, and if any one of them fails, the whole group loses. Alice’s task seems almost impossible, even though it’s simpler than the others’: She just has to stay on the island, with her family, for the entire week. All this information is delivered by Jack Dean, Franklin’s right-hand man. He’s also the guy Alice accidentally slept with before realizing who he was (whoops). Now she’s stuck with her family and a man she’s deeply attracted to even though she hates him for being involved in her father’s company—and she has to make it through her father’s funeral (or “celebration,” as her mother insists on calling it).

MacLean’s first foray into contemporary K IR KU S R E V IE W S

family drama has notes of Succession along with the steamy romance she’s known for in her historical novels. The Storm family is full of complicated, flawed characters, and sticking them together on an island for a week leads to lots of delightfully dramatic fights, secrets, and reveals.

A compelling story about grief, sex, and money, but also the power of family and forgiveness.

Florenzer Melanson, Phil | Liveright/Norton (368 pp.) $29.99 | June 10, 2025 | 9781324095033

A young, gay Leonardo da Vinci navigates Renaissance Florence and its troubled leadership.

Melanson’s assured debut is set between 1471 and 1483, crucial years for both the artist and his homeland. Leonardo had completed his apprenticeship as a painter, but his efforts to find wealthy patrons are waylaid by his lack of interest in delivering conventional work, along with his romance with Iac, a prostitute and aspiring goldsmith who serves as his muse. Meanwhile, Lorenzo, the head of the powerful banking Medici family, is at loggerheads with new leadership in the Vatican, which threatens his ability to assign plum church spots for family members and maintain the family role as the Pope’s bankers. Generally alternating between Leonardo and Lorenzo, the book’s chapters limn each man’s subtle influence on the other; crackdowns on homosexual activity to appease the Pope make Leonardo a target, and Leonardo’s growing reputation as a brilliant painter brings him into the circle of well-off patrons (including Lorenzo’s brother).

The historical squabbles between various Italian states during the Quattrocento can get convoluted, but Melanson generally works his way through that by emphasizing Leonardo’s sensuality (sexual and artistic) and the violence that stalks the Medici clan; an assassination

attempt against Lorenzo in 1478 is a key element of the plot. Though Lorenzo and Leonardo claim roughly equal space, the novel is strongest as a portrait of Leonardo, who must navigate sexual repression (Florenzer was a Habsburg term for homosexual), his father’s disapproval, and a mind busily developing inventions when not delivering brilliant works like the Madonna of the Carnation. He’s a delectable counterpoint to Lorenzo’s machinations in Florence, where “coin is the one thing this city pays allegiance to.”

Well-researched, proudly lusty historical fiction.

It’s Not the End of the World Parks-Ramage, Jonathan | Bloomsbury (384 pp.) $29.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781639736140

Existential political threats turn America into a nightmare in this ambitious tale.

Subtlety isn’t the name of the game in Parks-Ramage’s eco-thriller, in which the world is terrorized by climate disaster, totalitarian government, and the surveillance state. The novel begins with gay partners Mason and Yunho preparing for the baby shower of the child they’re having via surrogate, a party overshadowed by a rather prescient fire that consumes much of Los Angeles and comes with a poisonous pink gas bringing sometimes-fatal side effects. The show must go on, however, in this takedown of wealth inequality and consumption in the age of environmental destruction. Gucci gas masks, Apple Wallet brain implants, and MegaDust Bowls all make their way into the book’s first section, though the postmodernist tricks are not always effective. Many of the bits are clumsily introduced, explained via unsubtle exposition. The story moves from a stratified Los Angeles to a communal ranch in isolated Montana, where Yunho decamps with his MAY 1, 2025

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surrogate, Astrid; Astrid’s partner, Claudia, who uses a wheelchair; and other close friends to build a resistance based on a simple saying: “We’ve got love for everyone.” But things go south when the U.S. government brands the anarchist community’s values antifamily, and the group faces risks from the outside world and members alike. A third section dives even further into the future, as Mason moves with a new partner, Peter Thiel (yes, really), to Mars following the dissolution of the community on the Ranch. Parks-Ramage bites off more than he can chew while failing to imbue his satire with clarity. The book spans more than 100 years and takes aim at a future many fear is on its way without providing his characters, who fight for a better world, with enough dimensionality to bring it to life.

Too many storylines unnecessarily muddy this commentary on near future America.

The Doorman Pavone, Chris | MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (400 pp.) | $27.00 May 20, 2025 | 9780374604790

A Manhattan doorman faces unwanted excitement in this thriller by the author of Two Nights in Lisbon (2022).

Ex-Marine Chicky Diaz has been a doorman at the Bohemia Apartments for 28 years. He is “relentlessly upbeat,” never breaks rules, never bad-mouths anyone.

Everyone trusts him. He unfailingly greets each resident by name as they come and go—“Welcome home Mr. Goff” and “Let me get that bag for you Mrs. Frumm”—and seems unbothered by the financial and social chasm separating them from him.

Chicky idly muses that anyone could kill or be killed around there with no one knowing it was going to happen.

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Delightful apprentice work by a great American novelist in the making.

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with two daughters in college, he faces a mountain of unpaid medical bills because of his late wife’s cancer, and he owes a ton of back rent. By stark contrast, the Bohemia’s residents are all filthy rich. The building is “littered with Picassos, Chagalls, Renoirs. It’s practically a museum.”

Wealthiest among them are Emily and Whit Longworth, a billionaire couple due to his business selling high-tech body armor. Before meeting Whit, Emily once cried after accidentally wasting 90 cents for an unneeded onion. And then her great beauty and sexual talent lead to matrimony and a family. Wanting to be a good person, she volunteers at a food pantry and quickly learns that it’s not cool to show up for duty in a bleeping taxi. Not wanting to be a good person, Whit finds his eye wandering to hookers, and what he does with them is scary. The quiet hatred growing between Emily and Whit is key to the plot. Meanwhile, beyond the Bohemia, there is social unrest after multiple reports of cops or white-supremacist thugs killing innocent Black men. Will there be riots? More to the point, will they affect the Bohemia’s wealthy residents? For his part, Chicky bears no one any ill will. He neither carries a weapon nor cares to and would just as soon be a passive observer. But he suffers a beatdown from a gang member named El Puño (The Fist) and is advised to apologize to the thug for having given offense. This leads to the bad guys learning what wealth lies inside those apartments.

A plan develops. Will bullets fly?

Will blood flow? Is the pope Catholic? Social, racial, and political commentary add color to the profanity-­ peppered pages.

Readers will root for the doorman in this enjoyable yarn.

She Walks in Beauty Powell, Dawn | Belt Publishing (224 pp.) $18.00 paper | June 17, 2025 | 9781953368959

An early novel by Dawn Powell (1896-1965) casts a satirical eye on small-town Midwestern life.

The long-running revival of Powell kicked off in 1987, when Gore Vidal championed her work in the New York Review of Books. Since then, there’s been a biography by Tim Page, two volumes of her fiction in the Library of America, and publication of her Diaries and Selected Letters.

Yet, as critic Ilana Masad laments, “far more people have heard of Powell’s contemporary wit Dorothy Parker.” Masad contributes the introduction to this reissue of the author’s 1928 novel, her second (although she renounced the first).

Like Dance Night (1930) and Come Back to Sorrento (1932), it’s set in Ohio; Powell was born and raised there before moving to New York City, the setting for her best-known work. Sisters Linda and Dorrie Shirley live with their grandmother, called Aunt Jule, in a boardinghouse on the wrong side of the tracks in fictional Birchfield. Beautiful blond Linda, with her “resentful blue eyes,” yearns for respectability and looks down on Jule’s lodgers—“riffraff from the trains,” “fast women and gambling men”—while pining for Courtenay Stall, scion of a good Birchfield K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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family. Younger Dorrie, an aspiring poet, romanticizes their world and the people in it, especially old man Wickley, forever reading aloud from his dust-covered books, “that great voice hurling magnificent words at the walls” of his attic room. There’s not much plot to speak of—will Courtenay ever take notice of Linda?—but the lodging house provides a parade of unsentimental character sketches, including a scandalously flirtatious farm girl married to a much older man, a New York transplant surprised she can’t get lobster salad and chocolate éclairs in Birchfield, and a wheelchair-bound gossip who maliciously follows all the comings and goings.

Delightful apprentice work by a great American novelist in the making.

Atmosphere: A Love Story Reid, Taylor Jenkins | Ballantine (352 pp.) $21.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593158715

A female astronaut in the 1980s encounters sexism and finds romance as she chases her dreams.

Joan Goodwin has always been obsessed with space, which is why she became an astrophysics professor at Rice University. But then, something happens that she’s only dreamed about—NASA announces that it’s looking for female scientists to join the space program. Joan is accepted on her second try, and in 1980, she begins training with a group of male and female candidates who, while all brilliant, have a wide range of personalities. Some of the men are sexist and spend most of their time cracking offensive jokes, but Joan finds a friend in kind-hearted pilot Hank Redmond, who gives her plenty of opportunities to learn. Joan finds both camaraderie and competition among the women—there’s determined Lydia Danes, who embodies the “I’m not here to make friends” K IR KU S R E V IE W S

ethos, and the more supportive Vanessa Ford, who quickly becomes one of Joan’s most trusted allies. As the group trains together, they begin to feel like a family—and as Joan grows closer to Vanessa, she realizes that life on Earth may contain just as many wonders as the cosmos. The story cuts back and forth between a disaster in 1984 and the story of Joan’s journey through the space program.

Reid keeps the tension high, making this perhaps her most propulsive novel yet as she balances the drama of Joan’s personal life with the fast-paced action of a catastrophe in space. Even with the high-stakes action, the touching and surprising love story is the emotional heart of the book.

A heart-pounding race against the clock combined with a love story adds up to a novel that’s impossible to put down.

Kirkus Star

Bring the House Down Runcie, Charlotte | Doubleday (304 pp.) $28.00 | July 8, 2025 | 9780385551076

A negative review and a heedless one-night stand lead to the cancellation of a respected news­ paper critic.

After dashing off a damning takedown of a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe—part of the annual summer arts festival—attractive, promiscuous Alex Lyons thinks nothing of spending the night with the selfsame woman performer, Hayley Sinclair.

The next morning, Hayley reads the review, realizes she’s slept with its author, and sets off down a path of revenge. Renaming her performance The Alex Lyons Experience, she tells her tale of outrage and invites others to contribute. The result is a hit show and a tsunami of attention that goes viral, branding Alex as “the poster boy for indiscriminate sexual

trawling. The man with no moral compass.” Runcie’s up-to-date debut cleverly—and comically—spans the gender issues exposed here while also widening the lens to include other topics. Sophie Rigden, a junior colleague of Alex’s, is working and living alongside him in the newspaper’s Edinburgh rental apartment, becoming his witness and audience (and the book’s narrator). Sophie is both a critic and an obituary writer, as well as the breadwinner in her relationship with Josh, an academic, and Arlo, their 14-month-old child.

Her background is very different from Alex’s, he being the son of a “national treasure,” the actress Dame Judith Lyons. Nepotism, misogyny, motherhood, culture, criticism, love, and death all come under the spotlight as Alex’s career sinks and Sophie’s rises while their relationship shifts into perilous territory. The clarity of Runcie’s narration and her ability to consider both sides of an argument render the deeper issues digestible while, on the surface, the partying, drinking, distinctive characters and their predicaments keep the wheels spinning. It all makes for an unusual, thought-provoking, multilayered read that book groups will enjoy debating.

A smart novel that carefully considers the shifting sands of life.

Kirkus Star

North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther Rutherford, Ethan | A Strange Object (386 pp.) $17.95 paper | March 11, 2025 | 9781646053582

A seafaring saga takes a deep dive into uncharted waters.

Following a couple of well-­ received story collections, Rutherford makes an audacious leap as a novelist. Cadences that recall Melville or Coleridge are suffused with an environmentalist urgency MAY 1, 2025

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and existential dread. The setup is relatively straightforward. In 1878 Massachusetts, during the waning days of the whaling industry, Arnold Lovejoy arrives in New Bedford with a letter for the Ashleys, the leading family of whaling. “As businesspeople they were ruthless,” Rutherford writes. “As whalers, they’d had no equal.” The letter says that one of their ships had been crushed by ice, and that its captain has chosen not to return. It turns out that the captain is the Ashleys’ son-in-law, and that his wife, whom Lovejoy meets at the house, is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

He falls instantly in love. The Ashleys commission Lovejoy, a seafaring captain himself, to voyage in search of the lost ship and captain.

Having long felt more at home at sea than on land, he complies. His mixed feelings about his mission are further complicated by the mysterious Edmund Thule, the family’s emissary, who might have a mission of his own. They embark on their voyage, with a ragtag crew including a couple of orphans, ages 10 and 12, whose rites of passage will increasingly become a focus of the novel.

They are prey for a predatory crew member, in a novel that becomes increasingly focused on prey and predators. Lovejoy is an imperious commander, treating his crew as if he were their god, though sometimes feeling he is more like a whale. Is he a pawn of Thule’s? Is Thule a pawn of the Ashleys? Who is pulling the strings and to what end? Amid bad weather and considerable bloodshed, the voyage proceeds into the heart of oceanic darkness, where the true nature of the mission unfolds.

A classically styled novel that sounds a very contemporary alarm.

For more by Ethan Rutherford, visit Kirkus online.

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A tender and realistic cataloging of a relationship as it changes over time.

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Kirkus Star

Long Distance Savaş, Ayşegül | Bloomsbury (240 pp.) $26.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9781639733101

Feelings of disappointment, dislocation, and disconnection permeate novelist Savaş’ first story collection.

The distancing forces Savaş’ explores in her 13 stories include time, immigration, motherhood, and grief; all result in a need to reassess a relationship. In “Marseille,” Amina, a new mother on a weekend getaway with childless college friends, sees a shift in priorities within the group as they are all forced to begin considering the passage of time. In “Long Distance,” two newish lovers dance passive-aggressively around their differing expectations during a trip Leo takes to visit Lea, who’s studying in Rome. Another exchange student, in Russia, can’t connect with her needy, elderly host mother and can only appreciate the woman’s kindnesses in retrospect in “We Are Here.” New parents, reeling from the effects of sleep deprivation, receive controversial advice about sleep-training their baby from one friend but feel an even greater sense of disorientation when the same friend treats the atrocities of an ongoing war as something one needs to “have a break from” in “Cry It Out.” Upon hearing distressing news about a minor acquaintance, one of Savaş’ protagonists muses that the “lives of strangers appeared

improbable only because they were seen from a distance.” This melancholic assemblage includes episodes of missed connections—on weekend trips, at family gatherings, or over text messages—as characters seek intimacy; or, as in the case of the narrator of “Notions of the Sacred,” seek to excuse a breach in a tentative reconnection between friends.

Alliances and affections shift, understandings waver, and beliefs are challenged in this collection of stories which individually and collectively convey the difficulties of maintaining connections in a fractured world.

Subtle but clearly drawn sketches of the ties that bind and that, inevitably, come undone.

Consider Yourself Kissed Stanley, Jessica | Riverhead (336 pp.) $30.00 | May 27, 2025 | 9798217044993

A young woman builds the life she thinks she wants over the course of a decade.

Stanley’s expansive sophomore novel follows one couple over the course of 10 years. On the verge of 30, Coralie Bower has recently relocated under duress from Australia to London. She works as a copywriter at a brand agency and harbors dreams of writing a novel. One morning at a cafe, she has an alarming yet charming meet-cute with Adam Whiteman, a political journalist, and his 4-year-old daughter, Zora. Adam, a divorcé, has K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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a cordial relationship with his ex-wife, Marina Amin, and shares custody of Zora. Coralie and Adam’s chemistry—which is heavily rendered through playful banter—is immediate. Seemingly overnight, Coralie becomes a stepmother and moves into their family home, her life grafted onto theirs in ways she cannot quite see yet. The novel follows the couple’s relationship as they navigate home renovations, parental loss, unexpected career trajectories, parenthood, global turmoil, and complicated family dynamics. With the novel set between 2013 and 2023, politics weighs heavily on its plot— including a revolving door of British prime ministers and the Covid-19 pandemic. While Adam’s career catapults with every political scandal, Coralie struggles to manage her career, their shared home, and an overwhelming share of the childcare.

The unending politics can feel exhausting at times, but also helps amplify Coralie’s feelings of claustrophobia, weariness, and anger. Stanley writes beautifully about the tension among wants, needs, and desires, especially in motherhood. When Marina gets pregnant, Coralie can admit her desire to be a mother: “The gap between having a baby and not having one yawned so large. Not having one: your longing made you silly, at the mercy of fate, a clichéd figure of fun, mockable.” However, when she becomes a mother, Coralie realizes she is both closer and further from herself in equal measure. This realization, which leads to the novel’s climax, offers Coralie the opportunity to find herself again.

A tender and realistic cataloging of a relationship as it shifts, changes, and grows over time.

Kill Your Darlings Swanson, Peter | Morrow/ HarperCollins (288 pp.) | $30.00 June 10, 2025 | 9780063433625

A backward-­ chronology thriller tells the story of a marriage in order to tell the story of a woman’s plan to murder her husband.

The novel begins in 2023 with the words, “The first attempt at killing her husband was the night of the dinner party.” The aspiring murderer is Wendy Graves, once a promising poet. What’s making Wendy murderous? Well, she and her English professor husband, Thom, who teaches at a state university in Massachusetts, were hosting a dinner for his colleagues when he divulged to everyone present that he was writing a murder mystery. This was news to Wendy, who slipped into Thom’s office mid-party to look on his laptop, where she found a worrisome Word document: “Thom was writing some version of their own story, a story they had agreed was never to be shared with anyone.”

What, exactly, is their story? The novel toggles between Wendy’s and Thom’s points of view as the saga of their marriage unfolds in reverse; the plot hits on key events going all the way back to 1982, when Wendy and Thom met as teenagers. Although Swanson takes his time setting up and playing out pivotal scenes, his book is flab-free; a naturalistic-­seeming detail in one chapter ends up having a significance that’s brought to light in a later (which is to say

A backwards thriller tells the story of a woman’s plan to murder her husband.

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chronologically earlier) chapter. That the novel is both a meditation on comeuppance and a steely nail-biter jibes with Thom’s regularly reported tastes in books and movies: Over the years, his loyalties seem to be evenly split between the literary and the spine-tingling. If Swanson can be said to be pinching from one of Thom’s favorite film noirs, it’s with total awareness and to sublime effect.

A heady, allusive, tweedy-seedy slow burn.

Kirkus Star

Twelve Post-War Tales Swift, Graham | Knopf (304 pp.) | $27.00 May 6, 2025 | 9780593803387

In his latest collection, Swift probes the complicated lives of Britons young and old living in the long shadow of World War II. In “Fireworks,” the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to cancel the wedding of 19-year-old Sophie. People might not show up “if there’s still a situation,” says the father of the groom. To which Sophie’s father answers, “No one’s calling off my daughter’s wedding just because the world’s going to end.” In “Black,” set in England’s East Midlands in 1944, 18-year-old Nora boldly sits next to a handsome Black American airman on a bus and is quickly drawn to him. The friendly encounter, shocking to all aboard, is life-altering in multiple ways for the daughter of a chronic wife-abuser: “This was what she hadn’t foreseen.…That a man can just hit you. Not in that way. Just hit you.” In “The Next Best Thing,” young British private Joseph Caan travels to Germany in 1959 to track the fate of his relatives. He has a creepy encounter with an overly polite functionary who, told that Caan’s Jewish, German-born father MAY 1, 2025

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was killed in Tobruk as a British soldier, insinuatingly says he was there too—“on the other side, of course.” In “Passport,” an 82-year-old woman living alone in a state of confusion is transported back to when she was 3 and her mother was killed during the London Blitz—a day that left a deep imprint on her but of which she has no memory. “How can we remember that we didn’t have a memory?” she muses.

In Swift’s touching, deeply humane stories, life leaves its mark in mysterious and sometimes-humorous ways. His gift for capturing in revealing detail the interior lives of people coping—or failing to cope—with disappointment gives each of these stories a rare depth.

A brilliant, illuminating collection of short fiction, perhaps the author’s best.

Kirkus Star

The Book of Records Thien, Madeleine | Norton (368 pp.) $28.99 | May 20, 2025 | 9781324078654

In a haven for the displaced called the Sea, a girl tends her ailing father and is nurtured by fellow refugees from across the centuries.

“The buildings of the Sea are made of time,” Lina’s father, Wui Shin, says. “I knew that he was pulling my leg and also that he was being truthful,” she tells readers from a vantage point 50 years on. Time is mutable in Thien’s adventurous fourth novel: Helpful neighbors Bento, Blucher, and Jupiter have

names that connect them to 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, 20th-century political theorist Hannah Arendt, and Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, protagonists of the three volumes in The Great Lives of Voyagers series Lina’s father snatched as they fled China.

Bento, Blucher, and Jupiter recount the lives of Spinoza, Arendt, and Du Fu in ways that demonstrate their intimate familiarity with these dispossessed exiles. Other than the fact that all are homeless, it’s initially hard to see what else links these characters and stories to Lina and her father, or how this faintly surreal narrative fits in with Thien’s previous novels firmly anchored in the grim realities of 20th-century totalitarianism. The continuities become clearer in the novel’s searing second section, which reveals the brutal truth behind Wui Shin’s former job title, “a systems engineer managing the structures of cyberspace,” and revisits themes of coercion, betrayal, and guilt that made Thien’s Booker Prize–shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) so powerful.

This is a more abstract work, though its highly intellectual nature is counterpointed by riveting scenes of terror and flight, in particular a nail-biting account of Arendt’s arduous journey across Nazi-­occupied Europe to finally head for America in an overcrowded, unstable steamship.

If we sometimes lose sight of Lina in these densely interwoven plot strands, that is a risk Thien is willing to take in her bold attempt to reach new ground in an already distinguished literary career.

Challenging fiction that serious readers will find enriching and rewarding.

In a haven for the displaced called the Sea, a girl tends her ailing father.

THE BOOK OF RECORDS

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The Woman in Suite 11 Ware, Ruth | Scout Press/ Simon & Schuster (400 pp.) $29.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9781668025628

Travel writer Lo Blacklock is back.

Ten years after the events of The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016), she’s attending the opening of a lavish Swiss hotel when, once again, a mystery intervenes.

A decade after she almost died on a luxury cruise and ended up exposing a murder plot, travel journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock is trying to get back into the business post-Covid-19 and post–maternity leave. When she’s invited to an exclusive hotel launch by the Leidmann Group on the shores of Switzerland’s gorgeous Lake Geneva, her supportive husband, Judah, insists that she should go, and her old boss, Rowan, says that if Lo can score an interview with the reclusive Marcus Leidmann, she’ll publish it in the Financial Times. Leaving Judah and the kids at home in New York, Lo is surprised by a last-­m inute upgrade to first class, which kicks off her trip in style. The hotel is appropriately awe-inspiring in both scenic location and effortless luxury, and Lo starts to put the memories of last trip’s trauma behind her, thinking that maybe she can just enjoy the experience this time. But then, at dinner, she’s surprised to see at least three guests who were also on that original cruise, and when she finds a mysterious note in her room saying “Please come to suite 11 as soon as possible,” she gets another shock. To quote William Faulkner, she realizes that “the past is never dead,” and soon Lo is careening across Europe on her way to England, only to find herself embroiled in another murder. The back half of the novel offers her the opportunity to continue her amateur sleuthing, and while she avoids K IR KU S R E V IE W S

FICTION

A moving novel about sisterhood and the quest to become one’s true self.

THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER

much of the physical danger that plagued her on the cruise a decade ago, she is in very real legal trouble.

This is the prolific Ware’s first sequel, and it’s fun to spend time with Lo again, as she’s both savvy and kindhearted. Unfortunately, the mystery is not as atmospheric and gripping as usual for Ware, though even a lesser Ruth Ware thriller is still worth reading.

An enjoyable visit with an old character, but not one of Ware’s strongest.

The Original Daughter Wei, Jemimah | Doubleday (368 pp.) $30.00 | May 6, 2025 | 9780385551014

In Singapore in 2015, Genevieve Yang Si Qi’s terminally ill mother has one last request—to see her two daughters together again.

Genevieve— who narrates the story—refuses to reach out to her estranged sister, Arin Yang Yan Mei, feeling that to honor her mother’s request would be to betray herself.

With deep and often poetic insight, the novel goes on to chart the sisters’ relationship over the past 20 years.

Unlike many siblings, Arin arrives fully formed when Genevieve is 8 and she’s just a bit younger; it turns out that Genevieve’s grandfather, who disappeared years ago and has only just died, had a whole secret family and Arin was his granddaughter. The girls are close as children, with Genevieve playing the protective, comforting older sister as Arin struggles to find a place for K IR KU S R E V IE W S

herself in the family and the world at large. As their talents and interests diverge, however, the two girls gradually and then more quickly grow apart. As much as Genevieve loves Arin, she begins to wonder if her increasing distance is what fuels her sister’s success as an actor—if her absence from her sister’s life “unclipped her wings” and finally allowed her to thrive. As Genevieve watches the film that promises to be Arin’s breakout role, however, she discovers a betrayal that threatens to undermine the women’s relationship forever. Wei’s novel glistens with often profound insights about the complicated relationship between a person’s identity and the dynamic forces of family and friendship, with Genevieve remarking at one point: “How vast the legion of unrealized, contradictory, impractical ghosts crammed within each mortal body was.” The first half of the novel is much stronger than the second, in which the plot machinations can feel somewhat forced. Though Genevieve is someone for whom violence “bloomed like desire,” her motives sometimes come across as thinly disguised plot devices more than organic outgrowths of a fully fleshed-out character.

A moving debut novel about sisterhood, ambition, and the quest to become one’s true self.

For more by Karen White, visit Kirkus online.

The Lady on Esplanade White, Karen | Berkley (416 pp.) | $30.00 November 4, 2025 | 9780593549490

Restoring old houses is a dangerous game when the current house is haunted by angry spirits.

Nola Trenholm is a recovering alcoholic supported by many friends, beginning with her housemate, Jolene McKenna, a true Southern belle. In addition to the Creole cottage she’s fixing up for herself now that she’s moved to New Orleans, Nola and contractor Beau Ryan plan to flip a house on Esplanade where a murder took place. Nola has a strange relationship with Beau. He can communicate with spirits but doesn’t like to. In battles with evil spirits, he saved Nola’s life, and she saved his and helped him find his long-lost sister. Sparks fly when they touch, but he’s involved with another woman. At a dinner Beau hosts as a thank you for Nola, she’s happy to see Cooper Ravenel, who broke her heart when she lived in Charleston and is seriously considering buying the murder house now that he’s in New Orleans. Beau’s mother, Adele, went missing during Hurricane Katrina, but her restless spirit is still around, seeking aid from Beau. Nola’s psychic younger half-sister, Sarah, who’s visiting Nola while her parents are away, wants to help. Sarah knows that Beau’s father, Buddy, isn’t dead even though he’s been missing since Katrina. But Beau remains aloof from Adele until her skeleton is found on the grounds of an old hospital, most likely murdered in the chaos of Katrina for the diamond in her ring.

The ghosts that haunt the murder house are both benign and vicious, and Nola has to deal with them all while investigating Adele’s murder and juggling her two loves.

Ghostly lore combines with multiple mysteries and complex love affairs to produce a tale that’s hard to put down.

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“Historical fiction readers: get ready to swoon.”

— Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

Cinderella meets telenovela in this sweeping historical romance inspired by the real-life daughter of Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes.

B O O K L I S T // F I C T I O N

New Perspectives on WWII and Its Aftermath 4

5

1 33 Place Brugmann

By Alice Austen

After a somewhat decorous launch, the charming characters get themselves a thrilling, moving plot. Crème de la WWII novel.

1

2 The New Internationals

By David Wright Faladé

Vividly dramatizes issues of race and politics in turbulent postwar Paris.

4 The Lilac People

3 Twelve Post-War Tales

Todd vividly illustrates the power of love and community in the face of oppression.

By Graham Swift

A brilliant, illuminating collection of short fiction, perhaps the author’s best.

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2

By Milo Todd

5 The Riveter

By Jack Wang

For more booklists, visit Kirkus online.

3

A compelling and emotional read.

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Abbot t: Araya Doheny/Get t y Images; Brodesser-Ak ner : Michael Tullberg/Get t y Images

Book to Screen

Here in the Dark Will Be Adapted for TV Two high-profile novelists will produce a series based on Alexis Soloski’s thriller.

Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark is headed to the small screen, Deadline reports.

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Soloski’s debut novel, published in 2023 by Flatiron, follows an actor-­ turned-theater-critic who investigates the disappearance of a man who interviewed her. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the novel, “Like Dorothy Parker, the narrator’s role model, this book is almost too clever for its own good.”

Novelist Megan Abbott (You Will Know Me, Beware the Woman), who wrote for and executive produced the television adaptation of her 2012 novel, Dare Me, will write and executive produce the Here in the Dark adaptation, which is being developed by Lionsgate

Television. Also executive producing will be Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who created and wrote the television adaptation of her 2019 novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and who is writing the planned Apple TV+ adaptation of her 2024 novel, Long Island Compromise.

Soloski shared news of the adaptation on the social platform X, writing “I love a twist!” and calling Abbott

“a noir sorceress and an absolute dream.”

Abbott gave a shoutout to Soloski and Brodesser-Akner on Instagram, writing, “Very excited to be adapting this dark and stunning novel by @soloskialexis, with the powerhouse @taffyakner as EP, no less! A noir tale for noir times.”—M.S. For a review of Here in the Dark, visit Kirkus online.

From left, Megan Abbott and Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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Proof that the Golden Age of Detection extended well past the war.

LONDON PARTICUL AR

Hounding a Killer Benjamin, Kallie E. | Berkley (400 pp.) $19.00 paper | May 6, 2025 | 9780593547373

A teacher-­ turned-children’s-­ author helps expose a killer.

Civic celebrations are a staple of cozy mysteries, and Crosbyville’s annual Fall Festival fills the bill here.

Priscilla Cummings is so enthralled by the rich blend of games, food, rides, and demonstrations on offer that she takes time off from writing the latest entry in her Bailey the Bloodhound, Pet Detective franchise to enjoy the festivities despite her agent’s concern about a looming deadline. Unfortunately, an even greater distraction lies just ahead. A spate of murders at Townsend Farms, a local estate (which isn’t actually a farm, despite the name), threatens Pris’ nearest and dearest, prompting her to investigate. Pris shuttles between the fair and the estate trying to help David Townsend, grandson to Townsend Farms’ late owner Edward, cope with a rapidly escalating body count. Pris is a charmer, and so is her feisty Aunt Agatha. Pris’ romance with police Chief Gilbert Morgan is sweet but not cloying, with just the right amount of tension between his feelings for Pris and his loyalty to his job. But Benjamin invites a huge cast of characters to the party, and keeping track of all their comings and goings weighs heavily on her narrative. Just telling and retelling the story of Pris’ background—with a white father and Black mother who met in the Peace Corps and died when she was a baby—takes time, as does explaining the convoluted history of the Townsend clan. With enough sisters and 30

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cousins and aunts to populate a Gilbert and Sullivan extravaganza, it’s hard for Pris to shine.

Less might well be more.

London Particular Brand, Christianna | Poisoned Pen (288 pp.) $15.99 paper | June 10, 2025 | 9781464237584

As fog enshrouds London, a murder in Maida Vale makes it even harder to see what’s what in this stellar whodunit, first published in 1952 and known in the U.S. as Fog of Doubt.

Raoul Vernet has traveled from Belgium to meet with Louisa Jane Evans, the grandmother of Dr. Thomas Evans and his sister, Rosie. As she sits in the car of Thomas’ partner, Tedward, né Edwin Robert Edwards, who’s struggling to find his way through the pea-souper, Rosie confesses that Raoul had seduced and impregnated her, and that she’s not inclined to bring the baby to birth. By the time Tedward brings her home, Raoul is dead, bashed to death with a mastoid mallet that seems to indicate he was killed by a doctor. So DI Charlesworth arrests Thomas, whose loyalty to his sister certainly has a strong motive. The trial goes off the rails when Tedward produces evidence of Thomas’ innocence that implicates Tedward, who promptly replaces his partner in the dock until franchise hero Inspector Cockrill finally lays the mystery to rest with help from still another confession. As Martin Edwards notes in his introduction, Brand (1907–88) loved this best of all her

novels, and it’s easy to see why. The plotting is ingenious, the multiple revelations perfectly paced; the means to conceal the real killer well-nigh unguessable and thoroughly logical; the repeated dipping into the thoughts of the seven suspects deftly deceptive; and the conversation among those suspects unfailingly entertaining, even as their number is reduced to six.

Proof that the Golden Age of Detection extended well past the war.

A Telegram From Le Touquet Bude, John | Poisoned Pen (288 pp.) | $15.99 paper | May 20, 2025 | 9781464230554

A fraught house party at a stately English home is the curtain-raiser for a mysterious death in France in this whodunit first published in 1956.

Schoolmaster Nigel Derry, the godson of Gwendoline Marrable, has long been in love with Sheila Tallent, whom Gwenny adopted after the death of her parents. Since Sheila’s only 19, the couple needs Gwenny’s permission to wed. So Nigel asks Aunt Gwenny, as he calls her, about it after a dinner at her country house, attended by Gwenny’s live-in lover, George Gammon; Gwenny’s sister, romance novelist Deborah Gaye; and French visitor André Duconte, who seems positioned to become George’s successor. Nothing doing, says Gwenny, who announces that her will cuts Sheila off without a penny if she marries before she reaches 30. George, who hasn’t heard any of this, reacts to André’s arrival by making love to Deborah, who responds with unwonted enthusiasm. As these parties and others disperse, the scene abruptly shifts to Cap Martin in southern France, where Gwenny has telegraphed Nigel inviting (read: commanding) him to visit her at her villa. The only trouble is that she won’t be there herself, since her naked body’s been found smothered and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

M Y S T E R Y // F I C T I O N

stuffed into a trunk. Convinced that “this isn’t a woman’s crime,” Inspector Blampignon, a superstar summoned from Nice to work with local Inspector Hamonet, toils to keep up with the domestic and romantic complications that continue to mount and mount until the inevitably anticlimactic denouement. Don’t count on marriage to rescue the heroes; marriage is one of the biggest problems here.

A conscientiously plotted mystery maze most likely to appeal to serious amateur detectives.

Kaua‘i Storm Eldridge, Tori | Thomas & Mercer (445 pp.) $16.99 paper | May 20, 2025 | 9781662525247

While searching for a missing cousin, a park ranger reconnects with her large family and rediscovers her love for Hawaii.

A brief opening chapter finds Oregon-based ranger Makalani Pahukula running for her life in a Hawaiian rain forest. Then the story flashes back a week to her arrival at her native Kaua‘i to celebrate her grandmother’s 85th birthday. She receives the sad news that her 17-year-old cousin, Becky Muramoto, is missing, along with another cousin, 22-year-old Solomon Ching. Uneasy about Solomon’s sketchy reputation, Makalani feels compelled to investigate. Her probe proceeds slowly against a backdrop of the island’s beautiful natural attractions and several subplots involving different members of her family, making readers appreciate the detailed genealogy that Eldridge has provided at the beginning. Scenes with Makalani’s resilient Mama and Tūtū are particularly affecting. Eldridge attempts to maintain the suspense surrounding the case of the missing duo by offering red herrings, glimmers of the truth, and new developments like the discovery of a corpse in the Keālia Forest Reserve. But these may not be K IR KU S R E V IE W S

enough to satisfy readers impatient for a solution to the juicy mystery, whose eventual arrival is followed by still more family drama. A lengthy glossary will educate interested readers further in Hawaiian culture. The richly detailed descriptions of the natural wonders of Kaua‘i and of Makalani’s large and tangled family hint at more Hawaiian mysteries to be solved by the resourceful forest-ranger-turned-sleuth. Apparently, you can go home again.

An atmospheric love letter to Hawaii’s Garden Isle with episodes of action and mystery.

A Senior Citizen’s Guide to Life on the Run Florio, Gwen | Severn House (256 pp.) $29.99 | May 6, 2025 | 9781448313587

Dark doings at a “planned community” for “active adults.”

Timeless Pastures occupies a special niche in the world of over-55 living. Its pastel prefab duplexes at the edge of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens are too far from specialized medical care to be suitable for what are politely called “frail elderly.” Nor does it have the golf courses and elaborate exercise facilities wealthy seniors demand. Vietnam veteran George Sterling, a former high school principal, winds up at Timeless Pastures after having spent most of his savings on his late wife’s cancer treatment. Mia Sullivan never earned enough as a personal trainer to put much by for retirement. Ex-realtor Sasha Coverdale seems to relish the community’s unfussy amenities. And Alice Sanders finds it a perfect place to fly under the radar— until her next-door neighbor Babs Stevenson gets herself killed on Alice’s patio while Alice is away at a lake-house holiday with Mia, Sasha, and George.

Once the police are on the scene, Alice lets her three friends in on a little secret that makes them realize returning to Timeless Pastures might not be their safest option. Florio pumps up the pace

with a series of flash-forwards featuring the local police grilling the four friends about their possible involvement in Babs’ murder. But who killed Babs isn’t the only puzzle Florio hatches to tantalize readers. Why does the Timeless Pastures management keep raising lot fees until more than half the units are vacant? Will Alice ever come to grips with her past?

And will friendship win out over caution at a time of life when most people just want to play it safe?

“Active” may be an understatement in describing Florio’s fearsome foursome.

Shaw Connolly Lives To Tell French, Gillian | Minotaur (352 pp.) $28.00 | June 17, 2025 | 9781250358516

Beneath the deceptively lighthearted title lies a tale of grief, fear, and torment.

Shawnee Connolly has never given up on the possibility of finding her sister Theadora, who vanished after a high school party back in 2007. The rest of her family has long moved on. Eddie Connolly, an alcoholic widower who’s currently living with Shaw so she can keep an eye on him, had his daughter declared dead years ago. Madison, Shaw’s surviving sister, doesn’t have half of Shaw’s appetite for stapling up “Missing” posters all around the vicinity of Axtel, Maine. Ryan Labrecque, the future graphic designer who made Shaw miss her high school prom when he knocked her up, has left their marriage. And Shaw’s sons, Beau and Casey, just want to live their own lives. But they’re not getting constant phone calls from Anders Jansen, the one-time teacher who broadly hints that he killed Thea and doesn’t intend to stop harassing Shaw: “I am your life now.” Jansen’s campaign of terror takes its toll on Shaw’s work as a fingerprint analyst for Bennet County Forensic Solutions and frays her nerves to the breaking point. But it also moves her to call Stephen York, the latest state police detective assigned this coldest of MAY 1, 2025

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cold cases, and beg him to reopen the investigation once more. French lays the foundation so expertly that it’s doubly disappointing when so many leads, like the fatal beating of a man whose dog has evidently been stolen, fizzle into dead ends and the solution to the mystery of Thea’s disappearance involves precious little mystery.

What lingers most in the memory is a chilling atmosphere equally shivery with cold and despair.

Dead of Night Gray, Lisa | Thomas & Mercer (267 pp.) $16.99 paper | May 15, 2025 | 9781662519178

On the advice of her agent, a novelist afflicted with writer’s block relocates to an isolated retreat far away. It’s not a happy choice.

Thirty years ago, Dani Duprie, having spotted an unknown woman giving her the once-over, persuaded her husband, Bill, to pack up their 10-yearold daughter and pull up stakes yet again for an undisclosed but very urgent reason. The mysterious circumstances of their departure from the Cliff House still have the locals buzzing, but the buzz hasn’t reached Serena Winters, the well-known author of 11 Layne Farraday mysteries, until after she’s settled in the Cliff House. “Settled” may not be the best word, since she’s greeted by a series of anonymous messages beginning with “LEAVE TOWN NOW” and then escalating in their threats. When housekeeper Wanda Stockwell accuses her of moving to Cliff House in order to exploit the Dupries’ disappearance,

Serena takes this as a karmic invitation to dive into the case with Seaton Point police Chief Jack Beaumont, who’s at least equally interested in her. All the while, Gray’s been shuttling repeatedly into the past to follow the fortunes of bad-girl Ruby Bryant, tossed out of her old home back in 1983 because she refused to accept her mother’s latest lover, who seemed to have an eye on her as well. Eventually the two narratives come together in a way that will surprise only newcomers to the genre. In fact, the biggest limitation in this propulsive mystery is a distinct lack of mystery. It’s nice to report, however, that Serena’s latest opus gets well underway.

Familiar thrills more effective as individual shivers than parts of a whole.

Kirkus Star

Fog and Fury Hall, Rachel Howzell | Thomas & Mercer (395 pp.) | $28.99 May 13, 2025 | 9781662522840

In a desperate attempt to salvage her life, former LAPD homicide detective Alyson “Sonny” Rush accepts an offer from Ivan Poole, her godfather, to join him as a private investigator in the charming Northern California town of Haven.

When they move to Haven, Sonny and her mother, Val, who has early-onset dementia, become part of a small group of Black families in town. Sonny’s first case involves Figgy, a stolen goldendoodle belonging to London and Mackenzie Sutton, who turn out to be the wife and

A captivating blend of angst, mystery, and page-turning suspense.

FOG AND FURY

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daughter of Sonny’s wealthy lover, Cooper Sutton, who’d told her he was divorced. It turns out he was lying, and Sonny is embarrassed and angry to find out that she “would already have an ex-boyfriend in Haven.” Although Ivan’s sure that Mackenzie stole Figgy herself, desperate for some attention from her parents, Sonny is determined to find the dog—but she’s more sharply focused on Ivan’s investigation into the death of a Black teenager that the local police have dismissed as suicide. Xander Monroe was an “A” student in high school and a star running back recruited by several colleges. His parents relocated to Haven to protect him from the negative influences of Los Angeles. The inadequate police investigation into his death prompts Sonny to do her own, leading her to receive threatening messages and poisoned cupcakes. Cooper, a real estate developer, wants to market Haven as a safe haven for new investors, but his ambitious plans face opposition from local business owners unwilling to meet his financial demands. Sonny must use information from the incriminating files Ivan has collected on the seemingly perfect citizens of Haven if she’s to solve her cases, maintain her sanity, and ensure her survival.

This captivating blend of angst, mystery, and page-turning suspense delivers a top-notch reading experience.

A Charming Touch of Tarot Holtz, Melissa | Berkley (384 pp.) | $19.00 paper | May 13, 2025 | 9780593640067

Life is more interesting when you can talk to ghosts.

Alyssa Mann, a widowed mom who can see and talk to ghosts, is working with her friends to harness her powers. Along with her daughter, Ava, and her besties, Nina and Lanie, she’s spending Christmas Eve relieved that Nina’s evil husband, Richard, was sent to prison for murder when Alyssa’s K IR KU S R E V IE W S

M Y S T E R Y // F I C T I O N

next-door neighbor, police Officer Nick West, helped them put him away.

But then Nick arrives, upset because Richard is trying to overturn his plea deal. A fearful Nina tells Alyssa she had a baby in high school and was forced to give it up, a secret that Richard holds over her. A few days later, a spirit Alyssa first saw on Christmas Eve—a girl who seems to have drowned—appears again. When the same girl turns up dead in a nearby town, the members of the Gin and Tarot Club decide that it may be time to use their skills, including Nina’s startling newfound ability to find out people’s secrets by touching them, to tackle the mystery. Meanwhile, Nina is determined to track down her son and his father. The trail leads them from Providence to Florida to New Orleans.

Despite his initial skepticism, Nick believes in Alyssa’s abilities and uses her ghostly tips in his investigations.

On top of that, Nick’s late fiancée appears to see whether Alyssa is right for Nick. Once the drowned girl is identified and it’s clear the Gin and Tarot members are courting trouble, Nick and Alyssa need answers quickly.

Spirits, secret societies, drug dealers, and romance combine in a startling mix.

Marble Hall Murders Horowitz, Anthony | Harper/ HarperCollins (592 pp.) | $27.90 May 13, 2025 | 9780063305700

Sharpen your mental pencils.

Editor Susan Ryeland is taking on her most baffling mystery-­ within-a-mystery.

Now that Susan’s back from Crete and her latest romance, her boss at Causton Books, Michael Flynn, wants her to work with Eliot Crace, a failed mystery author who’s writing a sequel to the late Alan Conway’s tales of detective Atticus Pünd, which she knows far too much about already. As she reads Eliot’s first installment, Susan gradually K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Horowitz’s most extended and intricately plotted yet.

MARBLE HALL MURDERS

becomes aware of something seasoned fans will have assumed all along—that the central mystery and the leading suspects in Pünd’s Last Case are all based on Eliot’s family, whose matriarch, world-famous children’s author Miriam Crace, died 20 years ago under circumstances that everyone involved insists weren’t at all suspicious.

Teased by the first and simplest of three key anagrams Eliot has sneaked into his manuscript, Susan asks him about all those parallels, whose revelation would surely offend the rest of the family and very likely endanger the big-ticket deal that Eliot’s uncle, family estate manager Jonathan Crace, is negotiating over video rights to the Littles, Miriam’s adorable franchise characters. The mystery Eliot’s created around the fatal poisoning of Lady Margaret Chalfont broadly hints that Miriam was murdered as well. Susan’s attempt to sift through the parallels in the unfinished manuscript and figure out who killed Lady Margaret and what light that knowledge may shed on the death of Eliot’s grandmother is seriously upended when there’s a second murder and DI Ian Blakeney identifies Susan as his prime suspect.

No wonder she vows at the fadeout to have nothing more to do with Atticus Pünd: “Never. Never again.”

Uh-huh.

Susan’s third metafictional whodunit is Horowitz’s most extended and intricately plotted yet—at least until next year.

For more by Anthony Horowitz, visit Kirkus online.

A Tarnished Canvas Huber, Anna Lee | Berkley (384 pp.) | $19.00 paper | June 24, 2025 | 9780593639436

An invitation to an art auction seriously imperils a husband-and-wife sleuthing team.

March 1833 finds Lady Kiera Darby and her husband, Sebastian Gage, in Edinburgh with their infant daughter. Instead of painting portraits of her usual wealthy clientele, Kiera is working on paintings of ordinary people with an eye to mounting her own exhibition. Gage, who’s used to investigating crimes, is restless. When the art collection of the late Lord Eldin is put up for auction, Kiera, who’s interested in several pieces, takes Gage to visit the venue housing the art. On returning the next day, they narrowly escape death when the floor collapses, sending a crowd plummeting to the floor below. Luckily, only one person is killed in what appears to be a terrible accident caused by poor construction. But Sgt. Maclean tells them it was sabotage and asks for their help in figuring out who might have been targeted. Then Bonnie Brock Kincaid calls to see if Kiera’s injured, annoying Gage and leaving Kiera unsure what to think. Bonnie Brock, the head of a criminal enterprise whose feelings for Kiera have saved both her and Gage in the past, warns her that the collapse was no accident. Although some ancient coins that were being auctioned have been replaced with fakes, nothing else is missing after the incident. Seeking a motive, the pair wonders if the collapse was an act of revenge for an earlier calamity that claimed many victims.

An engrossing historical mystery with plenty of twists and engaging characters to enjoy.

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The disappearance of a young woman shadows people in her life for decades.

R E D WAT E R

A Botanist’s Guide to Rituals and Revenge Khavari, Kate | Crooked Lane (336 pp.) $29.99 | June 10, 2025 | 9798892420426

In 1924 England, Saffron Everleigh, an adventurous student botanist who’s solved several mysteries, finds her latest case dangerous for those she loves.

Saffron— together with her boyfriend, Alexander Ashton, and her best friend, Elizabeth Hale—is visiting her grandparents, Lord and Lady Easting, after a long time apart.

None of them are thrilled about the idea.

On arrival, they’re greeted by Saffron’s cousin John, who’ll inherit Ellington Manor but prefers living in Paris with his French wife and their son, Benjamin.

Saffron’s grandparents wanted her to marry well, not go to university to follow in her father’s scientific footsteps, and they’re still at odds with her. Her biggest surprise of the evening is meeting her grandfather’s cardiologist, Dr. Bill Wyatt, who may not even be a real doctor. Wyatt, a crook who also deals in government secrets, presses Saffron to find her late father’s papers, which contain a valuable discovery in the pharmaceutical field.

Elizabeth’s parents, who live nearby, have invited everyone to a dinner filled with tension since she hasn’t seen them since refusing to marry the man they chose.

Meantime, medium Madame Martin and her assistant, Bernard Fischer, claim to have summoned Elizabeth’s brother, Wesley, whom Saffron had loved before he was killed in the war. As Wyatt threatens her family, Saffron desperately searches for her father’s work, but she gets no help from her mother, who hasn’t left the house since 34

MAY 1, 2025

his death. When Saffron does uncover secrets, Benjamin is kidnapped by Wyatt, which is only the first problem before Saffron can untangle them all from the dangers Wyatt presents.

A brave and clever heroine toils in a time when women earned little respect.

The Secrets We Keep Lillard, Amy | Crooked Lane (320 pp.) $29.99 | June 24, 2025 | 9798892421249

Twelve years after Nathan Fisher left his Amish roots behind, his father’s death takes him back to Mississippi, where he grapples with confusion and self-reflection.

Driven by a desire to help his sister, who was born with a heart defect, Nate left home and pursued a career in professional baseball, hoping to earn enough money to get her a heart transplant. His dreams didn’t come true, and in his job as a deputy sheriff in Oklahoma, he’s been involved in a deadly shooting. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing, Nate can’t shake the guilt that haunts him. He returns home for his father’s funeral knowing he’s not welcome, and even his mother refuses to speak to him since he’s under the Bann, a strict Amish law applied to those who leave. The one person who does want to talk to him is Rachel Hostetler, the love of his life, who married after waiting four years for his return. Rachel has two children, but her husband vanished three years ago, and she lives with her father. Rachel’s brother, Albie, supposedly hanged himself. Her father burned Albie’s clothes and the rope and buried him in secret. Rachel, who can’t believe Albie would die by suicide, seeks

Nate’s help. Albie was being bullied by a group of well-connected “Englisch”—nonAmish—boys Rachel thinks beat and murdered him. A deputy who’s willing to listen helps get the body exhumed, raising new riddles only Nate can solve. Though they seem to have no future, Nate can’t leave Rachel until the truth is revealed.

Fans of Linda Castillo will love this look at the Amish community, filled with mystery and forbidden love.

Kirkus Star

Red Water Pavičić, Jurica | Trans. by Matt Robinson Bitter Lemon Press (303 pp.) | $11.95 paper June 17, 2025 | 9781916725164

The mysterious disappearance of a young woman shadows several people in her life for decades.

Pavičić’s award-winning novel, first published in Croatia in 2017, unfolds like a true-crime story, with precise attention to timelines and small details. In “Part 1: Silva Disappears,” 17-year-old Silva Vela vanishes from the village of Misto on a September morning in 1989, with the crisis presented through the viewpoints of her mother Vesna, father Jakov, and twin brother Mate. The police are brought in, suspects are questioned, and Jakov hires a private detective, all to no avail. “Part 2: Diverging Paths,” covering the next 20 years, expands its perspective to include several other characters, including two of the original suspects in Silva’s disappearance. Adrijan Lekaj, who was actually arrested, serves in the tragic Bosnian War, continues to wonder about Silva, and has a strange, random encounter with fellow suspect Mario Cvitković. As family members soldier on, the sweet sadness of remembering Silva hovers. Mate marries, Vesna approaches the end of her teaching career, but “they never found her.” Gorki, the young policeman who moved away after being originally assigned to the case, returns to Misto and finds it much K IR KU S R E V IE W S

M Y S T E R Y // F I C T I O N

changed. Silva’s disappearance is a lens, or arguably a metaphor, for the nation’s recent dark history. In Part 3, “Silva Returns.” Exactly how is left for the reader to discover. “Part 4: Red Water” offers a final twist on the story through a new character and a poignant look back at Croatia’s last 30 years.

A brilliant cocktail of mystery and recent history, compellingly told.

A Shipwreck in Fiji Rao, Nilima | Soho Crime (272 pp.) $29.95 | June 10, 2025 | 9781641295475

Multiple mysteries challenge a dogged police sergeant in colonial Fiji.

It’s 1915. Despite several successes during his brief tenure with the Fiji police department, Sgt. Akal Singh still seeks acceptance from the community and his superiors. A cricket match is both an illustration of this sharply segregated society and an opportunity for Akal to ingratiate himself.

He has still not caught the criminal who first brought him to Fiji more than a year ago, a serial rapist known as the Night Prowler. When Inspector General Jonathan Thurstrom assigns him the task of chaperoning two Australian ladies, the sister and niece of local bigwig Hugh Clancy, Akal is painfully reminded of his censure for his past relationship with an Englishwoman in A Disappearance in Fiji (2023). Both Clancy and Thurston again dress him down for that perceived indiscretion. Meanwhile, Sanjay Lal, a store owner in sleepy Levuka, reports seeing some suspicious Germans in the area. The ladies, Mary and Katherine, accompany Akal and Constable Taviti Tukana on this assignment. When Akal arrives at the store, he finds Lal dead, the victim of a whipping. Meanwhile, Akal’s assignment with Mary and Katherine involves a cemetery search and their interest in a jewelry box found at the murder scene. An additional mystery surrounds the shipwreck of the title. The earnest Akal is a compelling protagonist, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

at the center of a deeply researched novel about a fascinating moment in history.

Sensitively told story of class and racial tensions during World War I, with some mystery.

Last Dance Before Dawn Schellman, Katharine | Minotaur (352 pp.) $28.00 | June 17, 2025 | 9781250325822

Gangsters threaten a beloved speakeasy. Can a resourceful Jazz Age Baby save it?

Irish immigrant Vivian Kelly has found a second home in the Nightingale and a best friend in Beatrice Henry, a lively African American girl who also sings at the club and loves to dance the night away. It’s 1925 and Manhattan is red hot!

One night, the girls witness new Nightingale employee Spence being attacked. When Vivian offers comfort, he rebuffs her. Over the next few days, more menacing men visit the Nightingale, led by crime kingpin Harlan O’Keefe.

Vivian agonizes over whether to inform the alluring, androgynous Honor Huxley, who runs the Nightingale and has come close to seducing her. She fears that Honor will escalate the situation.

Schellman has assembled a large and colorful cast over three previous Nightingale mysteries. While the threat of violence and chaos largely simmers in the background, she spends much of the story deepening the portraits of her large supporting cast, an understandable step in this final installment in the series.

Chief among these characters is Vivian’s sister, Florence, who’s married with a young daughter and a flourishing dressmaking business. A major subplot involves Vivian’s attempts, two steps forward and one back, to forge a relationship with her long-absent father, Clyde Quinn. The murder of Nightingale muscle Silence amps up the tension and leads Vivian to appeal to the police commissioner, the uncle of her boyfriend, Leo Green. Schellman’s panoramic portrait particularly rewards series fans.

A lively, sprawling crime story that captures the vibrancy of the Roaring ’20s.

Making Friends Can Be Murder West, Kathleen | Berkley (432 pp.) | $19.00 paper | June 10, 2025 | 9780593335536

A group of friends who share the same name shifts gears to solve the murder of one of their own.

Even though she was warned by Brian, her ex-fiancé, that it would take ages for her to find a new community when she moved from Vermont to Minneapolis after dumping him, Sarah Jones has discovered a group of friends she fits in with perfectly, and not just because they’re being Minnesota nice. Her new buddies haven’t sought out Sarah because of her skills as a personal trainer—she’s the new director at LifeSport Fitness—but because of her name. The robust group of friends all share a common moniker, whose cultural frequency has led to shared lifetimes of misdirected mail and emails, and now is the common denominator in the social group dubbed “The Sarah Jones Project.” The group’s members range in age from a boisterous, troublemaking 17 to a very determined 69. Each of the Sarah Joneses is nicknamed with her age in order to differentiate group members, something that’s especially helpful when they’re all on the same text chain.

The newest Sarah Jones, aka Thirty, hits it off immediately with Twenty-Seven, and is particularly relieved that Twenty-Seven is okay after hearing the news that a local Sarah Jones has been murdered. As the group resolves to unravel the mystery of what’s happened to their fallen member, Thirty is the obvious person to lead the charge because of the interest of a new FBI agent who seems to want to help her.

Variations on a theme that works a lot better at the beginning.

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F I C T I O N // S C I E N C E F I C T I O N A N D F A N T A S Y

The Ephemera Collector Jackson, Stacy Nathaniel | Liveright/ Norton (320 pp.) | $27.89 April 1, 2025 | 9781324093404

An archivist grapples with Covid-19-induced memory loss and meddling AI helper bots while preserving an account of humanity’s radical survival.

In 2035, Xandria Anastasia Brown is the curator of African American Ephemera at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, crafting a mosaic of Black history through quotidian artifacts. When a protest against corporate influence on the library escalates into an institution-­ wide lockdown, Xandria is sequestered in her office; there, she must confront the ramifications of her persistent brain fog, monitored and prodded by a trio of artificial intelligences. Initially functioning as personal assistants and health bots, the AIs’ competing attempts to preserve her quality of life have a direct impact on Xandria’s passion project: collecting the ephemera of Diwata, an undersea nation inspired by Octavia E. Butler and the Black Panther Party, created in response to environmental trauma and in opposition to the colonies created to plunder Mars. Xandria’s framework is broad; she includes seemingly inconsequential objects to give future scholars the full picture of Diwata. That modus operandi is reflected in Jackson’s novel, which displays an astonishing breadth of imagination spanning centuries— there’s everything from a far-future symposium attended by an immortal Xandria to an exploration of Diwata’s origins and feuding factions—but it only dips into each setting. Jackson draws thought-provoking parallels between Xandria cataloguing artifacts and the bots in turn cataloguing her physical symptoms, emotional reactions, and other biomedical data. The novel posits a future in which AI can bridge the gap of humans’ limitations, taking care of us when we can’t take care of 36

MAY 1, 2025

A literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness.

K ATA B A S I S

each other, yet acknowledges the violations of privacy and autonomy that will be required. Jackson makes audacious leaps forward in time and space, from a lifespan-enhancing genetic operation performed against Xandria’s will to a sentient rover bursting out of the Pacific Ocean and not stopping until it reaches Mars. Readers may wish they could take deeper dives into each of these breathtaking vignettes.

A daring Afrofuturist debut that just scratches the surface of its own astonishing futures.

Faithbreaker Kaner, Hannah | Harper Voyager (416 pp.) $18.99 paper | April 1, 2025 | 9780063350144

A king who forbids religion becomes a god while a demigod searches for her place in the world in the conclusion to Kaner’s Fallen Gods trilogy.

With the violent fire god Hseth reborn, King Arren and Lady Lessa Craier have put aside their differences to fight for Middren. Reunited with her old pirate crew, Lessa takes her daughter, the demigod Inara; Kissen, the godkiller; and Skediceth, the god of white lies, on a journey to drum up deific support for Middren. Meanwhile, Arren and his devoted baker-knight, Elo, ride out to meet Hseth and her armies on the front lines. But trouble awaits at every turn. Fighting Hseth head-on leads to devastating losses for Arren and Elo, and Inara’s attempts at coaxing support out of a forge god leave Kissen fighting for her life. Alliances are tested, allies are killed, and the war rages on. Compared to Godkiller

(2023) and Sunbringer (2024), the first two novels in Kaner’s series, this one is a very slow burn, and the action never truly takes off. This, compounded with the deus ex machina ending, may leave some readers feeling disappointed.

Fans of the earlier novels will find much to love here, though, as Kaner’s well-developed characters compel the reader to keep the pages turning. As with the previous installments, the novel is refreshingly diverse. Elo and Kissen are both bisexual, and several secondary characters are gay. Kissen is an amputee, and her sisters are a deaf woman and a wheelchair user. Elo is coded as Black, while Lessa and Inara are coded as nonwhite.

An ultimately satisfying final chapter to Kaner’s grimdark fantasy trilogy.

Kirkus Star

Katabasis Kuang, R.F. | Harper Voyager (560 pp.) $35.00 | August 26, 2025 | 9780063021471

A Ph.D. candidate in Analytical Magick tackles a new academic challenge: rescuing her advisor from Hell.

Alice Law is about to complete her graduate program at Cambridge under the auspices of Jacob Grimes, one of the foremost Magick scholars in the world.

There’s just one problem: A spell gone wrong has led to Grimes’ sudden demise, and it may have been her fault.

Alice feels bad about that, plus she needs Grimes to approve her dissertation and help her get a job, so she starts researching ways to travel to Hell. Her plans are interrupted by K IR KU S R E V IE W S

S C I E N C E F I C T I O N A N D F A N T A S Y // F I C T I O N

Peter Murdoch, one of Grimes’ other students—“He was simply born brilliant…Alice couldn’t stand him”—and she reluctantly agrees to join forces. Despite the accounts of Dante and the like, Hell is full of surprises, including (sometimes) a remarkable resemblance to a college campus. As Alice and Peter journey deeper, they encounter nefarious deities; twisted, once-human enemies; and Shades from Grimes’ past with their own agendas. Hell will test Alice and Peter in ways their academic careers have not, dredging up their pasts at Cambridge, their messy relationships with their advisor, and their distrust of each other—after all, academia is a cutthroat game. The stakes are high, with mortal souls on the line, as Alice grapples with the question of whether academia even matters. Kuang melds a fantasy adventure (don’t look too closely at the magic—that’s not the point) with a rumination on academia’s problems to create a new take on the journey through the underworld. Alice is deeply flawed but also deeply understandable, stuck in a system that damages her while making questionable choices that feed into the same system; this is a tightly constructed novel that aims a clear lens on academia, with both its faults and its virtues. The heady draw of discovery is ever-present, even if what Alice is discovering is Hell.

A learned, literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness.

Kirkus Star

A fast-paced return to Nakamura’s magical world.

The Art of Vanishing

Angel Eye Nakamura, Madeleine | Canis Major Books/ Red Hen (280 pp.) | $18.95 paper June 3, 2025 | 9781939096210

Adrien Desfourneaux comes back to solve another magical mystery.

Someone is killing patients at the Chirurgeonate—an angel of death causing K IR KU S R E V IE W S

magically induced heart attacks is on the loose. Twice tried for witchcraft and acquitted, former doctor Adrien Desfourneaux tops the Curia Clementia’s list of suspects. Suddenly, his every move is suspicious—including visiting his friend and alienist Malise Tyrrhena at the hospital. And that’s hardly all Adrien has on his plate at the moment. A dithymic akratic—a person with this world’s version of bipolar disorder— Adrien relies on a paid keeper to prevent him from injuring himself or others. His last keeper, Gennady Richter, whom readers will remember from Cursebreakers (2023), disqualified himself after being thrown in jail for tussling with the Clementia’s inquisitors, leaving Adrien to hire someone else. That someone turns out to be Florian Albrecht, a Chirurgeonate doctor who specializes in healing magic—and who might be able to help Adrien recover his lost elemental capabilities. In anticipation of an akratic episode waiting on the horizon, Adrien has promised Florian complete obedience. But when Florian’s guidance begins to get in the way of Adrien’s burgeoning relationship with an actor named Oliver Harcourt, Adrien must decide whether to take a chance on love in the shadow of his own mental illness. Nakamura has knocked it out of the park once again here. Although Gennady fans will be disappointed at his backseat role, and the villain is revealed perhaps a little too soon, readers will be thrilled with this second look into Adrien’s world.

Pager, Morgan | Ballantine (304 pp.) $30.00 | July 1, 2025 | 9780593875384

This love affair starts with a meet-cute at a museum, then slips the tiresome restraints of reality altogether.

“She was Elizabeth Bennet in a janitorial uniform and I, Fitzwilliam Darcy in

oil on canvas”: This seemingly outlandish assertion summarizes the premise of Pager’s debut. We are being addressed by Jean Matisse, who lives with two of his siblings and his mom in a painting by his father, Henri. The “Elizabeth Bennet” in question is Claire, a new night-shift cleaning person at a private museum seemingly modeled on the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, where hundreds of paintings are hung edge to edge in a giant mansion. Ever since she was a little girl, Claire’s had the feeling that there’s a way to cross over into the world of a painted image, and she’s about to find out she’s right.

Later, after the pair has fallen in love: “We played cards with Cézanne’s farmhands, shot the breeze with Seurat’s models, and swam in the Mediterranean Sea.” As the subjects of the paintings skip from one canvas to the next to get some variety in their frozen lives, one of the most popular hangouts is “Le bonheur de vivre,” a Matisse which depicts a clothing-­ optional seaside bacchanal. This escapist adventure and beautiful love affair is deeply satisfying, almost therapeutic, for young Claire, who has a lot of responsibilities and complications in the real world. At one point, she starts to realize she could be missing important calls while she’s over there in La La Land.

“Of course there’s no cell reception in—what year is it in this painting?”

“1905 or 1906, I think.” In addition to the details of Claire’s backstory, Pager throws two big real-world developments into the mix—Covid19 and a museum heist. But the real joy of this book is the world she has invented on the other side of the canvas, a kind of Phantom Tollbooth for grown-ups.

Whimsical and beguiling.

For more science fiction and fantasy reviews, visit Kirkus online.

MAY 1, 2025

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P O D C A S T // F I C T I O N

Fully Booked

Sleep surveillance begets a woman’s worst nightmare in Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel. BY MEGAN LABRISE

EPISODE 414: LAILA LALAMI

EDITORS’ PICKS:

The Antidote by Karen Russell (Knopf) Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service, edited by Michael Lewis (Riverhead) Stalactite and Stalagmite: A Big Tale From a Little Cave by Drew Beckmeyer (Atheneum) A Catalog of Burnt Objects by Shana Youngdahl (Dial Books) THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

What Did You Do at School Today? by C.C. Lacavera Why Is My Bra Still On?

by Kristen Wasyliszyn The Student Resistance Handbook by Cevin Soling Year One by Marina Raydun Fully Booked is produced

by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.

Beowulf Sheehan

To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

On this episode of Fully Booked, we highlight some of the best books of March 2025. First, in a special editors’ segment, Laurie Muchnick, John McMurtrie, Mahnaz Dar, and Laura Simeon discuss their top picks in books for the month.

Then, I’m joined by Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami to talk about The Dream Hotel (Pantheon, March 4), “an engrossing and troubling dystopian tale” set in the not-too-distant future, in a nation where dreams are surveilled (starred review).

Lalami is the author of five books, including Pulitzer Prize finalist The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; it was also longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Her nationally bestselling novel The Other Americans won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Her books have been translated into 20 languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Here’s a bit more from our review of The Dream Hotel: “Lalami’s stellar fifth novel concerns Sara Hussein, a Moroccan American woman who’s returning home from a conference in London to her family in L.A. when she’s held by the Risk Assessment Administration, a federal agency that uses biometric data to assess citizens’ ‘pre-crime’ tendencies. She’s done nothing troubling, but her ‘risk score’ is high enough to force a stay at an allwoman ‘retention center’ that’s effectively a prison.…There are echoes of The Handmaid’s Tale here…[but] Lalami’s scenario is unique and well-imagined…[and] the story exposes the particular perniciousness of big tech’s capacity to exploit our every movement, indeed practically every thought. It’s a fiction-workshop cliche that dreams are unnecessary, but here they play a crucial role in the plot, opening up questions of what we’re sacrificing in the name of convenience and safety. The novel’s striking message is

The Dream Hotel Lalami, Laila

Pantheon | 336 pp. | $29.00 March 4, 2025 | 9780593317600

summarized in Sara’s retort to a bureaucrat who tells her the data doesn’t lie: ‘It doesn’t tell the truth, either.’”

In our conversation, Lalami describes The Dream Hotel as a woman’s journey through the gauntlet of consequences one might face living under techno-­ authoritarianism. We talk about how she started the novel in 2014 but set it aside, and what—if any—material survived the intervening decade. She describes the novelist’s impulse to pursue a seemingly far-fetched idea by asking a series of questions about how it could come to be (e.g., the surveillance of dreams: How would it be accomplished? What would the information be used for? How might it be misused? By whom?). We chat about compulsive optimization, the role of dreams in the novel, and how dreaming is something we humans have in common.

We bemoan the fact that unmediated human interactions are becoming rarer and touch on linguistics, laughter as resistance, semicolons, and survival as a community effort.

Editor-at-large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.

MAY 1, 2025

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Nonfiction

JOHN McMURTRIE

“THERE IS A large graveyard

filled with my enemies.” In 2023, so boasted Elon Musk on X, the dumpster fire of a site that he had bought for $44 billion a year earlier. Fittingly, the line opens Faiz Siddiqui’s scathing portrait of the tech mogul, Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk (St. Martin’s, May 6). Siddiqui, a Washington Post reporter, wrote the book before its subject began proudly chainsawing his way through the federal government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. The author makes clear, however, that the seeds of Musk’s chaotic and disruptive decision-­making were planted long ago. The richest person in the world, writes Siddiqui, is “a man with little regard for the consequences of his actions, for the minor aftereffects one might describe as fallout.”

Musk’s brashness might still find support in certain brospheres, but the bloom is off the rose for many tech wunderkinds and their powerful corporations—long gone is the wide-eyed and self-regarding Silicon Valley mantra of “making the world a better place.” Prominent among those who could use an image makeover is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who, along with former chief executive Sheryl 40

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Sandberg, comes off as not especially charming in former insider Sarah Wynn-­Williams’ Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (Flatiron Books, March 11). Amid all the book’s intrigue, wrote our reviewer, “Wynn-Williams’ accusation of some spectacularly louche and horndoggish behavior among the top brass seems an afterthought, but that gossipy element is there, giving a human touch to ‘these people and their lethal carelessness.’”

All this cause for concern doesn’t even take into account artificial intelligence, whose likely era-defining effects we can only guess at. Two new books approach the subject with caution and skepticism.

In More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and

Silicon Valley’s Crusade To Control the Fate of Humanity (Basic Books, April 22), astrophysicist and science journalist Adam Becker assails groupthink in the tech industry that promotes an “ideology of technological salvation.” Our critic called the book “an important and sober investigation of Silicon Valley’s boldest claims about the future.”

Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, the authors of The AI Con: How To Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper/HarperCollins, May 13), contend that corporations singing the praises of AI are not to be believed.

“In the vast majority of cases,” they write, “AI is not going to replace your job. But it will make your job a lot shittier.” AI boosters, they add, “are

indexing their fortunes—and mortgaging ours—on a future that doesn’t exist and that won’t suit us at all.” Our reviewer summed up the book as “a refreshingly contrarian take on AI and the clouds of hyperbole surrounding it.”

How to confront the perils of tech? Hoping not to sound, in his words, too “Luddite-y,” Chris Hayes argues for a reasonable approach that can help us all in our daily lives. In his thoughtful book, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource (Penguin Press, Jan. 28), he maintains that Apple and Google and Meta and other tech giants are not so much information companies as attention companies. Maybe it’s time, he says, to stop giving them so much of what they crave.

John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

SKEPTICAL TAKES ON TECH

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

NONFICTION

EDITOR’S PICK How so-called silly science leads to advances for humankind.

If artists are expected to experiment with paintbrushes, and musicians with instruments, scientists too must have “space for play and creativity,” according to this fun, fast-paced romp through the weird and curious minds that dared to ask why. The author is an animal behaviorist whose keen understanding of creatures enlightens tales of how the path to a scientific breakthrough is often not linear. From rats that sniff out tuberculosis and land mines, to a small frog that appeared comfortable floating in midair and made a big splash for physics, to the scientists who studied

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

how elephants pee, it all matters, somehow. “He didn’t just study nitrous oxide: He inhaled it,” the author writes of a chemistry maverick of the late 1700s who noticed the laugh-inducing and pain-dulling effect of the gas. Thoroughly researched yet highly readable, this book has more twists and turns than a duck’s penis—and vagina, it turns out—as the author describes how knowledge of duck genitalia changed our understanding of evolution and sexual selection. Tales include one about a microbiologist who spotted an algae that thrived in the boiling waters of Yellowstone National Park, which eventually led to the creation of a ubiquitous PCR test

42

We All Want To Change the World

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld

45

Yet Here I Am

By Jonathan Capehart

48

Artists of the Middle East

By Saeb Eigner

55

Alive Day

By Karie Fugett

The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: And Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science York, Carly Anne | Basic Books | 288 pp. $30.00 | June 17, 2025 | 9781541605213

used in the Covid-19 pandemic. The “salmon cannon” in the title refers to the vacuum device, akin to a bank-teller tube, that propels salmon over dams as they make their way upstream to spawn. In an era of cutting costs for basic research in favor of applied research,

66

The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford

By James McWilliams

69

The Nazi Mind

By Laurence Rees

and amid long-standing questions of why taxpayers should fund research that seems outlandish, this whole book is a witty and deftly delivered answer to the question: What’s the point?

A delightful plunge into the curiosity-driven discoveries at the heart of science.

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When It All Burns

By Jordan Thomas

74

The Boys in the Light

By Nina Willner

41

The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog

By Carly Anne York

MAY 1, 2025

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NONFICTION

Kirkus Star

We All Want To Change the World: My Journey Through Social Justice Movements From the 1960s to Today Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem & Raymond Obstfeld | Crown (320 pp.) | $30.00 May 13, 2025 | 9780593735107

Insights into social movements from an NBA legend.

When Abdul-­ Jabbar met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964, he was “a skinny, seventeen-year-old basketball player” who never believed he could ever make a difference in the fight against racism.

Yet that encounter proved crucial in his lifelong awakening to many faces of social injustice and the power of fighting back through protest. Assisted by longtime co-author Obstfeld, Abdul-Jabbar examines not only the Civil Rights Movement but also those that emerged alongside it that supported gay rights, women’s liberation, environmental protection, and an end to the Vietnam War. The greatest lesson he offers from his many years of activism is that no matter how urgent the need for change, “nothing happens right now.” Like the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act nearly 100 years after the end of the Civil War, change is slow and incremental. Yet even as society evolves through commitment to social betterment, Abdul-Jabbar also admits that discrimination and unfairness— which prompted the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements—stubbornly persist. But Abdul-Jabbar is never without hope. Throughout the book, he references his own personal evolution, which took him from dismissal of the women’s movement and a prejudice toward homosexuality to a social activism premised in the idea that “no one is free unless everyone is free.” With wisdom, compassion, and humility, this book reminds readers that the ideals of equality and justice are works in 42

MAY 1, 2025

progress that each generation is tasked with transforming into reality.

A timely reflection on protest movements that also chronicles how a beloved champion came to political consciousness.

The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution Anishanslin, Zara | Harvard Univ. (400 pp.) $32.95 | July 1, 2025 | 9780674290235

A capacious view of patriotism.

Art historian Anishanslin takes a fresh perspective on the American Revolution by focusing on three artists whose work inspired rebellion and patriotism: Robert Edge Pine, a British painter likely of African descent; Prince Demah, an enslaved portrait painter; and Patience Wright, an American wax sculptor who ran a London wax museum. Less known than John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, and Gilbert Stuart, the three were famous among their contemporaries; their clientele spanned the political spectrum, and their art, seen in exhibitions and reproductions, shaped public opinion in Britain and the colonies.

Moreover, besides producing art, each contributed to the revolution in other ways: Demah as a soldier, Wright as a patriot spy, and Pine as the founder of popular museum culture. Demah was brought to London by his self-serving enslaver, who recognized his rare artistic talents and planned to publicize him for her own benefit and arrange for him to study with a professional artist to further develop his skills. On the voyage abroad, he served both as a valet to his owner and as a mariner on the ship. Fortunately, the artist who took him on as apprentice was Pine, an ardent supporter of American liberty. Wright, a successful sculptor in the colonies, was a widow with five children when she decided to go to London to establish herself there. With a

letter of introduction to Benjamin Franklin from his sister, Jane, Wright found support to launch her new career.

Soon, her networks included aristocrats, politicians, and merchants, from whom she easily gathered intelligence that she passed on to Franklin. “Not all Patriots were white,” Anishanslin writes. “Not all Patriots were men.” The fight for freedom raged beyond combat.

A stirring, thoroughly researched history.

The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World― And Shapes Our Future Arbesman, Samuel | PublicAffairs (304 pp.) $30.00 | June 10, 2025 | 9781541704480

“A massive connective engine to everything around us.”

Computing, writes scientist and author Arbesman, “should be in service of helping us become better people.” Code, which does the computer’s labor, is the “membrane between reality and words.” It is “animated logic… algebra mingled with fire.” But today the Gandalf-like wizardry of Steve Wozniak, who wrote Apple BASIC by hand, on paper, has been transmuted into the mass-production lines of corporate software engineers. Even the Mac has essentially vanished, replaced by the programmer’s mind, the code. Your screen’s output is the result of coding armies, coding libraries, and collections of bits from coders past, along with their errors. Writing code, says Arbesman, makes “you feel like a wizard of unbelievable powers.” After the author displays and analyzes a lengthy review of programming codes, he envisions newbies who eventually won’t need to learn to code and suggests programming can be made easy for everyone. If you’ve used a spreadsheet, you’ve already begun, somewhat. This “democratization of code…is the ultimate goal.” A key step involves artificial intelligence, whose K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Exploring ways to tame everyday noises that all of us take for granted.

CLAMOR

unique feature is being comfortable with ambiguity, and so it can stumble into “engineered serendipity.” Next, the author turns to coding new worlds but warns coders that creating “living systems” might be their impossible challenge, so a dose of humility is essential. Technology presents an alternative to the test tube, but often burrowed into flecks of silicon are bugs. Never fear, some say, we are living in a computer simulation; the author examines and, pages later, eventually dismisses this as a myth. Like the CDs and DVDs that surround him, code, too, is destined to become obsolete.

Until then, we have a tool to open the workings of the human cell and explore possibilities of the human mind. And we have books like this one that allow us to see beyond the screen, beyond the chip, and perhaps into the future.

A challenging but rewarding history of code, and a glimpse of a future beyond it.

We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship With Kate Spade Arons, Elyce | Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $28.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9781668069073

A memoir, by a longtime friend and business partner, of the life of designer and fashion icon Kate Spade.

Arons met Katy Brosnahan as a first-year student at the University of Kansas and transferred with her to Arizona State. There, Katy met Andy Spade, brother of comedian David, and fell in love while also sharing his interest in art and design. After K IR KU S R E V IE W S

graduating, Arons took a job at a New York department store display firm, declining a lower-paying position at Ralph Lauren: “I took the job with the higher salary instead of the Ralph offer, probably not the swiftest decision I’ve ever made, but at the time, it seemed to make sense given my lean bank account.” Kate and Andy joined her, with Kate becoming an editorial assistant at Mademoiselle until, one day, they cooked up the idea to make handbags and other accessories.

“Objectively, there was no reason that we couldn’t start a handbag company from scratch,” Arons writes, “apart from the lack of capital, the absence of know-how in manufacturing, zero experience in finance, and a hundred other things I didn’t know about yet.” Yet it worked, spectacularly, for 13 years, until, in 2006, the partners sold to a bigger brand that kept the name—which, Arons adds, now does “annual sales north of $1.4 billion.” After honoring a noncompete clause, Arons and Kate came together again to start a new accessory company, a project cut short when Kate took her own life. In the end, Arons calls Spade’s suicide an “incomprehensible choice,” which seems a bit of an evasion, given that it’s a choice so many make on concluding that there’s no other avenue; more work on revealing the sources of Kate Spade’s depression would have made this a richer and more useful book.

A sad story that never quite gets to the heart of the matter: depression in all its fraught complexity.

For more about the fashion world, visit Kirkus online.

Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World—And How We Can Take It Back Berdik, Chris | Norton (272 pp.) | $29.99 May 20, 2025 | 9781324006992

Noise annoys— and worse.

As a pollutant, noise is unique because it’s ephemeral.

Greenhouse gases linger in the atmosphere and microplastics fill the ocean, but once you stop making noise, it’s gone. That’s not necessarily good news, writes journalist Berdik, author of Mind Over Mind: The Surprising Power of Expectations, who has done his homework and delivers a painless education. After describing the background (how we hear) and the nature of the problem (the noises we make are more harmful than we realize), he explains what we can do (more than we’re doing). Better than vision, hearing connects us with others, and the harm caused by noise begins before anything surfaces on an audiogram. Children who can’t hear well suffer delayed development, and adults with hearing loss increase their risk of dementia. Much of Berdik’s book describes efforts to tame noises that we take for granted. Decibels measure sound intensity, but equating noise with loudness underestimates the risk of quieter domains such as offices and hospitals. Open-plan offices are spreading because they save money, but studies show that workers exposed to increasing background chatter are less productive and more stressed. No one likes the ubiquitous hospital beeps and alarms, and noisy operating rooms are absolutely life threatening. Operating rooms are getting their act together, and ingenious inventors are producing instruments that produce more informative sounds than the universal beeps, although many readers will note that these haven’t caught on. Less noisy “healthy buildings” and “healthy cities” have become an architectural mantra, and noise trumps food, service, and price as the leading restaurant complaint. Berdik describes clever, if often expensive, solutions to all. Delivering the obligatory MAY 1, 2025

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“Americans have forgotten how sweet shade can be.”

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bad news about the environment, he writes that massive noise, mostly from shipping, is disorienting whales and other undersea life, but fixes are possible.

Expert attention to a pollutant that’s not getting the attention it deserves.

Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource Bloch, Sam | Random House (336 pp.) $32.00 | July 22, 2025 | 9780593242766

Hiding from the heat.

Excessive heat kills more people every year than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined.

The solution to this international concern, says environmental journalist Bloch, is a simple one: more shade. But simple doesn’t mean easy. Putting even a small dent in the amount of heat absorbed by the earth involves a multinational commitment to complex changes in the way we design not only cities but also neighborhoods, public spaces, and homes.

Bloch begins each chapter with a story capturing various ways that lack of shade affects segments of the world’s population, including passengers at bus stops in Los Angeles, travelers to desert oases, and residents of big-city high-rises, all seeking relief from the heat. The challenges are many: Homeowners want windows for light, property developers find it cheaper to rely on air conditioning to cool buildings, and city planners have a hard time justifying the cost of barriers and shade trees in public spaces. Ideas to reduce excessive heat range from planting trees to brightening clouds to solar-radiation management to using space shades and other tactics to reduce the amount of sunlight the earth absorbs. The simplest option is also the most obvious. As Bloch 44

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writes, “It’s understandable that Americans have forgotten how sweet shade can be. As air-conditioning has become the default method of cooling down, the shade tree has disappeared from the lexicon….There is still no technology known to man that cools the outdoors as effectively as a tree.” Bloch explores a catalog of possible solutions; none is examined in great depth, but the scope shows why this problem is not easily solved and presents an urgent need for continued conversation.

A thoroughly documented and thought-provoking book, certain to spark attention and discussion.

Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World Bouverie, Tim | Crown (672 pp.) | $38.00 June 10, 2025 | 9780593138366

Reexamining the “incongruous alliance” that defeated the Nazis.

British historian Bouverie writes that World War II’s first two years were a pure contest between good and evil, with Stalin’s USSR happy to support Hitler. Having declared war when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the Allies proceeded to dither until Germany attacked the following spring.

The Allied rout after May 1940 crushed morale. Defeatism overwhelmed the French and exerted a powerful influence on its ally because Hitler made it clear that he wanted a peaceful settlement with Britain. It’s not unlikely that, without Churchill, this would have happened.

Ignoring historians’ feel-good preoccupation with the Battle of Britain, Bouverie

concentrates on that nation’s disappointment on the battlefield and maddening experience with other great powers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s early support was largely verbal. Selling arms and food for cash soon bankrupted Britain, and Lend-Lease started slowly (the iconic 50 aged destroyers were little help). Charles de Gaulle infuriated both Roosevelt and Churchill. Stalin did not grow less obnoxious as an ally. The Allies’ victory came at a painful price that included plenty of frustration at the top. Churchill was a nationalist and imperialist, willing to sacrifice morality if it benefited his nation. A great insight is his assumption that Stalin held identical views. This proved more accurate than FDR’s conviction that he faced a political boss amenable to the charm and favors that worked so well in America. Readers may gnash their teeth at the democracies’ weakness in the face of Stalin’s ruthlessness but console themselves knowing that the USSR was, ultimately, the big loser.

Fascinating history of a time that is fading from living memory.

Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes Browne, Harrison & Rachel Browne Beacon Press (240 pp.) | $27.95 May 27, 2025 | 9780807045343

Teaming up to make sports more inclusive.

Frustrated by the “the worsening tide of anti-­trans rhetoric and legislation” that has characterized our political system, Harrison Browne, the first-ever transgender professional hockey player, teams up with his sister, investigative journalist Rachel Browne, to analyze the causes, effects, and rhetoric behind anti-trans policies in high school, college, and professional sports that exclude transgender athletes from competing with teams that align with their identity rather than with their sex assigned at birth. Drawing on the stories of transgender athletes like K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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boxer Patricio Manuel, runner CeCé Telfer, and swimmer Schuyler Bailar, the book exposes the inherent flaw underlying trans-exclusion laws: the idea that women are weaker than men. The authors write, “The fairness conversation, when viewed through the lens of women’s sports and women athletes, misleads people into thinking that physicality is the only thing that makes it fair, that women aren’t capable, and their bodies need to be protected and policed at all costs.” They argue that the advent of trans athletes provides an opportunity to shift the conversation away from toxically masculine ideas about feminine fragility and toward the lens of access for all, a discussion that is particularly important given that engaging in sports saves transgender people’s lives. This well-researched, trenchantly argued, and compassionately written book is a must-read for those invested in the fight against transphobia. Deftly combining memoir-style profiles of trans athletes with political analysis, the authors clearly and adeptly dismantle both the patriarchal, transphobic basis of anti-trans policies and our preconceived notions about gender, ability, and sport.

A strong argument for dismantling gender segregation in sports.

Kirkus Star

Yet Here I Am: Lessons From a Black Man’s Search for Home Capehart, Jonathan | Grand Central Publishing (272 pp.) | $30.00 May 20, 2025 | 9781538767061

The noted journalist recounts his reckonings with sexuality, love, racism, and many other charged topics.

Early on in his memoir, Capehart, best known as a commentator for MSNBC and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post, writes of being known among his Southern cousins as “Mr. Peabody,” the bookishly K IR KU S R E V IE W S

bespectacled cartoon dog. “And I was a little ‘funny,’” he adds. “That was the gentler f-bomb used for someone believed to be gay back then.” Raised in New Jersey, Capehart writes of being one of the few, if not the only, Black students in his classes, which, accompanied by annual holidays in North Carolina, gave him a precisely contoured understanding of race and racism: “Blackness is always at the mercy of someone else’s judgment. You can be too Black, not Black enough, or not Black at all….Some Black people are eager to take away my Black card. Some white people would rather I not mention my race at all.”

A pointed lesson came from his mother, who prophesied that his friendships with white children would turn unequal as the years went by. Sadly, this came to pass, and, despite an elite education and plum jobs in journalism, he would learn that “education and money offer no real protection from racism.” Another pointed lesson came decades later, when Capehart resigned from the Washington Post editorial board after he realized that he would never quite be received as the “interlocutor between Blacks and whites” that he hoped to be: “And once again, it felt like the whiter world let me know where it believed my place to be.” Fortunately, Capehart has refused to accept silence, so that his voice, calmly defiant, is still heard outside the confines of this welcome book.

A lively, sometimes rueful, always illuminating look at the business of journalism by a knowing practitioner.

The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay Clarey, Christopher | Grand Central Publishing (368 pp.) | $31.99 May 13, 2025 | 9781538759134

A Spaniard takes Paris.

After Björn Borg won his unprecedented sixth French Open in 1981, some observers considered it an unbreakable record. Not quite. In 2022, Rafael Nadal won his 14th French title. The

Spanish lefty’s “deep and singular connection” to the red clay courts at Roland-Garros provides Clarey, who has covered the tournament for 30 years, with a foundation for this shrewdly constructed biography. In Spain, where most courts are clay, 6-year-old Nadal rallied with adults. His facility for hitting topspin forehands with “nextlevel racket-head speed” would set him apart, Clarey writes. High-speed cameras show that his rival Roger Federer’s forehand generated about 2,500 revolutions per minute. Nadal’s ball did 3,200 rpm, forcing opponents to contend with higher bounces on “slippery clay.” At various points, Clarey steps back from Nadal to focus on lesser-known aspects of the tournament.

These include the material composition and maintenance of the playing surface, the resentment some French fans felt when Nadal was winning nearly every year, and the fascinating history of the tournament venue, in which wartime France interned foreign nationals. The hallmark of Nadal’s career was competitiveness, “playing every point like it was match point,” said a fellow player. His doggedness was fueled by his uncle and coach Toni Nadal’s training program, which prized “volume and intensity,” Clarey writes. But the regimen might also have damaged his body. Injuries forced Nadal out of 15 major tournaments, nine more than Federer, whose supposed lack of grit was once derided

by Nadal’s team. Clarey occasionally clogs up the narrative with uninformative quotes, but he convincingly depicts Nadal as largely unchanged by success, the rare player who personally thanks tournament staffers and media-room stenographers. This insightful, wide-ranging book could serve as a model for other sports biographers.

An inspired portrait of an unusually dominant athlete.

For more books about tennis, visit Kirkus online.

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Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics Cooley, Alexander & Alexander Dukalskis Oxford Univ. (320 pp.) | $29.99 June 30, 2025 | 9780197776360

Liberal democracy in danger.

Cooley, professor of political science at Barnard College, and Dukalskis, associate professor of politics and international relations at University College Dublin, open with the West’s celebration of the USSR’s collapse in 1989. Victory in the Cold War was hailed as a triumph of freedom, and many pundits predicted that respect for human rights and free market capitalism would become so universal that it would mark “the end of history.” China was welcomed into the world economy with the universal assumption that its people would force democratic reforms, and soon-to-be-autocratic Russia, with an economy no larger than Italy’s, was of little consequence.

Democracies spread, national incomes rose, and few disagreed with the maxim that capitalism and prosperity required freedom. Readers will squirm when the authors describe how matters began to change. Until the beginning of this century, dictators stumbled when dealing with Western “soft power,” which emphasized, besides movies and pop music, a quarrelsome liberal democracy, toleration of contradictory opinions within a nation, and opposition to injustice everywhere. No fools, they learned from their mistakes. Using a combination of modern technology and psychology (humans remain tribal; they love theirs and distrust others), old autocracies got their act together, and jingoistic right-wing movements, learning the same lessons, began thriving even in European social democracies. Once a modest threat, reformers barely exist today in the established autocracies of China, Russia, and the Middle East. Elsewhere, hypernationalistic autocrats began winning free elections decades ago, and to America’s 2024 victors, “liberal” is a dirty word. No 46

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polemic, this is a sober report, dotted with statistics, graphs, and political analysis.

A dispassionate argument proposing that the lights are going out.

What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea Dabhoiwala, Fara | Belknap/ Harvard Univ. (480 pp.) | $29.95 Aug. 5, 2025 | 9780674987319

Speaking our minds—sometimes at a price.

“The essential purpose of free speech, declared Cato, was to prevent tyranny and bondage.”

Dabhoiwala, a Princeton historian, references the Roman philosopher’s assertion as part of a brilliantly incisive argument about the ways in which free speech has been used—not just to liberate but also to put in bondage. Freedom went hand in hand with slavery for centuries, and this book traces the history of an ideal together with its contradictions. It begins with Greek and Roman antiquity, moves through the middle ages, and arrives in the 20th century to offer a powerful rewriting of the place of words and wills in the exercise of power. Toleration fought against censorship. Secularism contested with religion. Voices of color strained against the crack of white whips.

Whether in the time of 18th-century merchants, 19th-century reformers, 20th-century revolutionaries, or 21st-century democracies, free speech remains about “the principled attempt to address the central problems of media ownership, profit and the public good.”

We need, the author argues, a social understanding of expression: “Current western theories of free speech, with their focus on individual rights, and their relative neglect of the public good and the realities of the media landscape, are poorly equipped to address the problem” of advancing truth in public discourse.

Are there “collective rights?” Should media be unchecked? Does one defame

another with thoughtless words? We need to balance “the rights and profits of speakers, publishers and corporations against their responsibilities—towards their users, audiences and the public as a whole,” writes Dabhoiwala. “The history of free speech matters” as we try to balance public with private interests and individual expression with audience response in an increasingly virulent digital world in which anything goes.

An enlightening and field-defining history about the right to speak and the social consequences of its exercise.

I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again: Turning Our Family Trauma of Sexual Assault and Chemical Submission Into a Collective Fight Darian, Caroline | Trans. by Stephen Brown Sourcebooks (224 pp.) | $16.99 paper March 18, 2025 | 9781464257957

The daughter of the infamous French rapist was also his victim.

Many will remember the stoic visage of Gisèle Pelicot last fall outside the Avignon courthouse, where her husband, Dominique, and 50 other men were convicted of crimes that included myriad instances of raping her while she was drugged to unconsciousness. In this memoir documenting Darian’s experiences, from first learning about the crimes in November 2020 to just before the case went to trial in September 2024, she writes, “I bear a crushing double burden.

I am the child of both the victim and her tormentor.” Among the horrifying revelations the investigation uncovered was that she too was one of her once-beloved father’s victims—photos of her were among the cache of pornographic images he posted, presumably taken when she was drugged. There were also images of both of her brothers’ wives.

This diary-style account takes us through the emotional turmoil faced by Darian, her young son, and her brother as well as K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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the damage to her relationship with her mother, who wasn’t easily able to accept the idea that Dominique had abused his daughter. To illustrate the complexity of her mother’s feelings during this period, Darian describes her making up a bag of clean clothes and personal items for her husband and delivering it to the prison.

“I learn all this with disbelief. My mother is fussing over the man who allowed her to be raped for ten years running.”

Devastated by the ever-increasing bad news, Darian ended up in a psychiatric ward for a couple of days, but ultimately she found two coping mechanisms— writing and activism. A second memoir is being published in France, and to further promote awareness, Darian has co-founded a movement called Stop Chemical Submission (#MendorsPas): Don’t Put Me Under.

Darian’s account of her family’s experience is testimony to the human capacity for depravity and suffering— and resilience.

harassment, including Representative Leigh Finke, a transgender politician from Minnesota; journalist Taylor Lorenz; and activist Nadya Okamoto.

Dastagir uses these cases to illustrate larger trends around the effects of harassment, including physical dysregulation, silencing, and exhaustion. She also ties them to larger feminist struggles, such as the fight to eliminate menstruation taboos, the struggle for abortion rights, and the need to educate white feminists about solidarity. Finally, Dastagir provides ways for women to cope with harassment, including finding a sense of purpose, using humor to deflect pain, and building community and solidarity. She envisions a future in which “our digital spaces were sites of mutual responsibility, scenes of gratitude and reciprocity, rather than ones of dominance and competition.” This is a deeply researched and clearly argued book, and Dastagir’s empathy and forays into her personal life make it particularly effective.

To Those Who Have Confused You To Be a Person: Words as Violence and Stories of Women’s Resistance Online

Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future

A brilliant analysis of gender-based violence on- and offline.

Dastagir, Alia | Crown (304 pp.) | $29.00 February 25, 2025 | 9780593727843

De Kai | MIT Press (280 pp.) $32.95 | June 3, 2025 | 9780262049764

A journalist explores the causes and effects of online harassment of women.

In 2022 Dastagir wrote a story for USA Today about a man’s childhood experience of sexual assault. She paired the article with “a short companion piece on the science of pedophilia” in an attempt to “better understand violence.”

As soon as the piece was published, the author was harassed by hateful trolls. The experience both destroyed her emotionally and inspired her to write this book, which examines what online violence looks like and how it affects mostly female victims. Dastagir profiles a series of women who have experienced

Guiding us through the origins and ethics of AI. What is artificial, what is intelligence, and how are the AI systems surrounding us being created? In this clear and engaging volume, De Kai, a pioneer in machine

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learning and natural language processing, invites readers into the history of AI to explore deeply philosophical questions on the nature of human thinking and belief. With humor, diagrams, and plentiful examples, De Kai takes readers below the surface of popular chatbots and search engines to the broad field of scientific inquiry living at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and computer science, reflecting researchers’ observations about human intelligence. Artificial brains that mirror and learn from human behavior and culture learn our biases and stereotypes. Creating ethical, empathetic models requires our careful nurturing, as we might nurture children. AI’s infamous darker side skews the news, generates deepfake images, amplifies biases, and dangerously polarizes political discourse. De Kai notes that companies would prefer industry-wide guidelines and a level playing field to craft responsible (but unprofitable) AI controls. The impact on jobs and creative endeavors is not the focus here; this volume does not dwell on the underlying economics of various models and companies. But instilling empathy and ethics in our artificial influencers calls for guiding them so they can guide us. Suggestions on how to perfect our AI “children” are detailed and thoughtful, while evoking Jorge Luis Borges’ tale of a mapmaking process so exacting it grows as large as the world it represents. Ultimately, this primer argues that the stakes are high, the situation is urgent, and we all have a role to play. By engaging with AI consciously and ethically, we can help shape better systems—by first calling forth our better selves.

A deeply human dive into the AIs that are transforming our world.

Creating ethical AI models requires our careful nurturing, as we might nurture children.

RAISING AI

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Homework: A Memoir Dyer, Geoff | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (288 pp.) $29.00 | June 10, 2025 | 9780374616229

A Cotswold childhood during the ’60s and ’70s.

Remarkably accurate if surprisingly conventional, Dyer seems the least likely slacker to finish homework. Famous for not writing a book about D.H. Lawrence and mooching around Varanasi not doing yoga, Dyer, in this memoir, recounts growing up in Cheltenham, a sedate spa town in the English midlands.

The only child of a working-class couple, he focuses on two key events.

The first is passing his 11-plus exam, which gives him access to a grammar school, and the second is his matriculation to Oxford. Difficult as it may be for Americans to understand, a national test at the age of 11 funneled the academically gifted into a feeder system for college, while largely abandoning everyone else. Shedding his working-class identity at 11 to eventually mingle, at Oxford, with enormously privileged members of the upper class, is the true voyage of the book. Along the way, this meticulously itemized memoir includes playing the game called conkers (horse chestnuts on a string), supporting the Chelsea soccer team, trying to avoid warts at the swimming center, helping his dad on the allotment (a garden area away from the gardenless house), taking elocution lessons to lose his local accent, collecting LPs, and riding his bike. His portrait of an England emerging from the Second World War into the comparative affluence of the 1960s makes for touching reading, especially its depiction of the contrast

between the author and his Depression-era father, for whom wartime rationing never really went away.

Still—this being Dyer—his eye for quirky paradox never falters. Front rooms remain unused, pianos do not get played, a family visit represents “a lack of occasion,” while beauty goes conspicuously missing. Given a Christmas gift, he declares himself “entirely undisappointed.”

An enfant terrible reflects on his not-so-terrible enfance.

Kirkus Star

Artists of the Middle East: 1900 to Now Eigner, Saeb | Thames & Hudson (400 pp.) $85.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780500026137

A rich artistic trove.

Eigner, a specialist in Arabic art and culture, grew up in Cairo, Beirut, and Kuwait, immersed in the abundant creative life of the Middle East.

In a handsomely produced volume, featuring 572 striking color images of paintings, drawings, sculpture, photographs, installations, calligraphy, and stills from videos, he offers an authoritative survey of art encompassing a vast geographical area, from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east. Roughly 250 concise biographies and longer, insightful discussions of nearly 100 artists reveal more than a century of prolific artistic production in many media. Eigner examines recurring themes, such as calligraphy and folk art, nature and gardens, cityscapes and popular culture, as well as religious iconography, symbolism, mysticism, and spirituality. Some artists have drawn on historical and political

How subversive literature reached the Soviet bloc.

THE CIA BOOK CLUB

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allusions, including colonialism, uprisings, war, and massacres. Many artists studied abroad, where they were influenced by European modernist movements, art institutions, and artistic circles. The Lebanese artist Shafic Abboud, for example, attended the ateliers of Fernand Léger and André Lhote in Paris when he was 21, returning a few years later to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. He came back to Lebanon to work and teach, but when he was exiled by the Lebanese Civil War, he again made a home in France.

Likewise, Hamed Abdalla had a successful career in his native Egypt before moving to Copenhagen and finally settling in Paris. Palestinian artist Ali Al Jabri studied architecture at Stanford and English literature in the U.K. Although shaped by international influences, the men and women whom Eigner profiles produced works infused with their Arabic heritage.

It’s likely that most artists included here will be unfamiliar to Western readers; the volume serves, therefore, as an engaging introduction and informative resource.

A generous compendium of luminous art.

The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission To Win the Cold War With Forbidden Literature English, Charlie | Random House (352 pp.) $35.00 | July 1, 2025 | 9780593447901

Vivid history of a CIA-funded program to introduce subversive literature to Eastern Europe during the Soviet bloc era.

British author English’s book opens with an image of a simple-looking book, computer scientists on the cover, seemingly a technical manual. Had Polish security agents opened it, however, they would have discovered a copy of George Orwell’s 1984, smuggled into the country from Paris. The French capital served as an entrepôt for books funded by the CIA, which, brought to Warsaw and other Polish cities by travelers K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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to the West during the brief thaw following Stalin’s death, were circulated via a “system of covert lending.” As English writes, the CIA agents providing funds and books were discerning: They sent fashion magazines and books by the likes of John le Carré and Philip Roth but also by East European and Russian writers such as Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, and Czeslaw Milosz. Eventually the book smugglers became more daring, publishing samizdat editions through a carefully coordinated series of safe rooms scattered across the country. English celebrates homegrown heroes such as Miroslaw Chojecki, trained as a physicist, who had been arrested 43 times by March 1980 but kept it up all the same. Romanian-born George Minden, also honored, concocted a series of ploys to get books and money inside the Iron Curtain, including, daringly, simply mailing banned literature to recipients chosen at random from the phone book. The program was highly effective; as English notes, “By 1962 at least 500 organizations were sending books on the CIA’s behalf.” By the program’s end, thousands of books had been circulated, to the gratitude of their readers, one of whom exalted, “We read poetry and literature. It showed us that there are likeminded people who are above nationality, who we can empathize with, who admire beauty, who admire virtue.”

A well-crafted book about books—and spooks, skullduggery, and a time when ideas mattered.

Fairey-isms Fairey, Shepard | Princeton Univ. (168 pp.) $16.95 | May 6, 2025 | 9780691271415

“It’s important for art to have a point of view.”

South Carolina native Fairey is not just a talented street artist and graphic designer. In this book of quotations—part of a Princeton University Press series edited by Larry Warsh—Fairey is, in Warsh’s words, an “intelligent disrupter…attuned to the visual conversations that take place every day on urban streets.” Warsh creates a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

portrait of the artist using Fairey’s own words, drawing from interviews and articles published around the world. The result is a compendium that reads almost like an as-told-to intellectual auto­ biography. Though Fairey began his art career through the traditional modalities of drawing and painting, skateboarding and punk rock led him to develop graphic arts skills and an unconstrained DIY approach to art. The freedom he claimed for himself allowed him to take inspiration from whatever inspired him: “propaganda posters,” album covers, and work by artists Barbara Kruger and Andy Warhol, among others. Over time Fairey came to see his art as a way to communicate ideas and as a form of activism, “a tool of provocation, if not direct persuasion.” Though one of his most famous works, Barack Obama’s 2008 “Hope” campaign poster, would appear to suggest liberalism, Fairey makes it clear that his work has no political affiliation. What ultimately guides his philosophy is a single-minded drive to “question everything” and to make viewers confront their own discomfort with being shown their own penchant for (social) obedience—as he did through his career-making Obey Giant sticker campaign. Though slim, this carefully researched and curated volume will no doubt find many appreciators among art historians and Fairey’s many followers.

A highly readable book that offers intriguing glimpses into the thought process of a premier street artist.

Summers in Squid Tickle: A Newfoundland Odyssey Finch, Robert | Norton (304 pp.) $29.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9781324051312

A village and a visitor evolve.

In 1995, nature writer Finch (1943-2024) left his home on Cape Cod and traveled to the Newfoundland village of Burnside, originally called Squid Tickle: a tickle being the narrow waterway separating the mainland from Squid Island. At the time, Finch was

“heartsick and heartsore,” hoping to heal himself in a new place. That new place did indeed prove inspiring, both personally and creatively. In his final memoir, Finch records his visits to Burnside on and off for the next 20 years, alone and with Kathy, who became his wife. At first living in the house of friends, in 2001, Finch and Kathy bought a place of their own, setting roots in a community indelibly shaped by the sea, naturally, socially, and economically.

Once sustained by cod fishing, the villagers were forced to turn to other ways of making a living when cod fishing collapsed. Not surprisingly, young people left for jobs elsewhere in Canada, decimating the population. Finch estimates there were 36 left in Burnside during his visits. From these often loquacious, usually elderly residents, Finch learned family stories and local history, which he relates as they were spun out in conversations. He conveys, as well, the easy intimacy among his “strong and often strong-willed” neighbors, who face “sickness, infirmity, death, loss, separation, dislocation, divorce, and loneliness” with equanimity. The whole history of Newfoundland, he writes, can be summed up as “ordinariness lived on the edge of terror and sublimity.” Finch felt a genuine attachment to the community and natural environs of Squid Tickle, although by 2015, he and Kathy knew it was time to move on. Burnside was aspiring to transform into a summer destination; Finch had transformed, too, from sadness to peace.

Warm, engaging recollections.

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade Fishkin, Shelley Fisher | Yale Univ. (448 pp.) $28.00 | April 15, 2025 | 9780300268324

Reviving Huck’s friend.

Few know more about Mark Twain than Stanford Professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin, and few have done more to excavate the racial world of Twain’s America than she has. The author >>> MAY 1, 2025

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N O N F I C T I O N // Q & A

THE KIRKUS Q&A: BONNIE TSUI A swimmer, surfer, and author offers readers an entertaining anatomy lesson.

BY JOHN McMURTRIE

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A common way of praising a book is to say that you couldn’t put it down. And yet, reading your book, I felt I did need to put it down. I was very conscious of sitting on my butt and feeling like I needed to get up and stretch or do some pushups. Did you realize how much you might change people’s reading habits?

I’m extremely glad that it made you get up and walk around. We all sit too much, don’t we? It’s really funny to think that the experience of reading the book had to be interrupted. I love that.

What’s the most unusual thing you discovered about muscles in researching the book?

One of the things I didn’t know about muscle is that it’s an endocrine tissue.

You think about it as a tangible thing that’s for

locomotion, right? It’s mechanical. But the fact that it’s an endocrine tissue and sends signaling molecules all over your body—I thought that was so cool. And it went such a long way to explaining that brain-body connection, and what movement does for your brain. Brain structures like the hippocampus get bigger with exercise.

Bulking up your muscles literally bulks up your brain.

I mean, that’s just so great.

We humans are built to move, and so when we don’t, lousy shit happens.

Do you have a regular exercise routine?

I still swim a lot, but now surfing is taking up a bigger part of my time—in part because it’s just really fun to learn something and adapt to it. Exercise as play is a theme in the book.

I highly subscribe to it, and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Ly nsay Sk iba/Jenny Fu/Melissa Gibson.

BONNIE TSUI has a commute—of sorts. Before dawn, five days a week, she leaves her house in Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and drives for an hour to the seaside community of Pacifica.

There, she dons a wetsuit, grabs her surfboard, and strides into the ocean as the sun is rising.

It’s a ritual that has Tsui doing something she loves; she’s 48 and has been surfing for the past 18 years. As you might imagine, it also gives her a strenuous workout. All of which helped make her well equipped to write her new book, On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters (Algonquin, April 22).

Whereas Tsui explored her lifelong passion for swimming in her previous book, Why We Swim (2020), On Muscle looks more broadly at the science behind movement itself. How exactly do muscles work? What differentiates certain muscles? What’s behind muscle memory? “Muscles deserve more consideration than we give them,” Tsui writes. “Muscles are smarter than we think. They have different personalities. They remember things.”

For the book, Tsui travels to the University of Texas at Austin to visit Jan Todd, profiled by Sports Illustrated as the “World’s Strongest Woman.” At the University of California, San Francisco, she observes the dissection of a human cadaver: “I want to actually see muscle for the first time.”

On Muscle is also a cultural examination of her subject. She writes about standards of muscular beauty, questioning, for one, the absurdly top-heavy depictions of American superheroes. The book’s graceful illustrations of various muscles are hers.

At the heart of the book is an affecting account of the author’s relationship with her father. An exercise fanatic, he led Tsui and her brother in workout routines at their makeshift home gym on Long Island. Together, they soaked up martial arts movies. Her paternal grandfather died of a heart attack at age 64, so, writes Tsui, “my father has been preoccupied with outrunning death ever since.” She seldom sees her father these days. After her parents divorced, he moved back to his native China. “When I reflect on why I wanted to write a book about muscle,” she writes, “I realize that a lot of it has to do with a longing for my dad. I found myself wanting to write about things I can talk to him about.”

In her words, Tsui is a “mortal of precisely average size and strength.” She laughs easily, her playful nature reflected in her breezy writing. I spoke with Tsui in a park near her home in Berkeley, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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want everyone to, because that’s what’s going to keep you doing the thing, because you love it, and it brings you joy. But I will say that all of the aches and pains of aging have been alleviated in great part by lifting weights. I had been struggling with this nagging shoulder, from a lifetime of swimming and then paddling.

Now my shoulder feels amazing. I just spent a week surfing in Costa Rica, and I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my surfing life, which is crazy.

You started surfing at 30.

Does that mean there’s hope for the rest of us?

Surfing is one of those things that you can’t be good at it in a year—it takes so much time to actually not feel like a total idiot every time you go out

there. And so to put in the time and feel that there is progress being made is obviously important.

I think of surfing as a rare sport in which you’re responding to nature, with only a board between you and the water.

What’s cool about surfing is that the ocean is constantly changing, and you have to use your muscles to figure out how to work with the water in a way that promotes this feeling of unity and flow.

You describe yourself as a lifelong athlete. What’s the most grueling sport or exercise you’ve ever done?

Probably crew, in college [on the Charles River, while at Harvard]. It was so hard.

Sometimes in the gym, I still find that to be the

quickest way to exhaustion. You can erg [row on an ergometer] for two minutes and be completely dead on that machine.

What did you learn about muscles in drawing the illustrations for the book?

When you draw something, you have to break it down into its components. I think I understood how all the different muscles are individual and yet working in concert—especially with the shoulder. The shoulder is very complex— there are, like, 17 muscles working on the scapula. I threw away so many terrible sketches.

Your father was a professional artist—he drew some of the cover images for the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.

Does he still draw?

He does, but not for work anymore. He’s pretty much retired, but he does it every day, like a practice, just like exercise. He does it because he has to do it, for his health, for his well-being. It’s just who he is—it’s his identity to be an artist and a martial artist.

In your opinion, what’s the most under­appreciated muscle in the human body?

I loved learning about the arrector pili, the muscles that give you goosebumps.

They’re the little muscle fibers that are around your hair follicles. It’s cool because they’re all the muscles of fear, awe, and emotional regulation, but also your state-of-being regulation. There’s something very existential about them that I love because you can’t quite control them.

Bulking up your muscles literally bulks up your brain.

On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters Tsui, Bonnie

Algonquin | 256 pp. | $29.00 April 22, 2025 | 9781643753089

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N O N F I C T I O N // I N T H E N E W S

IN THE NEWS

Chuck Schumer

The N.Y. Democrat cited “security concerns” in canceling events for Antisemitism in America.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer postponed his book tour following intense criticism of his vote for a Republican-backed spending bill, the New York Times reports.

Schumer’s new book, Antisemitism in America: A Warning, co-written with Josh Molofsky, is published

by Grand Central. A critic for Kirkus called it “an urgent warning about resurgent prejudice against Jewish people.”

Schumer, a New York Democrat and the

For a review of Antisemitism in America, visit Kirkus online.

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Senate minority leader, had been scheduled to embark on a nationwide tour to promote the book in cities including New York and Washington, D.C. But in March, Schumer shocked some members of his party by voting for a Republican stopgap bill that prevented the federal government from shutting down, joining eight other Democratic senators. The bill passed and was signed by President Donald Trump.

Schumer’s decision sparked outrage among many Democrats, with one liberal group, Indivisible, demanding that Schumer step down from his leadership post.

Activists online indicated that they planned to protest Schumer at his book tour appearances.

USA Today quoted Risa Heller, a spokesperson for the book tour, as saying, “Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”

There is no word on when the book tour might take place.—M.S.

Chip Somodev illa/Get t y Images

Sen. Chuck Schumer Postpones Book Tour

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S E E N A N D H E A R D // N O N F I C T I O N

SEEN AND HEARD Book by Amy Coney Barrett Coming This Fall Sentinel will publish the Supreme Court justice’s Listening to the Law. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett will share stories of her career and her thoughts on the law in a new book.

Sentinel will publish Barrett’s Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It calls the book “a glimpse of her journey to the Court and an account of her approach to the Constitution.”

Barrett, a graduate of Notre Dame Law School, clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia

before returning to the school as a faculty member in 2002. She served as a U.S. circuit judge before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump in 2020.

Barrett is considered one of the six conservative Supreme Court justices but recently drew the ire of some on the right for her vote to disallow Trump’s bid to freeze almost $2 billion in aid to other countries.

“With the warmth and clarity that made her a popular law professor,” Sentinel says, “she brings to life the making of the Constitution and lays out her approach to interpreting its text, inviting readers to wrestle with questions of originalism and to embrace the rich heritage of the Constitution.”

Listening to the Law is slated for publication on Sept. 9.—M.S.

Alex Wong/Get t y Images

Amy Coney Barrett

For another book from a Supreme Court justice, visit Kirkus online.

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We project our fears, our sentiments, our fantasies on him.

JIM

of the landmark book Was Huck Black?

Fishkin here writes a biography and critical history of Huckleberry Finn’s companion, the enslaved Jim. Boldly affirming the need to keep the N-word in print but refusing to bow to later convention and use that word as an epithet for Twain’s fictional man, Fishkin gives a life to the kind of person who would have been familiar to the author and many of his readers. Her book writes a history of race relations in America, focusing on various myths about people of African descent. The work explores the place of Black men and women in Twain’s own life and looks at how the novel’s critics often used Jim as a marker for their own predilections. Jim is someone we have often made our own: We project our fears, our sentiments, our fantasies on him. Here, Fishkin restores life to the character. She argues that Twain wished to create a figure of creative power—of imagination, bravery, and eloquence—and dramatize the net that slavery cast over him. Jim comes back, here, as a figure of great wit. Fishkin has a fine ear for comedy in Twain, and a great insight into dialect. In scene after scene, Fishkin shows how Jim is “more active, smart, and assertive…than he is often given credit for.” Jim’s adventures have lived on: stage adaptations, films, classroom discussions, popular cultural artifacts, and so forth. Any reader of Percival Everett’s award-winning novel James should read Fishkin’s book as a scholarly mirror through which to better perceive this great character and ourselves.

A powerful work of historical scholarship that brings to life one of American fiction’s most complex creations.

For a review of James, visit Kirkus online.

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Chitto Harjo: Native Patriotism and the Medicine Way Fixico, Donald L. | Yale Univ. (224 pp.) $28.00 | April 22, 2025 | 9780300272413

The life of a Mvskoke (Muskogee/ Creek) leader who fought against white predations on his people’s reservation.

The name Chitto Harjo, writes Mvskoke historian Fixico, means Crazy Snake, an appellation that centered Harjo in the middle of a Mvskoke band that took up arms to defend their territory. They were experiencing internal conflict as well: As followers of the Medicine Way, they rejected the Christianity imposed on them by outsiders, and though they had been slaveholders, the Mvskoke Snakes recruited their former chattel and their descendants to return to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma and join them.

“Ex-slaves and Indian traditionalists working together frightened whites,” notes Fixico, and in time the Crazy Snakes were the object of legal repression that would see nearly a hundred of them, including Chitto Harjo himself, sentenced to imprisonment at Leavenworth for the crime of conspiracy.

Harjo’s true crime was resisting a growing federal campaign to impose land allotment on individual Indigenous people, undermining Native ideas of communal ownership and replacing them with private property that could be bought and sold—and sold, for that matter, to whites. Under Harjo’s leadership, the Crazy Snakes allied with Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws in a group called the Four Mothers Society, with “the danger of allotments

dividing their reservations and separating family members on differ­ent parcels of lands” providing common cause. Following a shootout with the National Guard of the newly established state of Oklahoma, Harjo fled the reservation and died of the lingering effects of a gunshot wound a couple of years later, in 1911. The Crazy Snakes endured, however, resisting the draft in World War I and allying with socialists and Black tenant farmers to fight for Native rights.

A strong contribution to the literature of Indigenous resistance.

This Dog Will Change Your Life Friedman, Elias Weiss | Ballantine (304 pp.) $28.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593872079

An affectionate paean to the wonder that is a dog.

“Dogs are the ultimate human connector; they are what help forge and preserve happiness, community, and meaning.” So writes Friedman, creator of the online platform The Dogist, which showcases photographs of dogs and owners he meets on the streets of New York and beyond. That human connection need involve only one human and one dog, as when Friedman recounts helping a stressed-out, anxious friend by pairing him with a yellow Lab, saying—yes— that the dog would change his life. And so it did, and so do all dogs, almost always for the better; Friedman means it quite literally, pointing out that prisoners who are paired with dogs in training programs are themselves being trained in responsibility. The dog need not be pretty or even identifiable (as he notes, Westminster has begun to allow mutts to compete, “a welcome sign of evolution from an institution based on tradition”). Friedman’s yarns rely more on anecdote than science (for the latter, see Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ Social Lives of Dogs), but those anecdotes are K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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both entertaining and instructive, as when he writes about the impromptu relationships he forges with dogs when he photographs them, describing them with unabashed anthropocentrism: “I personally believe they’re capable of many of the same emotions we possess: happiness, sadness, jealousy, anger, confusion, restlessness.” What is clear is that dogs mirror humans, and often the other way around is true: A good owner can bring a fearful, once-abused dog back from the brink, while a bad owner can turn the best of dogs into a monster. And as for Joe Biden’s bite-happy White House dogs? It’s to be expected in a situation where “the vibe around it is constantly tense and packed with people and activities.”

A pleasure for fans of Canis lupus familiaris, as all humans should be.

Kirkus Star

Alive Day: A Memoir Fugett, Karie | Dial Press (336 pp.) $29.00 | May 6, 2025 | 9780593231081

A harrowing account of a military spouse’s tragic journey.

With plain­ spoken, precise prose, Fugett narrates her own improbable journey alongside that of her childhood crush-turned-husband, Cleve: “Young, poor, we followed the breadcrumbs we found, and they led us to the Marine Corps.” As her own family fragmented, in Alabama, she reconnected with Cleve at age 20, startled by his transformation into a combat veteran: “The prospect of a second chance thrilled me. I believed in soulmates, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Cleve was mine.” They married impulsively (and, like many soldiers, from economic need).

Cleve was grievously wounded by an IED three weeks into his second deployment.

She notes that the titular day for today’s veterans marks “the day they almost died at war but survived.…I wondered what Cleve’s alive day meant for me.” Thus K IR KU S R E V IE W S

begins a grim odyssey, captured unsparingly, beginning with the amputation of Cleve’s lower leg following difficult surgeries to preserve it. Grueling stretches of rehabilitation prior to Cleve’s official medical retirement taught her that “the military relies on young spouses like me as cheap—sometimes free—labor.” Then, overprescribed opioids, a lack of therapeutic options, and bureaucratic torpor lengthened the odds for recovery: “It was easy to pretend that whatever was happening to Cleve was normal, because it seemed like everyone at Walter Reed was struggling with dependence on their medications.” Although her story concludes with a glimmer of hope, Cleve’s horrific wounding and subsequent mismanaged care clearly mirror the trials of many military families.

A sharp, moving memoir debut with unsettling implications about national service.

Russia’s Gamble: The Domestic Origins of Russia’s Attack on Ukraine Gel’man, Vladimir | Polity (220 pp.) $69.95 | June 10, 2025 | 9781509559428

A Russian security expert and democratic activist examines the thinking that led to his nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 was, writes Gel’man, “probably the worst decision ever made

by Russia’s rulers in the country’s long history.” Yet, he adds, the question to pose does less to examine that poor decision as such but instead to ask why the invasion was done “in such a poorly prepared, outstandingly inefficient, and heavily destructive way.” The answer to that question is manifold, but an important aspect is that Russia has “outsized international aspirations” that presume that it has a place of supreme importance in the world, especially relative to the European Union, which Putin considers to be weak. Another

aspect is the Russian military’s devotion to the doctrine of “small victorious war,” which so often leads to disaster, as in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and indeed Ukraine. A cult of personality is in operation, too, with the assumption that Russia will achieve that international importance because of the “strong and efficient leadership” of Putin. Regrettably for Russia, that leadership has instead led to, yes, disaster, with Russia losing more soldiers than in any other conflict since World War II, a mass brain-drain emigration, and the nation’s estrangement from the rest of the world.

Gel’man ventures a few surprising observations, such as the debt that Putin’s “Ukraine is Russia” fixation owes to the writings of American clash-of-civilizations scholar Samuel P. Huntington.

He also offers the thought that at least part of the blame for Putin’s rise to power and the current war owes to the West, which has offered little in the way of support for democracy within Russia and little in the way of “constraining its aggressive foreign policy.”

A small book that does much to explain the underlying dynamics of Russia’s imperial ambitions.

Operation Bowler: The Audacious Allied Bombing of Venice During World War II Glancey, Jonathan | Pegasus (432 pp.) $32.00 | July 1, 2025 | 9781639369195

A little-known attack on Venice.

Journalist and broadcaster Glancey, author of Concorde: The Rise and Fall of the Supersonic Airliner, describes a campaign nastier than portrayed in the usual TV documentary. Masses of innocent civilians suffered and died unnecessarily; Germans committed their traditional atrocities, but the Allies were not innocent. More than most writers, Glancey emphasizes the heartbreaking, often unnecessary destruction of Italy’s MAY 1, 2025

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priceless art, architecture, and history, mostly by the Allies with their overwhelming air superiority. Readers will flinch at Glancey’s account of the 1943 destruction of Monte Cassino. The ancient abbey stood exposed at Germany’s defensive line. Its commander ordered that the abbey not be occupied, and, at great effort, his soldiers carried the abbey’s enormous collection of manuscripts, books, and paintings to safety. This was public knowledge, but the Allies bombed it anyway, killing hundreds of Italians sheltering inside. This was a blunder because the rubble provided superior defense, and Germans fended off attacks for another four months. By 1945 the Allies in Italy had largely given up high-altitude carpet bombing in favor of more accurate low-level attacks. Firmly established in the Gustav line across northern Italy, Germans increasingly depended on supplies arriving in Venice harbor because air attacks had destroyed roads and railways. Aware of this and anxious to avoid collateral damage, the Allies designed a raid by fighters and fighter-bombers that inflicted serious damage on the harbor but killed only a handful of civilians and none of the attacking airmen. The March 21, 1945, attack was so successful that few Venetians know of it today.

A modest World War II city bombing receives well-deserved attention.

Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America Grynbaum, Michael M. | Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) | $29.99 July 15, 2025 | 9781668003916

New York Times media writer Grynbaum looks under the hood of the Condé Nast publishing dynasty.

Condé Nast—­ the person, not the empire—was a Missourian who came to New York at the invitation of a college classmate, 56

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The time when the CIA implanted a microphone in a cat’s ear, hoping to spy on adversaries.

SNAFU

Robert Collier, to work on the family-­owned magazine. Collier’s soon became a haven for contemporary stars like Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Nast worked similar magic on Vogue, “barely solvent and barely read beyond a handful of drawing rooms on Fifth Avenue.” His business model, “class, not mass,” was, as Grynbaum notes, perhaps counterintuitive, but it captured the aspirations of readers at the end of the Gilded Age. When Condé Nast’s stable of magazines went up for sale, it was eventually acquired by the Newhouse family, “an afterthought in the power centers of Wall Street, Washington, and Hollywood,” and turned over without much enthusiasm to Si Newhouse, while his younger brother controlled the much more lucrative newspaper portfolio. Si, by Grynbaum’s account, worked the old Condé Nast formula, retooled for the age of Reagan—not for nothing did he found a magazine called Self, which spoke perfectly to the self-absorbed 1980s.

He hired working- and middle-class youngsters—Graydon Carter, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Art Cooper—to make of magazines like GQ, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair a celebration of cultivated leisure, paying a king’s ransom in salaries and perks.

He also, like the founder, brought in huge talents such as E.L. Doctorow, Tom Wolfe, and Susan Sontag to appear alongside movie and pop-culture stars. As Grynbaum notes, it worked for a while—Remnick even made the New Yorker profitable—but now the empire is crumbling, with its CEO declaring, “This is no longer a magazine company.”

A well-crafted portrait of a publishing house whose fortunes reflect those of the magazine industry as a whole.

SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups Helms, Ed | Grand Central Publishing (288 pp.) $32.00 | April 29, 2025 | 9781538769478

Failure is funny—and heartening.

Helms’ compendium of high-profile miscalculations— from the Beanie Baby bubble to a sunken Soviet submarine—is dotted with wry observations and outright groaners. An offshoot of the comedian-author’s popular podcast, this book reflects his hunt for “retroactive comedy,” which left him “optimistic” in unstable times: “We’ve been here before, and we’ll get through this, too.” The same can’t be said of Acoustic Kitty. Under a secret 1960s project by that name, the CIA implanted a microphone in a cat’s ear, vainly hoping to eavesdrop on adversaries. According to one agency staffer, the multimillion-dollar project was scrapped when a car hit the first A.K. Cold War technological folly provides Helms with tons more material. A toymaker put uranium in a children’s science kit. The U.S. military inadvertently dropped a bomb on South Carolina, fortunately killing no one.

“Rich weirdo” Howard Hughes helped the CIA build a huge mechanical claw in a failed effort to scoop a disabled Russian sub off the ocean floor. Expensive mishaps are firmly within Helms’ wheelhouse. His look at the “crash” of the Beanie Baby market—relative scarcity ballooned prices for the 1990s toy—features a soap-opera actor who spent $100,000 on “an ill-planned attempt to pay for” college tuition.

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Another recent mess-up—a failure to convert English measurement units to metric—caused NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter to blow up. “That is so dumb,” observed one space expert. Helms’ observations are gentler. He quips that a scientist lost the Mars satellite because he’d “forgotten to upgrade his PC to Windows 98.” For its part, the Army, he kids, was probably jealous of the Air Force’s missiles: “Come onnnnnn. They get all the cool toys.” Fortunately, his factual narratives are better than his jokes.

A gently humorous survey of bad ideas and unforced errors.

Face With Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji Houston, Keith | Norton (224 pp.) | $19.99 paper | July 1, 2025 | 9781324075141

A look at the complex, often serious world of emoji’s creators, gatekeepers, and enthusiasts.

This book by information-­ technology writer Houston (Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator, 2023, etc.) comes at the end of a sort of Cambrian Explosion for emoji: For much of the 2010s, thousands of tiny icons emerged on programs and smartphones. Each “emoji season,” as he shows, prompts heated debates over which images were and weren’t included. But Houston also uses emoji to explore a deeper story about how technologies become ubiquitous (or don’t), how they change communication, and what emoji says about our cultural blind spots. The beginnings of emoji are surprisingly difficult to pin down—various proprietary software dating to the ’70s had some version of the images— but by the 2000s a sizable vocabulary and a certain design consistency emerged from its native Japan and beyond. The Unicode Consortium, which decides which emoji are made available, has had to make countless decisions, most recently around matters of inclusion and bias—its default yellow (read: white) K IR KU S R E V IE W S

faces now include multiple skin tones, and it addressed biases in depictions of professions as exclusively male (construction worker) or female (dancer). Houston can get deep in the weeds about the Unicode Consortium’s internal squabbles, which leaves less room for some other fascinating byways, like how emoji has impacted grammar and communication and why “stickers” and proprietary “celebrity ’moji,” designed to avoid Unicode’s strictures and turn a profit for their creators, have often fallen flat. Houston knows that any language whose mascot is a smiling poop pile can be treated only so seriously, so the text is charmingly filled with emoji as illustrations and within sentences, making it both a product of a new way of communicating as well as a study of it.

A pleasurable and well-researched journey into pop iconography.

Tearing Down the Orange Curtain: How Punk Rock Brought Orange County to the World Jackson, Nate & Daniel Kohn Da Capo (400 pp.) | $30.00 May 20, 2025 | 9780306832963

Inside the diverse and enduring Orange County punk scene, launchpad for No Doubt, the Offspring, and more.

In the 1980s, Orange County punk bands had a reputation for being more conservative and down-market than their California brethren. Los Angeles had the hugely influential Black Flag; OC had slighter, jokier acts like T.S.O.L. (whose signature track was about necrophilia) and the Adolescents. San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys were provocateurs, while OC’s Social Distortion was more rooted in rockabilly and outlaw country. But Jackson and Kohn’s chronicle of the scene from the late ’70s to the present finds that OC acts were determined to shed their reputation as a lesser sibling. It helped that the scene

had a healthy concert infrastructure, from go-to Costa Mesa club the Cuckoo’s Nest to Huntington Beach– based booking agency Goldenvoice.

And a certain distance from the industry power centers were liberating, incubating talents like the ska-infused No Doubt and the punk-meets-reggae act Sublime. The scene persisted almost in spite of itself—Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness struggled with heroin addiction, and Sublime singer Bradley Nowell died of an overdose in 1996. The authors interviewed scores of musicians, club owners, and scenesters, so the book is rich with road stories and quirky anecdotes regarding bands’ out-of-nowhere success. (The Offspring’s label owner recalls a “Rubik’s Cube of pallets” of the band’s albums filling its warehouse to bursting.) But the book misses broader context— beyond mentions of the musicians’ relative comfort level playing a Young Republicans party, there’s little about how OC’s social and physical location influenced the music. And the prose rarely rises above press-release-speak, which suggests that deeper, more nuanced stories remain to be told.

A complicated scene shown in sometimes lackluster portraits.

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature Kaishian, Patricia Ononiwu Spiegel & Grau (288 pp.) | $28.00 May 27, 2025 | 9781954118904

The science behind nature’s diverse biology.

Mycologist Kaishian’s erudite interpretation of the queerness of biology is filled with intriguing facts and lessons about the natural world. It’s also made personal with generous anecdotes braided in from the author’s own history and identity struggles as a youth experiencing gender dysphoria, as well as an ordeal of sexual trauma and adult MAY 1, 2025

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ADHD. Growing up on the eastern border of New York state, Kaishian was “unafraid of the organisms around me” and connected early on to various snake species in her backyard; their habitats and the surrounding forests and swamps became her euphoric refuge throughout a childhood fraught with ambiguous orientation. As she came to better understand her own queer self, her personalized interest in the queerness and biodiversity of biology and ecology grew into her life’s passion. Framing her scientific exploration on the globe’s vast microcosmos of creatures around her existence as a queer person, Kaishian illuminates the diversity of nature with studies on ambiguously sexed, magnetic-sensing eels or slipper snails, which all start out male, then form a pile and remain male or transition to female; the cassowary, a large, flightless species of bird relative to the ostrich, possessing intersexed reproductive organs; and the microbiomes unique to each human body, which the author dubs “ancient communal swamps.” Whether it be the same-sex affiliations of bowerbirds, the lifestyles of crows, or the interminable sexes of fungi, the author enthusiastically brings these species to vibrant life with a bevy of fascinating facts. With immense knowledge, grace, experience, and lyrical prose (a description of her ritualistic consumption of psychedelic mushrooms is particularly vivid), Kaishian persuades us that there is never just one way for living things in the natural world to reproduce or evolve or interact and that greater, more diversified ecological possibilities beautifully coexist.

A celebratory appreciation of the ubiquity of queerness in the natural world.

Nouvelles Femmes: Modern Women of the French New Wave and Their Enduring Contribution to Cinema Knudson, Ericka | Chronicle Chroma (224 pp.) $35.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9781797228907

Women and film in France.

Film historian Knudson looks at French cinema, with a focus on female actors, writers, and directors who shaped, and were shaped by, the artistic revolution known as the New Wave. Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina, Anouk Aimee, Jean Seberg, Delphine Seyrig, and Agnès Varda are among many others who broke away from stereotypical female characters in pre–World War II films dominated by costumed, high-­budget, historical dramas—­ disparagingly called cinéma de papa—starring actresses who fit a mold of glamour and sexual allure.

In the 1950s, influenced by Hollywood movies that featured feisty, strong-willed women, New Wave directors—such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Louis Malle— created movies that both drew on their idealized images of women and evolved to reflect the tensions and realities of women’s lives. Some New Wave films introduced young free spirits rejecting social strictures; others, multifaceted, mature women facing the complexities of their lives. Viewers were drawn to the dynamics between male and female characters, as well as between actresses and directors. Knudson examines these relationships in detail: Bardot and Roger Vadim; Moreau, Malle, and Truffaut;

New Wave directors created movies that reflected the realities of women’s lives.

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Emmanuelle Riva and Alain Renais; Karina and Godard; Godard and Seberg. These affairs led many directors to envision women as passive, beautiful objects of desire, but over time, that image began to shatter. “I’m not an apparition, I am a woman,” Seyrig retorts in Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (1968).

Knudson reveals how women’s images were compounded by official censorship and directors’ self-censorship, which avoided nudity and subjects such as abortion, birth control, and prostitution.

Drawing liberally on interviews, Knudson allows her large cast of characters to speak candidly and perceptively about their lives and work.

Engaging, well-researched cultural history.

Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness Koresky, Michael | Bloomsbury (320 pp.) $29.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781639732548

A history of queer images.

Koresky, editorial director at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, looks at movies made during the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the early 1930s to the early 1960s, to examine their representation of sexual identity. In contrast to Vito Russo, who argued in The Celluloid Closet (1981) that these movies contributed to the “marginalization, invisibility, and debasement” of gay and lesbian characters, Koresky discovers a more nuanced message: During the 25 years he examines, when the Motion Picture Production Code forbade representations of homosexuality, some movies subversively conveyed “stealthily progressive values,” rejecting “fixed identities” and stereotypical social roles. While movies such as Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, about characters struggling with same-sex attraction, reflected “the irrational, very American fear that queers will infect our K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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most vulnerable, that their ‘sick and dirty’ perversions, once unleashed, are contagious,” other films, such as those directed

by Dorothy Arnzer, who herself was gay, revealed the “camaraderie and emotional connection” among women, creating a “protofeminist perspective and a queer sensibility.” Koresky examines the work of many directors, including William Wyler, Vincente Minnelli, and Todd Haynes.

Alfred Hitchcock, master of anxiety, created movies in which queer sensibility was unstated but implicit: Rebecca, for example, reveals a “queer female eroticism” by Mrs. Danvers toward her deceased employer. In other Hitchcock movies, disruptive forces, roiling below the surface, “put into relief the fragility of the bonds and boundaries of our everyday existence.” Koresky analyzes Judy Garland as a gay icon and probes the portrayal of the social outcast in Tea and Sympathy and in Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer. Such movies resonate for queer viewers, Koresky asserts, because they capture the longing for acceptance and vulnerability of those “deemed an aberration.”

A sensitive response to a rich trove of movies.

I Want To Burn This Place Down: Essays Kreizman, Maris | Ecco/HarperCollins (176 pp.) $26.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9780063305823

Unexpectedly charming personal essays about disillusionment, diabetes, and despair.

Like her first book, Slaughterhouse 90210, Kreizman’s essay collection is anchored in her love of popular culture and takes its title from a Great Moment in Television. “In the final season of Mad Men, after Peggy and Joan have spent years clawing their way to the middle of their fictional advertising agency,” they have a meeting with the new owners of the firm during which the continued reign of the grossest kind of misogyny is confirmed. Afterward, Peggy K IR KU S R E V IE W S

asks Joan if she wants to get lunch, and Joan replies, “I want to burn this place down.” To Kreizman, this is a symbol of all the times she herself has had to learn that “working hard and playing by the rules can be futile and demeaning if the game itself has always been rigged.” While she opines convincingly about various societal issues—climate change, health care, corporate capitalism—the personal remains at the heart of her work, and some of the best essays are about her experience with diabetes, shedding light on the wider experience of chronic illness. It’s the writing that makes it sing: “Puberty beat the shit out of me in unique and astounding ways. My hormones, surging like a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke when you open it immediately after you’ve dropped it on the floor, caused my blood sugar to rise and fall and rise even higher with seemingly no correspondence to the insulin I was taking or the food I was eating.” Another standout is titled “Copaganda and Me,” in which she wrestles with the fact that after their shared childhood watching police shows on television, she grew up alienated while “[m]y brothers grew up and became cops, both of them. Twin Jewish cops.” Along with righteous anger, there’s plenty of sweetness, with evocative passages about her New Jersey childhood and paeans to her very happy union with a nice man named Josh. “I’m perpetually astonished to find that marriage is one of the only institutions that has not disappointed me.”

Though gentler than its title suggests, an intelligent and entertaining read.

Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together Kurshan, Ilana | St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $28.00 | Aug. 26, 2025 | 9781250288264

Reading and redemption.

Reading to the young builds character. It establishes a unique intimacy between parent and child. It can be the space of the imagination, a world of dreaming before bedtime. Books are adventures.

They are places of escape. For American Israeli writer Kurshan, books are sites of personal growth. And the first book, the five books of Moses in the Old Testament, becomes a model for the birth, growth, departure, and return that shape a parent’s and a child’s heroic adventure. In a series of brief, evocative chapters, Kurshan tells stories of the books that mattered to her and her children. She selects books that are designed to “expand my children’s range of associations and broaden their imaginations” but also ones that “make it easier to parent.”

She creates a personal canon of such books, and at this memoir’s end, she catalogs her recommendations, from Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, from William Steig to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Behind it all, however, is the sacred book of the Torah. Using the sequence of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Kurshan tells a progressive story of reading together, moving from the simplest beginnings to the most complex, symbolic tales. “From paradise to the promised land, the story of my family’s reading life has unfolded against the backdrop of the Bible’s narratives. It is a story about beginnings—the first books we read as parents, the books that create our world. It is a story about an exodus and a journey to freedom that our kids undertake when they learn to read on their own.” Through this powerful conceit—parenting as holy journey—Kurshan takes us, with her family, into a place of reading freedom, a true release through word and picture. In the end, we are all children of the book.

An exquisitely written account of mother and children reading together, framed as a tale of biblical redemption.

For more by Ilana Kurshan, visit Kirkus online.

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Home of the Happy: A Murder on the Cajun Prairie LaHaye Fontenot, Jordan Mariner Books (304 pp.) | $32.50 April 1, 2025 | 9780063257962

A young writer dives deep in an attempt to solve a cold case in her hometown.

One early morning in 1983, LaHaye Fontenot’s great-­ grandfather Aubrey—a retired bank president, “handshake businessman,” and civic leader in Mamou, Louisiana—was kidnapped from his home. Ten days later he was found dead in nearby Bayou Nezpique, bruised and muddy.

For those 10 days, the LaHaye family compound was central command for local officials and FBI agents working a case on scant, fuzzy details provided by MawMaw Emily, the author’s great-grandmother. Aubrey’s murder and the search for his killer redefined a prominent family whose own history was deeply enmeshed in a changing Acadiana town. Even after a conviction, the family’s presumption of safety, even untouchability, was jarred; the incident sparked a string of tragedies and losses and became a loaded family myth shrouded in mystery and secret suspicions. Donning the mantle of an investigative reporter with decades more experience, LaHaye Fontenot resolves to put an end to familial silence, whispered theories, and unfollowed leads.

Unnerved by the persistent claim of innocence from the man imprisoned for Aubrey’s murder, the author claws through official records and mines the long-closeted memories of generations of relatives. It is a bold move to anchor a debut work in raising questions about one’s own family history and smalltown justice system, but LaHaye Fontenot’s pursuit is marked by judicious research, her honest, if complicated, effort at impartiality, and rhapsodic details that honor her home and heritage. From her macabre opening scene through the exhaustion 60

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of her material and the various problems of legal and social practice that intersect with her project, she confronts both her family’s grand legacy and the challenges of finding true resolution in nonfiction.

A vivid, unflinching, and suspenseful true-crime story from a soulful new voice.

It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning To Surf and the Pursuit of Common Ground Litt, David | Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) | $29.99 June 24, 2025 | 9781668035351

A middle-aged man learns to surf—and tolerate Joe Rogan devotees, too.

“Surfing is for lunatics,” declares former Obama speechwriter Litt.

As a case in point, he recounts the surf-happy ways of his brother-in-law, who thinks nothing of cruising the waves off New Jersey on Christmas Day, behavior that Litt finds inexplicable. But then comes Trump’s first election and Covid-19, “a towering lasagna of calamity.” Seeking something new to do to cope with the pandemic, Litt wanders into a surf shop, buys a wetsuit, and arranges for lessons. “I imagined learning to surf would be a fun but manageable challenge, like learning a language,” he writes. “It was only later…that I revised my view. Learning to surf is like learning a language that wants to kill you.” Anxieties and early disasters notwithstanding, Litt sticks to it, and in time he becomes a competent if not Olympic-level surfer, and one with a big goal: to surf the huge waves off Hawaii’s North Shore. A few test runs send the message that maybe that’s not such a good idea, but he pairs up with that brother-in-law, very much Litt’s opposite in temperament and especially in politics (“My brother-in-law wasn’t a Trump supporter. But he also

wasn’t not”), and rides it out, carrying a bit of advice from an old-timer in the front of his mind: “You’ve just got to go out and get your ass kicked.” So he does. A neat trick in Litt’s amiable memoir is that his language becomes more and more surfer-dudish page by page (“when waves approach from the perfect angle…they compound themselves into supersized rights that peel for hundreds of yards”). It’s all good fun, and if it lacks the bravado of Daniel Duane’s mad-dog surf writing, it’s both honest and entertaining.

A pleasing paean to the art of learning something new—and something “pretty great.”

The Hiroshima Men: The Quest To Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision To Use It MacGregor, Iain | Scribner (384 pp.) $30.00 | July 8, 2025 | 9781668038048

An oft-told story from an uncomfortable perspective.

Journalist MacGregor, author of The Lighthouse of Stalingrad, moves the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer into the background in favor of the war, the men and the plane that delivered the bomb, its victims, and the revelation— to America, if not Japan—of what actually happened in Hiroshima. It opens with an 87-year-old survivor’s description of her experience. A chapter near the end delivers MacGregor’s account of the city’s bombing, and a third toward the middle describes Tokyo’s 1945 firebombing—conventional but equally ghastly. Doing his journalistic duty, MacGregor focuses on individuals, the principles being Paul Tibbets, who commanded the B-29 unit and piloted the bomber, and Time-Life reporter John Hersey. Tibbets spent two years training his unit for a secret mission; Hersey covered the war and wrote several popular books, but the author adds a large cast of characters and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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many events distantly related to his subject, such as the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Exhilarated by Japan’s unexpectedly sudden surrender, Americans accepted the official story that ordinary superbombs had won the war. Stories of gruesome injuries and agonizing deaths that continued to occur months afterward were censored or officially denied. By 1946 Hersey was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, chafing at Time-Life’s reluctance to let him travel. More amenable, New Yorker editors sent him to Asia, where he returned traditional stories before traveling to Hiroshima, which, despite a year’s passage, smelled of death.

Interviewing widely, he concentrated on stories from half-a-dozen survivors. The result, filling the Aug. 31, 1946, issue, was a jolt, and the later book a worldwide bestseller. Both gave rise to the belief, still popular if not unanimous, that the bomb must never be used again.

An account less about a brilliant technical achievement than a weapon of mass murder.

A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship Masur, Louis P. | Oxford Univ. (168 pp.) $24.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9780197684917

In which Thomas Jefferson and James Madison go out on the trail of a crop pest—and much more.

Over a period of less than a month in the late spring of 1791, Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Virginian James Madison ventured far north up the

Hudson River Valley with a pressing aim in mind. A pest called the Hessian fly was endangering New York wheat crops, for one, and Jefferson, both scientist and farmer, feared that the noxious critter would head south to Virginia and devastate farm yields there. The fly turned out not to be “Hessian” (that is, from Germany): It was homegrown, but “Hessian” was a term of opprobrium in that day. In all events, writes Rutgers historian Masur, Jefferson’s “study of the Hessian fly allowed temporary escape from partisan politics at a volatile moment.”

That volatile moment drew suspicion around the Virginians’ journey: Domestic political opponents feared that Jefferson was trying to recruit northerners to the anti-Federalist cause, while a British consul feared that their mission was “to proselyte as far as they are able to a commercial war with Great Britain.” Hessian fly studied but undefeated, as Jefferson would note during his presidency, the two went on to observe what must have seemed a rare sight: a free Black farmer who worked a handsome, fertile spread with the aid of six white employees. Madison praised him for “industry and good management,” Masur notes, but it did not sway Madison to set his own slaves free.

Other projects along the sojourn spoke to the Virginians’ encyclopedic minds: studying the potential of sugar maples to supplant cane sugar imported from the British West Indies, collecting Native American words, and so forth.

The trip lasted only a few weeks, but, as Masur notes, it was memorable enough that the two friends spoke of it many years afterward.

A fluently written account of a small but meaningful moment in American history.

On their trip, Jefferson and Madison met a free Black farmer who had six white employees.

A JOURNEY NORTH

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Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story Mazor, Barry | Da Capo (416 pp.) $32.00 | July 22, 2025 | 9780306831737

A tale of fraternal discord.

The Everly Brothers were often mistaken for twins.

In fact, dark-haired Don, who died seven years after blond-headed Phil in 2024, was two years older. Their personalities were anything but identical, and behind their initially polite, cosmopolitan demeanor lurked brotherly rivalry that came to a head in mid-career. The Everlys learned their musical techniques from parents Ike, a bluesy country singer and guitarist, and Margaret, an upright bass player, who moved the boys from Brownie, Kentucky, to Chicago and then all over the Midwest following radio show gigs en famille and seasonal farmwork. The brothers eventually wound up by themselves in their late teens in Nashville just as it was becoming a recording mecca. Record companies were then eager for talented, good-looking country singers with crossover appeal to teenagers craving the new (but related) sounds of rock ’n’ roll.

The Everlys fit the bill, and once they teamed up with the songwriting couple of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, who penned several of their biggest hits, including “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up, Little Susie,” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” their rise to global pop stardom was swift. Countless musicians cite the Everlys as an influence, notably Simon and Garfunkel. The Beatles and the Hollies— even Lou Reed and John Cale of Velvet Underground—were fans. Besides combing archives, Mazor, a Nashville music journalist and author of books on Jimmie Rodgers and A&R pioneer Ralph Peer, spoke to a dwindling crowd of Everly associates and family to get a rounded picture of these two increasingly antagonistic artists with a complex relationship to the “Everly Brothers” brand each wanted to be liberated from.

Gripping family showbiz drama with keen musical insights.

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Drawn to the Page

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1 The Novel Life of Jane Austen

4 Crumb

A treat for the international army of Janeites.

5 The Dissident Club

By Janine Barchas; illus. by Isabel Greenberg

2 More Butch Heroes

By Ria Brodell

A creative resurrection of people around the world who broke gender norms.

3 Questions Without Answers

By Sarah Manguso; illus. by Liana Finck

Deep—and often hilarious—thoughts from wee ones.

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By Dan Nadel

Essential history for art and comics aficionados.

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By Taha Siddiqui and Hubert Maury; trans.

by David Homel

A Pakistani journalist’s rousing look back at years of strife.

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For more booklists, visit Kirkus online.

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Audiobook Edition of W.E.B. Du Bois in the Works Courtney B. Vance will lend his voice to David Levering Lewis’ two-part biography.

Courtney B. Vance will narrate the audiobook edition of David Levering Lewis’ biography W.E.B. Du Bois, Simon & Schuster Audio announced in a news release.

Lewis’ biography of the sociologist and civil rights activist was published in two volumes, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race,

A xelle Bauer- Grif fin/FilmMagic

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1868-1919, which came out in 1993, and W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963, published in 2001. Both volumes won the Pulitzer Prize.

This will be the first time the volumes have been recorded as an audiobook.

Vance is known for his roles on television series including Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Lovecraft Country and films such as The Preacher’s Wife. He said in a statement, “Having the chance to reintroduce [Du Bois’] legacy to audiophiles by narrating his life story has been an honor and true passion project for me.”

Lewis, whose latest book, The Stained Glass Window, was published last month by Penguin Press, said, “Listen to Courtney B. Vance and you shall hear the spoken wisdom of an American colossus, a prophetic man of color in whose ninety-five years all intellectual, political, economic, and racial choices were profoundly explored.”

The audiobook edition of the first book is scheduled for release on June 17, with the second book coming on Sept. 23.

—M.S.

Courtney B. Vance

For a review of W.E.B. Du Bois, visit Kirkus online.

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S E E N A N D H E A R D // N O N F I C T I O N

SEEN AND HEARD

Memoir by Gisèle Pelicot Coming in 2026 Pelicot made news when she testified against her husband during his trial for her rape.

Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who went public with her story of serial sexual assault by her husband and others over many years, will write a memoir, Penguin Press has announced.

A Hymn to Life will chronicle Pelicot’s experience after being repeatedly drugged and raped by her husband, Dominique Pelicot, between 2011 and 2020. He also invited dozens of men via a website to assault her while unconscious.

Pelicot only learned of the assaults in 2020, after her husband was arrested for taking upskirt photos of women in a supermarket. Police subsequently found images of Gisèle Pelicot’s abuse.

Last year, Dominique and 50 other men stood trial for aggravated rape, attempted rape, and

sexual assault. In December all but one were convicted, with Dominique sentenced to 20 years in prison; the others were sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.

During the trial, Pelicot waived her right to anonymity.

“I now want to tell my story in my own words,” Pelicot said in a release about the new book. “I hope to convey a message of strength and courage to all those who are subjected to difficult ordeals. May they never feel shame.

And in time, may they even learn to savor life again and find peace.”

The memoir is slated for publication on Jan. 27, 2026, in English, French, and 20 other languages.

—MARK ATHITAKIS

Julie Goldstein/Get t y Images

Gisèle Pelicot

For a review of another #MeToo memoir, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford McWilliams, James | Univ. of Arkansas (652 pp.) | $44.95 July 1, 2025 | 9781682262726

Stanford’s life and poetry are lightning from the ground up.

Texas State University historian McWilliams has written an impeccably researched, capacious, and probing biography of the enigmatic, neglected Southern poet, a “steamboat of jive of magic.” Stanford was a Mississippi Delta orphan when his single mom married a levee engineer. The summer camps with Black workers that Stanford grew up in provided the language and “material for a lifetime of poetry,” especially for his book-length poem that McWilliams extensively draws on, The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You. The wealthy family flourished in Memphis in the 1950s, especially Frank, who had Elvis, the blues, and Black culture as neighbors. In 1961 they moved to Mountain Home, Arkansas, in the southern Ozarks. Here, Stanford was “blessed or cursed with an emerging literary obsession.” Thanks to his mother, Frank’s “conversion” to Catholicism got him into Arkansas’ monks-run Subiaco Academy, where the Bushido warrior and the crusading poet with a near-photographic memory flourished. Stanford brought his “strange” and “feral poetic voice” to Fayetteville’s University of Arkansas, which he would occasionally attend while reading, writing, drinking, then waking and dreaming in the local Black vernacular. Stanford joined the MFA program, where his work stunned faculty and students. He was getting published but dropped out. Thanks to devoted publisher Irv Broughton, The Singing Knives was issued. The darkening, prolific profligate got married, worked as a surveyor, two-timed his wife, and revised Battlefield, “every bit as generous as Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.”

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“The world contains about 5,400 superyachts, and about a hundred gigayachts.”

T H E H AV E S A N D H AV E -YAC H T S

McWilliams closes with a devastating portrait of the brilliant, promiscuous, financially burdened 29-year-old spiraling out of control and, despite a film and his own small press that he ran with poet/ lover C.D. Wright, he ended it all in 1978 with three shots to his chest.

The full-throated biography fans have been yearning for.

The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich Osnos, Evan | Scribner (352 pp.) $30.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9781668204481

The rich are different from you and me, but the very rich are much alike in squandering money for the sake of conspicuous consumption.

It’s no wonder that at Donald Trump’s second inauguration, billionaires crowded out congressional leaders, for, as New Yorker staff writer Osnos says in this essay collection, “candidates no longer needed large pools of rich supporters; they only needed small pools of ultra rich supporters.” For those ultrarichies, having a politician in the pocket is a small investment, for that way lie tax cuts and thus more money to spend on yachts‚ superyachts, megayachts, and gigayachts. As a measure of the wealth of the 1 percent, Osnos notes, one has only to consider that “the world contains about 5,400 superyachts, and about a hundred gigayachts,” playthings that are in essence floating nationstates, seldom policed since their owners may well be pals with prime ministers and presidents. That so much money is

available to so few people has to do not just with tax cuts and other favors, but also with sheer volume: As Osnos notes, “Facebook has as many adherents as Christianity.” So it is that Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and company sail the world. And it’s not just about yachts: As Osnos writes, many of the superrich are convinced that the zombie apocalypse is coming for them, prepping for it by outfitting not just ships but also underground bunkers and safe rooms. Osnos covers a lot of bases here, from (rightful) paranoia to the con games that plague the moneyed class. But those con games seem small compared to the largesse of governments when it comes to that sliver of humanity; as Osnos concludes, only one federal agency has had an indefinite hiring freeze imposed by Trump, and that’s the IRS. A thoroughly reported and spryly narrated—and deeply maddening— tour of extreme wealth.

The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals Palazzo, Guido & Ulrich Hoffrage Basic Books (336 pp.) | $30.00 June 3, 2025 | 9781541705302

Two academics explore the roots of corporate scandals.

Sometimes, it seems that every day brings news of another corporate scandal. In many cases, unethical behavior results in stern punishments from regulators, ranging from prison sentences to fines.

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organizations, and similar issues arise again. Both Swiss academics, the authors of this book cast a broad net, examining scandals in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, looking for common elements in cases such as Theranos, Enron, Wells Fargo, Foxconn, and France Télécom. They reject the idea that scandals are simply the result of a few bad actors and focus instead on the corporate context that permits, encourages, or even requires unethical behavior. They define nine “building blocks” of what they call “ethical blindness,” with rigid ideology being the most important. This framework allows Palazzo and Hoffrage to examine how ordinary people are drawn into unethical behavior. The process often begins with small transgressions but soon slides into acceptance of criminal acts. The prevalence of warlike language and groupthink are signs of increasing psychopathy. Once these toxic patterns are embedded in an organization, change is difficult, and getting rid of a few people, even at the senior level, is not sufficient. The authors provide a program for reform at every tier, with built-in checks to monitor improvements. They emphasize that unethical practices are not limited to large corporations, so all managers and business owners should be aware of the potential for problems. This book is a good place to start.

An incisive examination of how corporate malfeasance develops and how it can be fought.

The #1 Dad Book: Be the Best Dad You Can Be—in 1 Hour!

Patterson, James | Little, Brown (192 pp.) $25.00 | May 12, 2025 | 9780316585071

A by-the-numbers guide to superior fatherhood.

In a mind meld of Dr. Spock and Dr. Seuss, writing machine Patterson churns up a staccato treatise on the fine art of fathering: “Occasionally, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

you can be a knucklehead. That’s okay.

This batshit crazy world isn’t making things any easier.” Most of the advice is the sort of thing you’d find on the back of a cereal box, if cereal boxes were devoted to such topics: Use baby wipes (“Don’t scrimp. Buy in bulk”). Hug the kid (“They can’t get enough of you”).

Exploit the good will of doting grandparents (“a great resource for free childcare and lots of cool presents”). Lay off the booze and ganja (“Your kids are worth it”). An allied sentiment: “Grow the fuck up. It’s time.” A self-serving bit of advice, perhaps, is one that we’d hope every parent adopts, and that’s to read to your kids: Tell them stories, encourage them to love words, and so forth, and they’ll have an edge on, as Patterson, borrowing from sportscaster Dick Schaap, puts it, “people trying to make the world dumber.” This book isn’t dumb, but it’s written as if for readers whose parents didn’t read to them; just so, some of the best ideas in Patterson’s pages come from others, as when the writer George Saunders asks, “My time here is short—what can I do the most beautifully?” The takeaway of this already short book are some dicta to be found on two pages at the very end, and that seems too small a payoff for the price of admission, for all Patterson’s enthusiasm about his world-changing mission.

Advice for those for whom parenting is an alien concept, with nary a surprise to be found.

Motherland: A Journey Through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity Pepera, Luke | Pegasus (432 pp.) $35.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9781639368839

African pasts and cultural understandings are vital to the present.

“We have a warped understanding of Africa’s past,” writes Pepera at the outset of his capacious history.

To unlearn misconceptions, he invites

readers on a sweeping, eclectic trip across time and space. Refusing to center histories of victimization, such as the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, he instead emphasizes their creativity and achievement. Construing “Africa” broadly, Pepera’s thematic chapters show African and African diasporic identities as interwoven and persistent. His descriptive skill brings research from historical and ethnographic sources into conversation with contemporary examples, vividly showing that for Africans, the past and their ancestors’ past achievements infuse the quotidian present. Pepera narrates familiar African histories, such as the marvelous story of Malian emperor Mansa Musa’s 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca. Musa’s wealth in gold, and his generosity in distributing it during his three-month stop in Cairo, famously disrupted the Egyptian economy, bringing him and Mali into wider renown. He also explores the fascinating histories of African royal women, including Njinga Mbande, a 17th-century queen of Ndongo, in what is today Angola. In other chapters, Pepera’s purpose is quite different. In “How the Dead Still Live,” he moves from African understandings of ancestors’ efficacy in their descendants’ lives to a moving discussion of the legacy of the actor Chadwick Boseman. The latter’s “exemplary life” was reflected in his acting choices, in which his portrayals of figures like Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and T’Challa/Black Panther modeled an African spirit of ancestral veneration. Pepera similarly connects African forms of wordsmithing—praise singing, proverbs, epics—to diasporic forms of verbal battles such as rap or playing “the Dozens.” The book’s presentation of how racism developed over the centuries will disappoint some readers, since it largely eschews structural explanations of how anti-Blackness came to be a global phenomenon. But it will undoubtedly inspire those who seek to understand Africa and its peoples everywhere as shapers of human history.

A stirring, optimistic portrait of African identities and meaning making, past and present.

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Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios Porter, Martin & David Goggin Thames & Hudson (352 pp.) | $39.95 June 17, 2025 | 9780500028698

Inside one of rock music’s biggest production outfits.

While fans are more familiar with the bold-face musicians who flocked to the Record Plant Studios—which quickly expanded from New York to Los Angeles and Sausalito, California— music journalists Porter and Goggin take us behind the scenes where the sounds were created, sliced, and diced.

Co-founders Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, known to industry insiders but not the public, created an environment where everyone from Frank Zappa to John Lennon, who recorded his last album at the Record Plant in New York, could find a home—sometimes literally.

The Sausalito facility was especially successful, recording breakout hits for Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, and the Eagles. The partners, particularly Kellgren, were fanatical gearheads, offering unparalleled aural support systems. Sex and drugs were inevitably part of the package, with cocaine piled atop amplifiers. Infatuated with Hefner-esque excess, Kellgren had a jet-stream Jacuzzi and an S&M “Rack Room” installed in the L.A. studio.

There are wild tales of Lennon locking horns with Phil Spector in L.A. during the making of “Rock ’N’ Roll” and a DEA raid in Sausalito aimed at busting Sly Stone, who was nowhere to be found. (One of the lawmen was more interested in meeting an inebriated Joe Cocker.) Low-key producers like Bill Syzmczyk, who imposed discipline on the unruly Eagles, delivered the musical goods. With firsthand accounts from many of the players, it’s a cautionary tale. Kellgren and Kristianne Gaines, his secretary and girlfriend, drowned in his swimming pool in 1977. After Kellgren’s death, industry technology changed, with home studios and punk 68

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minimalism replacing elaborate production values. By the ’80s, the New York and Sausalito studios were shuttered, and Stone sold his remaining shares of the L.A. franchise.

An entertaining dive into a wild musical world.

The Roma: A Traveling History Potter, Madeline | Harper/ HarperCollins (272 pp.) | $27.99 July 8, 2025 | 9780063337664

On the road, beginning long ago.

“Gypsy” is considered an insulting as well as inaccurate term in today’s world, and this earnest account will deliver an unsettling education to American readers who are almost certainly unaware that a million Roma live in the country. Born in Romania and a Romani, Potter is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh and a passionate activist for her oft-persecuted people. DNA and language studies reveal that the Roma originated in India and migrated west about 1,500 years ago. Aware of the universal distrust of foreigners, most immigrants quickly adopted their new nation’s language, customs, religion, and dress. It’s no secret that this was a problem for Jews, but readers will be equally disturbed by the almost universal hatred that greeted the Roma, who maintained their own culture and traveled in caravans at a time when almost no one traveled. They were attacked, expelled, imprisoned, and even enslaved. The first enslaved people taken to America—by Columbus— were Roma. During World War II, from several hundred thousand to a million Roma were murdered or transported to extermination camps, including Auschwitz. Today most Roma are settled, but they do not have it easy.

Their children in Sweden were not permitted in public schools until 1959.

Although caravans are uncommon,

stronger British trespassing laws were directed at them in 2022. Traveling widely, Potter is perhaps too focused on recording unpleasant encounters, but she is not shy about pointing out Romani celebrities and cultural achievements. Spanish flamenco is one, as are, despite the names, Franz Liszt’s Hungarian rhapsodies and Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian dances.

Well-deserved attention to a genuinely neglected minority.

False Claims: One Insider’s Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption Pratta, Lisa | Morrow/HarperCollins (288 pp.) | $30.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780063371101

A whistleblower takes on fraud and corruption in U.S. health care.

American life is increasingly defined by pivotal moments. When does one stand up to corruption that harms the vulnerable? For former Big Pharma insider Pratta, that moment came when she saw the sales practices around a breakthrough drug. Her book offers the captivating account of one woman’s turn from high-flying pharmaceutical sales rep to corporate whistleblower. The author guides readers through her decades of working as a top-level sales representative in pharmaceuticals and biotech. As she rises in the industry, mounting red flags within her company prompt her to collaborate with the U.S. Justice Department on a fraud and corruption case against her employer. The story centers on practices in one company as it ramps up a campaign to sell a novel drug to treat multiple sclerosis, but it notes how attendant kickbacks and dishonesty in drug pricing and sales practices are rampant across the industry. Few are spared in this account, and Pratta brings carefully detailed receipts gathered in the decade she spent helping build a federal case against her employer. The whistleblower’s story and internal conflict are K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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laid out in full, from her idealism about health care at the beginning of her career through her disillusionment and fight to reveal the dangerous, money-driven rot in the system. It’s a tale of Pratta’s comingled survival of and dependency on Big Pharma, navigating a male-dominated industry rife with misogyny and sexual harassment while relying on the income her work provides to support her family as a single mother. The professional and the personal are interlaced clearly and with purpose.

The realities of America’s profit-driven health care system laid bare by an insider.

John Hancock: First To Sign, First To Invest in America’s Independence Randall, Willard Sterne | Dutton (288 pp.) $35.00 | June 10, 2025 | 9780593472149

Thoughtful life of the all-­ but-forgotten Founding Father.

John Hancock may be best remembered for what historian Randall calls “his large, flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence”—if, that is, he is remembered at all, for just 15-odd years after Hancock’s death in 1793, John Adams would lament that he was “buried in oblivion.” Hancock’s many contributions to the revolutionary cause included using much of his significant fortune, earned as the head of Boston’s leading mercantile concern, to finance the military; he also helped push the Constitution through, argued over “by paragraphs, until every member shall have had opportunity fully to express his sentiments,” after helping offset contending state interests in the fight over the Articles of Confederation.

Randall reminds readers that the years immediately after the war ended were fraught: Frontier rebellions broke out over taxations and pensions for military service, and, briefly, “Pennsylvania and Connecticut had actually gone to war” K IR KU S R E V IE W S

A master of mass psychology, Hitler began with the deployment of conspiracy theories.

THE NAZI MIND

over territorial issues. A Federalist but also a pragmatist, Hancock championed nine “Conciliatory Amendments” that led to the Bill of Rights, to which he added the 10th, which reserved to the states any “powers not expressly delegated to Congress.” As well, apart from serving as a well-liked governor of Massachusetts, Hancock—serving his own interests to be sure, but also with an eye on the larger U.S. economy—helped restore postwar trade with Britain. For all that, Randall notes, Hancock weathered numerous controversies, mostly financial; he was also the subject of a possible canard that Randall corrects—namely, that he wished to be commander of the Continental Army and resented George Washington for being selected for the post, when in fact, Randall writes, Hancock suffered so badly from gout that it is unlikely that he “would have accepted a position that would require long days on horseback.”

A solid addition to the literature of the American Revolution.

Kirkus Star

The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History Rees, Laurence | PublicAffairs (464 pp.) $35.00 | May 6, 2025 | 9781541702332

A playbook for totalitarianism with echoes in today’s headlines.

British historian and documentarian Rees opens by recounting a meeting with an unrepentant veteran of the Waffen SS, who believed that the Nazi regime had

marked a golden age in German history and that “the Jews had been a ‘problem’ that had to be dealt with ‘one way or another.’” It is exceedingly difficult, Rees holds, to shake true believers from beliefs that, however evil or misbegotten, help separate “them” from “us,” speaking to the fundamental instinct of humans to form in-groups and then identify others as members of out-groups.

Hitler was a master of mass psychology, and he began with the chillingly familiar deployment of conspiracy theories, helped along by German exceptionalism: Our army was made up of the world’s best soldiers, the thinking went, and so it must have been the fault of some enemy within that we lost World War I. Though Hitler probably didn’t know the physiology involved, Rees credits him with knowing how to play the amygdala to incite anxiety and fear, further dividing the German people into us-and-them tribes. Other factors that shaped the “Nazi mind” included the certainty of the political and financial elites that they could control Hitler; the omnipresence of officially sanctioned protection rackets; the exploitation of racial animus and privileging of “pure” Germans; and the leveraging of religion to provide legitimacy for state authoritarianism.

Altogether, providing the necessary substitutions, the phenomena Rees describes are depressingly familiar, and signs of that fearful, vengeful, all-destructive mind are all around. As Rees observes, meaningfully, “Everything is more fragile than we think.

That is the central message that I have taken from my work.” It is, and it’s the takeaway from this book as well.

A timely exploration of how the unthinkable becomes normal.

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Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word Reynolds, Megan C. | HarperOne (256 pp.) $27.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9780063415287

An examination of the place of “like” in American English.

For many, hearing a conversation peppered with the word “like” conjures an image of stereotypical teenage girls from the 1980s San Fernando Valley known as Valley Girls, a subculture often characterized as being less than intelligent. Some prescriptivists go so far as viewing the word’s usage as a sign of society’s decline. However, cultural writer Reynolds contends, “when a single word is so useful, so beautifully flexible, and does so much with so very little, it seems illogical and short-sighted to disregard its importance.” Despite second-guessing her own language choices in this context, Reynolds smartly and lightheartedly shares various scenarios in which she feels using the word “like” in conversation offers an advantage. As she suggests, “like” is a great alternative to “said” when recounting to a friend how an incident made one feel. “And then I was like….” The ability to use “like” in this context “has fundamentally changed the way we tell stories.” As Reynolds explains, when feelings are the focus, “we no longer have to recite (or remember) precisely what was said.” The word can also serve as a filler when a speaker needs a brief moment to gather his or her thoughts. “Well, like, I just, I’m not, like, sure….” The word can also serve as an intensifier. “I have, like, one zillion things to do.” Finally, Reynolds suggests that “like” can even be used as a full sentence when seeking emotional validation. “Like…!” She concludes, “Making a case for ‘like’s’ validity is making a case for progress—or for at least understanding that progress and change are not necessarily the enemy.”

Convincing evidence for offering “like” another chance in the American English vernacular.

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How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence Richtel, Matt | Mariner Books (336 pp.) $29.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9780063282063

Exploring an anxious age.

Each year, now, seems to have its own identity: tots, tweens, teens, young adults.

Each generation has rewritten codes of growing up: boomers, millennials, X, Y, Z, Alpha. Into this mix, adolescence has emerged as a distinctive category—a time not bounded by chronology but by sensibility. The adolescent is a rebel: No I won’t. The adolescent is a questioner: Who am I? The adolescent is a blamer: It’s all your fault. The latest book by New York Times journalist Richtel (A Deadly Wandering, An Elegant Defense) offers a cultural history of this stage through a series of short chapters focusing on problems, possibilities, and individuals. This is not a book of science or sociology. It’s a book of storytelling. We get vignettes of Napoleon reading Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, becoming, in effect, a case of arrested adolescent development; of the psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who wrote the first real medical account of adolescence in 1905; of modern neurologists mapping the youthful brain; and of a clutch of today’s kids, each of whom has a tough life worth telling. In the end, adolescence is revealed to be “by evolutionary design a period of risk-taking, and of diversification….Diversity and exploration [are] essential for surviving in an unpredictable world.” Adolescence, then, becomes the key moment

of personal growth, when we reject or accept social norms and adult expectations. These days, that moment involves confrontations with anxiety and depression, eating disorders and desires, and the judgments of social media. It’s a hero’s journey, both for child and parent. Written in a colorful, journalistic style, this book should be at the bedside of every parent who believes they are alone but really aren’t.

A vivid set of inquiries into the science, social history, and personal experience of adolescence.

Hunger Like a Thirst: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table Rodell, Besha | Celadon Books (272 pp.) $28.99 | May 13, 2025 | 9781250807120

A meld of autobiography and culinary memoir with meat on its bones.

“I’m not sure on which planet I belong,” says Rodell in the closing pages of this consistently engaging chronicle of her life so far. And the statement is understandable: Though the James Beard Award–winning food writer, editor, and restaurant critic is back home in her native Australia, she spent many of her formative years finding her way and forging a career in the U.S., with which she harbors a conflicted relationship. Formerly a critic for Creative Loafing, LA Weekly, the New York Times, and Food & Wine magazine, Rodell is today the rather less peripatetic

Celebrating a word that is “beautifully flexible, and does so much with so very little.”

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restaurant critic at the Age in Melbourne. She cut her teeth in the restaurant trade in America and retains a keen understanding of the camaraderie (and brutalities) experienced by its workers. Often joyous, sometimes melancholy, her first book recounts a lifelong hunger for discovery and meaning, with exceptional food as both focal point and an end in itself. She provides observant capsule histories of the landscape relating to food and service, all while charting the rise of the contemporary dining craze and celebrity chefs. Also on the menu are recollections of financial struggle and sexism, marriage and motherhood, the stew of guilt and Lucullan pleasures that accompany a life on the road, the delights of cocktail culture, the origins of the American hospitality ethos, a billet-doux to Melbourne, and a reflection on the late Anthony Bourdain. Her incisive writing, which chooses to reveal the cultural and historic backstories of the cuisines and locales she reviews, is what makes her work so distinctive. But above all, it is Rodell’s candor, her gift for asking so many savory, enlightening questions, that rewards the reader’s palate.

Structured like a good meal, or a good review, rendering a superb memoir.

Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse Into Mercenary Chaos Rondeaux, Candace | PublicAffairs (464 pp.) $32.00 | May 13, 2025 | 9781541703063

A history of the now-suppressed Wagner Group, once a key element in Vladimir Putin’s private army.

In a sense, writes global security analyst Rondeaux, the rise of the Wagner Group fit in seamlessly with the way of war during the last decades of the Soviet Union, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

“a time of big armies and small wars fought by proxies under the long shadow cast by the prospect of global nuclear annihilation.” As the Soviet Union fell apart, Yevgeny Prigozhin, “an ex-convict turned hotdog salesman and serial entrepreneur,” used his street-gang smarts to build an empire that embraced real estate, construction, restaurants, casinos, and, in time, that private army, staffed by both ex-convicts and disaffected veterans of the Soviet military. The concurrent rise of Putin to power found the Wagner Group in a position to be of great use: It could serve as a projection of Russian power while keeping the government protected from international sanctions. Indeed, with many of its fighters now folded into a group called the Africa Corps, the Wagner Group operates all over the African continent while serving as a “crucial test case for the defense ministry’s efforts to reassert control over its paramilitaries.” Therein, of course, lies a rub, for Prigozhin attempted to buck the control of the Kremlin to freelance his own way across the Ukraine—and then threatened mutiny when he ran afoul of the generals. The result: Rondeaux suggests that the plane crash that ended Prigozhin’s life was the result of a planted bomb. (Putin blamed it on Prigozhin, “high on cocaine and playing with live hand grenades before the plane exploded.”) Rondeaux places Prigozhin and other paramilitary warlords, who had been active in fighting Ukraine long before the 2022 invasion, in the context of contemporary Russian politics, with Putin betting that the West had no strategies to counter them—correctly, she adds.

An illuminating look at a nationalist army that, now apparently in harness, was once an outsize geopolitical force.

For more about Putin’s Russia, visit Kirkus online.

Free Ride: Heartbreak, Courage, and the 20,000Mile Motorcycle Journey That Changed My Life Schoenmaker, Noraly | Atria (288 pp.) $26.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781668092491

Back in the saddle.

In her debut memoir, adventurer biker Schoenmaker, creator of the popular YouTube channel Itchy Boots, shares details of her original transcontinental motorcycle journey from India to the Netherlands. In 2018, after a relationship ended, Schoenmaker sold her house, quit her job as a geologist, and booked a one-way ticket to India with the goal of becoming a travel blogger.

However, after experiencing little success, Schoenmaker decided she needed a new plan. Missing the Ducati she sold prior to her trip, she purchased a new bike—this time a Royal Enfield Himalayan, which she christened “Basanti” after the heroine from the 1975 classic Indian film Sholay. With her newfound freedom, Itchy Boots was born. As Schoenmaker contends, “Now I was trying to make traveling my job.

But even more than that, I wanted to create and tell visual stories about people and places that not everyone knew.” While Schoenmaker does include some details regarding the landscape and culture of the locations she traversed, her memoir focuses primarily on the ongoing difficulties she experienced with her motorcycle, which may be disappointing for readers who are familiar with her more culturally focused and visually appealing YouTube videos. What her book does offer is a glimpse into the generous nature of strangers who came to her assistance throughout her travels, particularly in those regions that many consider unsafe. As Schoenmaker reflects during the journey, “I’d lost count of the number of people who had helped me without question, refusing my offers of payment, and was MAY 1, 2025

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overcome by a sense of shame. When was the last time I had given a stranger that much help and love without expecting anything in return?”

Heartwarming inspiration for readers seeking adventure.

The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found Shaikh, Michael | Crown (320 pp.) $30.00 | June 24, 2025 | 9780593442845

An examination of the role political violence plays in shaping culinary traditions around the world.

The Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains thrived on a diet that included bison—until, that is, the U.S. Army opened the door to the extermination of the species and the loss of that long interaction. Today, as international human rights activist Shaikh writes, Native American chefs and food historians are working to restore some of those traditions, as with one Pueblo entrepreneur who follows the traditional view that “people are within and part of their ecosystem, not separate from it.” Food is often wielded as a weapon: Shaikh writes, for example, of the German right-wing Alternative für Deutschland party’s campaign to promote alcohol and pork with an ad campaign showing baby pigs and the slogan, “Islam?

It doesn’t fit in with our cuisine.” In Xinjiang, Han Chinese impose pig raising on the Muslim Uyghur population, knowing full well, as Shaikh writes, that “it’s hard to exaggerate how much Uyghurs are repulsed by pigs.” Not just a cultural shibboleth, food speaks to who holds power and who doesn’t: As Shaikh writes

of once-iconic Czech cuisine, when the Nazis arrived they feasted on meat, confining Czechs to “flour dumplings and thin, watery sauces.” There, too, Czech traditionalists are doing much to restore a cuisine battered by the Nazi invaders’ rule on the one hand and “decades of communist conformity” on the other.

Shaikh travels the world to portray loss and recovery, documenting how Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are laboring to keep their food traditions from disappearing, how Czech farmers are rediscovering the virtues of “fresh Moravian asparagus, both the white and green varieties,” and more—with the bonus of recipes from his interlocutors.

A revealing inquiry at the intersection of food, culture, war, and power politics.

Breaking the Engagement: How China Won & Lost America Shambaugh, David | Oxford Univ. (424 pp.) $29.99 | June 12, 2025 | 9780197792421

Insights on our deteriorating relations with China.

Shambaugh, professor of Asian Studies at George Washington University, writes that America, the dominant power until recently, has always felt a sense of exceptionalism. This conviction that America’s way of doing things had universal appeal seemed affirmed by its spectacular Cold War victory over the USSR, but this simply set the country up for disappointment when an increasingly powerful China began to feel its oats. The first two of nine lucidly written chapters deliver an expert if often painful chronological account of the experience of eight presidents who served since America recognized “Communist

Laboring to keep their food traditions from disappearing.

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China” in 1979 and aimed to modernize, liberalize, and socialize it. Under the illusion that free-market reforms would relax its oppressive autocracy, American leaders brushed off the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and remained optimistic until 2009, when President Obama made an official visit and received rude treatment that was “intentional and not consistent with how previous American presidents had been treated.” The relationship went downhill, especially after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, and China became increasingly repressive at home and belligerent abroad. Although its repressive system was inconsequential to President Trump, and he admires Xi, his administration was dominated by China hawks, who matched its truculence. Minus the bombast, the Biden administration continued this policy. “Engagement” was in tatters. Reaching the present day at the halfway point, Shambaugh reveals why he is not a historian but a political scientist, with four chapters delving deeply into government policy, strategy, and debates with generous use of statistics, acronyms, speeches, and actions from a huge cast of characters, NGOs, and think tanks, many unfamiliar to readers. The final chapter delivers sensible advice on how to deal with a newly assertive China. Apparently composed before the second Trump administration took office, it seems a dead letter.

Required reading for the new Cold War.

There’s No Going Back: The Life and Work of Jonathan Demme Stewart, David M. | Univ. Press of Kentucky (264 pp.) | $29.95 July 29, 2025 | 9781985902657

The career of a celebrated American filmmaker.

Like the great German director Wim Wenders, Jonathan Demme (1944-2017) was an eclectic filmmaker who shot documentaries as well as narrative films. He made commercial K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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The director who considered giving up filmmaking and opening a bookstore.

THERE’S NO GOING BACK

Hollywood movies, from Married to the Mob to The Silence of the Lambs, but Demme considered documentaries, including Stop Making Sense, his landmark 1984 concert film about the Talking Heads, to be his “solace from his conflicting issues with the film and television industries.” In this admiring biography, Stewart sums up Demme’s life and career, from his early days as a film critic for his college newspaper and a publicity-department dogsbody for Embassy Pictures to a director of the first order. His directing career started when Roger Corman hired him to helm exploitation films such as Caged Heat and Crazy Mama before moving on to more mainstream efforts. Stewart takes a linear approach, chronicling Demme’s upbringing and the passions that motivated his choices, noting that Demme considered himself a “cultural magpie” who “championed stories about strong women and characters who resisted bigotry and racism.” Demme’s successes and frustrations are all here, from “critical arthouse hit” Swimming to Cambodia, a record of monologist Spalding Gray’s one-man show, to his work on 1984’s Swing Shift, an attempt at mainstream appeal that became “one of the most difficult films he would ever direct” and was so painful that he considered giving up filmmaking and opening a bookstore. A deeper analysis of Demme’s themes rather than a chronological presentation of his films would have made this a stronger book.

There’s a lot here to entertain fans, however, with enlightening behind-thescenes stories. For example, when Demme worked in publicity at United Artists in 1968, he was François Truffaut’s New York driver. Truffaut told Demme, an obvious cinephile, that he looked forward to his first film. “I’m not interested in directing,” Demme said, to K IR KU S R E V IE W S

which the ever-astute Truffaut replied, “Yes, you are.”

A heartfelt appraisal of a cinema iconoclast.

Kirkus Star

When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World Thomas, Jordan | Riverhead (368 pp.) $30.00 | May 27, 2025 | 9780593544822

The heat and history at the frontlines of an elite hotshot firefighting crew.

Joining the Los Padres Hotshots crew was an endeavor so intense that the interview alone involved answering questions while climbing a trail at a pace extreme enough that it verged on causing a blackout. As an elite firefighting crew, the hotshots are tasked with containing the most intense megafires and asked to do the most extreme work. Thomas brings us to the front lines, deftly pulling the reader to the edge of the fire in evocative writing that reads like a thriller. An anthropologist, he’s closely attuned to the hypermasculinity and culture of men sleeping in the dirt, putting their bodies through extreme situations, and holding conflicting ideals about the environment. The writing is powerful enough that the book does not sacrifice the more embodied intensity of the front lines for its meticulous research and intellectual analysis, instead managing to hold multiple realities taut. Perhaps

the strongest segment of the book comes in its explosive analysis of the firefighting industry that reads as an exposé. “Megafires emerge from a series of fractured relationships—between fire, the land, our institutions, and each other,” he writes, describing fire suppression and the resulting megafires as “the war on nature.” He talks candidly about what scientists call the sacrifice zone: “a place where low-income people shoulder the burden of industrial misconduct.” In this case, that means the hotshots, who are highly trained essential firefighters who could be one injury away from bankruptcy— contrasting with the firefighting industry, where a handful of individuals make massive profits from salvage logging, among other means. Thomas doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of the fire economy, maintaining the thriller-like momentum, but there’s hope to be found here, too. With prescribed burn sites, community organizing, and sequoias wrapped in fire blankets, the future is something to fight for. This book raises up that fight.

Thinking about fire has never been more essential—Thomas charts a map toward the future.

Dianaworld: An Obsession White, Edward | Norton (416 pp.) $32.50 | April 29, 2025 | 9781324021568

An exploration of the mythology and reality surrounding the doomed British royal.

Diana Spencer came into the orbit of the House of Windsor holding a strong hand: The Windsors were German, after all, but she could trace her English ancestry back for many centuries, with the result that there’s something to the saw that she was “more royal than the royals.”

Notes biographer White, this isn’t quite so: “You can’t move for royal branches in the Windsor family tree.” Even so, Diana had good cause to rebuke Prince Charles, her misery-inducing husband, MAY 1, 2025

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with the bitter words, “When I came here, I had my title. I don’t need your title.” As White notes, Diana’s distance from the Windsors brought her nothing but sympathy and the Windsors nothing but scorn—and to ensure that, Diana cultivated connections with tabloid writers and TV personalities that she might otherwise have had nothing to do with, “relationships…purely of convenience.” White charts Diana’s influence in several, beg pardon, realms: So closely was she watched as a fashion icon that long after her death, gift shops did a land office business in selling red sweaters dotted with a row of white sheep punctuated by a single black one, “as though they were official Diana merchandise.” Moreover, she did much to ease tensions between white Britain and the immigrant population by dating a Pakistani doctor postdivorce. Some of the corners of Dianaworld are a touch sordid, as with the conspiracy theory that held that she was about to expose British arms merchants, “naming and shaming those of her compatriots who profited from land-mines.” Yet those theories still have a hold on British popular culture, in which Diana, thanks to a statue unveiled in 2021, has morphed into “a quasi-religious figure, a Mary of the multifaith age.”

Devotees of the “People’s Princess” will revel in White’s explorations of the territory behind the curtain.

Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship Williams, Dana A. | Amistad/ HarperCollins (368 pp.) | $32.99 June 17, 2025 | 9780063011977

The Nobel Prize winner had a storied career as an editor.

Literary scholar Williams draws on interviews and archives to chronicle the publishing career of Toni Morrison (1931-2019), who served as a senior editor at Random 74

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House beginning in 1972. After earning a master’s degree in English from Cornell, Morrison taught at Howard University before taking an editorial job at L.W. Singer, a small textbook publishing house that had been recently acquired by Random House. When Random House decided to close the Singer offices, Morrison came to their attention as a likely editor who could further the publisher’s goal of attracting Black writers to their list. Williams closely examines some of the prominent books Morrison edited (a full list is appended), the authors she worked with (Muhammad Ali, for one), and her strategies for publicizing them. Through astute marketing and promotion, Morrison was convinced that she could build a Black book-buying audience and move Black culture “from the margin to the center.” Her first project was an anthology, Contemporary African Literature, intended as a high school textbook but also aimed at a general readership. The book, Williams writes, “quietly announced Morrison’s editorial aesthetic.” Another early project was The Black Book, a compendium of photos, posters, memorabilia—­ similar to The Whole Earth Catalog— that Morrison saw as a “folk journey of Black America.” Morrison was a hands-on editor, providing years-long writing guidance to her authors, helping to choose titles (she suggested the title for Williams’ book) and cover art, soliciting blurbs, and managing publicity. She often forged close friendships with her writers, including Toni Cade Bambara and Angela Davis. Engaged in her own writing at the same time that she worked at Random House, Morrison, Williams amply shows, was a paragon of “fearless determination.”

A well-researched biographical study.

Kirkus Star

The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood Willner, Nina | Dutton (384 pp.) | $35.00 July 22, 2025 | 9780593471272

The story of a concentration camp survivor and the American GIs who helped him escape.

Eddie Willner, the author’s father, was a German Jew, the son of a decorated World War I veteran. The Willners were well liked in their small West German hometown. In the United States, two American boys were growing up in very different environments: Elmer Hovland in rural Minnesota and Sammy DeCola in a Boston suburb. The book follows Eddie as he experiences growing antisemitism after the rise of Hitler, resulting in the family’s being sent to Auschwitz.

Eddie, in his teens, and his father, Siegfried, along with a young Dutch boy, Mike, were chosen for slave labor instead of immediate death. The book unflinchingly shows the horrific conditions of the camp and the inmates being forced to create war materiel for the Nazis. Meanwhile, Elmer and Sammy had joined the U.S. Army.

Elmer was quickly recognized as leader material and became a second lieutenant, while Sammy—nicknamed “Pepsi”—was head cook in the same armored division. They landed in Normandy shortly after D-Day and fought in a series of fierce battles on their way to Germany. There, Eddie

Morrison was a hands-on editor, down to suggesting book titles—including the one below.

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NONFICTION

and Mike had escaped from a forced march from the now-closed concentration camp and made their way to the American lines. They met Elmer and Pepsi and were adopted by their company, where their local knowledge and ability to speak German made them valuable assets. After the war, Eddie and Mike emigrated to the U.S., where they became citizens—both serving in the military.

A powerful and eminently readable story of a concentration camp survivor and his American rescuers.

1861: The Lost Peace Winik, Jay | Grand Central Publishing (304 pp.) $35.00 | May 27, 2025 | 9781538735121

A look at the events leading to the Civil War, with emphasis on attempts to avoid the conflict.

Winik begins his account in the 1850s, when the forces that would lead to secession were building. The political questions of the day were whether slavery should expand beyond the Southern and border states where it was already in effect and, if so, how. After a preliminary look at the condition of enslaved people, the focus in the early chapters turns to Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and fervent abolitionist John Brown, each of whom—in very different ways—was working to end slavery. Violence had already become endemic in Kansas, where Brown’s role in a massacre of slave owners made him known even before his raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Meanwhile, the growth of the Republican Party united anti-slavery elements in the North, though its presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was quite willing to let slavery alone in the states where it was legal. But the South saw Lincoln’s election as a threat to its “peculiar institution,” and movement toward secession began as soon as the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

An anthology infused with a wicked sense of humor and a vast vocabulary of invective.

T H AT ’ S H O W T H E Y G E T YO U

1860 election was decided. Enter Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky, an elder statesman respected by all parties. As South Carolina declared secession, Crittenden, with many influential figures from both North and South, led a peace conference hoping to avert the coming disaster.

Lincoln’s cabinet members were also working to keep things together— although not all were on the same page as the new president. In the closing chapters, Winik alternates between Fort Sumter, where the first shots would be fired, and the ultimately unsuccessful peace negotiations in Washington.

A fascinating look at some of the less familiar history in the days leading up to the Civil War.

That’s How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor Young, Damon, ed. | Pantheon (256 pp.) $28.00 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593317112

A tour through the fine art of Black comedy— sometimes in both senses of the word.

Political commentator and essayist Young has a wicked sense of humor and a vast vocabulary of invective, both of which are put to good use in this anthology. His introduction commemorates a funny friend from his youth who could eviscerate a target in a game of dozens but “also intuitively knew the power dynamics baked into humor, where it’s not just unkind to exclusively target

people with less privilege than you; it makes your humor disposable and punchless.” “Existing while Black in America,” Young goes on to say, provides plenty of grist for the comedy mill, and it makes for invincible resistance. Young’s stream-of-consciousness piece “You Gonna Get These Teeth” is a masterwork of surrealist humor built around teeth alignment that soon slips into just that resistance; one snippet from several cheerfully blue pages goes like this: “My divestment of fucks is connected to my wallet and I think maybe the new teeth are a bank statement a long receipt a billboard of fucklessness.”

Elsewhere in the anthology are numerous highlights, including Angela Nissel’s lovely memory of melding the ’80s TV show Knight Rider into the Black experience for a grade-school report (“sometimes, you just gotta take advantage of someone’s ignorance and make some shit up”); Mahogany L. Browne’s smart dissection of how the dozens work (“Your house so nasty your roaches got roaches”) and, far more important, why they work; and Wyatt Cenac’s fiercely funny account of being the first Black writer hired at The Daily Show: “When you’re the first Black person at any job, you’ll quickly learn that white fragility is…the cream in every cup of their morning coffee.”

Funny bones, raised fists, scorching insights into the biz, delicious insults, and much more are to be had here.

For more reviews of nonfiction books, visit Kirkus online.

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A U D I O B O O K S // N O N F I C T I O N

Listening to a Life Three recent memoirs shine in audiobook format.

BY MARION WINIK

heat of Fayetteville (with a head-spinning interlude in Japan and sojourns to Miami and the Outer Banks), many of Corren’s stories revolve around his mother’s fruitless attempts to forestall eviction by working jobs at the local bowling alley and Sunoco station, as well as having a newspaper route and a mobile pot dealership. Other stories highlight their unique mother-son relationship; they spent hours together on her waterbed, where he rubbed her feet and she called him “Ann.” By the time he gets to his comingof-age as the only male member of a teenage girl gang and the reappearance of an older sibling who’d

Kureishi on the audio of the latter’s memoir, Shattered (HarperAudio, 6 hours and 9 minutes), thus becoming another link in the chain of people who made it possible for Kureishi to create and share this extraordinary diary of his life in the year following a fall in December 2022 that left him completely paralyzed. From very early on, his partner, Isabella, and son Carlo took daily dictation while an armada of doctors, nurses, carers, and other friends and family provided essential support. Like his friend Salman Rushdie, who documents a very different near-death experience in Knife, Kureishi details the grim realities of his physical situation, here compounded by an even darker prognosis and daily, even hourly, humiliations. Yet these diaristic entries also include wonderful meditations on writing, reading, sex, the arc of Kureishi’s career, the effect of racism on his identity, and the possible upsides, if any, of catastrophe. As our critic put it in a starred review, the memoir itself ultimately becomes a vehicle for “refashioning his life…with grace, dignity, and black humor.”

Marion Winik hosts The Weekly Reader podcast on NPR.

Headphones: Juk ka A alho/Unsplash

ANDY CORREN is not your typical audiobook narrator, which is evident the moment you turn on Dirtbag Queen (Hachette Audio, 10 hours and 4 minutes), a memoir of his mother (aka “the ravenous and ravishing red-headed Renay”).

Corren’s Southern-fried nasal twang and tongue-incheek, high-drama declamatory style are as distinctive as the tale he tells and the turbo-charged language he uses to tell it.

“Every friend I made in 22 long North Carolina years called me Jewboy,” he informs us, adding that his brothers were commonly known as Twin, Asshole, and Rabbi. Set in the relentless

grown up in a Florida institution, you’ll be hooked.

For another unique voice, and a very different mom, cue up Whoopi Goldberg’s Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me (Blackstone Audio, 6 hours and 43 minutes). Whoopi’s rich, throaty, matter-of-fact, and straight-outta-Manhattan delivery, along with the associative style and candor of her storytelling, makes this audiobook an unusually intimate experience. (In fact, there are so many ad libs and additions in the audio version that an updated paperback edition is planned for 2026.) Whoopi’s mother, Emma Johnson, had her share of difficulties, including a mental health crisis that caused her to essentially disappear for two years when Whoopi, then called Caryn, was 8. Johnson emerged from this period to become a critical role model and saving grace for her daughter, instilling in her a profound sense of agency and self-confidence, later helping to raise not only Whoopi’s own daughter, Alex, but also her granddaughter, born when Alex was just 15. Whoopi tells the whole story with a blend of rue, incredulity, and something like pride.

British Pakistani actor Art Malik pinch-hits for Hanif

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Children's

MAHNAZ DAR

LATELY, I’VE BEEN inundated with news articles bemoaning the difficulty of making—and keeping— friends. So I decided to catch up with some of my oldest and dearest pals. I’m pleased to report that Frog and Toad are still friends, Bunnicula the vampiric rabbit continues to menace veggies the world over, and literal-minded Amelia Bedelia is still stymied by domestic tasks such as drawing the drapes and dressing the chicken.

Books have always been my boon companions, and, as a child, I had a special place in my heart for series fiction; every time I picked up a new installment of the Baby-Sitters Club or one of Judy Blume’s Fudge books, it felt like chatting with a treasured confidant. I’m thrilled to spotlight several new series starters, a mix of chapter books and short middle-grade works. I’m quite sure they will launch many beautiful friendships—indeed, learning how to be a good friend figures prominently in these stories.

Worrywarts of the world, rejoice; the following two titles feature two endearingly fretful heroes. The protagonist of Bulldozer’s Big 78

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Rescue by Elise Broach, illustrated by Kelly Murphy (Christy Ottaviano Books, Jan. 21), longs for a playmate, but that would mean talking to somebody new—horrors! At his mother’s urging, he introduces himself to his new next-door neighbor.

The sole anthropomorphic vehicle in an otherwise all-human cast, shy Bulldozer will win over introverts young and old as he steels himself to confront seemingly overwhelming obstacles before ultimately triumphing.

The title of Maryrose Wood’s Bad Badger: A Love Story, illustrated by Giulia Ghigini (Union Square Kids, Feb. 25), might suggest a rather mischievous protagonist; readers will be surprised—but charmed—to meet the genteel Septimus, who worries about his distinctly

“unbadgerish” qualities, such as his love for Verdi’s La Traviata. His insecurities come to a head as he befriends a taciturn sea gull. Some say we must love ourselves before we can love another, but in Wood’s elegant and empathetic tale, these journeys are deftly intertwined.

Banana-related nicknames seem to be having a moment among the elementary school set. This year, readers are graced with Lana Button’s Brianna Banana, Helper of the Day (Orca, Feb. 11), illustrated

by Suharu Ogawa, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s Amina Banana and the Formula for Friendship, illustrated by Aaliya Jaleel (Putnam, May 20). Tall, blond Brianna Ross’ moniker—foisted on her by mean-spirited classmates— is one more reminder that she doesn’t fit in. Button’s

delightfully chatty prose brings to life an impulsive and distractable but kindhearted youngster who, despite setbacks, gives it her all as she forges a bond with a classmate.

Similarly, Syrian refugee Amina initially struggles to find her place; her difficulty speaking English creates a wall between her and her peers. With gentle humor and sensitivity, Safadi demonstrates how seemingly minor incidents—­ like a mispronounced name—can make a child feel like an outsider. But as Amina prepares for a dreaded class presentation, she sees her new friends’ encouragement as a sign that she belongs—as is the affectionate nickname she receives from one of her classmates.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.

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Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

FRIENDS FOR LIFE

CHILDREN'S

EDITOR’S PICK An ocean-dwelling ghost girl confronts powerful forces.

Graciela is dead. She fell from a cliff into the ocean in a terrible accident, only to awaken as a ghost in an underwater community of spirits—souls of those who have died at sea. Her Guide and friend, Amina, teaches her how to navigate this new existence, from performing duties that make “the living world more bearable by keeping the sea in a delicate balance,” to the rules that protect them from the living. Amina dreams of joining the Almas, powerful spirits who guard the ocean’s secrets from the castle Salemúria, but Graciela is desperate for

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

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Amina to stay with her.

Meanwhile, Jorge Leon, a boy from a long line of blacksmiths, is trapped by his brutish parents in a life of cruelty. His only joy is crafting whimsical toys from metal scraps. When Jorge discovers a sinister harpoon forged by his treasure-hunting ancestor— one capable of killing sea ghosts—he attempts to render it harmless but accidentally sets off a dangerous chain of events.

When Graciela’s and Jorge’s paths cross, they must work together to confront and defeat evil forces. With breathtaking underwater worldbuilding and eerie details, Medina’s

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The Moving Book

By Lisa Brown

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The Mighty Onion and Guinea Pig Girl!

By Mark Crilley

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In the World of Whales

By Michelle Cusolito; illus. by Jessica Lanan

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The Accidental Stowaway

By Judith Eagle; illus. by Jo Rioux

Graciela in the Abyss Medina, Meg | Illus. by Anna Balbusso & Elena Balbusso | Candlewick | 256 pp.

July 1, 2025 | $18.99 | 9781536219456

latest immerses readers in Graciela’s ghostly realm, and they’ll root for the unlikely duo on their perilous quest.

The Balbussos’ hauntingly beautiful illustrations enhance the story. The characters and setting evoke

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Everyday Bean

By Stephanie Graegin

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The Music Inside Us

By James Howe; illus. by Jack Wong

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Dawn

By Marc Martin

Spanish and Portuguese cultural influences.

A thrilling, actionpacked journey filled with heart, bravery, and ghostly exploits. (map, color guide, glossary) (Fantasy. 9-13)

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Graciela in the Abyss

By Meg Medina; illus. by Anna Balbusso & Elena Balbusso

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The City of Jasmine

By Nadine Presley; illus. by Heather Brockman Lee

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The History of We

By Nikkolas Smith

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The Moon Moved In

By Sue Soltis; illus.

by Sonia Sánchez

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Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob Aaron, Huw | Viking (32 pp.) | $18.99 July 1, 2025 | 9780593695395

A greenish blob tucks in its “horrible little one.”

“Here at the end of a well-spent day, / a yawning Blob I see.” A lumpy, bumpy thing gazes fondly at a smaller version of itself. The youngster sits on a rug amid scattered toys and games, its yawn a small, opaque black circle between nearly closed eyes. “Reach out your weary tentacles,” encourages the caregiver. “And come up the stairs with me.” Though obviously sleepy, the child registers typical displeasure at the prospect of playtime coming to an end. Carrying its offspring upstairs, the big blob uses gentle rhyme and rhythm—and an expansive vocabulary—to assure the little blob that “all creatures grim and evil” are getting ready for bed. Both text and art render adorably benign an enormous parade of monsters usually considered scary, including Dracula brushing his fangs, sweetly smiling Medusa blow-drying her snakes, and Frankenstein’s monster (Frankie) sipping from a glass of milk.

Aaron’s scribbly art relies on a soothing pastel palette, providing tender reassurance to the youngest readers and laugh-out-loud humor to older ones.

Although wordier than many bedtime books, this tale handily fits the bill.

A pleasurably spooky nighttime read.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Living Bridges: The Hidden World of India’s Woven Trees Acharya, Sandhya | Illus. by Avani Dwivedi Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781665950299

A tribute to the Jingkieng Jri, bridges woven from the roots of living trees by the residents of northeastern India’s rainy Meg­halaya state.

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Though this child’s-eye view of the bridges—one, more than 100 feet long, arcs high over a monsoon-­ swollen river in Dwivedi’s lush, misty illustrations—is interesting enough, Acharya moves quickly into metaphorical territory. As her young protagonist learns from an older relative how to weave and guide dangling ficus roots through the sturdy structure to further strengthen it, the child reflects that the bridge is the work of time and many hands. That theme of community effort over generations is reinforced by notes and photos from the author and others at the end. Caring for the living bridge is an ongoing task; seeing several adult passersby marring its beauty by thoughtlessly leaving their litter as they troop across, the child organizes a general clean-up that leaves the whole group more appreciative of their gnarled, intricately woven local wonder. Readers, too, will likely be left mindful that living in and with their environment requires both long- and short-term attention.

Human figures in the art and photos are brown-skinned.

A perceptive visit to a remote wonder that blends natural materials and human skills. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Scarecited on the First Day of School Agostini, Alliah L. | Illus. by Lala Watkins Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) $18.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9780374390020

Afua’s first-day jitters can’t be conveyed with a single feeling or word.

Feeling “scarecited” (scared and excited), Afua wonders what school will be like. “Will I make a friend?” Afua’s outfit is “flute” (fly and cute), and upon entering the classroom, the young narrator is “shurious” (shy and curious). Afua’s ready to start the day until the teacher, Ms. Lane, mispronounces Afua’s name.

“Sadbarrassed” (sad and embarrassed), Afua wonders, “Why is my name so hard?” A classmate named Teal, noticing Afua’s distress, invites the protagonist to eat lunch, and as the two race around on the playground, Teal pronounces Afua’s name correctly.

Inspired—and feeling “bravous” (brave and nervous)—Afua approaches Ms. Lane to correct her pronunciation (phonetic text will help young readers also say Afua’s name right). The teacher’s kind words leave Afua feeling “prelieved” (proud and relieved). Bold illustrations and word lettering match the high-energy excitement of the first-day-of-school setting. Agostini captures the all-too-familiar feeling of experiencing more than one emotion at a time, encourages both self-advocacy and creative self-expression, and acknowledges the power of being seen.

Afua and Teal present Black; their class is diverse. The book opens with pronunciation guides for the author’s and illustrator’s names.

A simple yet uplifting school story.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Bringing the Beach Home Atkins, Laura | Illus. by Evgenia Penman The Collective Book Studio (40 pp.) $18.95 | July 1, 2025 | 9781685558369

A father and child bond at the beach.

On Friday, like always, Rowan heads to Dad’s for the weekend. Rowan (apparently a child of divorce) is tired of constantly being driven between both parents’ homes, so Dad promises a special time tomorrow at the seaside. Rowan’s underwhelmed. The sand is too hot, and the crashing waves are too wet. But Rowan soon grows to love the beach: cavorting with the waves, dancing with the breeze. When the weather turns chilly, Dad says it’s time to go; Rowan’s crestfallen. So Dad keeps Rowan warm by covering the little one in a blanket of sand, decorated with shells, pebbles, and sticks; the youngster feels utterly at home. Deciding to take a bit of the beach with them, the pair return home and create a wind chime K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of endlessly inventive veggies.

HAP-PEA HALLOWEEN

from objects collected at the shore. The wind chime initially hangs motionless— until a sudden breeze makes the pebbles and shells clatter and dance, like the waves. Rowan’s enchanted and, once again, feels at home. Suffused with light, the illustrations convey a tenderness matched by the matter-of-factly soothing text; this is an understated yet graceful portrait of a child channeling negative feelings into something beautiful.

Rowan’s family is pale-skinned.

Delicately warm and lovely. (guidance for creating art) (Picture book. 4-8)

Jazzy the Witch in Broom Doom Bagley, Jessixa | Simon & Schuster (232 pp.) | $14.99 | July 15, 2025 9781665922326 | Series: Jazzy the Witch, 1

Jazzy is the least witchy witch in her entire school.

Jazzy just doesn’t have it.

When Madame Melcha, her teacher, takes the class for their first flying lesson, Jazzy barely leaves the ground. It’s pretty humiliating for a girl whose family runs St. James Besom Co., the local broommakers. Jazzy confides in her familiar, a purple bat named Fiona, that she doesn’t have the “spark for the craft.” But later that evening, Jazzy finds her spark while watching a bike race on television. Cycling begins to occupy all of Jazzy’s time. Her paleskinned, green-haired friend Aggie encourages her to keep practicing flying and studying spells, but Jazzy doesn’t make the time. Instead, she focuses on cycling—and hides her lack of progress K IR KU S R E V IE W S

from her family. But will Jazzy learn to fly in time for the upcoming supermoon parade, or will she be outed as a bad witch? In this series opener, readers meet Jazzy, who, along with her two loving mothers and grandmother, presents as Black. Jazzy’s story is lighthearted but still explores deeper themes of being honest and finding your place. This graphic novel features lively, cartoon-style, full-color illustrations that accentuate the characters’ emotions and expressions. The color palette skews toward darker tones of charcoal, purple, and grayish green.

A comical, witchy, and sweetly affirming read. (how to make a besom and spore prints, mini comic, author’s note) (Graphic adventure. 7-10)

Hap-Pea Halloween Baker, Keith | Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (24 pp.) | $9.99 | July 15, 2025 9781665940269 | Series: The Peas

Baker’s lively legumes return for a Halloween adventure.

In lightly rhyming text, an unseen narrator proposes costume ideas: “A wicked witch with a pointy hat, / a ghost, / a goblin, / or the witch’s cat? / A skeleton with a cane to tap. / Or a flying, flapping, vampire bat!” The suggestions continue, riffing on classic monsters, children’s stories like Peter Pan, and fairy-tale characters such as Rapunzel and Goldilocks. The peas could dress up as animals, Albert Einstein, or “a centipede with fifty friends— // that’s a hundred feet from end to end!” On several spreads, the peas are dwarfed by large-scale lettered

phrases like “October 31.” Using ladders, they carve hulking pumpkins with saws, relying on slings and ropes to remove pulp and carrying seeds and harvested chunks away in wheel­ barrows. Baker uses the peas’ roundness to their advantage when outfitting them in costumes; one masquerades as an “evil blue” eyeball, others as the planets Earth and Saturn. Many don headgear like flower bonnets or the Statue of Liberty’s crown. A poignant bit of text also gently suggests that eschewing costumes is just fine, too: “Or be yourself… // a little green pea!” Jack-o’-­ lanterns glow yellow and orange against dark blue-violet spreads as the costumed, treat-seeking peas hit the neighborhood on Halloween night.

An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of diminutive, endlessly inventive veggies. (Picture book. 3-7)

Super Goat Girl Baptiste, Tracey | Illus. by Dapo Adeola Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) | $18.99 July 15, 2025 | 9780525517764

In a class of superheroes, the pressure to shine runs high.

On Super Goat Girl’s first day of school, her teacher Miss Damsel (a brown-skinned woman who is indeed often in distress) introduces her to the class. Though the students include an alien and a robot, they quickly decide that Super Goat Girl doesn’t fit in. Brown-skinned Laserbeam Lass can write her name in the air with her eyes, pale-skinned Noodle Boy can stretch his neck and appendages “in every direction,” and Robo Kid’s mathematical prowess can’t be beat. “WHAT CAN YOU DO?” Super Goat Girl’s classmates ask. None of this. But when evil aliens lasso Miss Damsel, Goat Girl’s teeth chomp through a rope made from impossibilium (the strongest substance on the extraterrestrials’ planet), rescuing the teacher when the other students can’t.

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classmates wonder? Using other talents such as her intense bleat, Goat Girl repeatedly saves her teacher, who always assures the kid that the next school activity will be better than the current one, though she never chastises the other students for ostracizing Goat Girl. Only teamwork, in the end, convinces the classmates of Super Goat Girl’s value. Divided into graphic novel–esque panels, Adeola’s zany cartoon illustrations, with their cheerfully discordant color scheme, give distinct personalities to these unusual characters and offer an empathetic view of the shy protagonist, whose confidence grows as she helps.

A worthy tale in which the seemingly ordinary becomes extraordinary.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Rima and the Painter Boukarim, Leila | Illus. by Melissa Iwai Henry Holt (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 22, 2025 | 9781250881311

Painter and TV host Bob Ross helps a young immigrant discover art, make new friends, and bring back Mama’s smile.

Rima feels lonely and uncertain in her new faraway home. Mama assures her that their life will be better, but she seems so sad and distant. The voices Rima hears on the television are strange, but one gives her pause. The man speaks in a soft singsong voice as he paints an entirely new world on his canvas. Inspired, Rima sits down to draw the next time his show is on. Rima invites Mama to join her, but Mama’s notepad remains blank. Still, Rima’s enthusiasm is contagious—she makes one friend and then others, and they all draw “big old trees, almighty mountains, and happy little clouds.” But the biggest surprise of all is the smile that’s returned to Mama’s face one day as she displays paintbrushes, canvases, and paints so they can create a new world together. Drawing from her own experiences, Boukarim perfectly captures the creative genius and kind mannerisms of Bob Ross, as seen on his TV program 82

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The Joy of Painting, as she weaves a gentle tale of joy, healing, community, and the power of art. At times Iwai’s beautiful watercolorlike illustrations reflect the quality of Ross’ paintings; at others, they have the whimsy of a child’s drawings.

Hints in the text cue Rima and her mother as Middle Eastern.

Comforting, uplifting, and full of nostalgia. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Lost in a Book Britt, Chris | Abrams (32 pp.) | $18.99 June 17, 2025 | 9781949480542

Two best friends take a stroll through a book and discover a peculiar gulf between the pages.

Although warning signs in all caps let Oliver and Chad know that peril lies ahead, they can’t resist finding out what’s on the other side. A giant leap over the mysterious gutter sinks Chad in the middle and strands Oliver on the other side. This ignites a parade of silliness that ensnares many people and things in the book’s interior, including house painters, bicyclists, emergency vehicles, and even an entire zoo full of escaped animals. With help from a clever librarian, they get their minds, and bodies, out of the gutter and back into the book. In the interactive tradition of Jon Stone’s The Monster at the End of This Book (1971) and Hervé Tullet’s Press Here (2011), this tale empowers kids to take charge of the characters’ fates. Britt’s energetic and entertaining writing should pull in even the most reluctant of readers. Big, bold cartoon illustrations infused with silly signs and onomatopoeia feature a

diverse cast; Oliver is brown-skinned, while Chad is pale-skinned. It’s a hysterical story with an uplifting message about the power of literature that begs to be read again and again.

Warning: a funny and delightful book to get lost in. (Picture book. 4-8)

Bulldozer Goes to School Broach, Elise | Illus. by Kelly Murphy Christy Ottaviano Books (128 pp.) $16.99 | $6.99 paper | July 15, 2025 9780316564199 | 9780316564205 paper Series: Bulldozer and Friends, 2

School has started, and with it comes an avalanche of anxiety for Bulldozer.

Despite reassurances from Mom and Dad (who are human like everyone else in the cast, except for the titular character), Bulldozer has a stomachache. But he spots a familiar face—his next-door neighbor Millie Patel. The other kids giggle when he knocks over a bookcase while putting away his lunchbox; at circle time, he can’t sit “crisscross applesauce” like everyone else; and, when urged by Millie to show off one of his “tricks” (backing up while beeping), he accidentally breaks a table. At recess, Bulldozer’s mood improves as he, Millie, and new friend Ryan—joined by others—build a clubhouse. Back in the classroom, he resumes worrying, but he’s buoyed by feelings of acceptance and an opportunity to help clean up. In the first book in the series, Bulldozer’s hesitations were related to his shyness; here, his physical difficulties loom larger. Never obvious or overdone, with expertly

An impressively understated, respectful exploration of a big change.

THE MOVING BOOK

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matched orange-tinged artwork, this early reader series engages again.

Bulldozer’s refreshingly honest assessments (“School is…not great, but it’s okay,” he decides), his often-­warring desires to be true to his own needs and to fit in, and his small but deeply satisfying triumphs make him an authentic hero for anyone who’s ever felt a bit insecure. Mom and Dad are light-skinned, Millie is cued South Asian, and the class is diverse.

Sensitive, relatable, and sweet. (wordplay activities) (Chapter book. 6-9)

Mooncussers Brown, Eli | Illus. by Karin Rytter Walker US/Candlewick (288 pp.) $19.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9781536208528 Series: Oddity, 2

In this sequel to Oddity (2021), 14-year-old Clover Elkin intrepidly leaves hard-won safety to battle malign magical vermin that are plaguing the countryside.

As the Second Louisiana War between the Unified States and the Emperor Bonaparte grinds to a stalemate in the background, Brown sends his large-hearted hero out on the road to join allies old and new—some, like Clover herself, are gifted with magical artifacts and abilities. They face vicious rows with scarecrowlike Daub Jacks and other undead menaces, but there’s a worse danger literally rising up in the trackless Merichote swamp. An old foe and a far older fungus have melded into a massive mushroom monster with frightening powers and plans. The glories of this tumultuous yarn are both the array of rousingly creepy creatures and the diverse cast of doughty girls facing them. Readers will be hard-pressed to pick a favorite character among Clover and the rest of the self-styled Mooncussers, notably her sinuous soulmate, Sweetwater the rattlesnake, and her beloved cloth oddity Doll, Susanna, a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

small storm of super-strength and bloodthirsty intent (“Now break legs?”). The white lead is surrounded by a racially and ethnically diverse supporting cast. Rytter’s atmospherically dark linocut engravings bring to life both grotesque gremlins and brisk action scenes.

Inventively original, as well as strong both in shivers and in characterization. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)

Kirkus Star

The Moving Book Brown, Lisa | Neal Porter/ Holiday House (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 22, 2025 | 9780823457182

The characters from The Airport Book (2016) and The Hospital Book (2023) help young readers make sense of another challenging childhood experience: moving.

“Our family moves a lot,” a child in a baseball cap tells a younger sibling. “But you probably don’t remember.” As the young narrator reminisces about the family’s “tiny apartment in a big house,” the accompanying image shows Mom, clearly expecting, dressing a younger, diaper-clad version of the protagonist.

Later, they relocated to “the tall building with a lot of stairs.” Here, the bigger sibling rests on the stairs while Dad, baby in a front pack, lugs a grocery bag. When they lived in “the big building with three elevators,” trick-or-treating took place indoors, and “Grandpa lived far away, but Nana and Poppa were near.” Finally, the narrator asks, “Remember when we moved into this house?” A “sold” sign by the door hints that more moving’s in store.

“Sometimes I don’t want to move,” the narrator confides, but in the final pages, the new house, with its bunk beds and lovely garden, looks a lot like home.

Relying on a pitch-perfect combination of minimal text and expansive artwork, Brown once more offers a richly vivid, honest, and reassuring

depiction of a potentially unfamiliar experience. Her colorful, clean-lined cartoons are full of sweet vignettes— each scene is practically a story in itself—and charming, humorous details that often gently contradict the text. The family is multiracial; Dad and the children are brownskinned, while Mom is pale-skinned.

An impressively understated, respectful exploration of a big change.

(Picture book. 3-7)

Hello There, Sunshine Brown, Tabitha | Illus. by Olivia Duchess Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $21.99 | March 11, 2025 | 9780063342262

Actor, social media star, and entrepreneur Brown pens a joyful paean to positive thinking in her children’s debut.

Brown-skinned Tab rides a strawberry-­themed bike, accompanied by a curly-haired black dog, Grady.

Tab’s dazzling smile and wide eyes signal the upbeat theme echoed in the text, celebrating the sun’s warmth, which “fills everyone up with joy.” But Tab’s mood shifts, as it’s a “cloudy and gray” June day. Alert readers will spot the dog’s smiling countenance and note glimpses of sunny yellow butterflies and flowers. Mama’s reassurance that there’s “always a chance” for sunshine also underscores the optimism. Tab and Grady bike through suburban streets “to find the sun.” Along the way, the two stop to assist a neighbor building a birdhouse, loft a kite for friends Frankie and Fonte, and lend a hand to others, all while still having fun. Mama steers Tab toward an eventual understanding of the real source of joy: Though the sun didn’t appear, “I brightened everyone’s day!” The illustrations subtly underscore the message of this radiant story as touches of gold lighten the palette, which ends with sunny brilliance. Most characters read Black, though Tab’s community includes people who vary in skin tone, body type, and ability.

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Delightful wordplay and spooky artwork combine for hair-raising shivers.

THE ZOMBEES

Being kind and helpful lights up the day from within in this inspiring and idyllic slice-of-life tale. (Picture book. 4-8)

Way Off Track Brundtland, Carl | Illus. by Claudia Dávila Kids Can (152 pp.) | $16.99 May 6, 2025 | 9781525310041 Series: A Nansi Graphic Novel, 1

A budding track star desperately wants new sneakers but instead needs to learn a few life lessons.

When Nansi loses a race to her nemesis, Tania, it never occurs to her that Tania may have trained hard for her win. Instead, Nansi becomes fixated on Tania’s expensive kicks; she’s certain that with the same sneakers, she could regain her spot as the fastest kid in seventh grade.

Confident Nansi narrates with a sense of braggadocio, though she acknowledges the importance of her two best friends, Ayesha and Angela, and her family—even as she constantly eschews their advice while hatching her schemes. Crisp, digitally rendered artwork makes for easy-to-read panels, while cleverly funny storytelling renders the plot points accessible for young readers. Nansi may not initially seem like much of a role model initially; she even blackmails her brother into covering some of her shifts at the salon where she’s started working. But she’s undeniably charismatic and relatably naïve. And despite running into challenges, she learns plenty along the way, because her support system wouldn’t have it any other way. Nansi and her family 84

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are Black; the use of patois implies Jamaican heritage.

A thoughtful tale of a speedy youngster whose path to maturity is slow and steady. (Graphic fiction. 8–12)

Mao Mao’s Perfectly Imperfect Day Cham, Laan | Random House (40 pp.) $18.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9780593710043

A youngster learns to see the beauty in flaws.

Mao Mao, a panda who wears adorably oversize spectacles, derives satisfaction from organizing the shelves, objects, and spaces within his classroom, comprised of both animals and racially diverse humans.

“He strives for everything to be: absolutely…100%…PERFECT.” His world tuns upside down when new student Olivia, a brown-skinned child with curly brown hair, arrives.

She’s seated right next to Mao Mao and immediately leaves a messy and loud impression. Mao Mao sets a new goal: showing Olivia the art of perfection. The comedic montage that follows depicts Mao Mao’s mission failing miserably. When Mao Mao observes the rest of the class embracing Olivia, mess and all, he lashes out, scattering papers and scribbling across them with with a red crayon. A charming blend of spare narration and dialogue allows the manga-flavored artwork to take center stage. With his large head, Mao Mao resembles a chibi character from anime, while dramatic shifts in color and shading, as well as the

protagonist’s exaggerated reactions, capture his angst—and, at last, his joy. Impressed by Mao Mao’s artistry, the other kids ask him to show them how it’s done, and he gladly does so.

Endearing characters and compelling illustrations create a healthy opportunity to explore and challenge perfectionism. (Picture book. 4-8)

Powerful Like a Dragon Cheng, Christopher | Illus. by Jacqueline Tam | Roaring Brook Press (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 15, 2025 | 9781250829399

In a story inspired by the author’s family, a young child finds inner strength while fleeing after the sudden outbreak of war.

Hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese army attacked British-ruled Hong Kong; following two weeks of fighting, the governor of Hong Kong surrendered to Japan. Many members of Cheng’s family decided to leave, led by his grandfather and joined by the laborers his grandfather employed, including one named Ah Meng. Cheng’s story focuses on his own uncle Shu Lok, who was just a boy at the time. “Be powerful like a dragon,” Shu Lok’s father tells him as he and several other children are placed into baskets and carried to safety. Shu Lok will need all his bravery; his parents have chosen to remain behind. Elegant in its simplicity, Cheng’s narrative details the experience through the eyes of a vulnerable youngster—the hunger pangs that rack Shu Lok’s belly, the bitterly freezing winds. But Ah Meng is there every step of the way, singing to soothe the frightened boy and covering the child with his own shirt on snowy nights. Tam’s arresting, fine-lined illustrations evoke traditional Chinese paintings; she slowly introduces rich pops of color into her muted landscapes as Shu Lok remembers his father’s words. When at last he sees the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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dragons, the symbolic manifestations of courage lift him from despair— and, as this tale comes to a satisfying close, empower him to buoy others.

A beautifully rendered journey that offers insight into an often-overlooked chapter of history. (Picture book. 5-9)

The Zombees Colón, Justin | Illus. by Kaly Quarles Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) | $10.99 July 15, 2025 | 9781665922500

A swarm of spooky bees come out on Halloween.

An intrepid pale-skinned youngster wearing a crooked witch hat and a cape investigates an eerie buzzing sound echoing from a graveyard. Suddenly, ghoulish green bees appear from behind the tombs. “One by one, their shadows rise, / Taking flight toward moonlight skies.” They are…

“ZOMBEES!” With stitched-up wounds and tattered clothes and in varying states of decay, the bees moan and groan as they approach. “Do they like the taste of veins?” the protagonist wonders. “Have they come to EAT YOUR BRAINS?” The witchy tot runs to the library for help. Soon after, beekeepers armed with protective suits and smokers come to save the town.

But when the zombees have an unexpected “ooky spooky” treat for the townspeople, the mood shifts, and everyone’s mindset changes—yes, even undead bees have sweet treasures worth savoring. Packed with lively rhymes begging to be read aloud with heightened dramatic flair, the zombees are simultaneously terrifying and adorable. Pops of neon green shine bright against the dark Halloween sky.

Storytellers who lean into the spine-­ chilling fun by slowing the pace and stretching out syllables will surely elicit frightened squeals in response.

Delightful wordplay and spooky artwork combine for hair-raising shivers. (Picture book. 3-6) K IR KU S R E V IE W S

There: We Can Find Our Way Condie, Ally | Illus. by Jaime Kim | Viking (32 pp.) $18.99 | June 10, 2025 | 9780593621899

YA novelist Condie teams up again with illustrator Kim for her latest picture book following Here (2023).

Condie’s spare text allows for artistic interpretation to make the story’s uplifting message clear as she begins, “Sometimes problems are short and small. Sometimes they are big, bigger, biggest.” Kim’s accompanying cartoon illustration shows a light-skinned child with short, wavy dark hair, worriedly looking at dark blotches swirling above.

A page turn reveals a small, brownskinned child with long dark hair standing alone in the rain. The narration continues: “Sometimes I don’t know where to go. Or what to do.” The two children unite on the next spread in a powerful composition, gazing across the book’s gutter at each other, with only the words “Do you?” above the longer-­ haired youngster. They find comfort and strength in togetherness, with words and pictures combining to support a metaphorical reading of the storms we all face. When the pair encounter a small, squiggly form on a leaf, they wonder, “Is it…anything? Is it…everything? Is it a mess / a monster.” Figurative reading falters at this point. The object appears neither monstrous nor messy, and some young kids will easily identify it as a caterpillar. The subsequent emergence of a butterfly might disappoint those readers somewhat despite its potential for symbolic richness. Still, many youngsters will enjoy the journey—and will smile as the purple butterfly spreads its vibrant wings.

Gentle encouragement for tackling life’s challenges. (Picture book. 4-8) For more by Ally Condie, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

The Mighty Onion and Guinea Pig Girl!

Crilley, Mark | Little, Brown (256 pp.) $14.99 | July 15, 2025 | 9780316490542 Series: The Mighty Onion, 2

Middle school comic book collaborators Pam Jones and Eliot Quigly are back in this second series entry with new episodes of their creative collaboration.

They’re thrilled that the local paper, The Piffling Bugle, plans to feature their work, The Mighty Onion. But Eliot’s relative lack of self-awareness is comical and rings true as he struggles with ideas and dismisses Pam’s concerns about deadlines (“chucking out the entire script and starting over from scratch is standard industry practice,” he confidently states). Crilley’s humor ranges from goofy (local towns named Blemish and Goosefat Junction) to wry (as in the gentle sendup of Darn You Kids!, the syndicated comic strip Pam’s mom loved as a kid). Gladys Smylie, its creator, wants to retire, and she invites Pam to take over as the new artist, leaving Eliot aggrieved. Even worse, The Piffling Bugle drops The Mighty Onion. Journal entries in both prose and comic form, letters, and notes on scraps of paper, as well as episodes of The Mighty Onion, make up most of the narrative. These elements are accompanied by some hyper-realistic bits of illustration—­a partly chewed candy bar in its wrapper, a fortune cookie, a box of matches, and pages from an old fictional guide to writing comic books by the creator of Toaster Oven Man. The resulting mix is fabulously funny and engaging.

Main characters read white.

Supercharged silliness and relatable tween drama. (author’s note and sketches) (Graphic fiction. 9-13) MAY 1, 2025

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An exuberant and inclusive look at the many ways we all express ourselves.

T H I S I S H O W W E TA L K

This Is How We Talk: A Celebration of Disability and Connection Cupp, Caroline & Jessica Slice Illus. by Kayla Harren | Dial Books (48 pp.) $18.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9780593529935

In the follow-up to This Is How We Play (2024), kids and adults with physical, sensory, and develop­ mental disabilities describe how they communicate.

A teacher gives a lesson on dinosaurs via a speech device; a father asks about his child’s day by spelling with his eyes. With a pictorial communication book, two friends create “the silliest story we’ve ever heard.”

Emphasizing that communication involves feelings as well as words, characters express an array of emotions. Anxious about attending a parade, a child expresses fear by “falling down onto the floor!” To convey happiness, a youngster yells to Mama; “to say say ‘I love,’ I hold her hand— / we don’t need words to understand.” Importantly, the authors also recognize stimming as a form of communication. “When my dad thinks, he twirls his hands, / I squeeze and squish the slimy sand,” a child explains. “With joy and adaptation,” the racially diverse group exclaims, “this is how we talk!” And as dinnertime arrives, “with joy and hungry bellies, this is how we… EAT!” As in the previous book, Harren’s vibrant illustrations depict people using wheelchairs, forearm crutches, prostheses, and more as they enjoy busy lives, warmly reinforcing the lively rhyming text. Backmatter includes information on the 86

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communication methods and conditions portrayed here, as well as guides for kids and caregivers on addressing disability.

An exuberant and inclusive look at the many ways we all express ourselves.

(Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

In the World of Whales Cusolito, Michelle | Illus. by Jessica Lanan Neal Porter/Holiday House (52 pp.) $18.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9780823453429

It’s the whales’ world, but sometimes lucky humans can visit.

Unlike most kids’ nonfiction about cetaceans, this book focuses on just one meaningful episode, an extraordinary encounter between a whale pod and humans. In 2014, freedivers Fred Buyle and Kurt Amsler floated among sperm whales in the Azores and, noticing that a calf had been born mere minutes earlier, photographed and filmed the animals. This splendid work gives readers a front-row seat to that event. Cusolito draws vivid parallels between the whales and the human (just one diver is depicted in this tale): Both diver and calf must kick their way to the surface to breathe, but the newborn cannot yet swim, and “helper females nudge baby upward while mother rests below.” As the whales call to one another, the diver wonders what they’re saying; in a climactic moment, the mother presents her calf to the diver, who “is one with the whales” for a brief time. They separate, and

“he rides home in silence, forever changed.” His silence is understandable—who could find words to describe such an experience? Fortunately, Cusolito has. Her concise yet eloquent text immerses young people in the watery setting, letting them feel the whales’ clicks as they “tingle” and “vibrate” and emphasizing the strength of these animals’ social bonds. Lanan’s fluid, pristine artwork echoes the underwater photography, with clear, blue-washed images that suggest both immense grandeur and the shadowy sublime. The diver is light-skinned.

A brief yet powerful moment of intimacy, inspiration, and awe. (whale anatomy diagram, further information on diving and sperm whales, further reading and websites, author’s and illustrator’s notes) (Informational picture book. 4-7)

The Jade Bracelet Dinh, Hà | Illus. by Yong Ling Kang Random House Studio (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 15, 2025 | 9780593711781

A child realizes that the jade bracelet she received on her birthday is imbued with deep meaning.

“Bà Ngoa. i gave me one when I was little,” Má explains. “Now it’s my turn to give one to you.” Overjoyed, Tiên reflects on her memories with Bà Ngoa. i, her (now deceased) grandmother who emigrated from Vietnam.

She proudly wears the jade to school the next day…until she sees the bracelets that her classmates are sporting—shimmering, sparkling pieces with beads and charms. Her self-consciousness over her “plain, hard-as-a-rock bracelet” boils over.

She’s embarrassed to wear it on picture day, and after school, she flings the jade on the floor in frustration.

Though Má gently explains that the jewelry brings good luck, keeps her safe, and, above all, serves as a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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connection to their ancestors, Tiên is unconvinced, and Má offers to buy her the butterfly bracelet she’s been longing for. When they reach the store, however, Má’s words sink in, and Tiên learns to fully appreciate the significance of the jade—and to see its true sparkle. Dinh’s contemplative, evenly paced narrative charts Tiên’s emotional journey, while Kang’s watercolors make inspired use of perspective and blended colors, bringing depth and texture to each tender scene.

A quietly charming and sincere exploration of a loving tradition. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-9)

The Beach Day: Three-and-a-Half Stories Dyckman, Ame | Illus. by Mark Teague Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $17.99 | April 29, 2025 | 9781665957427 Series: Bat, Cat & Rat, 3

On a hot day, roommates Cat, Rat, and Bat head to the seaside.

Unfortunately, laden by supplies, the trio miss their bus. “Too slow,” says Cat, frowning at the others as the vehicle drives off. But Rat points out, “That bus was too fast.” The next bus comes, and the friends reach the beach.

Cat and Bat admire the beautiful views; Rat, mystifyingly, exclaims, “TOO SLOW!” The second tale in this book (made up of “three-and-a-half stories”) sees the threesome enjoying a snack.

Rat warns Bat against sharing with the sea gulls; as the aggressive birds descend on Bat, Cat frightens them away. In the “half” story, Rat discovers what readers will already have noticed a few pages ago: He left his kite behind. In the final tale, the trio search the beach in vain before finding a creative replacement: Bat! Soaring high in the sky, Bat can see the friends’ house from here, and somewhat abruptly, the three of them decide to return home. Aimed at beginning readers, the text is simple, though not always phonetic (sweaty, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

breathed, thought), and in a very small font. While the storyline feels a bit meandering and uneventful (with a few jokes that don’t quite land), Teague’s depictions of anthropomorphic animals do ramp up the humor—a scene of the hungry gulls menacing bug-eyed Bat will elicit chuckles.

Mundane, beachy tales enlivened by a few funny moments.

(Easy reader/picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

The Accidental Stowaway

along with dastardly villains and loving relationships. The highly detailed narration conveys the syntax, language, sights, and sounds of the era. Several charming and dramatic full-page illustrations perfectly capture the events and characters.

A fascinating, imaginative adventure. (ship diagram, steamship cruise advertisement) (Historical adventure. 9-13)

Roll for Danger: The Cursed Catacombs

Eagle, Judith | Illus. by Jo Rioux Walker US/Candlewick (288 pp.) $18.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9781536233629

Eliopulos, Nick | Illus. by Ethan M. Aldridge Disney-Hyperion (272 pp.) | $13.99 July 22, 2025 | 9781368083898 Series: Roll for Danger, 1

In 1910, a headstrong girl finds herself on an unplanned ocean voyage.

Esme “Patch” Leonard, a pale girl with wavy dark hair, has been shuttled from relative to relative all her life, “passed from pillar to post.” At her latest placement, with a family friend in Liverpool, she discovers a small package labeled “For E.” Does it contain a clue to the mother who disappeared when she was born? She takes the ruby ring she finds inside while exploring the port city on her roller skates. After crashing on cobblestones, Patch meets Arturo, an Italian American boy from New York who works on the ocean liner SS Glorious. Patch shares one skate with him, and when he zooms away on it, she follows him onto the ship, accidentally becoming a stowaway when it leaves the dock. The characters, many of whom offer up confusing and befuddling lies, are rarely what they seem. Readers will encounter numerous clues that will make sense as events unfold. Mystery piles upon mystery, and surprises come at a breathtaking pace. The third-person narration reveals Patch’s thoughts and follows her rash plans, which often place her in increasing danger. The story has twists and turns galore, as convoluted as the ship’s corridors and back stairs,

In this series opener, the last surviving apprentice of a powerful wizard embarks on a perilous errand to find a rare reagent, but readers’ choices and rolls of the dice will determine his fate.

Sethoreths, the Snake-Blooded Sorcerer, awakens before dawn to the shouts of Bristleboor, his irritable and eccentric wizard mentor. Bristleboor may have once been a great adventurer, but he’s a terrible teacher. Apart from Seth, all of his other apprentices have died. At Bristleboor’s command, Seth has a new task ahead of him: traversing a tunnel from their tower’s basement to the forbidden catacombs beneath the cemetery to collect gravebloom. In order to find the flower, he needs the help of an imp, a devious fifth-dimensional creature that Bristleboor has bound inside a glass orb. Before the story begins, readers set the strength of Seth’s three skills—Constitution, Cleverness, and Charisma—which in turn determine his Health Points, Mana Points, and Luck Points. The story’s progression makes consistent and satisfying use of the game mechanics. Unfortunately, while this element shines, every girl or woman character mentioned in the book is already dead or defeated, >>> MAY 1, 2025

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ON THE COVER

The Newbery Medalist’s debut picture book is a moving story—in every sense of the word.

BY MAHNAZ DAR

Maybe writing about childhood is one way in which I get to hold on to the child I was.

Rebecc a Stead

ON THE COVER: REBECCA STEAD

“WE’RE MOVING.” Few phrases are more likely to strike fear into the hearts of children. Relocating means saying goodbye to friends and neighbors, fretting as treasured possessions are packed up, adjusting to new sights, sounds, and even smells.

But children lucky enough to have a copy of Rebecca Stead’s Anything will feel a little more courageous as they prepare for their own moves. Featuring Gracey Zhang’s delicate ink and gouache artwork, the story follows a nameless young girl who puts on a brave face as she and her father settle into a new apartment.

Intuitive Daddy, however, senses his daughter’s uncertainties and does his best to ease her into things: He hosts a birthday party for their new place (complete with cake), promises to grant her three wishes, and soothes her when she awakens, terrified, in the middle of her first night in her new bedroom.

“I was really drawn to the idea of starting a book with a cake,” Stead tells Kirkus via Zoom from her home in New York City, “putting a small celebration on top of what is always a hard day. Even for

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adults, [moving] is a really big deal. For kids, it’s even [bigger].”

Anything is Stead’s first picture book after several acclaimed middle-grade novels, among them the Newbery Medal–winning When You Reach Me (2009), Liar & Spy (2012), and Goodbye Stranger (2015), all of which have received Kirkus stars. Critics have lauded her books for their candor and empathy; Stead is the rare adult who remembers exactly what it was like to be a tween.

Though her latest work is aimed at a younger audience, she once more displays a keen understanding of a child’s emotional landscape.

Stead calls her childhood the most “intense stage of my life,” because “everything resonated deeply, and I had a lot of really unusual thoughts.” She adds, “I definitely was not comfortable with the idea that I was completely alone in here with all these thoughts. They weren’t dark thoughts, but they were deep thoughts, about how our specific selves got in here.

Where did they come from? Where will they go? And a lot of thoughts about time.”

Becoming an adult was a daunting prospect for her as a kid. “Growing up is a continuous process of leaving yourself behind a little bit,” she says. At the time, Stead was all too aware that the young version of herself would no longer exist as she grew up. These youthful perspectives played a role in her becoming an author: “Maybe writing about childhood is one way in which I get to hold on to the child I was, even while, of course, accepting that that person is really gone.”

Write what you know has long been Stead’s ethos. “I always say I’m not that great at inventing things. I’m better at pulling threads from my own brain,” she explains. Anything is rooted in her memories of moving as a child. When she was 3, her parents separated but agreed that they would live within walking distance of one another while she was growing up. “I went back and forth between my parents’ apartments every other day, and my mom always stayed in the same place,” Stead recalls. “She’s still in that apartment on 95th Street where she’s lived for 57 years.”

Her father frequently moved, though he always remained in the same neighborhood. “I had a lot of moving K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Anything

Stead, Rebecca; Illus. by Gracey Zhang

Chronicle Books | 56 pp. | $17.99 April 29, 2025 | 9781797215150

days with my dad, and he really did go out of his way to make things feel special,” she says.

One thing Stead’s protagonist wishes for is a rainbow, and her father obliges, painting one over the wall of her bedroom.

“In real life, I did once ask for a rainbow in my room,” Stead says. “I remember that [my dad] painted it all the way around the room. At the time, that seemed wild and over the top.”

While kid lit is rife with books aimed at helping children unpack big emotions, Anything takes a decidedly understated approach; the father in the story avoids hokey platitudes and pep talks. When the girl confides that what she wants most of all is to return to their old apartment, he responds with an upbeat “All aboard the train to home!” and a long piggyback ride that lulls her to sleep. Slowly, their new apartment begins to feel like home.

“They’re meeting in this place of imagination throughout the day,” Stead says. “That is something that can happen in really strong parent-child relationships. You don’t need to say everything.”

Anything has been nearly two decades in the making. Stead wrote the book in 2006, after she’d sold her debut novel, First Light (2007), but before it was released. “I would occasionally take [the manuscript] out and play with it or send it to an editor.

Nobody went for it. And I thought, OK, I’ll take my time.”

Once the book found a home at Chronicle Books, it continued to evolve.

“Initially, this story also had a divorce angle, in that the girl is thinking about her mom’s apartment and missing her mom,”

Stead says. “And a very wise editor said to me, ‘This is your first picture book, so I’m going to share some of my basic picture-­ book ideas with you. The first one is that a great picture book is about one thing, not two things. Right now this is a moving story, and it’s also a divorce story. I think you should pick one.’”

With its stripped-down prose, Anything is in many ways a bold departure for an author known for her richly layered fiction.

When You Reach Me, a loving homage to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, plays with time travel, while Goodbye Stranger deftly blends storylines told from the perspectives of three characters, including one—narrating in second person—who remains unnamed for most of the book.

Stead emphasizes that picture books and longer fiction each present their own challenges. She compares writing a novel to building a house: “There are a lot of little nooks and crannies where you can make mistakes and hide things that are not quite working.” Although you might still have a “beautiful house,” she notes, readers who scrutinize every square inch will spot little things here and there that could have been improved. “That’s why novels never feel finished,” she says.

Picture books, on the other hand, are “high-wire acts,” she observes. “There’s a lot to think about in terms of balance and moving in a straight line. There’s nowhere to hide.”

And like many high-wire acts, creating picture books requires Stead to work with a partner—a most rewarding endeavor. “[Zhang] does a beautiful job of creating a character with a lot of expression for someone who’s so lightly drawn,” Stead says. In an especially noteworthy scene, the young protagonist, lying awake in bed, summons the courage to tell her father she wishes they hadn’t moved. “I remember my own kids really struggling sometimes to say what it was that was making them sad or upset or worried. I think that is really hard for kids.”

Thankfully, young people have an author willing to meet them where they are. “Childhood is very intense emotionally. I like writing stories where there’s a great respect for what young people are doing, which is crossing this long emotional territory.”

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including aspiring paladin Roe, whom the illustrations depict as a dark-skinned girl with Afro-textured hair, and a sobbing nameless elven ghost, who appears to have been a white woman.

Seth and Bristleboor both present white.

A promising and engaging core concept weakened by uneven representation. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Miss Camper Fajardo, Kat | Graphix/Scholastic (272 pp.) $14.99 paper | July 1, 2025 | 9781338535617

One year after her quinceañera and her abuelita’s passing, Sue continues her adventures at summer camp in this comp­ anion to Miss Quinces (2022).

Sixteen-year-old Suyapa “Sue” Gutiérrez (who uses she/they pronouns) can’t wait to spend two weeks at summer camp, taking classes like LARPing and archery and sharing a bunk with her best friend, Sam. Even with older sister Carmen for a camp counselor and younger sister Ester attending camp, too, Sue is determined to have the perfect summer. Her high expectations start to crumble, however, as Ester clings to her side and Marisol, a camp friend from last year, claims Sam’s attention. Separated from Sam and thrust into new activities, Sue finds herself pushed out of her comfort zone.

Complicating matters, her friend Izzy confesses he has a crush on her, and Sue doesn’t know if she feels the same way.

The art and dialogue reflect diversity in the world around Sue, depicting characters with a range of skin tones from pale to dark brown who express a variety of gender identities. Although Sue and her friends are teens, her troubles with friendship, siblings, crushes, and camp experiences will appeal to a wide audience. Diving right into the summer, this sequel relies on context as well as familiarity with characters and events from the first book to be fully appreciated.

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A sweet and encouraging coming-ofage story. (author’s note, map) (Graphic fiction. 9-14)

A stirring mix of worthy values and (literally) heady achievement. (glossary, quiz) (Biography. 8-11)

The Totally Awesome World of Cristiano Ronaldo: Learn All There Is To Know About Your Favorite Soccer Legend

The Unlikely Heroes Club

Fischer, Neal E. | becker&mayer! kids (128 pp.) $14.99 paper | June 10, 2025 | 9780760395394

A celebration of soccer’s greatest, or maybe second greatest, player of all time.

Playing up the rivalry between his subject—­Cristiano Ronaldo—­and Lionel Messi for GOAT and fueling fan arguments, Fischer lines up many of the pair’s career achievements and statistics for easy comparison. More extras, including background overviews of the sport’s history and modern leagues, player responsibilities on the pitch, great rivalries in other sports, and plenty of large photos, also fill in this highlight-­ reel account of Ronaldo’s meteoric rise.

Fischer takes readers from the first signs of talent at age 2 to Ronaldo’s current status as both the highest-paid and, with hundreds of goals with his feet and 152 headers, the highest-scoring pro player in the world. The author devotes more than perfunctory nods to the star’s family as well as his charitable and business ventures to go with the typical messages about the values of teamwork, a competitive spirit, and a strong work ethic; readers will even come away with such personal details as Ronaldo’s astrological sign, favorite food, and childhood idols, as well as an explanation of why he has no tattoos.

Foster, Kate | Candlewick (208 pp.) $17.99 | April 1, 2025 | 9781536239041

In this Australian import, a neurodivergent elementary schooler discovers what makes him special.

Oli’s reluctantly spending spring break attending socialization classes at the HERO Club, along with other autistic kids and their parents.

He’d much rather be at home designing buildings using his favorite app, and he’s sure the other children will be way cooler than him; everyone except Oli seems to have a noteworthy talent or ability. On top of that, he’s preoccupied with a stray dog who’s been taking shelter in a nearby building slated for demolition. Though the grown-ups brush off Oli’s concerns, the other kids listen to him, and together they decide to save the dog.

Well-paced chapters balance Oli’s thoughtful inner monologue with his social interactions as his confidence gradually grows. While Oli’s been enrolled in the HERO Club to help him become more socially adept, he’s clearly already a perceptive and empathetic protagonist who notices what others don’t, and he charts a believable and compelling trajectory as he discovers his strengths. Many neurodivergent readers will find elements of this tale familiar, from Foster’s vivid descriptions of Oli’s

A neurodivergent elementary schooler discovers what makes him special.

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sensory experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, to the impatience and frustration that some of the parents display toward their autistic children.

Oli is brown-skinned and biracial; some diversity is cued among the supporting cast.

An immensely satisfying hero’s journey. (Fiction. 8-12)

Dragons Love Underpants Freedman, Claire | Illus. by Ben Cort Aladdin (32 pp.) | $18.99 | Aug. 5, 2025 9781665968645 | Series: Underpants Books

Who knew dragons fancied scanties?

In days of yore, dragons soar through the skies sporting colorful underpants.

Unfortunately, their drawers don’t last long due to the dragons’ penchant for breathing fire. The Kingdom of Pantasia, ruled by “pants-mad King Top-Bot” (referring to the British term for underpants), is never in short supply of shorts. Storming in to purloin its vast stores, the scaly beasts terrorize the villagers and even beat back the king’s knight, Sir Y-Front (referring to another British term).

Worse, they make “brief” work of the king, flying off with him and threatening to “scorch him on the rear” unless they receive “piles of pants.” Happily, resourceful Princess Tilly has a plan that results in a brilliant solution—­ “METAL pants!” (Inflammable, don’t you know?) The dragons are so overjoyed—“These pants will last FOREVER!”—that they release the king. Afterward, that esteemed royal throws a grand feast, attended by everyone, including the dragons, now wearing their fancy new drawers. Told in rollicking (though uneven) verse, this U.K. import mines some mild laughs from the subject of undies; it might even persuade youngsters who are still in diapers to be fierce like dragons and take that step. Use of the Briticisms pants and Y-Front might perplex little ones this side of the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

A lively ghost story that hits all the right notes.

FREE PIANO (NOT HAUNTED)

pond, but the energetic images of the colorful dragons in their oversize, patterned underwear make up for that point. Human characters are diverse.

Goofy antics for those who delight in bathroom humor. (Picture book. 3-6)

Free Piano (Not Haunted) Gardner, Whitney | Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $23.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9781665938136

A free keyboard and its supernatural inhabitant have a profound effect on a lonely girl’s life.

The weird synth keyboard Margot found on the street with a sign reading “FREE PIANO / NOT HAUNTED” seems like just the thing she needs to make people like her; her ukulele just isn’t doing the trick. Though she’s certain that finding success as a musician is the key to reconnecting with her absent, disengaged father, Margot is nearly deterred by the emergence of the ghost of the piano’s original owner from its keyboard: 1980s one-hit-wonder pop star Vision.

Vision’s cool vibes are eventually too much to resist, though, and she becomes a welcome source of support as Margot reckons with her mom’s long working hours, feeling like her dad’s “dumb invisible daughter,” and the success of @sonsofsmash, her best friends’ social media channel about smashing things, which is gaining the followers she’s desperate for. But Vision isn’t the only ghost in the machine, and Margot may be in danger. The art features amusing details, vivid gradients, and bright colors (like Vision’s candy apple red hair and blue eyeshadow), as well as expressively drawn characters. Margot, who has

light skin and blond hair, grapples with feelings of abandonment and betrayal when her existence is clearly a lower priority to her father than his own fame in a way that’s accessible and grounding, balancing emotional depth with the creepy mystery.

A lively ghost story that hits all the right notes. (Graphic paranormal. 10-14)

Rosemary Long Ears Ghahremani, Susie | Little, Brown (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 22, 2025 | 9780316573320

A delightfully different dog and her owner go for a walk.

Rosemary’s smooth brown ears flow out well past her low-slung body. Her best friend, a brown-skinned child, dons red boots (matching the color of Rosemary’s leash) so they can “go find some fun!” On a pleasant suburban walk, they puddle-­jump, share laughter, and observe a ladybug.

Eventually, covered with leaves, seeds, mud, and ice cream, Rosemary is “a mess!” (Those long ears are a magnet for dirt.) Reluctantly returning home, she complains vocally (“AwOOOO­ OOOO!”) about her much-needed bath—until a floating bubble lands on her nose. Popping the soapy spheres brings back her playfulness, and even though Rosemary’s postbath shake-off scatters water widely, the child applauds: “You make everything fun, Rosemary!” Rosemary’s upbeat attitude makes this book a ray of autumn sunshine.

Distinctive gouache and crayon art, naïve and cheerful, matches the mood. Maps on the endpapers use paw prints to trace the friends’ route on a rainy but colorful fall day.

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Rosemary’s long eyelashes give her an almost human look, though she isn’t otherwise anthropomorphized; she’s immensely vivid as she prances through the book like a real, beloved pet.

This perky pooch will have youngsters adopting a similarly positive perspective. (Picture book. 4-8)

Big Cats!

Gibbons, Gail | Holiday House (32 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 12, 2025 | 9780823451685

A veteran creator of children’s nonfiction turns her attention to six feline species.

Gibbons opens with an image of a tiger and a leopard gazing at readers, paired with prose lauding these creatures’ beauty and grace. Vignettes of a cougar, cheetah, and jaguar in striking environs accompany information about their habitats. This brief introductory section concludes with a mention of their hunting prowess, enlivened by a dramatic, full-page illustration of a lioness on the verge of tackling a gazelle, both animals midleap. (Apropos of the book’s young audience, there are no gory carcasses here; the prey makes a narrow escape or expires with minimal bleeding.)

Spotlights on each of the six types of big cats follow. Brief, engaging descriptions anchor the artwork, while facts in smaller print are interspersed.

Successive spreads cover anatomy, senses, and, entertainingly, facial expressions. The book wraps up with conservation concerns, including poaching, global warming, and human encroachment. Nonetheless, it ends on a hopeful note, with information about habitat protection, maps of animals’ home ranges, and ways to support conservation work. Though the work lacks citations, a list of websites offers readers an opportunity to learn more.

While the humming visuals may overwhelm some, young wildlife enthusiasts will delight in repeated reads to absorb every detail. The 92

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author’s signature vivacious artwork and unfussy text elevate this introduction to a cherished group of animals.

Humans depicted are diverse.

A satisfying glimpse at some of the world’s most charismatic felids.

(Informational picture book. 7-9)

Bravery Grows: A Story for All Children, Including Those With Anxiety or Selective Mutism Giglio, Melissa & Daisy Geddes Illus. by Ira Baykovska | Jessica Kingsley Publishers (56 pp.) | $16.95 May 21, 2025 | 9781805011736

A child struggles with selective mutism.

“At home, my confidence shows, / at home, my bravery glows.”

But when the young narrator is out and about, everything changes. Interacting with other kids at the park is “a big task.” “I try to play, I try to shout, / but my brave voice just won’t come out!”

Though the protagonist looks forward to school, upon arrival, “fear replaces my words, and my legs start to shake.”

When the teacher asks a question, the child’s “glow” is nearly extinguished.

But the narrator is comforted by Mum and Dad’s repeated reassurance: “It’s OK to feel upset, / my brave muscles haven’t grown fully just yet.” As the narrator practices “brave talking” at the park, a restaurant, and more with the help of a special present, those muscles gradually strengthen: “My glow stays bright even though my voice is still small, / each time I am brave, / I feel 10 feet tall!” Reinforcing the emotionally descriptive rhyming text, Baykovska’s

expressive cartoon illustrations sympathetically convey the contrast between the talkative exuberance the narrator displays at home and the sadness and anxiety experienced in public. The narrator and the rest of the family have tan skin; background characters are racially diverse. Backmatter includes tips and resources on selective mutism for caregivers.

Gently encouraging. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

Everyday Bean Graegin, Stephanie | Tundra Books (56 pp.) $18.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9781774886205 Series: Tiny Bean’s Big Adventures, 1

Small stories about an even smaller hedgehog populate this cozy series starter.

The book opens with Bean and Grandma—who live in a tidy home, with giant strawberries growing in their yard—roasting marshmallows round a campfire, both eager to tell readers a story. Unable to decide on one, our protagonists ask the narrator to tell a few; the tales that follow all speak to experiences and concerns that will be familiar to small children.

When Bean outgrows her favorite blanket, it becomes her favorite bandana. On a chilly day, Bean dons a sweater that was too large last year but now is much too small. Through it all, Grandma cares for Bean all on her own, finding time to be there when Bean needs her while also giving her space to learn, grow, and explore.

Varied in length, the tales are laced

A youthful love letter to a historically significant neighborhood.

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with simple yet delightful truths: “I lost it somewhere in the meadow, but it will be back tomorrow,” says Bean when Grandma notices that the youngster’s bad mood has disappeared. Meanwhile, Graegin fills her delicately rendered, earthtoned art with charming details, as when Bean’s little quills poke between the spaces of her bike helmet. Best of all, this intergenerational tale shows how grandparents and grandkids can live happy lives, needing no one but one another.

Even the tiniest adventure can be considered big when blessed with such enormous charm. (Picture book. 3-6)

Resist: A Story of D-Day Gratz, Alan | Scholastic (80 pp.) $9.99 | March 4, 2025 | 9781546179382

Knowing that her mother has been seized by the Nazis and will likely be shot at dawn, young Samira Zidane sets out on a seemingly hopeless rescue.

In this slim side story featuring characters from 2019’s Allies (and first published as a free extra), suspense runs high as the 12-year-old French Algerian girl races through the night in June 1944 to reach Bayeaux, France, where captured members of the Resistance are being held before their scheduled executions. Even if she arrives in time, what can she do? Repeatedly rising to the occasion as she slips past Nazi soldiers, guides an Allied unit on a mission behind enemy lines, and finally arrives just in time to see her mother and other captives being led into the forest to dig their own graves, Samira proves herself to be as resourceful as her indomitable mother. Readers will find her courage all the more admirable as Gratz makes the danger of being a civilian caught between occupiers and invaders on that fateful night (or any other time) breathlessly palpable. The author depicts a diverse cast; along the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

way Samira meets characters identified as both Black and white.

Tense, nonstop adventure in a historic setting. (Historical fiction. 10-12)

Harlem Honey: The Adventures of a Curious Kid Hall, Tamron | Illus. by Ebony Glenn Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) | $19.99 March 25, 2025 | 9780063244849

In author and TV personality Hall’s picture-book debut, a young New York City transplant adjusts to his new community.

First grader Moses has lived in Harlem for exactly one month, but he still longs for his life back in Texas. As his mother leaves for work, she encourages him to find the “beauty all around,” and along with Lotus-May and JoJo, his pet dog and bird, respectively, Moses commits to doing just that. Up on their building’s rooftop, he, his father, and their pets meet Mrs. Louise and her daughter, Laila, both amateur beekeepers. After Moses samples some honey, Laila and Mrs. Louise give the newcomers a tour of the neighborhood.

Moses finds glimpses of the familiar all around him, from Sylvia’s Restaurant, where the cornbread “taste[s] like home,” to the Apollo Theater, where Moses meets a young performer who reminds him of his best friend back in Texas. Glenn’s illustrations—a mix of vibrant full-page spreads and vignettes that use brightly colored negative space—depict a dynamic, historically Black community. Sitting on the front stoop at the end of the day, Moses loves Harlem—and he knows Harlem loves him back. His enthusiasm is infectious; young readers will be equally charmed by his new neighborhood. Most characters, including Moses and his mother, are brown-skinned; Moses’ father presents white.

A youthful love letter to a historically significant neighborhood. (all about Harlem, fun facts, famous residents, sources) (Picture book. 4-8)

Together, We Are Family Hamilton, Emily | Bloomsbury (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 15, 2025 | 9781547617760

A youngster with a mobility aid adds a layer of complexity to family life, but love shines through.

A little tyke with a mop of yellow scribbly hair and a purple-hued walker is filled to the brim with emotions in this British import. Written from the perspective of parent to child, the narration takes a reassuring tone: “We may have ups, we may have downs… // but we always find our way around.” Hamilton acknowledges the difficulties: “The things that others find just fine can cause you worries all the time: / putting shoes on, / climbing stairs, / the moods that catch you unawares.” But amid those tough moments, the family has plenty of reasons to smile, too. The tot takes pleasure in the simplicity of watching a bumblebee fly by or watching TV while snuggled under a comfy blanket.

Though this tale centers on a disabled youngster, many families will see themselves in this depiction.

All families fall into rhythms, encounter unexpected rough spots, and, in an achingly honest parenting truth, “muddle through in our own way.” Hamilton’s childlike illustrations capture the whimsy and love of this tiny team. In an author’s note, she mentions that one of her daughters has Prader–Willi syndrome. The main characters are pale-skinned; their community is diverse.

A sweet and tender reminder of family’s loving embrace. (Picture book. 3-6)

For more by Emily Hamilton, visit Kirkus online.

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A sleepy seasonal ode to the lights that shine after the sun goes down.

L I G H T S AT N I G H T

I Hate Everything!

Henn, Sophy | Beach Lane/ Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) | $19.99 Aug. 19, 2025 | 9781665980494

Through a series of pointed questions, a ghost interrogates a companion’s bad mood and helps to create a shift—at least for a moment.

“I hate everything!” declares a large frowning spirit. A smaller ghost gently pushes back: “Do you hate me?” “No, I don’t hate you. BUT I HATE EVERYTHING ELSE!” Lightly textured floating ghosts of the white-sheet variety appear on variously colored pages. The flat, mostly empty backgrounds change in color and tone throughout, reflecting the bigger ghost’s feelings.

When the large ghost reiterates the title phrase, reds and oranges emphasize the angry heat of the speaker’s emotions. When the smaller ghost elicits a positive response, greens, blues, and lavenders suggest a calmer mood. Simply drawn mouths and eyes are remarkably expressive. The enormous yawning blackness of the larger ghost’s mouth perfectly captures the anguish of being stuck in a bad mood, while the smaller ghost’s mobile eyebrows clearly convey concern and caring. Eventually, the smaller ghost lists a double-page spread’s worth of people and experiences, appealingly pictured in bright colors (“Do you hate… flowers? Balloons? Strawberries?”).

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against sunny yellow: “I LOVE EVERYTHING!” This joy doesn’t last long, though, leading to a quiet chuckle as the book closes.

Readers will be charmed and reassured by the reminder that, with love and support, a change in perspective is possible. (Picture book. 3-7)

Lights at Night Hilderman, Tasha | Illus. by Maggie Zeng Tundra Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 Aug. 5, 2025 | 9781774881149

A sleepy seasonal ode to the lights that shine after the sun goes down.

Puddles glimmer beneath streetlights as a spring rainstorm chases a suburban family indoors— just in time for the power to go out.

While the family shares a cozy bedtime story by flashlight indoors, in the fields outside a fox with two new cubs ventures out beneath the stars.

In later months, campfires and Fourth of July fireworks give way to jack-o’-lanterns, after-school football games beneath the lights, nights spent ice-skating beneath shimmering auroral curtains, a holiday get-­ together at year’s end, and, on the journey home, glimpses of falling snow and shiny fox eyes in the headlights beneath passing trees. The lights, both natural and artificial, cast such warm glows that even in darker scenes, the shadows are never deep in Zeng’s peaceful, idyllic layouts. As she follows an East Asian–presenting human family and a furry four-footed one through the seasons, she tucks in grace notes, from foxlike swirls of sky mist to symbolic candles for

Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah, on the way to final looks inside and outside: “Lights out. / Night light. / Good night.”

Comforting and snoozy, just right for bedtime reading. (Picture book. 3-5)

A Rock Is Born: An Epic Journey Through Time Ho, Richard | Illus. by Lily Williams Roaring Brook Press (40 pp.) | $19.99 July 29, 2025 | 9781250749925

“Forged in fire” and “cooled by air,” a rock born from a volcanic explosion 115 million years ago undergoes dramatic shifts throughout its long life.

Readers first glimpse the rock from an unusual perspective: through the chunky legs of a dinosaur. As time passes, mammals and birds replace dinosaurs, and the rock changes as well: “Rain softens it. Wind whittles it.” Mud and water eventually sweep the rock into the sea—a dynamic scene that requires readers to turn the book to follow its trail. Water eventually transforms the rock into a grain of sand until it undergoes its sedimentary phase, depicted in a beautiful cutaway scene as layers of plants and animals press down upon the rock. Accompanied

by Williams’ bold, color-saturated images, Ho’s simple, declarative sentences move the action along at a swift clip. “Plates collide. Mountains grow.” The rock disappears underground, where it undergoes its metamorphic phase of heating, melting, and transforming. In 1980, a volcanic eruption (Mt. St. Helens, per the backmatter) thrusts the newborn rock onto the ground of a contemporary national park, where a diverse group of people learn about its history.

An appropriately fast-moving and energetic chronicle. (information about types of rocks and the rock life cycle, sources) (Informational picture book. 4-8)

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A harmonious tribute to one of music’s absolute greats.

THE MUSIC INSIDE US

Kirkus Star

The Music Inside Us: Yo-Yo Ma and His Gifts to the World Howe, James | Illus. by Jack Wong | Abrams (48 pp.) | $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781419755217

By age 4, Yo-Yo Ma can play an entire Bach suite from memory.

Yo-Yo’s parents are also musicians, and they encourage his and his sister Yeou-Cheng’s musical talents from a very young age.

Yeou-Cheng plays the violin, but Yo-Yo has his sights set on something bigger.

Soon, his gift for cello takes Yo-Yo’s family on a journey from their home in Paris to New York City, where Yo-Yo studies under some of the greatest cellists in the world. His world grows, and so does his talent. He becomes the principal cellist in a children’s orchestra and performs at Carnegie Hall and even in front of the president. As he questions his identity (“What does it mean to be American and French and Chinese?”), his place in the world, and the interconnectedness of humanity, Yo-Yo finds his dedication to his music deepening into something that will ultimately shape his worldview. “Shy yet confident,” he travels the world, bringing musicians together to learn from one another in a mix of cultures and styles. He uses his music to teach others, to protest injustice, and to attempt to answer some of life’s greatest questions. Painterly, thoughtfully composed illustrations provide a remarkable depth of emotion and dynamism. Howe’s lyrical prose is a finely tuned pleasure to read, from overture to encore.

A harmonious tribute to one of music’s absolute greats. (timeline, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

author’s and illustrator’s notes, resources, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 4-8)

Sarang Saves the School Howley, Korena Di Roma Illus. by Joowon Oh | Candlewick (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9781536232318

A young girl finds a creative way to save her school— and ensure everyone’s right to an education.

Sarang lives in a small South Korean fishing village. Like most families, her parents are considering a move to the city because there aren’t enough students to keep the school open.

Sarang tears up at the idea of leaving her beloved Halmeoni (Grandmother).

But wait! Could Halmeoni be the extra student needed to keep the school open? Halmeoni grew up when girls’ education wasn’t prioritized, and she never learned to read or write—something she regrets to this day. Sarang hatches a plan and shares it with others—except the village grandmothers. When the big day arrives, Sarang’s teacher welcomes Halmeoni and the other grandmothers to the class. Though Oh’s digital illustrations make effective use of light and shadow, neither the somewhat bland visuals nor the rather subdued prose are quite as emotionally resonant as the subject matter. The author’s note contains more details about the ongoing battle to keep rural schools open as families relocate to cities and about many grandmothers’ courageous reclamation of their right to an education; this simple tale is just the tip of the iceberg.

Still, the narrative is marked by a few heartwarming moments; Sarang and Halmeoni’s intergenerational bond

and their intertwined educational journey will spur many readers to learn more about this social movement.

A sweet ode to educational access, inspired by true events.

(Picture book. 5-8)

Up Close and Incredible: Dinosaurs: A Prehistoric Adventure With a 3× Magnifying Glass Huang, Eric | Illus. by Facundo Aguirre Wide Eyed Editions (48 pp.) | $26.99 July 29, 2025 | 9780711284968 Series: Up Close and Incredible, 2

In a treat for dino-detectives, tiny paleontologists swarm over 14 dramatic, schematic depictions of prehistoric fossils.

Made to be pored over with a 3x magnifying glass that comes with the package, the fully or partially fleshedout dinosaurs in Aguirre’s illustrations teem with funny and informative business—from minuscule workers expertly wielding actual tools of the trade like rock hammers and dental probes on a comparatively humongous fossil spine to dancers engaged in a “Tyrannosaurus tango” to reflect the notion that T. rex might have used its seemingly useless arms for mating displays. In semi-serious accompanying notes, Huang details 10 significant anatomical features to spot in each image; he invites viewers to take closer looks at the side teeth lined up along the jawbone of T. rex, for example, which are like “lethal bananas” and indeed include a comically menacing banana in their number. Huang also includes sets of basic facts and comparative size charts, backed up by timelines and a visual key to each image at the end. Even without the glass, the researchers clearly vary in skin tone; some figures use wheelchairs, and others wear hijabs.

A solid infodump, festooned with both facts and visual gags. (glossary, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

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Adventure and heroics are stitched together in this charmer of a book.

similar titles where the protagonist figures everything out by book’s end, this one takes a refreshingly realistic approach.

A child-friendly guide to respecting personal space. (Picture book. 3-6)

STITCH

Stitch: Reimagining Frankenstein Blood in the Water Jackson, Tiffany D. | Scholastic (272 pp.) $18.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9781338849912

In acclaimed YA author Jackson’s middle-grade debut, 12-year-old Kaylani McKinnon expects bikes, beaches, and books during her first summer on Martha’s Vineyard—not murder.

When she leaves Brooklyn to stay with family friends the Watsons, a well-known Black family, her dad, who’s incarcerated, reminds Kaylani not to worry about him—her “only job is to be a kid.” Still, Kaylani is set on #operation­ FREEDAD—she even took a mock trial workshop to learn more about how to gain justice for her father. When popular teen Chadwick Cooper is found dead soon after Kaylani arrives on the island, she uses her investigative skills to find the culprit. Snobby London, the younger Watson daughter, reluctantly helps, and Chadwick’s little brother Miles joins in too. But the closer they get to the murderer, the more it seems that Kaylani’s first time on the island may be her last. The story, which centers on Black characters, shines a spotlight on the long history of wealthy Black people summering on Martha’s Vineyard.

Employing tight, steady writing, Jackson builds tension around the complexities of class and respectability politics. The worldbuilding and Kaylani’s interior dialogue initially convey more of a YA novel tone, but once the story moves on to the island, the voice successfully settles into a solid middle-grade space.

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interactions on the island, but overall she’s confident and well adjusted.

A perfect beach read for lovers of suspense. (Mystery. 9-12)

Whoa Panda!

Jennings, C.S. | Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 12, 2025 | 9780593324783

What a thrill it is to see you!

Panda is excited to be in the company of friends…­perhaps a bit too excited.

When the unnamed narrator waves, the cub bounds over and gets uncomfortably close; a zoomed-in view of Panda’s eye fills one spread, while the rest of the exuberant bear’s face fills another. Asked to give the narrator some space, Panda backs off.

But when a new friend—a brown dog—appears, Panda quickly forgets the lesson and bear-hugs the nervous-looking pooch. The narrator once more intervenes and offers some guidance. Panda complies and then cheerfully licks the narrator’s face. The narrator gently chastises Panda, who ambles off, saddened, until the narrator coaxes Panda back to have fun in a way that makes everyone comfortable. Using minimal text and peppy colored pencil and digital art set against bright, uncluttered backgrounds, Jennings offers an amusing and creative take on bodily autonomy. Many caregivers and children will recognize these interactions, particularly when the narrator repeats the same point multiple times over the course of the book. It’s clear that Panda is still actively learning this lesson; indeed, the cub may even need a few reminders down the line. Compared with

Kenny, Pádraig | Illus. by Steve McCarthy Walker US/Candlewick (208 pp.) $17.99 | July 15, 2025 | 9781536241983

Frankenstein’s monster is reconfigured in a variety of ways.

It’s been 327 days since the Professor left his bedroom, and Stitch has been patient all the while. He lives alongside the loquacious but much larger Henry; both of them are the cobbled-together creations of the mad genius. It isn’t until the Professor’s arrogant nephew Professor Hardacre arrives with his assistant, Alice, that Stitch and Henry realize their beloved creator is dead. And when Hardacre proves to have nefarious plans, Henry takes off into the wider world, with Stitch and Alice following in his wake.

Along the way they encounter fearful villagers, a mysterious hooded figure, and a kindly blind man with an injured leg. Kenny invites readers to ponder what it means to be a monster; Alice (who has a slight hump), Stitch, and Henry are all dubbed monstrous at various points. Stitch’s wide-eyed trust in the essential goodness of his fellow human beings often contrasts with Alice’s knowing bitterness but proves the stronger feeling. As a creature new to the world, Stitch displays a striking sense of wonder, innocence, and compassion.

Few people are beyond redemption in Kenny’s poignant tale, and his variegated “monsters” will win the hearts of readers (and even a couple of villagers as well).

Characters are cued white.

Adventure, heroics, and thoughtful characterization are stitched together in this charmer of a book.

(Paranormal. 7-11)

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The Extremely Embarrassing Life of Lottie Brooks Kirby, Katie | Random House (432 pp.) $18.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9798217116621

An English tween seeks her place and her true voice.

Lottie Brooks, age 11 and 3/4, lives in Brighton— so she’s devastated that her best friend, Molly, has moved all the way to Australia. But fortunately, she has a plan for surviving her first year at her new school: She’s going to reinvent herself in hopes of avoiding the dire fate of having to sit alone at lunch, stuff “sandwiches into [her] mouth as quickly as possible,” and “hide in the bathroom.” When school starts, she makes a friend in new student Jess, develops a crush on Theo, and gets caught up in drama involving cool, popular frenemies Amber and Poppy. On top of all that, her parents announce that a new sibling is on the way. It’s bad enough she has Toby, her annoying 7-year-old brother; Lottie’s plan is going “spectacularly wrong!” The story, told through Lottie’s amusing diary entries and illustrated with stick figures and doodle-style line art, will reassure young people who are facing life transitions, helping them to put matters in perspective and be true to themselves—all without being preachy. Fans of Jacqueline Wilson, Marissa Moss, and Raina Telgemeier will be pleased. Lottie reads white, and the supporting cast surrounding her contains racial diversity.

A funny and reassuring reminder that no matter how great Plan A seems, sometimes Plan B turns out to be better. (Fiction. 8-12)

Giant Steps Lambert, Anaïs | Trans. by Johanna McCalmont | Blue Dot Kids Press (40 pp.) $18.95 | April 8, 2025 | 9798989858828

Lambert immerses readers in a child’s experience of nature.

Close-ups of a kid’s bright emerald boots and a small hand tugging down a teal-and-lavenderstriped cap are all we initially see of the light-skinned young narrator. In concise text, translated from French, the child announces that these things are preparations “for adventure.” In a leafy, grassy green world, the quiet explorer happens upon “a ferocious fight”— between two combative beetles. The child also discovers a “silly, slimy race” between a slug and a snail under what looks like rhubarb leaves, three “prickly creatures” (carefully drawn horse chestnut pods with accurately rendered leaves), an ant “colony on the move,” and “helicopters in mid-air” (tree seeds and a dragonfly’s surprisingly similar wings). In the child’s mind, rivulets become rivers (which appear tiny, dwarfed by the youngster’s much bigger boots), while seedlings comprise a whole forest, tree bark is an ancient elephant’s skin, and the “hundred eyes” of frogspawn stare out.

The last few pages bring an abrupt change of feeling and perspective as the child hears the mysterious thudding footsteps of a giant. Happily, it all ends with the youngster riding home on a loving parent’s shoulders. The illustrations are rich and precise enough for a botanical handbook or insect guide; poring over them will inspire kids to pay closer attention to the real outdoors.

This work richly rewards even casual browsing.

Witty and wide-ranging.

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Small but truly beautiful steps in honing observation skills and strengthening the imagination. (Picture book. 3-7)

The Atlas of Languages: Words Around the World Lancashire, Rachel | Illus. by Jenny Zemanek | Abrams (96 pp.) | $22.99 July 22, 2025 | 9781419766831

A broad overview of languages and language families, with infographic maps and a separate section on sign languages worldwide.

Going continent by continent, this vivacious linguistic tour offers both leafy, spreading language “trees” and, for geographical reference, big maps packed with language names in different sizes to reflect the number of speakers. Lancashire includes copious notes on hundreds of major and minor tongues—often including a proverb or other expression as a sample and taking due notice of creoles, pidgins, and “isolate” languages with no known relatives. While the author acknowledges the pervasive historical influence of colonialism and slavery on many languages, her observations more often adopt a breezy tone. She aptly characterizes the phrase “quod erat demonstrandum” (or QED) as “a Latin mic drop.” The illustrations have their moments, too; Zemanek represents Latin as a literally dead branch on the ground beneath the Indo-European tree. Though only a fraction of what the author estimates as up to 8,500 of the languages spoken, whistled, or signed on our planet earn mentions, this work richly rewards even casual browsing— whether readers are more intrigued by its glimpses of the big language picture or just want to know the Icelandic term for mansplaining. The human figures in the illustrations are racially and culturally diverse.

Witty and wide-ranging. (language stats and facts, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

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1 3

2

Tender Tales for Mother’s Day 4

1 Mommy Love

By Susan Verde; illus. by Naoko Stoop

5

Words of wisdom for harried parents—this one will make an ideal baby shower gift.

2 Outside Mom, Inside Mom

By Jane Park; illus. by Lenny Wen

Warm, insightful, and tender.

3 Happy Mother’s Day From the Crayons

By Drew Daywalt; illus. by Oliver Jeffers

Another endearing and amusing outing with these winsome characters.

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4 A Card for My Mom

By Bashabi Fraser; illus. by Maanvi Kapur

A gentle Mother’s Day tale with a message of inclusion.

For more picture-book paeans to motherhood, visit Kirkus online.

5 Carry Me!

By Georgie Birkett

An ode to exhausted mamas everywhere.

MAY 1, 2025

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SEEN AND HEARD Sequel to Millicent Quibb Coming in the Fall Kate McKinnon’s latest children’s book will be published by Little, Brown.

For a review of The Millicent Quibb School, visit Kirkus online.

In Secrets of the Purple Pearl, the girls try to stop a group of evil scientists from resurrecting their leader, Talon Sharktüth. In the process, they “discover more secrets than they bargained for—including where they came from, and who they truly are.”

Secrets of the Purple Pearl is scheduled for publication on Sept. 30.

—M.S.

Kate McKinnon

John Nacion/ Variet y v ia Get t y Images

Kate McKinnon will revisit her off-the-wall etiquette school in a sequel to her popular

children’s book, People magazine reports.

This fall, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will publish Secrets of the Purple Pearl, by the actor, comedian, and Saturday Night Live alum. The book, illustrated by Alfredo Cáceres, is a follow-up to The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science, which was published last October.

The first book in McKinnon’s series followed Gertrude,

Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch, three young girls living with their adoptive family who are invited to attend a school run by the titular mad scientist. A critic for Kirkus called the book “fiercely feisty and unapologetically goofy.”

In a 2024 interview with the New York Times, McKinnon talked about her plans for the books, saying, “I know the mythology of the whole series and where it’s going and how it ends, but as for how to get there—that’s going to require a little bit of mad science!”

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B O O K T O S C R E E N // C H I L D R E N ' S

Sil ver Screen Collection/Get t y Images

Book to Screen

Golden Ticket Reality Competition in the Works Netflix’s reality series is inspired by Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Netflix is planning a reality competition show inspired by Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel Charlie and the

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Chocolate Factory, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The streaming service announced that it plans to create a series titled The Golden Ticket, in which contestants navigate challenges inside a “retro-­ futuristic” chocolate factory—­ much as the characters in Dahl’s 1964 novel did.

“This one-of-a-kind reality competition blends adventure, strategy and social dynamics, creating an experience that is as capti­vating as it is unpredictable,” Jeff Gaspin, VP of Unscripted at Netflix, told the Hollywood Reporter. “For the first time, a lucky few

won’t just have to imagine the experience—they’ll get to step inside the factory and live it.”

The show is one of Netflix’s first productions of a Dahl property since the company paid a reported nine-figure sum in 2021 for the rights to the author’s oeuvre, which also includes The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Those works and others have been the inspiration for multiple successful film adaptations, most famously the 1971 musical Willy For reviews of Roald Dahl’s books, visit Kirkus online.

Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in the 1971 film adaptation

Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder.

A release date for The Golden Ticket hasn’t been announced, but Netflix is now inviting would-be contestants to apply via its website.—M.A.

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Falling Star Liu, Linda | Henry Holt (40 pp.) $18.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781250359490

A bright yellow star finds itself in a literal and psychological freefall.

The celestial body’s monologue begins in the heavens. Its fragile emotional state is conveyed primarily by the rhyming text; its only facial features are its wide-open, anxious eyes. The people of Earth love wishing upon stars, and our protagonist loves granting them, but “competing with the other stars for the spotlight” is stressful. Worried, the star—surrounded by a teardrop shape—tumbles from the sky while fretting. These concerns seem more geared toward overachieving adults than little ones: “Have I lost my spot in the sky? / Was everything I accomplished a lie?” The seemingly random accompanying images appear to be more driven by a forced rhyme scheme than the plot: “Now I’m upstaged by the lights in Paris. // Don’t look at me; I’m so embarrassed.”

The protagonist falls into a hole but is eventually lifted up by two sailors (one tan-skinned, one brown-skinned) and placed in an unlit lighthouse. Shining brightly once again, the star concludes, “As long as I am who I am, I will be fine.”

Pretty sunset-hued watercolors aren’t enough to rescue this tale that misses the mark when it comes to audience appeal.

Rambling ruminations on self-worth.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Beinoni Lowe, Mari | Levine Querido (272 pp.) $18.99 | July 15, 2025 | 9781646145065

Ezra is the Nivchar, a chosen one destined to fight the embodiment of all evil, the gurya dinura.

Each generation, a Nivchar is born bearing a “birthmark constellation of moznayim, the Scales.” They’re trained 102

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by the Sanhedrin, a council of Jewish leaders, to prepare for the battle, which takes place on the night of their bar or bas mitzvah. During the period between the battles—the Beinoni time—“nothing’s really all that bad…and there’s nothing too incredible to hope for, either.” Months before Ezra’s battle, the Beinoni time starts slipping away, which Ezra is convinced has to do with the mysterious organization that seems bent on kidnapping him. He begins to struggle in school, and he befriends his troublemaker classmate, Aryeh. A mystery surrounding the previous Nivchar unfolds slowly, and sharp readers will likely guess how Ezra’s battle will play out based on many hints. A glossary assists readers who may be unfamiliar with the book’s Jewish concepts. Jewish readers, particularly Orthodox Ashkenazi ones, will feel at home here, and those familiar with Semitic languages may even pick up on some linguistic clues.

Ezra and most characters are Jewish and cued white; some major supporting characters are Persian Jews. A subplot relating to Ezra’s ADHD diagnosis and treatment will resonate with many.

A compelling adventure steeped in Jewish tradition. (Fantasy mystery. 8-14)

A Magician’s Flower Maijala, Marika | Trans. by Mia Spangenberg Elsewhere Editions (48 pp.) | $19.95 July 8, 2025 | 9781962770286

A sweet Finnish tale of a flower in need of just a little reassurance.

Working in the greenhouse, Willow discovers a tiny seedling in a neglected pot.

After Willow’s friend Aspen comes over, the two name the plant Raisin after one of the heroes in Aspen’s epic poem.

With Willow’s chicken Eulalia in tow, the two attempt to coax Raisin into growing taller; they take her to the seashore, offer her both sunlight and moonlight, and ultimately reassure her that she can remain little if she wishes to. “I don’t think you need to grow at

all,” says Willow. “Can’t you grow to be small, the same way you can grow to be big?” Only then, the next day, does Raisin bloom, and the kids discover that the plant is a magician’s flower. Per a book from Aspen’s great-grandmother: “It is said that magicians are the only ones who can create the right conditions for the flower to bloom.”

This brief yet delightful adventure is low on drama; the most dire occurrence is a dog eating someone’s fallen ice cream. Alongside loose gouache illustrations, the text truly becomes the star of the show, as when readers learn that “a small, clear voice [is] far more impressive than a loud, bombastic one.”

Willow is brown-skinned; Aspen is pale-skinned.

A gentle reminder that gardening and friendship possess their own kind of magic. (Picture book. 4-8)

Beyond the Game: Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone Maraniss, Andrew | Illus. by DeAndra Hodge | Viking (96 pp.) | $16.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593526248 | Series: Beyond the Game: Athletes Change the World

A competitive runner paints her face to make a strong, silent statement in this latest addition to a series celebrating athletes who take up social causes.

With the avowed intent of delivering “lessons on empathy, justice, and social good,” Maraniss chronicles Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone’s growth from childhood on the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation in South Dakota (where she was “the kind of kid who tripped and fell a lot”) to her later excellence as a runner in high school and college. As a federal worker in Washington, D.C., she found her social conscience activated after facilitating a demonstration against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which had been rerouted in a clear case of environmental K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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racism. But it was her decision to paint a red hand over her mouth and the initials MMIW (for “Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women”) on her limbs while she ran in the 2019 Boston Marathon that made her a viral sensation and inspired a wave of similar protests against an outrage that is both historical and ongoing. Hodge’s drably serious monochrome scenes, which depict the subject running or posing with diverse groups of fellow protesters, may not kindle much response from readers, but Maraniss’ story should. The author concludes with discussion questions, a pep talk from Whetstone herself, and resource lists for both children and adults.

An inspiring tale of athletic activism. (glossary, list of Indigenous U.S. Olympic medal winners, Indigenous words in everyday English, U.S. state names based on Native American words, Lakota terms) (Biography. 8-10)

familiar chorus: “’Cause we’re pajammin’! / I’m pajammin’ with you. / We’re pajammin’, / and I hope you like pajammin’ too.” Apart from that refrain, he doesn’t attempt to fit the text to the original’s pattern or rhythms (which sets the title apart from many similar song-to-book adaptations), though his phrasing and tone clearly draw inspiration from the source material: “Lie in the sleeping bag, chill and relax. / One more book before lights-out.” This is at times an awkward read-aloud, with some pages including rhyming stanzas, while others begin with a rhyme but finish without or don’t rhyme at all. Still, the characters’ delight is plain to see as they drift from high-energy fun to snuggled-up sleep.

The exuberant cartoon illustrations feature a family whose members have varying shades of brown skin.

A sweet and joyful family tale.

(Picture book. 3-5)

Pajammin’

Kirkus Star

Marley, Ziggy | Illus. by Letícia Moreno Clarion/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $19.99 | June 24, 2025 | 9780063287198

Dawn: Watch the World Awaken

Inspired by his late father Bob Marley’s hit song “Jamming,” Grammy-­winning musician Ziggy Marley tells the story of a family throwing an epic pajama party complete with games, snacks, storytelling, and music-making.

Preparing for late-night fun, four children and their parents don their favorite jammies and enjoy classic sleepover fun: pillow fights, flashlight tag, and, of course, staying up late.

Marley does a simple rewrite of the

Martin, Marc | Candlewick Studio (48 pp.) $18.99 | July 29, 2025 | 9781536232400

A sunrise awakens life on a lake.

As dawn breaks, the sun slowly rises on a lake where the flora and fauna stir. Creatures forage, make sounds, and move. Plants bend in the breeze and bloom. Martin conveys all this through the sparest of text—on each page, just a word or two focuses the eye on his lush, earthy illustrations.

In one sequence, the word deer is paired

A testament to Martin’s immense artistic talents.

Truly stunning.

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with an image of the animal lapping from the lake. On the following page, the words sound and spring follow; the accompanying illustrations show the deer staring at readers and then fleeing, with only its hindquarters visible in this image. The third page depicts ripples in the water (“still”)—the sole sign that the deer was ever here. Other spreads stand alone; the word conceal is paired with an illustration of an owl camouflaged by a tree, while reveal shows the same owl no longer hidden, its yellow eyes wide open.

Martin includes alliterative sequences, such as one involving a fish making a meal out of a fly. Portraits of insects abound, from butterflies to beetles.

Rhymes evoke the quality of light on water: “glint / glimmer,” “reflection / shimmer.” Less a story and more a series of illustrations paired with poetic text, the book is a testament to Martin’s immense artistic talents.

Truly stunning. (Picture book. 4-8)

Leila and the Voice Maydani, Shahrzad | Kokila (40 pp.) $18.99 | July 22, 2025 | 9780593620373

A girl must summon her courage.

One morning, brown-skinned Leila encounters a “mad cloud” that won’t stop growing. As she flees, her surroundings grow menacing, and she becomes lost in a wooded hollow filled with trees studded with eyes. Suddenly, she hears a fragile voice. After she frees the source of the voice, it appears before her—a large horned pink creature with a manelike fringe around its head. As they set off through the woods, the voice expresses worries (“What if it rains?” “And what if we get lost”), which Leila answers gently. When the mad cloud returns, Leila transforms the voice into “a sea serpent to battle the storm.” The cloud perseveres, though, knocking Leila down. The voice, now stronger, finds her and soothes her, reminding her that she’s “a mighty thing.” The two end their journey by plunging into “the wild wind,” and MAY 1, 2025

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Leila promises never to forget the voice; the unseen narrator reassures readers that she keeps her promise. With chalklike textures, the illustrations are truly stunning; the cloud and the other creatures Leila encounters are haunting, and Maydani ramps up the drama for the climactic moments, with colors and shapes blending. The text, however, may leave readers with questions. While caregivers and educators will recognize this as a story of a child discovering her inner voice, readers will likely find it too abstract and will need adult guidance to draw connections between the imagery and Leila’s emotions.

Beautiful but ultimately puzzling.

(Picture book. 3-7)

Bubblegum Shoes: The Case of the Contraband Closet Moldavsky, Goldy | Random House (224 pp.) | $17.99 | July 1, 2025 9780593813768 | Series: Bubblegum Shoes, 1

Best-selling YA author Moldavsky takes on organized crime at Marlowe Middle School in her middle-grade debut, a mystery series opener.

Seventh grader Maya Mendoza is a sharp-witted, self-declared detective in Hillside, New Jersey. When the school’s Contraband Closet is mysteriously emptied, Maya vows to crack the case. She tracks suspects and possible locations of the loot with the help of other kids sent to detention by Principal Spade: Ava Agarwal, Clementine Steffin-Paller, and Jordan Freeman. Jordan is Maya’s ex-bestie, and she hopes their shared investigation will mend their broken friendship. As she helps to uncover crooked kids and compromised adults, Maya embodies the flawed, disillus­ ioned sleuth pursuing corruption and gangster-­style crime—while also navigating a first crush, the ups and downs of tween social interactions, and the changes brought about by divorce.

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card ring, nab a vandal, and get into (and out of) plenty of scrapes. Each member of their new club, the Bubblegum Shoes, brings a distinct skill set, setting up a rich cast for the next book.

From the start, snappy dialogue and stylized narration channel classic film noir. While the evocative, staccato, early-20th-century-style cadence may at first be challenging for some readers to adjust to, the author delivers a fun, action-packed caper. The cover art and characters’ names suggest a diverse cast.

A witty story full of humor, mystery, and friendship. (Mystery. 8-12)

Wagnificent: A New Dog in the Den Murguia, Bethanie Deeney | Roaring Brook Press (160 pp.) | $21.99 | $13.99 paper July 22, 2025 | 9781250835314 9781250367419 paper | Series: Wagnificent, 2

Having reckoned with wilder impulses in the first series installment, Thunder the dog faces a fresh challenge under the tutelage of her human, Sage.

In Thunder’s mind, the pair form a close-knit pack, so when Sage agrees to take in a foster pup named Byron, Thunder’s life is thrown into confusion. Although Byron is comically tiny, his inner canine conscience (represented by a wolf at his side) is larger and fiercer than Thunder’s. The minuscule Byron encroaches on Thunder’s territory: He urinates indoors, sleeps in Thunder’s bed, and demands that Thunder give him her bone. Furious, Thunder barks and

growls until the smaller dog scurries out through a hole in the fence.

Though Thunder’s initially elated to have her home to herself, Sage is devastated to discover Byron gone, and the two set out to find the runaway.

With a clearer understanding of their household roles (and a happy ending for everyone), the pets and people alike grow in awareness of the finer points of inter-canine interactions. The conflict in this volume adds intrigue and momentum to the previously established episodic chapter structure.

Murguia’s upbeat cartoon illustrations are occasionally interrupted by “Thunder’s Rules” interludes, which highlight what behaviors are more acceptable for dogs to exhibit with one another vs. with humans. Sage is light-skinned and purple-haired; other humans vary in skin tone.

A feel-good tale that invites readers to consider life from the perspective of their four-legged friends. (more information on behaviors displayed by dogs and other canine species) (Graphic fiction. 6-10)

The Little Ghost Quilt’s Winter Surprise Nason, Riel | Illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler Tundra Books (48 pp.) | $18.99 Aug. 26, 2025 | 9781774885376 Series: A Little Ghost Quilt Book

The protagonist of The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt (2020) enjoys a “boo-tiful” holiday.

The titular spirit—comprised of a patterned quilt rather than a plain white sheet like his peers—loves drifting

Underscores the true meaning of the holidays: friendship and togetherness.

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outside in the cold. His heavier fabrics may slow him down the rest of the year, but in winter they keep him warm enough to enjoy the outdoors while his friends remain inside. One December evening, while visiting the human neighborhood, he notices people singing and putting up twinkling lights (amid the Christmas decorations, one window features a menorah). The little ghost quilt is happy for himself but sad that his pals aren’t witnessing all this, too. The sight of a holiday tree inspires him: He’ll bring a tree to his friends! A branch that blows off during a snowstorm will do nicely.

For ornaments, he uses odds and ends from the attic of his house. And when his friends arrive at his home that night, everyone decorates the tree together. The moon, peeping through the window and reflecting off a mirror from the attic, provides the glorious pièce de résistance: The make-believe tree glows brilliantly.

This quietly lovely holiday tale underscores the true meaning of the holidays: friendship and togetherness. The illustrations rely on a muted palette with spots of vivid colors; like a quilt, they’re soft and delicate. Human characters vary in skin tone.

A satisfyingly cozy winter holiday tale.

(Picture book. 4-7)

The Dog Who Made It Better Nolte, Katherin | Random House (240 pp.) $17.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9780593814703

A gentle and humorous exploration of a dog’s purpose within a grieving family.

Doctor Blob, an 8-year-old Bernese mountain dog, is devoted to his family, especially the children—­ 12-year-old Bartholomew (whom he calls Good Boy), 8-year-old Nina, and 2-year-old Pip—and delights in daily runs with Mom. When a Very Bad Thing happens and Mom dies unexpectedly, their lives are upended.

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her death, Doctor Blob steps up his role within the family with well-­ intentioned but comedic attempts at comfort and communication. When another dog arrives on the family’s doorstep, Doctor Blob must balance his duty to his family and his promise to Mom never to run away with feelings of jealousy and resentment toward the newcomer. Doctor Blob’s first-person narration captures the dog’s deep loyalty, pride, and frenetic energy (despite his advanced age for a large breed). Readers may initially struggle to follow the narrative style, which, much like a dog distracted by a squirrel, feels scattered in the character setup but ultimately evens out. Exploring grief through the eyes of a pet softens the impact without minimizing the loss, making the subject approachable for cautious or sensitive readers. Passing references to heaven, church, and angels and a subtle rephrasing of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 lightly cue the family’s Christian faith.

The human characters read white.

A tenderhearted exploration of loss well suited for animal lovers. (Fiction. 9-12)

Lice: How To Survive on Humans Páramo, Berta | Trans. by Marc Correa Haro Helvetiq (204 pp.) | $21.95 Aug. 5, 2025 | 9783039640553

Life is tough for head lice, but as this thorough and sympathetic primer shows, they’re superbly adapted to face the challenges.

Though the images generally consist of isolated line images or silhouettes with muted orange highlights, they’re nevertheless large and clinically detailed—and sure to induce a mix of horror and fascination in human readers, even those with unsullied scalps. Addressing the ectoparasites themselves—“Your survival depends on your wits, your skills, and a pinch of good luck”— Páramo begins with an expansive

gallery of lice cousins. She then explains how to choose suitable human hosts, describes salient anatomical features as well as feeding and mating habits, delivers warnings about hazards from multiple specific insecticides to lice combs, and finishes with a sprinkle of facts about human-lice relations through history and prehistory. “Good luck and happy infesting!” she concludes. The specific, no-nonsense information she delivers may help transform these tiny horrors into better-known and therefore more manageable ones for anxious children and parents. So will the occasionally giddy tone of the text, translated from Spanish. “You can’t fly,” the unseen narrator announces in large boldface text next to a fanciful image of a caped specimen. “You don’t even have wings.

Superlouse ain’t a thing.”

Required reading for lice or anyone likely to harbor them. (afterword, QR code linking to an online educator’s guide) (Nonfiction. 7-10)

This Moment Is Special: A Día de Muertos Story (Day of the Dead) Parra, John | Paula Wiseman/ Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) | $19.99 July 15, 2025 | 9781665948241

A boy celebrates the moments that make up a day during Día de los Muertos.

Under the light of a crescent moon, the child sits in the quiet of the early hours. Ghostly white paint covers his brown face and hands, an echo of a calavera. “Today holds a special promise.

Una promesa especial.” He and his family eat tamales, avocados, and eggs for breakfast. Then, it’s a mad dash to catch the bus—with its “Oaxaca” sign on top—to school, where history, geography, science, and art all spark his imagination. He’s filled with awe as he runs back to town amid a storm. His friends are waiting. “They like me for me. I like them for them. Nos apreciamos.” And so it goes in this tender tale MAY 1, 2025

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that embraces life’s small and monu­ mental moments alike—a sweet reinforcement of the holiday’s emphasis on family, memories, and love. With a steady tone and pace, Parra measures the boy’s day from heartbeat to heartbeat, word to word. Reading a book, cultivating a garden, jamming with the band—each moment builds to the next until it’s time for his visiting Abuela to say goodbye. Later, everyone comes together to celebrate and honor loved ones, carrying photographs in their hands and smiles on their bonewhite and rich brown faces. The graceful acrylic artwork overall favors movement and muted colors to great effect.

Strikingly affectionate. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Let’s Rumble!: A Roughand-Tumble Book of Play Payne, Rachel G. | Illus. by Jose Pimienta Rise x Penguin Workshop (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 8, 2025 | 9780593750698

A day of indoor tussling ends not in tears but in sibling togetherness—and opportunities for

more creative play.

Two roughhousing kids devise clever names for their many moves, from King of the Castle to Tickle-Bot. As their play gets more raucous, the younger child asks if they can stop.

The older one proposes using a code word: “Something we can say when we don’t like the game or if someone gets hurt.” “STINKY FACE!” proposes the younger one, and “SQUISHY BUTT!” The older sibling counters with, “BANANA?” “PINEAPPLE?” The two compromise with “CANTALOUPE,” and the game continues—­ until the middle sibling, unseen until now, joins the fray with a “SNEAK ATTACK!” The newcomer must learn the guidelines, including the safety word, and then the rumbling resumes.

Payne and Pimienta demonstrate that rules aren’t hurdles to playtime; in fact, they can make good times even better.

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A breathtaking narrative of love, courage, and optimism.

THE CITY OF JASMINE

the text alternates enthusiastic exclamations with clearly delineated explanations about the importance of the characters’ code words. Energetic cartoon illustrations set against plain white backdrops bring to life the kids’ antics; Pimienta also portrays the children’s wild flights of fancy. While performing the Tickle-­Bot, for instance, the eldest—­depicted as a wheeled automaton—­ pursues the youngest, arms outstretched. The characters have light brown skin; the youngest uses a hearing aid.

A fun approach to helping rambunctious kids navigate boundaries. (tips for ensuring safe playtime, further reading) (Picture book. 3-6)

The Big Day: A GIANT Celebration of Love Plummer, Rachel | Illus. by Forrest Burdett Tiger Tales (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 8, 2025 | 9781664300668

Come one, come all, to the biggest ceremony of the year!

A child receives an invitation to the wedding of two male giants.

Surrounded by witches, wizards, goblins, and other fantastical creatures, the protagonist takes a seat in the church and witnesses the grooms’ declaration of love. After dining on confections such as “creamy rainbow root soup” and “pickled dragon’s breath with pink lotus fries” and listening to a litany of speeches at the reception, the child pipes up: “Why was I invited? Was it a mistake?” One of the grooms charges the child with sending back “a message for all: / Love is just love, whether GIANT or small.”

Plummer’s first-person text features an AABB rhyme structure that, at times, feels forced (“The other held sky that bright stars wandered through. / He said this was something old, borrowed, and blue”). With their dark blue and purple palette, the illustrations capture the energy of the blessed event and the joy on the faces of the attendees.

Unfortunately, the text is set against similarly colored backdrops, occasionally making it difficult to read. Still, the mood is festive, and though the takeaway is simple, it’s affirming. The young protagonist is brown-skinned, one of the giants is pale-skinned and pointy-eared with a bushy red beard, and the other giant is tan-skinned and dark-haired. The wedding guests are diverse in skin tone.

A sweet look at love and commitment.

(Picture book. 4-7)

My Brother’s Butt Is Haunted Poblocki, Dan | Illus. by James Rey Sanchez | Penguin Workshop (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 29, 2025 | 9780593751060

A haunted butt?

Who could believe it? But the smells don’t lie!

When two siblings spend the night at their grandparents’ new place for the very first time, they are understandably anxious—after all, with its gothic turrets, the house is intimidating. Plus, the neighbors say that it’s haunted.

When it’s time for bed, strange noises and smells fill the air, and the kids are sure that an angry ghost is lurking nearby. The tension rises with each page turn as the siblings try to outrun whatever spirit is plaguing them. But as they move from place to place, it somehow stays with them. The K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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protagonist suddenly realizes the source of the odd noises: “The ghost is up your butt!” The kids panic, but the truth is revealed dramatically when Grampa and Gramma open the bedroom door and immediately identify the smell, which isn’t supernatural at all. “I knew chili for dinner was a bad idea,” Gramma says. In Sanchez’s illustrations, green and yellow swirls pop against the muted gloom of the house; readers will positively smell the noxious fumes.

From the opening lines—“Tonight is a big stinkin’ deal”—all the way through to the conclusion, this tale will have readers in stitches with its goofy wordplay. The siblings and their grandmother are tan-skinned; Grampa is brown-skinned.

Will have readers giggling from beginning to end. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

The City of Jasmine Presley, Nadine | Illus. by Heather Brockman Lee | Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $19.99 | May 6, 2025 | 9780063285088

A Syrian child’s tender ode to Damascus memorializes all that encompasses home.

Walking the streets, the young narrator proclaims, “I come from the City of Jasmine…where sweet scents dance in the wind, filling air, calming hearts.”

Statements that begin with the phrase “I come from” introduce descriptions of other locations, among them the Umayyad Mosque, Qala’at Dimashq (the Citadel of Damascus), and the oasis of Ghouta—all of which contribute to the youngster’s sense of self. The people of Damascus, diverse in faith, skin tone, and dress, live in harmony, sharing food and a sense of community. The final pages reveal that the child no longer lives in the City of Jasmine, but each night, Baba and the young narrator “fold memories of our days” into a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

wooden Damascene box. References to warfare (expanded on in the author’s note) make it clear that the family was forced to leave, but the youngster continues to sow seeds of jasmine—and of hope. Rich in imagery, Presley’s serene, immersive text conveys a child’s abiding love for a far-away home while offering a counternarrative to news headlines and images that focus on the war and destruction that have roiled Damascus: “My home is no pile of rubble.” Lee’s use of cut paper gives the visuals a three-dimensional look, making the child’s recollections feel intensely vivid; her delicate illustrations pay homage to Syrian mosaics and patterns, capturing a sense of time, memory, and movement.

A breathtaking narrative of love, courage, and optimism. (facts about Damascus) (Picture book. 5-9)

The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith Renzetti, Rob | Penguin Workshop (224 pp.) $17.99 | July 22, 2025 | 9780593519585 Series: The Horrible Bag series

Zenith Maelstrom reenters the twisted, fantastical world of GrahBhag, this time attempting to save that universe—and his sister and his best friend, who are trapped there—from the evil Wraith once and for all.

In this third and final installment of the Horrible Bag series, 11-year-old Zenith is alone in the regular world, while his sister and best friend remain in GrahBhag. He dives back into that world, only to find that two years have passed, and many things have changed. He learns that best friend Kevin, “muck covered” and “aged preternaturally,” has become part of a gargoyle family. Apogee, who’s his older sister back home, is now 6 years old and at the helm of a revolution, seeking to overthrow the evil Wraith.

Zenith attempts to help put an end to

the Wraith, soon embarking on a lengthy journey to Apogee and Kevin via a series of time-bending events.

Readers will be satisfied with the resolution; the ending leaves the door to future adventures slightly ajar, piquing imaginations. The heart of the story is Renzetti’s immersive world, populated by otherworldly characters like the quippy Schrödinger’s Cat and Zenith’s likable, trusty, and quirky gargoyle sidekick, Kreeble. What stands out most among the fantastical elements is the fierce love between Zenith and Apogee and their deep appreciation for the many creatures in GrahBhag. The human characters are racially ambiguous.

A rewarding ending to an imaginative, wholly original series. (Horror. 8-12)

The Glitch Rex, Michael | Viking (288 pp.) $24.99 | $14.99 paper | July 22, 2025 9780593206423 | 9780593206430 paper Series: Your Pal Fred, 3

Fred, the peacemaking AI, tries to force people to be kind and generous. It doesn’t go well.

In this third series entry, Fred, who’s been kidnapped and taken to the Tomorrow Sphere, a prosperous secret city, joyfully invites the city’s leaders to share their abundance of food, water, medicine, and other supplies with the rest of the postapocalyptic world’s beleaguered survivors. Fred’s response when they arrogantly refuse is oddly uncharacteristic—he gets mad, his oversize glasses go red, and he stomps off to recruit several warlords and a passing crowd of refugees to attack the selfish settlement.

“I’m done being nice!” he rants. “And no one is getting a sticker!” His loyal sidekick, Wormy, who has brown skin and blond hair, realizes that something is definitely wrong. But it’s only after a pitched battle that her plea to remember that people can’t be told to be good MAY 1, 2025

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(they have to make that choice themselves) brings him back to himself in time to do what he does best by engineering an amicable settlement for all. It’s a settlement that involves lots of ice cream, too. Why? “Ice cream makes you happy when you are sad!” Rex doesn’t offer actual explanations for Fred’s software glitch or its timely disappearance, but this unexpected behavior does make the light-skinned, round-headed pacifist seem a little less too good to be true, and his message therefore that much easier to accept.

A sweet spoonful of happiness for readers. (Graphic science fiction. 7-10)

The Tunneler Tunnels in the Tunnel: Ready-To-Read Level 1 Rex, Michael | Simon Spotlight (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 22, 2025 | 9781665962100 Series: Ready-To-Read

A tunneling penguin stars in this title for the newest of readers.

A mole might have been a more logical character choice, especially given the bucolic, decidedly un-­ Antarctic setting, but the anthro­ pomorphic penguin (referred to as “the tunneler”) makes a winning protagonist. Wearing a hard hat and wielding a shovel, the tunneler is introduced on the copyright page in front of a ramshackle house and a few buckets, including one holding orange papers, each emblazoned with a yellow star.

On each spread, the unseen narrator informs us that “the tunneler tunnels in the tunnel.” The titular phrase repeats on the right-hand side of each spread as the tunneler pops out of the ground to greet other penguins and hand each of them one of the orange papers. These other characters are similarly identified by their occupations: “The gardener gardens in the garden.” “The farmer farms on the farm.” At the book’s conclusion, readers discover that the papers were 108

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An ultimately sunny exploration of turbulent emotions.

P E N E L O P E W E AT H E R VA N E ’ S G R U M P Y DAY

invitations to a rock concert, held (appropriately enough) by a large nearby stone. Lo and behold, the tunneler is also a “rocker,” and “as the rocker rocks on the rock,” “the dancers dance at the dance!” Playful cartoon illustrations will help youngsters decode the spare, repetitive text as details in the cross-sections of underground tunnels provide visual interest.

Burgeoning readers will eagerly dig in.

(Early reader. 4-6)

Rabbit’s Feat Saltzberg, Barney | Hippo Park/ Astra Books for Young Readers (40 pp.) $18.99 | June 10, 2025 | 9781662640803

Every spring, Boulder eagerly awaits the moment when Cactus’ flowers will bloom.

Located on a nearby cliff, Boulder’s never actually seen the flowers blossom up close, but upon learning that tonight is the night, Boulder vows to come over. Overhearing Boulder and Cactus’ conversation— which the two have had many, many times in the past—brown-furred Rabbit hatches a plan to make Boulder’s dreams a reality. With a little ingenuity and some help from a team of bunny pals and a fluttering butterfly, Rabbit manages to push Boulder off the cliff. Boulder lands right in front of Cactus—just in time!

Saltzberg’s charming story about the power of determination—and friendship—is told mostly through Boulder and Cactus’ conversation, leaving the bulk of the action for the mixed-media illustrations. Set over the course of a single day, the narrative comes to beautiful life as Cactus’ flowers slowly bloom and the bright blues and purples of the vast open sky turn to

deeper blues and blacks. Saltzberg juxtaposes his matter-of-factly earnest text with playful, textured art, leading up to a memorable use of onomatopoeia; this one is an ideal choice for an interactive read-aloud.

A lovely look at how simple acts of kindness can literally move mountains. (Picture book. 3-7)

Penelope Weathervane’s Grumpy Day Serafino, James | Feiwel & Friends (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 22, 2025 | 9781250350220

Today’s forecast: cloudy with a chance of tantrums.

All set to have a picnic, Penelope Weathervane—a purpleeyed, pale-skinned girl with a cumulus cloud atop her head—­ looks out her window to see clouds gathering. It’s going to be a Grumpy Day. Things get worse by the minute as Penelope Weathervane trips over her shoelaces and discovers she’s out of cereal. Matching the bleak sky above, her once-white cloud hair turns dark gray, and soon rain and lightning take over. As she rages, more clouds surround her, and the tears come in a torrential downpour, causing a terrible flood. The tears subside, but Penelope Weathervane still sulks as a “fog of weariness [rolls] in.” Her black cat reminds her to take deep breaths until calm returns. Penelope Weathervane cleans up the mess, and soon the sun comes out just in time for the picnic.

Serafino uses stormy weather as a metaphor for a bad mood—an inspired choice—and the occasional forecast charts (which report her K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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emotions from “cranky” to “grouchy” to “grumpy”) are a fun touch. This is both a delightfully told story and a potential vehicle to help young readers understand big emotions.

Soft, watercolorlike illustrations fittingly serve the biggest emotive set piece—Penelope Weathervane’s hair cloud—whether it appears tumultuous or placid.

An ultimately sunny exploration of turbulent emotions. (Picture book. 4-8)

Joan in the Cone Sharff, Billy | Illus. by Hala Tahboub Dial Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 15, 2025 | 9780593533147

“Some days you find every last hidden bone! / And some days you’re stuck in the cone.”

A philosophical streak runs through this tale, written in second person and centered on Joan, a happy-go-lucky, floppy-eared brown pup with a spot on one eye. Most days the pooch plays with Louise (Joan’s young owner) or the cat or a group of other dogs who meet in the park. Most days are great fun…but one day, Joan sees “a glorious thing” up on a table: Louise’s birthday cake. The pup climbs on a chair to get closer. Yum! It’s the best taste ever. Joan’s practically floating on air—until the little dog falls. Outfitted in a cast and a cone, Joan’s sure that “the good days are through.” But an unexpected discovery in the toy bin perks Joan up—a rubber ducky stolen from Louise ages ago. Louise is thrilled when Joan returns the toy, so Joan digs up plenty of other treasures that once belonged to other members of the household, returns them all, and feels much better. “Some days are wonderful—in a NEW way, / With new tricks to try, / And new games to play.” This rhyming tale zeroes in on delightful details that will be familiar to any dog lover, though youngsters K IR KU S R E V IE W S

will find many parallels to their own lives. Tahboub’s digitally created illustrations are dynamic, expressive, and funny. Joan’s family is light-skinned.

An appealing puppy-centric parable.

(Picture book. 3-8)

Thrash Force Sidhu, Raj | Illus. by Billy Yong Little, Brown (192 pp.) | $17.99 July 15, 2025 | 9780316577168

A role-playing game goes haywire when four kids offend a deranged wizard in an alternate universe.

Riley Singh’s long been told he’s capable of greatness, if only he’d apply himself. But he prefers to take the easy way out—such as by forging his report card to keep his parents off his back—rather than buckling down and studying. After all, Dungeon Brawl awaits! He and his friends can’t get enough of the game…until the day they’re sucked into another dimension and onto a strange planet ruled by the demented Lord Doomface. Craving a fight with a “worthy adversary” to enliven his dull existence, he challenges the kids to a thrilling battle to the death. Through a gripping journey involving teamwork, sorcery, shape-shifting, and a magical guitar, Riley is forced to confront his own flaws, learning that honesty and hard work are the true keys to success. This fast-paced, actionpacked story balances laughs with poignant moments of Riley looking inward and grappling with insecurities. Perfect for fans of fantasy role-playing games as well as newcomers, this tale is both meaningful and entertaining. With themes of friendship, honesty, trust, and forgiveness, Riley’s journey proves that the real magic lies in perseverance. Riley is Indian American; there’s diversity among his friend group. Final art not seen.

A rollicking adventure sure to capture the imaginations of middle schoolers.

(Fantasy. 8-12)

I, Rock: A Geology Tale Slivensky, Katie | Illus. by Steph Stilwell Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $19.99 | June 10, 2025 | 9781665940368

A student’s class report about interviewing a senior citizen takes on unexpected perspective when a rock in his shoe pipes up to retrace its own four-billion-year history.

Depicted in the cartoon illustrations as a small, potato-shaped pebble with googly eyes, the rocky raconteur begins by noting that it’s made up of minerals such as quartz, zircon, and biotite. It then proceeds to describe a journey that began with a two-billionyear stay in Earth’s mantle (“Wow, I was down there for ages”), followed by repeated exciting experiences with volcanoes (KABLOOEY!”) and other geological forces—as well as transformations along the way from igneous to sedimentary to metamorphic. That the same rock can change repeatedly from one type to another may be the main lesson readers will absorb from this breezy round, though the note of self-affirmation toward the end (“I’m proud to say that I’m here, I’m me, and…I ROCK!”) will never go amiss.

The children cheering at the end are racially diverse, as well as plainly prepared to take in Slivensky’s concluding expanded set of basic geological facts and an easy pop quiz.

A quick overview, sure to leave broader views of deep time in its wake. (source list) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

For more by Katie Slivensky, visit Kirkus online.

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A lovely foray into a world of mystery and beauty, longing and delight.

THE MOON MOVED IN

Firefly Season Smith, Cynthia Leitich | Illus. by Kate Gardiner | Heartdrum (40 pp.) | $18.99 May 13, 2025 | 9780063274440

A Native child navigates familial joys and heartaches.

Each year, 7-year-old Piper and her cousins spend a month on the border of the Cherokee and Muscogee nations, visiting family on both tribal lands. As they revel in summer fun, they deepen their connection to their Indigenous heritage by fishing, eating grape dumplings, listening to the stories of their elders, and learning to speak Mvskoke. On hot nights, older cousins teach younger ones the word for firefly: koleppa. Back home in Kansas City, Piper finds herself missing her cousins, but she becomes fast friends with a new neighbor, 4-year-old Sumi, who is brownskinned and of Indian descent. The two bond over the course of a year, and when Piper learns that she and her family are moving to Topeka, she protests, “I want to stay here, next door to Sumi. She’s my family, too.”

Grief eventually gives way to joy as Sumi accompanies Piper on her summer visit; Piper, in turn, travels with Sumi and her family to India.

Focusing on seemingly small yet meaningful moments, Gardiner’s (Nipmuck) tender, earth-toned gouache and colored pencil images evoke the poignance of interconnection, both its delights and sorrows.

The visuals complement Smith’s (Muscogee) quiet narrative, combining for a lovely tale that honors Native 110

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heritage and the beauty of both blood and chosen families.

A glowing tribute to family across distance and lineage. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)

documented beginnings and within the very concept of “we.” It’s impossible to overstate the emotional effect of Smith’s artwork—simultaneously majestic and intimate. Whether depicting the swirling cosmos or individual eyes alight as they gaze out at readers, every single brush stroke is alive with movement and intention. An annotated timeline adds accessible anthropological context to each aspect of humanity discussed.

A triumph. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Star

Kirkus Star

The Moon Moved In

The History of We

Soltis, Sue | Illus. by Sonia Sánchez Chronicle Books (52 pp.) | $11.99 July 1, 2025 | 9781452180717

Smith, Nikkolas | Kokila (40 pp.) $18.99 | May 20, 2025 | 9780593619681

A lyrical meditation on the chronology of humanity’s shared beginnings.

“What does ‘the beginning’ look like?” It unfolds here as both poetry and revelation, an invitation to recognize the connection between past and present. Rather than presenting history as something distant or hidden, Smith emphasizes that our origins—our art, our inventions, our knowledge of how to cultivate land, our propensity for exploration, and more—are plainly visible in the earliest marks we left upon the African continent and, eventually, the rest of our planet. In his author’s note, Smith states that he wrote the work as a counternarrative to textbooks that omitted mention of early African civilizations. Depicting Black adults and children creating, building, and thriving, his illustrations close with a diverse group of people standing proudly—a powerful demonstration of how “one group became many… / became the first global population… / Became We.” His light but layered verse resists oversimplifying; he trusts readers to find themselves among our

Yearning for a playmate to move into the empty house next door, Stella doesn’t miss a beat when the Moon takes up residence.

The youngster ventures into the adjacent yard, greeting the celestial being, whose color (blue or white) and shape (spherical or crescent) vary with the setting. Stella’s sensitive approach encourages the orb to admit to feelings of loneliness and boredom in the sky; the Moon also longs to plant things. When Stella points out that the Moon has a neighbor now, the Moon beams. The beautifully paced narrative contains the specificity, restraint, and humor that make for a truly great picture-­ book read. Textured digital compositions create changing moods as they move from starlit, inky night scenes to progressively more colorful, cheerful images of the Moon’s burgeoning garden. Black endpapers foreground classical topographical views of the moon, along with facts that underscore the unfolding plot.

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been canceled. The Moon is unperturbed, but as the orb’s role in nature becomes clearer, the Moon relents and returns home. A girl Stella’s age eventually moves in, and friendship blossoms, even as there are subtle, welcomed signals of the Moon’s nearness. Stella is tan-skinned and dark-haired; her new friend is pale-skinned and red-haired.

A lovely foray into a world of mystery and beauty, longing and delight.

(Picture book. 4-7)

The Treasure Hunt: True Stories of Treasures Lost, Stolen, and Found Stewart-Sharpe, Leisa | Illus. by Gordy Wright | Charlesbridge (64 pp.) | $18.99 June 10, 2025 | 9781623546298

Searching for treasure exhumes much more than pieces of eight.

Brown-skinned Saksham and Zuri and an unnamed pale-skinned child referred to as “you” (a stand-in for readers) undertake a round-theworld journey, always just one step behind the ghost of the infamous pirate Captain Kidd, who’s apparently trying to purloin treasures “as revenge for the riches he lost all those years ago.” Their pursuit depends on the many convenient clues that Kidd has left for readers, providing motivation for aspiring map readers, code crackers, puzzle solvers, and inscription decipherers. Along the way, the children discover stories of both found and still-missing lost loot, including the Mona Lisa, the Viking

ship Gokstad, India’s Sree Padman­ abhaswamy Temple, and China’s Terracotta Army. The quest takes the indefatigable trio across the globe, digging up a fair amount of history on the way. Interspersing comics panels with captioned vignettes and full-page illustrations, Wright’s brightly detailed and watercolorlike images evoke the far-flung destinations. Despite some editorial lapses, this engaging and information-­packed U.K. import offers plenty of visual excitement, including changes of perspective, time period, and composition. The protagonists unearth facts related to geography, history, paleontology, archeology, and cryptic communication during their journey. The revelation at the end might be somewhat of a letdown, but no treasures were harmed during this protracted hunt.

Interactive fun that demonstrates that knowledge is the most rewarding treasure of all. (code-breaking explanations; world map; introduction to orienteering, metal-detecting, and geocaching) (Nonfiction/activity book. 7-10)

Unico: Hunted Dev. by Osamu Tezuka | By Samuel Sattin Illus. by Gurihiru | Graphix/Scholastic (224 pp.) | $24.99 | $12.99 paper July 1, 2025 | 9781546110477 9781546110460 paper | Series: Unico, 2

In this second entry in a series based on the work of legendary Japanese cartoonist and animator Tezuka, the tiny unicorn finds himself in a grim city where a little girl and her grandfather are the last

Demonstrates that knowledge is the most rewarding treasure of all.

THE TREASURE HUNT

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

remaining humans.

A monstrous polluting factory dominates the town, and armed drones patrol the streets. Unico has no memory of how he arrived, but he recognizes the word unicorn and understands that he can wield some special powers. He meets Chiko, a pale, blue-eyed child, who’s deathly ill. The controlling robot known as Mother reveals her origins and true purpose—now distorted—to Unico, who, with the aid of Garapachi, a papa mouse with a family to feed, hopes to help Chiko escape Mother’s clutches. Unico has to defend his faith in humans when he endeavors to gain the help of the fey, a community of magical beings who have been driven underground by Mother. Meanwhile, the evil goddess Venus covets Unico’s horn for her own purposes and summons Iver, a reptilian interstellar hunter from the “deathly garden,” where she’s stored beings who might be useful to her. She sets Iver free to seek Unico across space and time and “make him and those around him suffer.” The storyline is highly energetic, and the bright, dynamic frames and varied layouts will sustain readers’ interest. The characters and intriguing settings are nicely detailed, and the rich colors and effective use of light and dark contribute to the atmosphere.

Captivating storytelling. (Manga. 9-13)

Lone Wolf on Vacation Thomas, Kiah | Illus. by K-Fai Steele Neal Porter/Holiday House (48 pp.) $16.99 | May 27, 2025 | 9780823457793 Series: Lone Wolf

The latest in this early reader series finds the lupine misanthrope planning a trip.

Wolf boards a bus in the middle of the night so as not to encounter anyone.

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An energetic escapade with a sprinkling of boarding school drama.

Sidebars with tests and experiments invite readers to try their hand at some of the science.

Lighthearted and truly mind-bending. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)

W I L D C AT S

Wildcats boy in the back eagerly chimes in.

Once at the hotel, Wolf ignores the irritatingly cheery receptionist and endures an agonizingly long elevator ride with a chipper girl before finding his room—and discovering that someone’s already in his bed!

What to do? Wolf decides to nap by the pool until a bossy youngster disturbs his repose, urging him to take a swim. Wolf ’s exhausted.

Maybe a hike through the mountains will revive him. Uh-oh. Wolf spots the jolly hiker, an acquaintance who somehow always seems to cross paths with him. Figuring out a way to distract the hiker, Wolf sneaks past him…and just keeps going, rolling suitcase in tow. He avoids the bus filled with singing passengers and walks all the way home, where a truly glorious staycation is about to unfold. The ever-apprehensive Wolf sports red-accented tennis shoes and his usual vexed expression; his protruding eyeballs register his stress. The color-washed settings are sometimes night-dim but sometimes sunny.

Just as Wolf—mostly—maintains his sangfroid, the wryly funny text never loses its understated calm, with its quick, brief sentences describing our hero’s travails as he skirts disaster. Human characters are diverse.

Readers riding waves of amusement will howl for more. (Early reader. 6-9)

For more in the Lone Wolf series, visit Kirkus online.

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Inside Your Brain: Ten Discoveries That Reveal How the Brain Works Unwin, Lucy Ann & Caswell Barry Illus. by María Jesús Contreras Thames & Hudson (96 pp.) | $19.95 June 10, 2025 | 9780500653807

Historical highlights in our evolving concept of what brains are and can do, from ancient Egypt on.

For readers curious about that “lumpy, oatmeal-y, very important thing you keep inside your head,” the authors present a string of astonishing, sometimes stirringly gruesome revelations. Beginning with an ancient physician’s note about how it feels to poke a living brain exposed by a massive head wound, the narrative winds past 18th-century scientist Luigi Galvani’s electrical experiments with frog legs to the case of Phineas Gage, a 19th-century railroad worker who took an iron rod through his head and suffered only personality changes. From there, Unwin and neurologist Barry explore discoveries about split and damaged brains, neurodivergence, and mapping brain functions on the way to an enlightening comparison of how AI compares to natural brains and predictions of possible future developments in mental remote control and communication. They close with a “Neuroscience Hall of Fame” profiling a gallery of racially diverse researchers, like the generic human figures that Contreras intersperses among her views of dancing lab kittens, rats, and frogs.

Velasquez, Crystal | Illus. by Eva Cabrera Andrews McMeel Publishing (192 pp.) | $12.99 paper | June 24, 2025 9781524879679 | Series: Wildcats, 1

Superpowered teen girls are entrusted with a mission to save the world.

Mina’s nervous about starting at Temple Academy, a posh boarding school that her parents attended. She worries about fitting in—and about concealing a secret. Mina, who’s Taino, found herself transforming into a puma on a recent trip to Puerto Rico. She hasn’t told anyone, but she soon becomes part of a welcoming and diverse group of friends, all of whom descend from ancient civilizations where felines were revered—and who can also transform into big cats. Shepherded by their teacher Ms. Benitez, who informs them that they’re part of a group known as the Hunters of Chaos, the girls become embroiled in an apocalypse-averting conflict with villains who also have ties to Temple Academy. A straightforward adventure with solid pacing and strong, stylish characters exuding girl power with every step, this is an accessible and fun graphic novel for less-seasoned comics consumers.

After all, it’s pretty tough to resist a crew of friendly-faced big cats splashing around in ponds, exploring a centuries-old temple, and lunging at bad guys with pointyclawed paws. Mina’s flirtations with a boy she likes, her clashes with members of a snooty clique, and her insecurities about belonging (though her parents are alumni, they K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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struggled to scrape up the money for her tuition) add further dimension.

An energetic, unpretentious escapade with a sprinkling of boarding school drama. (Graphic fantasy. 10-13)

Light: The Extraordinary Energy That Illuminates Our World Wade, Jess | Illus. by Ana Sanfelippo Candlewick (32 pp.) | $18.99 July 29, 2025 | 9781536243635

An introduction to an essential aspect of our universe.

As the accompanying illustration depicts a dark but starry sky, Wade emphasizes the omnipresence of light and considers its sources, uses, and forms, as well as ways humans harness it for their own needs. A glance at shadows naturally follows, along with an invitation for readers to look at their own shadows at different times of day and to observe light reflected, scattered, and dispersed into a rainbow. After discussing colors and the electromagnetic spectrum, the author considers solar panels and then journeys back out to space, bringing the narrative full circle. Logical organization and clear, simple writing provide welcome, well-placed explanations.

As in Wade’s previous book, Nano, illustrated by Melissa Castrillón (2021), this one maintains a sense of wonder at the phenomenon it is describing while conveying a great deal of accurate and appropriately detailed information. Sanfelippo’s bright line and soft color illustrations use fanciful forms and varied perspectives to convey complex ideas.

Though cartoonish, they deploy romantic motifs like curves, florals, and atmospheric elements. On almost every page, a round-headed, light-skinned child with skin the white of the page experiences the various aspects of light. A scruffy K IR KU S R E V IE W S

pooch adds humor on most spreads, while a marmalade cat also pops up here and there. Science is artistic and enthralling here.

The optics are optimal in this primer on a basic scientific phenomenon. (extra information on light) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

How To Catch an Invisible Bad Guy

the bad guy returns to his movie.

Just another day of chasing. The rhymes are often awkward, and the premise is a bit confusing—why exactly does the children’s net have the power of invisibility? Still, series devotees likely won’t question this plot point; they’ll enjoy the upbeat verse, the energetic digital illustrations, and the carnival setting.

Characters are diverse.

High-spirited fun. (Picture book. 5-8)

Walstead, Alice | Illus. by Andy Elkerton Sourcebooks Wonderland (40 pp.) $12.99 | March 11, 2025 | 9781728293066 Series: How To Catch…

The Wide, Wide Sea

Catch adventure while you can.

A group of kids, who have attempted to corral everything from the Tooth Fairy to Santa Claus in previous series installments, are watching a feature called The Invisible Bad Guy at a carnival. Suddenly, the titular villain tumbles from the screen and nabs the kids’ net. He’s convinced that with the aid of this “Supreme Catcher,” he’ll be unstoppable in his goal of world domination. He creates more mischief by using the net to make himself actually invisible before leading the kids on a merry chase. The youngsters remain in hot pursuit, keeping up the frenetic pace on the roller coaster, race cars, and other rides and amusements; even paint poured on the bad guy doesn’t slow him down one bit. But then, the kids ultimately triumph: Their quarry loses the Supreme Catcher and becomes visible again while conceding that the adventure was fun; the kids retrieve their net, and

Wilson, Anna | Illus. by Jenny Løvlie Nosy Crow (32 pp.) | $18.99 May 27, 2025 | 9798887771557

A grandmother and grandchild visit a local beach.

The child gathers “seaside treasures. Limpets, periwinkles, mussel shells, and whelks. Gifts from the sea, just for me.” Then Gran excitedly points out a seal.

Entranced, the young protagonist steps into the “wide, wide sea.”

Imagination takes over as the youngster transforms into a white seal, swimming alongside the gray marine mammal. The painterly images are filled with realistic wildlife sure to intrigue burgeoning naturalists; potentially unfamiliar birds like gannets and kittiwakes flock alongside sandpipers and seagulls, red crabs cavort on the rocks, and jellyfish stretch their tendrils as the seals make their way to the surface. Eventually, the gray seal leaves, and the child longs to see him again, but a storm rolls in.

Conditions aren’t as idyllic the

The optics are optimal in this primer on a basic scientific phenomenon.

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Hauntingly good—quirky, amusing, and deeply felt.

T O C AT C H A G H O S T

following morning. Trees have fallen, and garbage has washed up.

But as people gather to clean the beach, the child and grandmother pitch in, picking up plastic waste and other detritus, making the beach safe for all, including the seal, who has returned. Wilson’s simple, child-centered, and frequently lyrical text pairs well with Løvlie’s illustrations, which shift in color from tranquil blues to more intense colors as the storm rages. This is an excellent read-aloud to help young children understand both the issues plaguing our planet and ways to effect change. The main characters are brown-skinned; their community is diverse.

An imaginative marine romp threaded with eco-friendly messaging. (Picture book. 3-6)

To Catch a Ghost Wilson, Rachel Michelle | Orchard/ Scholastic (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 1, 2025 | 9781339031958

A child’s plan to trap a ghost runs smoothly…at first.

Sam’s just started a new school, and this week is show and tell. Nervous about making a good impression, the youngster decides to catch and bring in a ghost. Told in the second person, text comprised entirely of instructions for ghost hunting nods cheekily to hardboiled detective fiction. Donning a helmet-mounted camera, Sam scours the playground—­ aha! A ghost. Sam tries to understand the spirit’s personality and preferences in order to design the perfect trap. The two spend time 114

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together playing hide and seek, watering flowers, and sharing pizza.

Finally, Sam builds a cage and baits it with the ghost’s favorite things.

But when the lock clicks behind the forlorn-looking specter, Sam realizes that maybe trapping a friend isn’t the right thing to do after all.

Shedding a tear, Sam lets the ghost go. Show and tell is nevertheless a rousing success: The other students enjoy the story of Sam’s ghost-­ hunting adventure, complete with photographic evidence. Sam’s new friends, both human and spirit, celebrate with pizza. The interplay of tightly crafted text and emotionally expressive illustrations, remini­scent of chalk drawings, results in a book that never wastes a word yet brims with layers of personality, tenderness, and humor.

Sam has dark hair in pigtails and skin the white of the page.

Hauntingly good—quirky, amusing, and deeply felt. (Picture book. 4-8)

Junius Leak and the Spiraling Vortex of Doom Wolf, Allan | Candlewick (528 pp.) $18.99 | July 1, 2025 | 9781536217452

A lake recounts its historical connections to the family of a boy who’s been “exiled to a strange, watery land.”

“I am a lake, so let me be clear,” insists Lake Peigneur, an ancient body of water deep in Louisiana’s Mississippi Delta. But for Junius Leak, who’s nearly 13 in the summer of 1980, things are far from clear. From the lake’s perspective, the reason for the return of the latest in a

long line of Junius Leaks to his birthplace is obvious, with origins in 1820, involving pirates and the first infant Junius. While his parents attend a retreat to work on their marriage, the current Junius, who reads white, faces a surprise trip to Delcambre, Louisiana, to stay with a maternal uncle he’d never heard of.

Despite upsides, like new friends, Aunt Boudreaux (a sassy and occasionally problematic cat), and firsthand experiences with his special interest (bodies of water), the move has downsides, too, like how terrifying such bodies of water can be up close and the frustrating lack of communication around his biggest family-related questions. Although the term was coined in the mid1990s, Junius’ mom is a self-­described “highly sensitive person”; she tells her son, “June Bug…us HSPs have to stick together,” and the book includes helpful coping mechanisms.

This expansive, multilayered tale combines a pirate treasure mystery, environmental science and activism, Cajun cultural influences, and deep acceptance of and compassion for neurodivergence.

An immersive and grounded story of becoming and self-discovery. (author’s note, glossary, resources, map) (Adventure. 10-14)

Meep Zepf, Máire | Illus. by Paddy Donnelly Little Island (32 pp.) | $12.99 paper June 24, 2025 | 9781915071668

Much like the Mars rover Opportunity, Meep, an all-­ terrain robotic vehicle, is equipped for whatever comes her way.

Her job involves taking photographs of the red planet and searching for signs of alien life— tasks she enthusiastically undertakes, almost like a friendly puppy eager for praise. Scientists back on Earth are K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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thrilled with the data she collects, though disappointed that she hasn’t been able to provide evidence of extraterrestrials. Over time, Meep loses various parts, and when a sandstorm blocks the sun, rendering her solar panels useless, she must run on battery power. Meep has been so diligent that she seems almost human, and when she goes silent, it’s as though there’s been a death in the family, leaving the scientists to eulogize her through music. To their surprise, Meep contacts them again, crediting the love song they sent over the airwaves for her rejuvenation. But as the illustrations show, something else actually happened. Attentive readers of this tale, translated from Irish by the author, will realize exactly what took place during her silence and who besides the scientists has been following Meep’s every move across the planet. Meep’s earnest, appealing personality is supported effectively by the imaginative, out-of-this-world artwork, offering glimpses of the protagonist’s perspective and what’s beyond her viewpoint. As with much of life, even on Mars, there’s often more than meets the eye. The human scientists vary in skin tone.

Quirky, offbeat, and sweet.

(Picture book. 5-8)

The Magic Paintbrush: The Guardian’s Quest Zhang, Kat with Eric Darnell | Illus. by Phoebe Zhong | Crown (240 pp.) $17.99 | July 29, 2025 | 9780593179970 Series: The Magic Paintbrush, 2

Being the guardian of a paintbrush with magical powers isn’t all fun and games.

With seventh grade out for the year in Port Jefferson, New York, Chinese American Amy Li is ready to enjoy summer vacation with her best friend, Diego, and Luna, a part-tiger, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

An immersive and grounded story of self-discovery.

JUNIUS LEAK AND THE SPIRALING VORTEX OF DOOM

part-bird friend whom she brought to life with an ancient magical jade paintbrush. As the newest guardian of the paintbrush, Amy can make the things she imagines real by painting them. This power amazes Amy every time, but it’s also a big responsibility, as she finds out when she uses the paintbrush to open a portal to another world and discovers that within two weeks, she must complete the Trial that will replenish the paintbrush’s powers if she hopes to remain its guardian. Alongside Diego, Luna, and a mysterious talking cat, Amy faces beings inspired by Chinese mythology who have the power to help or hinder her.

With the paintbrush’s magic failing, she will have to rely on her friends and her own instincts to succeed.

Themes of friendship and trust permeate the story, as well as lessons on learning from your mistakes and from intuition. A heartwarming story with a healthy dose of action and danger, this worthy second series entry sees Amy striking out on her own. Final art not seen.

Magic, wonder, and the power of creation combine in this tale of trials and rewards. (Fantasy. 8-12)

First Day Around the World Zoboi, Ibi | Illus. by Juanita Londoño Versify/HarperCollins (48 pp.) | $19.99 June 3, 2025 | 9780063078888

Worldwide, children share the experience of attending their first day of school.

Mirroring the school day, this ambitious book begins at dawn, with a description of African kids eating their breakfasts

and donning fresh uniforms, before transitioning to a discussion of the many ways students travel to school.

Then it’s off to the Middle East and Asia to explore first-day rituals before journeying to Europe for lunch. As the day winds down, South and North American students head home through bustling communities to rest and reflect. Every continent is represented (even Antarctica; in one scene, kids learn about our coldest continent), with a handful of regions highlighted per page, making for a satisfyingly thorough global tour.

Though the author devotes just a few sentences to each place, the book contains enough specificity (“coffee with a pinch of salt,” greetings of “Sabah al-khair”) that children from those cultures will surely feel seen.

Zoboi’s commitment to covering so much ground could make for a challenging read-aloud; the book’s length, combined with her expressive, poetic style and sophisticated language, results in a rich but dense narrative. Londoño’s bright digital cartoon illustrations make each location feel like an exuberant travelogue. Diverse in terms of skin tone and ability, the characters wear culturally specific clothing, while Zoboi laudably acknowledges that though some children long to attend school, they must instead take part in “another day of work.”

Both monumental in scope and tightly focused, with an emotionally resonant core. (Informational picture book. 5-10)

For more by Ibi Zoboi, visit Kirkus online.

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Young Adult AS HAMLET SAYS in Something Rotten, the fourth book in Jasper Fforde’s madcap Thursday Next mystery series, “If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher.

Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction—and ultimately, without a major resolution.”

Indeed, translating themes and events that have personal meaning for you into a form that’s accessible to and engaging for strangers is tricky.

Where to begin and end?

What should you elide, omit, or emphasize for the sake of better storytelling? People notice when novels lack a ring of authenticity, but sometimes when a book “doesn’t work,” the issue isn’t a matter of knowledge or authority, but of the skill needed to shape a satisfying narrative arc. When it comes to writing as an adult for younger readers—offering the gift of hard-won perspective earned over time without lecturing or condescending— the challenge is even greater.

The following works, each intimately tied up with emotionally resonant aspects of the author’s life, succeed in translating the messiness of reality into compelling fiction.

While attending academically intense private schools, 116

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Ann Liang struggled with imposter syndrome. She channels these experiences into her latest, I Am Not Jessica Chen (Harper/HarperCollins, Jan. 28), an intriguing and insightful body-swap story in which Jenna, who attends a rigorous prep school and feels like she doesn’t measure up, finds herself inhabiting her overachieving cousin Jessica’s body.

The Fragments That Remain (DCB Young Readers, March 8) is a gut-wrenching debut

by Mackenzie Angeconeb (Anishinaabe) that follows siblings who, like the author, live with the loss of cultural identity that affects many Indigenous families. As a sister grieves the brother she lost to an overdose, reading the poems he left behind helps her heal.

Shana Youngdahl, who’s from Paradise, California, which was ravaged in the 2018 Camp Fire, sets A Catalog of Burnt Objects (Dial Books, March 18) in a fictional version of her hometown. This deeply moving novel focuses on a high school senior and the people in her orbit—ordinary folks whose lives are devastated by an extreme (yet

increasingly common) natural disaster.

The eponymous protagonist of Huda Fahmy’s heartfelt, reassuring, and often hilarious Huda F Wants To Know? (Dial Books, April 1) is an overscheduled high school junior who’s struggling with her mental health. She has a distracting crush on a cute boy, a poor grade in AP Calculus, and parents who have suddenly announced they’re divorcing, upending the family order.

Debut author Briana Johnson, who was adopted and raised by her grandfather, explores intrafamily adoption in If I Could Go Back (Peachtree Teen, May 6). This nuanced story digs into complex themes such as family secrets, conflicted feelings, and loyalty to loved ones vs. curiosity about one’s origins. Aaliyah uncovers long-buried family issues and grapples with panic disorder.

Former football player Victoria Zeller is the transgender author of One of the Boys (Levine Querido, May 13).

Her entertaining and empowering debut centers on Grace, who came out as trans and quit football. But now her team needs their star kicker if they want to win state—and while she still loves the game, Grace’s return exposes exclusionary attitudes.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

WRITING WHAT YOU KNOW

LAURA SIMEON

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.

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EDITOR’S PICK In his latest, Van Camp, a member of the Dogrib (Tłįchǫ) Dene Nation, weaves ’80s pop culture references and super­ natural elements into a page-­t urning thriller that follows a teen who confronts a terrifying threat to his community.

Fort Simmer in Canada’s Northwest Territories is home to many different Indigenous groups.

Lawson Sauren, whose family is Dogrib, has Chipewyan neighbors, the Cranes family. Their “ancestors used to be warring tribes,” but in the early 19th century, the two groups forged a peace treaty that still holds in 1986. As a Yabati, or

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

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protector, Lawson is charged with maintaining the peace treaty. But the town bully, Silver Cranes, keeps provoking and mocking him, trying to get him to lash out with violence. Due to Silver’s silver-colored hair, people believe he’s a reincarnated shaman or prophet with exceptional abilities. And in fact his brother Cody, who’s gay, a target of Silver’s homophobia, and friends with Lawson, says that Silver can read minds.

When Silver resurrects a demon called the Dead One, Lawson—with help from his friend Isaiah Valentine, who’s Cree, and crush, Shari Burns, who’s Métis—must step up.

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Sunrise on the Reaping

By Suzanne Collins

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Then There Was One

By Wendy Cross

Beast Van Camp, Richard | Douglas & McIntyre | 320 pp. $14.95 paper | June 3, 2025 | 9781771624145

Lawson is a realistic, awkward, strongly characterized teen hero dealing with growing pains.

This engaging story focuses on the importance of relationships and how actions affect others, for example through the

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Sea Change

By Susan Fletcher

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ripples created by Lawson’s mother’s death.

Delicately balances a gripping storyline with well-rendered cultural elements and accessible writing. (QR code for playlist) (Supernatural thriller. 13-18)

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Beast

By Richard Van Camp

Snowglobe 2

By Soyoung Park; trans. by Joungmin Lee Comfort

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Sensory-rich descriptions bring India’s streets to life.

LOVE CR AVES CARDAMOM

An engaging and inclusive exploration of identity and belonging. (letters from the editors, contributor bios) (Anthology. 13-18)

Metaphors: Understanding Philosophy Through Images

Love, Misha

Home Has No Borders

Aden, Jam | First Second (320 pp.) $25.99 | $17.99 paper | June 10, 2025 9781250866226 | 9781250866219 paper

Ed. by Ahmed, Samira & Sona Charaipotra Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $19.99 | May 13, 2025 | 9780063208315

Alcalde, Pedro & Merlín Alcalde Illus. by Guim Tió | Trans. by José Enrique Macián | Prestel Junior (68 pp.) | $24.99 March 11, 2025 | 9783791375908

During a road trip, a mother and teen stumble into the Realm of Spirits.

Misha, who presents nonbinary and white, lives with their aunt Maggie. Their mom, Audrey, hasn’t been around much, and when she is present, she’s often misgendering them or acting disappointed that they aren’t a girl. Aunt Maggie asks Misha to write Audrey a letter expressing the feelings they can’t verbalize and go on a trip with her so they can connect. While searching for a haunted castle, Misha and Audrey end up lost in the woods. They eventually find a seemingly abandoned town that at night suddenly fills with spirits. Odun, a tricky humanoid wolf spirit with brown skin and white hair, informs them that most spirits eat humans; with few choices, they decide to accept his invitation to travel together.

Misha and Audrey have differing opinions about how to find their way back to the Material Realm, and their fights are exacerbated by their emotional baggage.

The story’s resolution is realistically messy, with a cathartic breaking point leading to Audrey’s conscious decision to try to be a better parent. While these delightfully flawed characters have a compelling arc, the worldbuilding and Odun’s story both could use a bit more oomph. The Realm of Spirits and some of its creatures are reminiscent of Studio Ghibli films, a feeling that is amplified by the earth-toned illustrations.

This anthology centering on South Asian diaspora teens in the West examines the issues that come with navigating vastly different cultures.

This well-­ curated collection features contributions from well-known names, like Rajani LaRocca and Veera Hiranandani, as well as newer voices.

Former Marine–turned–truck driver Jyoti and her brother, who’s newly enlisted in the Navy, bond over cha and chicken boona in “The Big Rig Blues”

by Navdeep Singh Dhillon, while unpacking the realities of misogyny both at home and in the U.S. military.

For Jivi in “we dine with our dead,” by Kanwalroop Kaur Singh, graffiti is an outlet for expressing her rage at the violence and erasure affecting Sikhs like herself in America. Dance helps Sri Lankan Canadian Iyla and Sithara ford the volatile Tamil-Sinhala divide in “One Island,” by Tanya Boteju. In “Love the One You’re With,” by Sheba Karim, Ali, a Muslim boy living in the American South, is closeted at home, but a job in a house of horror gives him someplace where he can be himself.

Nish, from Nikesh Shukla’s “Kick Flips in My Stomach,” finds belonging among a motley crew of mostly brown skaters in Bristol, England. In “Jahaji,”

by Rekha Kuver, Deepa, an Indo-Fijian Midwestern girl, begins to heal from the loss of her mother in the company of a fellow immigrant. The broad representation of life experiences is a strength of this appealing work.

In this work translated from Spanish, images highlight metaphors used by philosophers from antiquity to modern times to clarify the nature of reality and the search for knowledge.

The authors’ pithy observations construct a history of philosophical ideas filtered through concrete metaphors employed by 24 philosophers, whose profiles appear in chronological order, each accompanied by an icon that encapsulates the central concept, such as a keyhole for Søren Kierkegaard’s section entitled “Secret.”

Beginning with Heraclitus, who noted that “no one ever steps in the same river twice,” and going on to Plato’s cave, Karl Marx’s “opium of the people,” and Hannah Arendt’s vision of the broad desert separating us from others, the authors largely focus on philosophers of European origin or descent. One notable exception is Laozi, who “originally referred to the shady (yin) and the sunny (yang) sides of a mountain or the banks of a river.”

The entries for Edward Said and Judith Butler offer perspective-broadening nods to, respectively, postcolonial thought and feminist theory. The book closes with Zygmunt Bauman’s daring assertion that “liquidity of life and that of society feed and reinvigorate each other.” Each entry, consisting of a single page of text, is accompanied by one of Tió’s striking, full-page illustrations in saturated colors showing tiny, usually solitary, figures confronting immense rugged

An extended mother-child therapy session, with magic. (author’s note, process notes and sketches) (Graphic fantasy. 12-18) 118

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landscapes or vast expanses of wilderness. This work is dense and complex enough to challenge college-bound and college-level deep thinkers.

Approaches big questions from an unusual and enlightening angle. (timeline) (Nonfiction. 16-adult)

make this a standout. Some side characters, including Archi’s roommate, fellow exchange student Mohini, are queer.

A compelling stand-alone debut blending adventure, romance, and self-discovery. (Romance. 12-18)

Love Craves Cardamom

The Tournament

Avachat, Aashna | Joy Revolution (320 pp.) | $12.99 paper | May 20, 2025 9780593571583 | Series: Love in Translation, 2

Barrow, Rebecca | McElderry (416 pp.) $21.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9781665932301

This charming coming-of-age story set against the vibrant backdrop of Jaipur, in the Indian state of Rajasthan, follows a teen who’s juggling personal ambition and a distracting new love interest.

Archana Dhawan, an Indian American high school senior, has one goal for her semester abroad: focus on her prestigious internship at the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum and avoid boys. But on the train from Delhi to Jaipur, she meets a devastatingly handsome stranger named Shiv, and her plans start to unravel. When she runs into him again, she learns that he’s a gardener on the grounds of the palace where the museum is located. As sparks fly, Archi feels torn between her growing attraction to Shiv and her determination to put herself first; she’s still recovering from a relationship with an ex-boyfriend in which she compromised herself. Their chemistry deepens as Shiv introduces her to Jaipur’s highlights, but when Archi discovers he’s been keeping a secret, she must decide whether to forgive him—and whether their relationship offers something real. The novel’s sensory-rich descriptions bring India’s streets, landmarks, and cuisine to life while exploring themes of heritage, identity, and the lingering impact of colonialism. The combination of popular genre tropes and a strong examination of belonging, cultural duality, and the weight of history K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Gardner-Bahnsen School for Girls “prides itself on being different”— and that goes for both the students they admit and what they’re taught.

Unlike other elite boarding schools, Gardner’s curriculum incorporates survival skills such as archery, hunting, and butchering game. These lessons culminate in the annual Tierney Cup tournament, in which seven seniors compete for the coveted trophy through a series of wilderness tests. Wren “Max” Maxwell, a Black scholarship student with a troubled family background, dreams of winning the cup and proving herself in her new social circle. The competition is complicated by the presence of Nora McQueen, Max’s former best friend, a biracial (Black and white) girl whose confession of romantic feelings fractured their bond. Also competing is Theodora “Teddy” Swanson, a newly arrived Black girl with a checkered past. Tensions rise when Teddy begins dating Nora, intentionally provoking Max. As the contest unfolds, a hurtful secret comes to light with dangerous consequences.

The story is told from the three girls’ revolving points of view. Teddy reveals that she feels a “black hole” within her that’s only satisfied by feeding off the chaos she creates; despite this explanation, her obsession with Max seems forced. The narrative invites readers to question the unhealthy dynamics among the girls at the school, who frequently belittle one another. The buildup to the denouement is long, but readers will be

treated to a shocking ending. There’s racial diversity in the supporting cast.

A slow buildup pays off with an explosive ending. (Thriller. 14-18)

The Nothing Club Beveridge, Cathy | Ronsdale Press (196 pp.) $19.95 paper | May 5, 2025 | 9781553807285

Four Canadian teenagers meet by chance at their mandatory community service assignment and form the Nothing Club.

When cops show up at 15-year-old Grady’s house asking about the wildfire resulting from fireworks the night before, he immediately confesses. His own father died fighting a fire—a tragedy that Grady feels guilt around, due to regrets about the last words he said to his father on that terrible day five years earlier.

Grady, who presents white, is assigned to community service where he meets maintenance man Reg, his down-toearth supervisor, who encourages the teens to meditate. Biracial (Cambodian and implied white) Tattoo Girl “wears attitude,” lived on the streets, and is trapped in an unhealthy relationship.

Animal-loving Free Throw, who has “bronze skin,” takes care of his eight siblings and is dedicated to his Catholic faith. Science-minded Nikki, who’s coded white, is only 14 and already attending university; she feels immense pressure from her scientist parents. The teens bring their different backgrounds to the table as they work on their service projects, often engaging in discussions around spirituality and interconnectedness. The conversational topics at times feel forced, pushing the novel toward didacticism. Still, as the characters face increasingly dire situations during their summer together, they surprise themselves with how much they’ve learned about friendship, self-­ acceptance, and forgiveness.

A focus on spirituality freshens this tale of a group of misfits who develop unlikely friendships. (Fiction. 13-18) MAY 1, 2025

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This Side of Falling Chan, Eunice | Soho Teen (272 pp.) $19.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9781641295178

A Chinese American teen’s regimented life disintegrates after a friend dies by suicide.

Nina Yeung grew up in Davis, California, under the weight of her strict parents’ expectations and in the shadow of her high-achieving older sister, Carmen. Her friendship with white-­ presenting classmate Ethan Travvers began at the start of their senior year, when she requested his help designing a shirt for the school orchestra. Their bond was as unexpected as it was exciting: Ethan was handsome and artistic, and their friendship flirted with the possibility of something more—until Ethan pulled away. His sudden death over winter break devastates Nina, who loses her focus on everything except making sense of the loss. Her structured world is further shattered when a nearly unrecognizable Carmen comes home from college. Nina isn’t sure how to approach this unkempt, erratically behaving version of her sister, but she knows something must be wrong. Debut author Chan explores mental health, substance abuse, and overwhelming familial pressure as she addresses the importance of paying attention to signs of a teen in crisis. The plot moves quickly, and Nina’s emotionally driven narration effectively and realistically captures the experience of being frozen in grief while the world moves on. However, the narrative can feel unrelentingly taxing as it repeatedly visits Nina’s feelings of resentment and frustration. Readers who persevere will

find a grounded resolution that portrays the start of the healing process.

A necessarily grim story that concludes with hope. (content warning, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)

Cruel Is the Light Clark, Sophie | Knopf (496 pp.) $19.99 | May 20, 2025 | 9780593810729

In the long-standing war between humans and demons, a soldier and an exorcist come together— with unexpected consequences.

Seventeen-­yearold Selene Alleva, a captain and Exorcist Second Class known as “the Butcher of Rome,” is a powerful destroyer of demons. Cesare Alleva, Selene’s exorcist uncle and the Imperium Bellum commanding the Vatican’s military, sends her on a mission to investigate the destruction of a village near Nice, believed to be the work of a high-level demon. Selene is horrified to discover that the responsible party is Baliel, the “first and greatest” among the demons of his level. Nineteen-year-old French soldier Jules Lacroix has been battling demons in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, for four years. A formidable foe, Jules tracks his kills by cutting his forearms, leaving rows of scars. But following an attack by a demon horde, Jules has an unsettling encounter with their leader, half-demon Anastasia Alexandrova Romanov, tsarina of the Caspian Federation; he flees, becoming a deserter. Selene and Jules cross paths, initially clashing with and irritating one another but eventually agreeing to work together to achieve their personal goals.

Readers will be fully immersed in the novel’s lush, vividly rendered world.

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Clark’s gritty, intricately developed world may seem bleak yet love and determination shine through. The evolving relationship between Selene and Jules is enticing, combining barbed exchanges with angst, before their emotional and physical surrender. The somewhat open-ended conclusion sets up for the next entry in this duology. Most characters are cued white.

Surreal and beautiful. (content note, map, hierarchy of the Holy Vatican Empire, Vatican Academy handbook excerpt, dramatis personae) (Fantasy. 14-18)

Kirkus Star

Sunrise on the Reaping Collins, Suzanne | Scholastic (400 pp.) $27.99 | March 18, 2025 | 9781546171461 Series: The Hunger Games, 5

The Hunger Games twist, destroy, and galvanize another wave of young people in this entry set 24 years before the series opener.

Haymitch Abernathy is turning 16, and he’d love nothing more than to spend his birthday with his girlfriend, Lenore Dove. Unfortunately, it’s also the reaping day of the Fiftieth Hunger Games and the second Quarter Quell, meaning twice as many tributes will be chosen from each District for the lethal contest. Being torn from everything familiar all at once is only the beginning of Haymitch’s tortures: Death and manipulation follow him every step of the way into the Capitol’s media circus and through the famed games. Slivers of hope exist—alliances among players, whispers of sabotage—though violence, misery, and encounters with mutated creatures frequently comprise the spoils.

This book contains enough lore to stand alone, but returning fans will weave the thoughtfully placed callbacks and returning characters into their understanding of this world’s tragic chain of events. By this point, the game masters K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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and audience within Panem have developed a sophisticated understanding of the Hunger Games, and Collins combines many of the best qualities of the series into one book, balancing layers of personal insights, worldbuilding, and danger to form an inescapable whirlwind of suspense and conflict. She makes frequent use of music and poetry, underscoring the enduring power of generational messages. Characters largely present white.

A heartbreaking crescendo and another grimly irresistible chapter in the saga of this interlocking series.

(Dystopian. 13-adult)

Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day Combs, Alex L. & Andrew Eakett Candlewick (384 pp.) | $24.99 May 13, 2025 | 9781536219234

A concise overview of transgender history presented in graphic novel format.

Combs and Eakett begin with a preface that notes that they’re introducing historical figures who, while they may not have identified as trans, are “relevant to trans history.” Next, they cover terminology, the ancient world, Europe and colonization, sexology, trans rights in the U.S., and profiles of notable contemporary trans people. Given the broad scope, this work will serve as a solid jumping-off point for those interested in learning more. Throughout, the authors provide frameworks for interpreting information. For example, when describing ancient Rome, they caution readers that most historical accounts of Elagabalus’ possibly being trans are “unverifiable and seem exaggerated,” that “untangling fact from fiction may be impossible,” and that most reports came from someone who “had motivation to paint the former emperor negatively.” The segment closes with prompts encouraging teens to consider questions such as, “What does the story K IR KU S R E V IE W S

reveal about the point of view of whoever recorded it?” Cameos featuring a diverse array of scientists, historians, and other experts appear throughout, offering valuable insights, although at times their remarks would have benefited from being paraphrased into more accessible language (Dr. Howard Ching, an expert on eunuchs in Chinese imperial courts, is quoted on the “Western biomedical lexicon and its cognate understandings of the human body”). Nevertheless, the attractive illustrations and broadly diverse array of individual subjects and communities are real strengths.

A solid and useful introduction to a vast topic. (source notes, index) (Graphic nonfiction. 14-18)

The Summer I Remembered Everything Con Morse, Catherine | Crown (304 pp.) $19.99 | April 29, 2025 | 9780593711422

South Carolina teen Emily Chen-­Sanchez isn’t enjoying her summer.

Her best friend, Heather, is partying in London (while supposedly on a “study abroad/mission trip”), her friend Matt made things awkward by kissing her while drunk and then dating someone else, and her parents have grounded her over a bad grade. To avoid being stuck at home with her parents and irritatingly perfect older sister, artistic 16-year-old Emily responds to an ad seeking a companion for a woman who’s “nearing ripe old age—but not quite ripe yet.” Leila Granucci is sweet and energetic, but she requires assistance due to her weakening memory. On the weekends, Emily does chores with the help of Mrs. G’s “smoking hot” great-nephew, Ezra. When she’s with the two of them, Emily finds a sense of acceptance that she doesn’t feel at home, where it seems there’s always something for her parents or sister to criticize. As the days go by, she has to contend with

stressful news at home as well as troubling signs of Mrs. G’s increasing dementia. Emily’s frank, conversational tone draws readers in as she reflects on her complicated feelings toward her friends, family, and Mrs. G, whose insistence on keeping her condition a secret puts Emily in a difficult position.

Emily’s multicultural family—her dad is from Panama and her mom is from Taiwan—lives in a predominantly white town; explorations of race and culture are naturally woven into the narrative.

A gentle, emotionally astute comingof-age story. (Fiction. 13-18)

His Face Is the Sun Corpora, Michelle Jabès | Sourcebooks Fire (528 pp.) | $18.99 | May 6, 2025 9781464224584 | Series: Throne of Khetara, 1

Four lives converge in a kingdom reminiscent of ancient Egypt that’s full of magic and political intrigue.

The kingdom of Khetara stands on the brink of destruction, weakened by poverty and led by an ill, rapidly declining king. Seventeen-year-old Princess Sitamun, the only girl among triplets, dreams of love and luxury, until she discovers something treacherous at the heart of the kingdom. Nefermaat, who’s an only child, is chosen by the goddess Bast to become a priestess; she must leave distraught parents and everything she’s ever known behind to study under the tutelage of the high priest. Raetawy, enraged by the kingdom’s profound injustices, joins a rebellion to fight back after a shocking act of violence. Meanwhile, Karim, a tomb robber from a desert tribe, unwittingly unleashes an ancient and malevolent force from the grave of a dead king. As each of them follows the path fate has set, their lives become inextricably bound together by a prophecy that will determine the ultimate destiny of Khetara. Told from the perspectives of all four main characters, the story unfolds at a MAY 1, 2025

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A love of words meets a passion for dance in this charming romance.

measured pace before gaining momentum and racing forward with gripping intensity. Each protagonist is richly developed, and the high stakes of their journeys are unflinchingly depicted.

Readers will be fully immersed in the novel’s lush, vividly rendered world.

An engrossing political fantasy with myriad twists and turns. (series guide) (Fantasy. 14-18)

Kirkus Star

Then There Was One Cross, Wendy | Puffin/Penguin Random House UK (304 pp.) | $17.99 paper May 20, 2025 | 9780241641576

A reality TV competition held on an island located on a mystery planet turns deadly.

Bexley Ryker, Zane Wilder, and Raya Quinn each receive invitations to participate in The Pinnacle, a show involving teamwork, “physical and mental challenges,” and trying to avoid being voted off. For this special 250th season, the 10 contestants will be between ages 16 and 18, and the winner will get both a large sum of money and a full university scholarship. Bex, a wealthy girl from the planet Rikas, wants a fresh start. Zane, whose late father was a prominent politician, needs the money to help his mother. Raya hates her impoverished life on The Moons, where the Gentry control the miners. After everyone arrives on the island, an anonymous provocateur dredges up the skeletons in each of their closets. Allusions to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None abound as the contestants are pitted against one other until they’re unable to distinguish friend from enemy. The chapters rotate among Bex’s, Zane’s and Raya’s first-person points of view, and their limited perspectives boost the impact of the suspenseful revelations. The novel’s unpredictable, action-packed storyline keeps readers guessing until the very 122

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end while also challenging the injustices inherent in classist systems. The three leads are cued white, and names suggest some diversity in the supporting cast.

A wild ride of a debut featuring mystery, murder, and mayhem that will keep readers riveted. (Science-­ fiction thriller. 12-18)

Top Heavy DeChambeau, Rhonda | Holiday House (352 pp.) | $19.99 June 10, 2025 | 9780823458134

DeChambeau’s debut centers on 15-year-old dancer Esme as she wrestles with the unwanted attention and physical obstacles that come with having large breasts.

After Esme and her best friend, Mia, achieve their dream of making the Elite team, the highest level at their dance studio, everything should be perfect.

But the girls soon realize being the youngest on the squad of 12 comes with isolation from the older dancers, most of them seniors, who make them feel like they don’t belong. Esme also faces bullying about her body, and the cutting remarks negatively affect her performance. Besides being unsure about how to feel about her breasts, Esme must manage her fears surrounding the accident her dad, an exterminator, suffered, leaving him unemployed and in need of surgery they can’t afford.

When Mia suddenly starts to pull away, Esme wonders if anything will ever feel normal again. The verse, which includes concrete poetry, moves across each page like a dance, using the space to stretch,

“soaring” as Esme does, “energy pulsing / adrenaline pouring— / … / the music roaring.” Through it all, Esme receives lots of support, including from dynamic Grammy Jean, who empowers her to trust and love herself regardless of what others think. Esme is implied to be white, and Mia, who’s middle class and attends private school, is biracial (cued Black and white).

A thoughtful look at body positivity and the mixed messages girls are forced to reckon with. (Verse fiction. 12-18)

Nordlys Falch, Malin | Trans. by Olivia Lasky Inklore/Random House (320 pp.) $18.00 paper | May 13, 2025 9780593726914 | Series: Nordlys, 1

Reimagining Peter Pan through a Scandinavian lens, this translated series opener from Norway sends 14-year-old Sonja through a magic portal for encounters with trolls, talking animals, witches, and a Viking earl with a prosthetic hand in the form of a silver hook.

The night after Sonja’s confirmation, a source of unhappiness for the free-­ spirited, outdoorsy girl, who doesn’t want to settle down, the northern lights dance across the sky above her village. She awakens and encounters Espen, an oddly familiar boy with pointed ears and a tail whom she recognizes from her beloved peripatetic uncle’s drawings. Espen tells her that he’s from another place, somewhere the trolls and Vikings Uncle Henrik draws really exist, and Sonja flies K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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away with him through a portal. But when Uncle Henrik shows up to rescue her, he’s immediately captured and thrown into a dungeon by hostile trolls.

The art includes strongly atmospheric forest landscapes and magical characters ranging from magnificently frightening monsters to enigmatic figures in eerie masks. The dialogue has a colloquial flavor with flashes of mischief: Espen is “kind of like a mother,” says one troll.

“More like a weird uncle,” says another.

The open ending will leave readers anticipating the next volume. Most human and humanoid characters present white; in place of Barrie’s original Native Americans, this world includes a girl who is cued as Sámi.

A spin on a familiar classic that gets off to a strong start. (author’s note, sketches) (Graphic fantasy. 12-16)

Kirkus Star

Sea Change Fletcher, Susan | Amulet/Abrams (352 pp.) $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781419773921

What happens when well-­ intentioned parents genetically modify their children?

On Spoonbill Island, Texas, which is flooding due to climate change, 15-year-old Turtle lives with her pod of Mer on the ship Mermaid. Mer children were an experiment in genetic modification; the aim was to give them more lung capacity but instead they were born with gills as well as lungs. Shunned

by Normals, the 97 Mer children were taken by the government and brought up together on the Mermaid. When the chance arises to have an operation to remove their gills, Turtle takes it, in part because she’s in love with a Normal boy, Kai, whom she saved from drowning while they were scavenging items from houses that are now underwater. She also dreams of being with her family—and maybe even traveling the world someday.

In this riff on “The Little Mermaid,” K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Turtle, who reads white, moves in with her pregnant sister, Grace, and brotherin-law, Rav Mehta. But life without the Mer is lonely and confusing, especially when she begins to doubt Kai’s commitment. Meanwhile, dangerous anti-Mer agitation is on the rise; Turtle, who knows both worlds, could help. Focusing on tribalism, othering, and the moral ambiguities of genetic modification, this disturbing, even-handed, and skillfully executed story presents a grim view of human carelessness when it comes to both the environment and biology.

Engrossing, disturbing, and thoughtfully written. (author’s note) (Science fiction. 12-16)

Among Ghosts Hartman, Rachel | Random House (400 pp.) $20.99 | June 24, 2025 | 9780593813720

The town of St. Muckle’s is a “peasants’ paradise”: Anyone who stays for a year and a day gains freedom from serfdom.

Six-year-old Charl’s father, an earl, torments his family and slaughters pagans. Escaping from his cruelty, Charl and his mother, Eileen, flee to St. Muckle’s with two companions, Sister Agnes and ex-knight Aris, who help raise Charl. Seven years later, Eileen, who’s working as an innkeeper, has earned the townspeople’s respect. But the family’s peace is shattered when an infiltrator spreads a deadly beetle-borne plague, and suspicion falls on Eileen. As illness grips the town, disaster strikes again—a dragon attacks St. Muckle’s, separating Charl from his mother. Forced to flee, he takes shelter in a ruined abbey with a suspicious nun, only to find it haunted by ghostly girls and the spirit of a murderous bishop. To reunite with his mother and escape his father’s grasp, Charl will need help from both the living and the dead.

Charl is a thoughtful, kindhearted protagonist who struggles against the limitations placed on him for his own safety. The setting and backstory are

richly developed, and though the novel is set in the world of Hartman’s Seraphina series, no knowledge of those works is needed. However, the narrative transition from St. Muckle’s to the abbey feels disjointed, and the rushed ending leaves some character arcs unresolved. Most major characters present white; Aris has brown skin.

Despite pacing issues, rich worldbuilding and an appealing found-family theme make for a compelling read. (Fantasy. 12-18)

You Started It Khalilieh, Jackie | Tundra Books (336 pp.) $19.99 | May 20, 2025 | 9781774884751

A painful breakup and revenge plot lead to unexpected love.

Boy dumps girl.

Girl strikes a bargain with boy’s new neighbor (after she totals his bike).

They’ll fake date, making her ex-boyfriend jealous. The new boy will tell his parents he’s with “a nice Arab girl,” while he’s actually filming the TikTok dance videos they’re not keen on. Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster, a Canadian girl who’s white and Palestinian, deals with anxiety disorder and a litany of problems that stem from her parents’ divorce by making plans, setting goals, and keeping lists. She’s also fond of rattling off homographs. Lebanese Canadian Alexander “Axel” Dahini is spontaneous and has an online following—very much not Jamie’s usual type. As Jamie and Axel hang out, they find ways to help each other become more comfortable with just being themselves. The enjoyable romance novel beats—meet-cutes, tiffs, and misunder­standings—are accompanied by fun social media content. Khalilieh explores heavier topics, including mental health and racism, in a deft manner that avoids heavy-handedness. Packed with intense moments, emotional drama, and lots of loving (and fraught) family moments, the book ultimately celebrates kindness and love. There’s also a celebration of Palestinian heritage and a >>> MAY 1, 2025

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THE KIRKUS Q&A: CANDACE FLEMING In her book about the 1978 Jonestown massacre, Fleming re-examines history and illuminates its lessons.

CANDACE FLEMING is a widely beloved, award-winning author known for her captivating storytelling and meticulous research. Her latest book, Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown (Anne Schwartz/Random, April 29), is a riveting, profoundly insightful, and nuanced account of Jim Jones, his Peoples Temple, and the deaths of nearly 1,000 of his followers in Guyana in 1978. Fleming spoke with us over Zoom from her Chicago-area home; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Your picture books, like Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, were storytime staples when I was a school librarian, and your middle-­ grade and YA fiction and nonfiction are so popular with kids too. Do you have a favorite category?

The work I love most is young adult nonfiction. It’s unbelievably important.

Teenagers have all the facts to hand, but facts don’t have context. I feel like that’s my job: Let me guide you through these complicated, contradictory events. Let me show you a story from history that connects to you. But, oh, it’s absolutely exhausting!

So, every once in a while, I say to myself, Let’s do [a children’s book]—I need it.

The year I won the Boston 124

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Globe–Horn Book Non­ fiction Award for The Family Romanov, I went to an event and was asked, “What’s your follow-up?”

And I had to say, “Bull­ dozer’s Big Day”!

Why Jonestown?

I was in high school in 1978, and I remember watching [the news] with horror and awe. It was presented by the press as a titillating true-crime event. I remember seeing aerial photographs of all the dead people. There was a picture of Jim Jones looking sweaty, wearing sunglasses, obviously drug-addled. They were saying, This is the man to blame. And yet, I had questions: Who would join a cult? Who would they

follow somebody like this?

What happens to those that survive? (I detest the word cult, I prefer destruc­ tive group—but language is needed, right?)

Those questions never faded, and current events have made [them] even harder for me to ignore.

Even though we all say I would never join a cult, underneath we know that if there was a cause that we felt was really important, we would. The people I spoke to, the survivors or family of survivors, said, Nobody joined a cult. They joined a cause. If you look at Peoples Temple’s cause, it was beautiful: a multira­ cial community, a place where everyone was welcomed and taken care of. They were being led by a delusional man, [but] I don’t think that takes away from their dreams and aspirations.

I’d listened to podcasts, watched documentaries, and read books about Jonestown, but I learned so much from you. What surprised you the most as you researched?

I thought I knew the story too—I’ve listened to those podcasts, I’ve watched those documentaries, I’ve read those books—until I talked to [Jim Jones’ son] Stephan. Stephan used the term Temple think. It was hard for me to wrap my head around, but he told me this story. I think he was 14. He was sitting in the San Francisco temple during a catharsis session, which was when they brought people forward who had broken rules. He was watching this little girl, who had spoken back to an adult, being beaten. This microphone was stuck in her face, so that everyone could hear her screaming, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Eric Rohmann

BY LAURA SIMEON

Q & A // Y O U N G A D U LT

begging, crying. No one helped her. And he remembered thinking, This is wrong, isn’t it? We can’t allow this to happen.

Everyone else was sitting there, so his first thought was, I must be wrong. My faith must be missing. His second thought was, I’m afraid to say anything, because I’ll be the next person getting beaten. And the third was, My Peoples Temple family might turn on me, and I love them.

Other people told me similar stories.

Mike Cartmell, a wonderful man who managed to leave before they moved to Guyana, said, “Please make sure your readers know that we laughed.” He wanted to make sure that I didn’t portray them as a bunch of shuffling cultists. They loved each other. They danced, they dreamed, they married each other, they had children together.

They were a group of lovely people.

You astutely observed that “diversity wasn’t the same as racial justice.”

I kept thinking about the fact that 75% of the Peoples Temple’s membership was African American, and most of those were women. And then you look back at Jones’ starting a church in segre­ gated Indianapolis—and it was a Christian church to begin with—where all races were welcome, and how many African Americans found that appealing. In the 1950s, Jones was able to go to the electric company, the school board, whoever needed to be spoken to on behalf of his Black parish­ ioners, and he could use his privilege and get things done. But it was also exploitative.

I don’t want those African American mem­ bers to be seen as dupes— they weren’t. They came

with real aspirations, and many of the things that he spoke to came right out of their own cultural histories.

The idea of moving to Guyana was, in many ways, seen as self-determination, an extension of that exodus from the South to the North.

I hope readers draw parallels to the present day and see how inequality leaves people vulnerable.

It does. The Peoples Temple provided health­ care, food, a decent education, safety, and community in places that had been gutted by poverty. But then you look at how the power structure was all white—for the most part, white, college-educat­ ed women. Women who’d come because they were liberal, and they wanted to change the world.

Another resonant line from the book was this description of Jones as “a fake who

Let’s not call this suicide.

This was murder.

Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown Fleming, Candace

Anne Schwartz/Random | 368 pp. | $19.99 | April 29, 2025 | 9780593480069

K IR KU S R E V IE W S

kept his followers in ‘crisis mode’…he peddled fear, uncertainty, and distrust in the U.S. government.”

I try not to lecture. I try not to connect all the dots. We were talking about contra­ dictions, complications, and downright messi­ ness—I want [teens] to wrestle with that. But I also structured the book in a way that they could see those hooks and echoes between what happened then and what might be happening today.

I hope they gobble it up, and that it haunts them afterward. I’d like them to think about peer pressure, undue influence, and tribalism, and how we might compromise ourselves morally, even just a little, to get along. And how that tiny compromise of your values can lead to a second compromise that’s bigger, and soon you’re pushed to a place that you never thought you’d actually be in.

We need to question our leaders—presidents, pastors, teachers—ques­ tion what they’re saying, and if it rings false, we need to see if it’s the truth. The Peoples Temple [members] weren’t able to do that once they got to Guyana. One of the conclusions I do draw for my readers is: Let’s not call this suicide. This was murder. Every day they’d been told that if they returned [to the U.S], they’d be killed, and their children would be tortured—and because they had no ability to verify what Jones was saying, no outside informa­ tion, they believed it. I think [readers] will see the parallels to being led down a path to take actions that are based on lies.

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welcome inversion of negative stereotypes, especially about Arab men, as exemplified by characters such as Axel and Jamie’s caring and supportive uncle, Amo Eli, who’s gay.

A love of words meets a passion for dance in this charming romance. (content note, playlist) (Romance. 13-18)

Mystik U: Freshman Year Enchantments Kwitney, Alisa | Illus. by Mike Norton DC (176 pp.) | $16.99 paper March 4, 2025 | 9781799500629

Five new students are brought together at Mystik University to form a team of powerful magick users in this collection of the first three volumes of a DC Universe comic.

After her father vanished during a stage performance, Zatanna Zatara was whisked away to Mystik University to learn to control her power. There she met her roommates, Pia Morales and June “Enchantress” Moone, as well as classmates Sebastian Faust and Davit Sargon. They’re all there to learn how to control their gifts and use them for good.

Together, they take on the new challenges they encounter, including a secret society, a giant, multi-eyed, amorphous green creature whose intentions are unclear, and, of course, their classes. Meanwhile, the faculty members race against time to try to figure out which of the young people will become the Malevolence, a force that will someday destroy the Earth.

The characters struggle with learning to trust themselves and each other, highlighting their relatability and humanity. The pacing sometimes feels uneven as Kwitney balances the looming life-and-death threat of the Malevolence with the lighter college student moments, but the story is compelling overall. The illustrations pop thanks to their saturated colors and bold line work. The panels are easy to follow, contributing to an absorbing reading 126

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experience. Zatanna, Faust, and Enchantress appear white, while Pia is coded Latine, and Davit is cued Sikh.

Visually dynamic magickal adventures. (character sketches, cover sketches) (Graphic fantasy. 13-18)

A Forgery of Fate Lim, Elizabeth | Knopf (480 pp.) $20.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593650615

Lim blends “Beauty and the Beast” with Chinese folklore in her wondrous new tale set in the same world as her Six Crimson Cranes series.

After Baba, her father, is lost at sea, Truyan Saigas turns to art forgery to support her mother and two sisters. But Tru’s efforts to make ends meet aren’t enough, and gangsters threaten to take away her sisters if their mother’s gambling debts aren’t paid. When the authorities come to arrest Tru for her crimes, she escapes—and then encounters Elang, a cursed half-dragon, half-human prince. He offers a deal she can’t refuse: If she marries him and helps him dethrone his tyrannical grandfather, the Dragon King, he’ll ensure that she and her family are safe and debt-free and help her get answers to her father’s disappearance. After they’re officially bound in a loveless marriage, Tru enters Ai’long, a magical underwater realm where she’s guarded by turtles, befriends merfolk, and, with the aid of a hot-tempered water demon, masters her gift of Sight (an ability to see glimpses of the future) through painting. The inevitable romance is enhanced by a beautifully rendered subaqueous backdrop and beguiling folkloric elements. In this fantasy Chinese world, Tru’s blue hair is evidence of her Balardan heritage on her father’s side, a trait regarded as “a damning sight”; but being visibly different motivates her to be independent and self-loving.

Celestial Banquet Lim, Roselle | Sweet July/Zando (320 pp.) $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781638931263

A cooking competition for the gods spells danger—and offers great possibilities.

Sixteen-year-old Cai has always had a passion for cooking, instilled in her by her late father, a skilled chef.

Though she runs only a humble noodle stall, her dream is to win the Celestial Banquet, a cooking competition in honor of and judged by the gods. Not only does the winning chef gain recognition—important for someone from a backwater like Cai’s Peninsula—but they also receive a peach of immortality, worth unimaginable riches. In order to enter, Cai will have to convince her cantankerous local minor god, Kama, to sponsor a team.

And if she hopes to win, she’ll have to excel at the culinary tasks posed by the gods, contend with the Empress’s machinations, and juggle her attraction to two different boys, Bo and Seon, both of whom are attending the competition with her. The love triangle storyline is balanced by the presence of intriguing side characters and plentiful descriptions of mouthwatering food.

The cooking competition, while cutthroat and full of deadly perils, offers an original take on the usual divine tests of skills found in fantasy novels, offering readers a fresh set of tasks to savor. The worldbuilding, which is influenced by both East and Southeast Asia, is a delightful medley of cuisines and cultures.

Delicious and dangerous, with a side helping of romance. (map, Celestial Banquet teams) (Fantasy. 13-18)

For another food-related fantasy, visit Kirkus online.

An adventurous and romantic addition to the genre. (map) (Fantasy. 12-18) K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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That Devil, Ambition Miller, Linsey | Storytide/ HarperCollins (416 pp.) | $19.99 June 3, 2025 | 9780063388611

At a magical school, students must kill—or be killed.

Fabian, Euphemia, and Credence attend the Stellarium, an elite academy for training honorable magicians. Their honors class teacher, known only as “the Professor,” is a devil—an immortal with a simple objective on his syllabus. Kill him before the semester is over and you pass; fail, and he will kill all 13 students. Given the astronomically high tuition, which they can’t afford, the three friends are also eager to see their tuition forgiven, another part of the deal if they’re successful. Split into three sections—which are named for each of the three leads—this slow-burn novel delves into each character’s machinations, and it quickly becomes apparent that deceit and sabotage run rampant throughout the Stellarium, few will be spared, and even fewer can be trusted. The premise has all the elements dark academia readers wish for: magic, politics, a gothic-tinged setting, and swoonworthy romance. However, Miller mires the narrative in minutiae, exhausting readers’ attention over trivialities that feel irrelevant, leaving more important elements (specifically the overall worldbuilding and magic system) to falter. Occasional odd turns of phrase pull readers out of the story. Nevertheless, devotees of the genre may be able to overlook these missteps, reveling in the omnipresent and precarious balance between life and death, and the author’s pull-no-punches treatment of her characters. Credence has brown skin, and Fabian and Euphemia, who’s queer, read white.

Intriguing but frustratingly unfocused.

(Dark fantasy. 13-adult) K IR KU S R E V IE W S

An entertaining mix of endearing characters and pulse-pounding adventure.

WANDERING WILD

Kenji Miyazawa’s A Night on the Galactic Railway: The Manga Edition Miyazawa, Kenji | Adapt. by Ayano Kitahara Illus. by Ayano Kitahara | Trans. by Moss Quanci | Tuttle (192 pp.) | $14.99 paper March 18, 2025 | 9784805318713 Series: Tuttle Japanese Classics in Manga

A lonely boy and his childhood friend embark on a dreamy and philosophical train ride across the galaxy in this translated graphic novel from Japan.

This adaptation of Night on the Galactic Railroad, Miyazawa’s classic fantasy novel published posthumously in 1934, follows Giovanni, a sensitive and awkward boy in a village that evokes continental Europe, who works to support his sick mother while his father is away at sea.

Too tired from work to engage, he’s isolated from classmates, who, save for Campanella, are often unkind to him.

While on an errand to get milk, Giovanni contemplates going to the riverside Galactic Festival, but an encounter with class bullies sends him running to the hills. There, he’s transported onto a train that’s departing Galaxy Station; somehow, Campanella is also on board. Although they’re perplexed, the two embark on an ethereal journey across the Milky Way, encountering intriguing travelers and gradually unraveling a hidden truth. The story delicately engages with themes of death, loss, and friendship. While Kitahara faithfully adapts the original storyline, some nuances are lost between the sometimes clunky and vague language and the poor layout of text

within the speech bubbles. The beautiful art can be detailed to the point of overstimulation, making it easy to miss important information. Those unfamiliar with the original may find this presentation too opaque to convey the story’s full impact; previous fans will likely appreciate elements of this version.

An uneven reimagining of a classic story. (cast of characters) (Manga. 12-18)

Wandering Wild Noni, Lynette | Blackstone (318 pp.) $19.99 | May 20, 2025 | 979887481172

American teen movie star Zander Rune has an image problem, and it’s endangering his career.

Zander’s agent has a plan: Zander will go on a wilderness survival reality show with one lucky fan. Charlie Hart, who’s from a small Australian town, is facing her own struggles over a personal tragedy, her best friend Ember’s leukemia, and uncertainty about her future now she’s finished high school.

Ember wins the contest, but her doctor advises her against going on the show. So Charlie—whose crush on Zander ended the day he was charged with a DUI— reluctantly agrees to go in Ember’s place: Her participation will give an infatuated Ember the chance to meet Zander before they embark. As the four-day trek through Australia’s Blue Mountains begins, Charlie’s animosity toward Zander is clear—although she won’t explain why, leaving him resigned to just getting through the challenge. But when the pair is thrust into increasingly MAY 1, 2025

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dangerous situations, their feelings shift.

White-presenting Zander and Charlie skydive, rappel, hike—and deal with lots of emotions. The juxtaposition of the wilderness challenges against the internal turmoil they’re each working through will keep readers engaged. The dual narration allows access to both leads’ perspectives and emotional journeys, supporting deeper storytelling. Readers will enjoy watching the duo learn and yearn as they navigate the mountains, forests, and streams.

An entertaining mix of endearing characters, strong feelings, and pulse-pounding adventure. (content note, author’s note) (Romance. 12-17)

Kirkus Star

Snowglobe 2 Park, Soyoung | Trans. by Joungmin Lee Comfort | Delacorte (448 pp.) $20.99 | May 6, 2025 | 9780593809143 Series: The Snowglobe Duology, 2

An intrepid teenager battles a powerful, corrupt family to liberate the ordinary people of her frozen world in this translated work from South Korea.

In this duology closer, 17-year-old Jeon Chobahm is living in Snowglobe with a few other girls who, like her, recently learned—and exposed to shocked viewers—the secret that they’re clones of Goh Haeri, the star of the world’s most popular reality show.

The most recent Haeri died by suicide; now Chobahm vows to discover the fate of the original Haeri, who mysteriously disappeared three years ago. She investigates the Yibonn Media Group, which rules over Snowglobe, while also contending with resentful fellow clone Serin, eluding constant surveillance, and dealing with uncertain feelings about sympathetic Yibonn heir Bonwhe.

Chobahm’s movements are impeded by the extreme weather, blackouts, and human-induced environmental disasters that abound in Snowglobe. When 128

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Chobahm learns she’ll be framed for a terrible crime, she sets out to reveal an explosive secret to the world, one that the Yibonn family would do anything— including committing murder—to keep quiet. The entertaining plot is deftly interwoven with weightier themes: How does entertainment distort reality? How does one soften the pain of remembering—and what is the price of forgetting?

The story is complex, and the heavier themes are handled with a light touch, allowing Chobahm’s strength, intelligence, and compassion to shine. This volume is accessible to new readers but is best appreciated by those familiar with the series opener.

Layered, distinctive, and memorable. (cast of characters) (Dystopian. 12-adult)

When Love Gives You Lemons Salvatore, Steven | Bloomsbury (350 pp.) $19.99 | May 13, 2025 | 9781547615278

A young man has one week in Italy to prove he’s changed and win his ex back.

Italian American rising senior Fielder Lemon is still trying to get over his childhood best friend and first love, 19-year-old Riccardo DeLuca, who ended their relationship a year ago, then disappeared. Enthusiastic foodie Fielder has dedicated his energy post-breakup to growing his online presence on TikTok, where he reviews local restaurants. When his cousin suddenly announces his destination wedding in Amalfi, Fielder is ecstatic— until he learns that Sienna, Ricky’s older sister, is the bride. Now he’ll have to spend a whole week on the beautiful Mediterranean coast with his ex. But he

decides this proximity offers the perfect chance for him to show Ricky that he’s “grown and changed.” What he wasn’t counting on was that Ricky, who’s also Italian American, would show up with a new boyfriend. Alongside the romance storyline, Salvatore explores themes of discovering your passions, recognizing and loving your true self, finding your purpose as an individual rather than just as part of a relationship, and connecting with your cultural roots. The book also contains commentary on climate change and sustainability in the context of an Italian lemon grove Fielder visits. The presence at the wedding of Fielder’s gay cousin, who struggled with internalized homophobia, and Sienna’s bigoted cousin, who continually makes jabs at queer people, offers opportunities to show the impact of bias.

A humorous and heartfelt love story about growth, change, and clarity.

(Romance. 14-18)

Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship Shapiro, Janice | Fantagraphics Books (352 pp.) $39.99 | April 1, 2025 | 9798875000553

Tween girls grapple with grief, strangers, and loneliness.

It’s 1929, and 9-year-old Ida is leaving New York City and her stressed-out parents to stay with the Murphys at their summer home on the Mediterranean. Ida’s unhappily married parents assure her it will be wonderful; the Murphys have a daughter, Honoria.

When Ida arrives in France, the Murphy parents are warm and friendly, but Honoria is aloof and cranky. Worse, Honoria’s 11 and worldly, a big enough power imbalance to cause a dynamic

A sweet summer romance with a timey-wimey twist.

DON’T LET ME GO

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where Honoria bosses Ida around and Ida desperately seeks Honoria’s approval.

The gregarious Murphys open their home to elite guests from the literary, artistic, and entertainment worlds. Ida soon realizes that despite appearances, all three Murphys are in great distress.

The reason for their grief is the tender tether of this enchanting graphic novel debut. Shapiro draws readers into Ida’s perspective and quietly portrays her blossoming with humor and innocence.

The panels are drawn in a bold black and white that’s sometimes sparse and sometimes filled with lush, intricate details. Ida confronts big traumas— divorce, grief, antisemitism, loneliness—and the author is thoughtful as she conveys the trepidation felt by and tacit acceptance demanded of this young girl. Ida and Honoria frequently sound older than their years, and the lack of context for historical cultural references will pose a barrier to many teen readers. Characters present white.

A touching depiction of the tenderness of forced friendship and family loyalty with appeal for adult readers.

(Graphic historical fiction. 16-adult)

Don’t Let Me Go Snipes, Kevin Christopher | Harper/ HarperCollins (400 pp.) | $19.99 May 20, 2025 | 9780063062610

Two boys are repeatedly reincarnated together, finding love throughout history—but with loss soon following behind.

At a summer carnival in present-day Orlando, Florida, Riley Iverson faints upon meeting his friend’s “hot new neighbor,” Jackson Haines.

Seeing Jackson conjures up a vision of the two of them together in Pompeii. Riley retreats further behind the walls he’s put up to protect his bruised heart. Jackson, who’s a straight jock, feels pressure from his high-achieving parents, and he’s not sure whether he plays football for himself or because it’s expected. He’s haunted by K IR KU S R E V IE W S

something that led him to leave Tallahassee, but meeting Riley makes the adjustment easier. It feels like they’ve always belonged together, leaving Jackson questioning his sexuality. Both boys, who are coded white, begin suddenly passing out and dreaming of steamy interludes between their past selves—as well as their subsequent deaths. All of this makes finding a way forward together difficult: How much is a life with one’s soulmate worth if it means you don’t get to live long at all? With flashes of humor and wisdom sprinkled throughout, this layered story of love cut short is endearing, entertaining, and full of heartache.

The blend of love and tragedy on both cosmic and familial scales will appeal to fans of Adam Silvera, and the occasional commentary on the current state of queer rights makes it a topical and necessary exercise in solidarity for queer teens.

A sweet, heartbreaking summer romance with a timey-wimey twist. (historical note) (Romance. 14-18)

Thirsty Ground St. Lawrence, Kimber | Union Square & Co. (336 pp.) | $13.99 paper May 20, 2025 | 9781454957959

Is it a quest to save the remains of the human race or a cruel deception?

Seventeen-­yearold Conway is the most promising Hydroseeker Recruit of his generation. He loves riding his moto-rover incredibly fast across the Martian terrain, training to find water for what remains of humanity.

It’s been 130 years since some humans came to Mars from the Arid Planet on the Tsimmaon (which originally provided interstellar tours for the wealthy), abandoning everyone else to die. Now pale, blond Conway competes for one of the few prestigious Seeker spots. But on their first mission to the Arid Planet, everything Conway believes is disproved.

The Arid Planet has trees, safe water— and people. If only it hadn’t taken a terrible bike accident, which leaves him

with a grievous spinal cord injury, for him to learn about this miracle. His people leave him behind, so now Conway’s a prisoner of the locals, who call their planet Mayanah. Their leader, Selah, a gorgeous, brown-skinned girl with piercing blue eyes (that are repeatedly mentioned), forces Conway to do his physical therapy instead of allowing him to be self-pitying about his paraplegia. There’s a lot going on here: an injury and disability rehabilitation storyline, a post-apocalyptic setting with a grim view of sexuality and gender, a fun space adventure, and an overarching Christian allegory. The surprise introduction of spiritual magic is disruptive; the science fiction and the parable never fully synthesize.

An almost-successful rehab-in-space story that falls victim to thematic overstuffing. (author’s note) (Science fiction. 14-18)

Fallen Academy: Year Two Stone, Leia | Bloom Books (288 pp.) $12.99 paper | April 15, 2025 9781464218934 | Series: Fallen Academy, 2

Following her dramatic first year at Fallen Academy, a Celestial continues to navigate her life—and powers—­ as both angel and demon gifted.

Brielle Atwater defeated Lucifer in her final test as a first year, but the battle left its mark, literally. She now has a devil mark tattoo on her chest, revealing she’s a Lucifer hybrid. As she enters her second year, Brielle juggles a romance with her Celestial boyfriend, Lincoln, who’s also her Fallen Army drill sergeant, while grappling with her growing light and dark powers. She’s determined to save her mom and brother, who are trapped in Demon City, where her mother works as a demon slave. With help from her best friend, Shea, a former demon slave, Brielle enters a Fight Night, a competition held by the Tainted Army. The prize money could free her mother, but she must fight other demon-gifted students to the death, MAY 1, 2025

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all while keeping her dark magic under control to avoid unwanted attention. In this second series volume, Stone emphasizes themes of friendship and sacrifice, blending romance and action with banter that’s sometimes downright bawdy. Rather than leaving readers aching, the romance between blond, black-winged Brielle and dark-haired, white-winged Lincoln feels surface-level.

This sequel moves the series along, focusing on Brielle’s growth and internal struggle but offering little new conflict until the end. All in all, despite some overdone dialogue, readers will be left anticipating the next entry.

A quick, entertaining read that will please series fans. (Fantasy. 14-18)

The Unexpected Consequence of Bleeding on a Tuesday Toney, Kelsey B. | Random House (304 pp.) $19.99 | June 17, 2025 | 9780593811511

What should be the most rewarding day of Delia’s high school career instead leads to her expulsion from her Texas prep school.

Since middle school, 17-year-old Delia’s periods have brought her debilitating pain. This month, when her period begins two days early, it threatens to keep her home on a day when she must be present in order to stay in a prestigious premed program. Delia’s well-meaning sister gives her a homemade THC tincture that provides some relief, allowing her to go to school and meet her mentor—but when the dean discovers the substance, Delia’s kicked out. She must finish the year at public school. There, she reconnects with former best friend Ruby, who’s navigating her own medical issues with irritable bowel syndrome. Attendance policies that ignore complex illnesses could prevent both girls from graduating on time.

Ruby’s activism around the subject inspires Delia to raise her own voice in a way that she’s been hesitant to before. An 130

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engaging protagonist, Delia often feels that she’s “too much” for her supportive family and friends. Her first-person narration is refreshingly candid as she chronicles her medical journey, including details of a pelvic exam by one of the many gynecologists she sees in search of a diagnosis. Delia’s determination to manage her medical condition ultimately pays off in unexpected ways. Delia and Ruby are cued white; other friends are racially diverse.

An honest, empowering, and relatable story about self-advocacy and perseverance in the face of discrimination. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 12-18)

Solo Stan Tucker, Talia | Kokila (304 pp.) | $19.99 June 10, 2025 | 9780593624784

Unexpected circumstances throw two boys—strangers to each other and each adrift after high school— together for one magical night.

Though he’s never had much luck finding it, Dakarai (who goes by Kai) believes wholeheartedly in true love and longs to find his “twin flame.” His close friends Bobby Bae and Winter Park—the stars of Tucker’s 2024 debut, Rules for Rule Breaking—are headed to college, a plan that Kai, who doesn’t feel ready to leave his North Carolina hometown, has put on hold. At his bookstore job, he encounters Elias, the store owner’s nephew from New York City, who’s been sent there because he was getting into trouble at home. He, too, isn’t interested in college. The boys, who are cued Black, get off to a rocky start that only intensifies when they each arrive solo at a concert for musical artist CYPHR. But when a blackout interrupts the concert, and CYPHR launches a citywide scavenger hunt to find the new surprise venue, they partner up—and realize they might even have to trust each other. Awkward pacing makes the novel difficult to get into; it takes a while to get

to the meat of the story and then feels rushed toward the end. Nevertheless, readers seeking a wholesome whirlwind queer romance may be pleased. Notably, the story also portrays alternatives to college for high school graduates.

A sweet romance built on an irresistible premise, but clumsy execution will leave readers wanting more.

(Romance. 12-16)

Daughter of Doom van Rijckeghem, Jean-Claude | Trans. by Kristen Gehrman | Levine Querido (408 pp.) $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9781646145034

A Viking teen grapples with family, faith, and fate.

Fifteen-year-old Yrsa, daughter of a Danish helmsman and an enslaved Frisian woman who died in childbirth, defends herself well against her persecutors in the village of Mimir’s Stool. Yrsa’s parentage and crooked foot, however, blight her marriage prospects— until word spreads that Yrsa can see people’s fates. She reluctantly accepts a duplicitous nobleman’s proposal; she’d rather marry him than “be treated like a slave in her own village.” But her plan is disrupted by the arrival of Sister Job, a young nun taken hostage from Ganda (present-day Ghent). After Job, with Yrsa’s help, fatally wounds a villager who rapes her, the teens set sail to escape retribution, pursued by Yrsa’s father and his crew. Amid subterfuge and battles, the girls’ uneasy friendship deepens despite their frequent arguments about their religious differences. Will they survive? The third-person omniscient narration, translated from Dutch, at times feels disjointed and occasionally slows the pacing, and some secondary characters feel two-dimensional.

However, readers interested in Viking times will appreciate the detailed descriptions of everyday customs—which included enslaving people of various cultures and ages—and the interwoven lore of Norse gods and goddesses. Yrsa K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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and Job gradually learn to appreciate aspects of each other’s beliefs, and readers who enjoy philosophical or theological discussions will find much to ponder.

Atmospheric and thought-provoking. (glossary) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

All-Nighter Vinesse, Cecilia | Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins (384 pp.) | $19.99 May 27, 2025 | 9780063285927

Just before graduation, two nemeses are thrown together for a whirlwind adventure.

Type A Autumn Povitsky, who’s lesbian and Jewish, is ready to leave high school as class valedictorian with a bright future awaiting her at Wellesley. Sure, she’s never kissed a girl, she’s worried her best friend is abandoning her, and she’s scared and “falling apart at the seams,” but she’s determined, driven, and ready to succeed. Tara Esposito, who’s pansexual and has “beige skin,” is a quintessentially edgy, tattooed bad girl with a vape pen and a failing grade in English. Autumn urgently needs a fake college ID so she can flirt with her dream girl at a poetry reading taking place on a local campus later tonight. By 7 a.m. tomorrow, Tara must write a passing essay on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway—or she won’t be able to graduate. They agree to help one another, and their subsequent hijinks-filled night reveals that they might not be so different after all.

In fact, they might actually like each other. The alternating close third-person points of view reveal the protagonists’ mindsets, and the narrative—an utterly fun read with a realistic and sensual central romance—flies by. Despite the casual tone, the characters work through serious issues, including recovering from a serious accident and managing ADHD. The supporting cast is broadly diverse in makeup.

A delightful, feel-good Sapphic romp.

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Under the Neon Lights

Season of the Roses

Vinson, Arriel | Putnam (384 pp.) $19.99 | June 3, 2025 | 9780593858592

Wary, Chloé | Trans. by Jenna Allen Fantagraphics Books (240 pp.) | $29.99 | March 25, 2025 | 9798875000423

Jaelyn is a 16-year-old skater whose life changes dramatically in one brief summer.

Jae is dealing with shifts in several of her relationships: There’s strain and distance between her and her best friend, Noelle, difficulties with learning to trust her dad after he’s repeatedly disappointed her, and the blooming of romance with the cute new boy, Trey. Other life changes unfold in the landscape around Jae as her Indianapolis community becomes another target for developers who come in and try to “push us out, / price everything just / outside / of our reach, / our possibility.”

When she learns that her local rink, WestSide Roll, will close to make way for a brewery, Jae is overwhelmed by the grief of losing the space that allows her the most freedom to be herself, a bold Black girl. She decides to see what she can do to recapture that spirit for herself and others. Using verse, Vinson provides concise, lyrical insights into the trials of painful transitions for multiple generations held together by disappearing community havens.

The book’s flow and plot are smooth and easy to follow. However, Jae’s interpersonal conflicts are unevenly developed, leaving readers unmoored thanks to some rushed resolutions.

Roll to the beat of summer love and loss in this heartfelt debut.

(Verse fiction. 14-18)

For another book exploring gentrification, visit Kirkus online.

This French import weaves together sports, friendship, and resistance against sexism through the story of girls’ soccer team the Rosigny Roses.

When their club decides to have the girls’ team forfeit—even though they qualified for nationals—in favor of funding the boys’ team, white-presenting Barbara, who’s in her final year of secondary school, rallies her fractured teammates to fight back.

Their efforts culminate in a high-stakes challenge match against the boys to determine who will get the funding for the championships. The relationships among the characters feel authentically complex, from Barbara’s strained dynamic with her seemingly unsupportive mother to her complicated romance with her boyfriend (brown-skinned soccer player Bilal, who may be selling drugs), and internal conflicts threatening the team’s unity. Through Jawad, a sympathetic restaurant owner who becomes a supportive ally of the Rosigny Roses, Wary demonstrates how sports can forge community bonds that transcend the playing field. The art, executed in felt-tip pen, pulses with energy and emotion, most notably in the recurring motif of turbulent skies rendered in varying bold hues of pinks, oranges, purples, and blues that mirror the story’s tensions. The vivid palette and dynamic illustrations capture both quiet moments of teenage uncertainty and explosive scenes of athletic action, while the diverse team members reflect the multicultural reality of suburban Paris. The translation maintains the story’s distinctly French sensibility without losing its universal appeal.

A powerful testament to sisterhood, soccer, and the power of standing up for what’s right. (Graphic fiction.

16-adult) MAY 1, 2025

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Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage 1 Hangry Hearts

By Jennifer Chen

A delectable treat handmade with love.

1 5

2 Eliza, From Scratch

By Sophia Lee

Tender, balanced, and nuanced; a story to savor.

3 Death in the Cards

By Mia P. Manansala

A well-paced and intriguing mystery.

4 Maya in Multicolor

By Swati Teerdhala

A story of self-discovery and falling in love, with a dash of color and a sprinkle of breeziness.

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2 6

5 First Love Language

By Stefany Valentine

A sweet, thoughtfully developed romance with some unusual twists and layers.

6 The Invisible Wild

3 For more booklists, visit Kirkus online.

By Nikki Van De Car

Magically real and hopeful.

4 MAY 1, 2025

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Indie THE TIMING OF the Broadway production of Sanaz Toossi’s English couldn’t be better. While the Trump administration dehumanizes and deports immigrants, English, which won a Pulitzer Prize, uses immersive storytelling and a winning cast to tell their stories. The audience joins a group of Iranian students in a classroom outside of Tehran as they’re struggling to learn English, pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language for various, sometimes-­ pressing reasons, and begin the immigrant’s journey. We see the effects of adapting to a new place (“You go years without making anyone laugh”) and speaking an unfamiliar language (“I sound like idiot,” says the student. “‘I sound like an idiot,’” corrects the teacher). The nonfiction editors’ picks below capture the drama of people leaving their homelands in search of something better.

In her memoir, The Strength of Water, Asian American author Karin K. Jensen charts, via her mother’s voice, how her family came to the San Francisco Bay Area from China’s Tai Ting Pong village. She traces their 134

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meandering route, from a full but poor life in their home village to San Francisco’s busy Chinatown, and shows how the family’s different generations adapted to life in the U.S. Our reviewer says, “Jensen relates all of this in richly evocative writing that sometimes achieves a plangent poetry. (‘A man’s wife was his property.…

After each beating, Auntie would cry great sobs. Then she would be quiet for a while, and then she would gather herself to continue the day’s business.’) The result is an engrossing read that brings to life both the strength and adaptability of its subject and the wrenching changes she endured.”

When author Leah Lax came out as a lesbian while living as an Orthodox Jew, she was exiled and left with few resources to begin again. “I became an immigrant in my own country,” she writes, “blindsided with the acute desire of an outsider.” The experience led her to collect others’ stories of leaving and arriving in Not From Here: The Song of America. She captures a multitude of immigrants’ voices and experiences, from the brutal to the uplifting.

“Lax almost always finds a note of hope in the stories she tells,” notes our reviewer. “‘This is a city of immigrants,’ a transplanted Brahmin Indian tells her. ‘Everywhere I look, I see someone from somewhere else. That, I think, is what makes this country great.’ In a time of political polarization on the subject of immigration, this book makes space for a muchneeded deep breath.”

Erika Reich Giles recounts in her memoir, Becoming Hungarian, that in the mid-20th century, her family owned and ran a thriving factory in Szombathely, Hungary. In 1948, the Soviet-backed communists took the Reichs’ factory, leaving them jobless. A perilous escape to Austria ensued, and the family eventually joined a community of Hungarian refugees in Billings, Montana. “Especially during a time when immigration has become such a contentious political issue, this is an edifying remembrance, one that tenderly and intimately reminds the reader of the human stakes,” notes our reviewer. “A stirring account of the author’s search for identity amid dislocation.”

Chaya Schechner is the president of Kirkus Indie.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

FOUND IN TRANSLATION

CHAYA SCHECHNER

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INDIE

EDITOR’S PICK In McPherson’s fantasy novel, a prince becomes the unwilling heir to his kingdom’s throne and discovers rampant corruption.

As the second son of King Fortin, 25-year-old Prince Beauregard Highput was never supposed to inherit the throne of Granvallée.

But ever since his older brother, Charmant, died after falling from his horse four months ago, the spare has become the heir. Instead of living his own life in the isles, as he’d been doing for the last seven years, Beau is on an accelerated course of training and education to prepare for his impending ascent, as his father is in poor health. To make matters worse, Beau must quickly get married to an eligible woman who will be able to rule beside him and produce an heir. The best

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option is Lady Victoire Penamour, his late brother’s fiancée; however, she hates him, as she thinks he murdered his brother for the throne. Beau has no desire to rule, but if he abdicates, a civil war may break out among power-hungry nobles trying to seize the crown.

He accepts the responsibility, but he must overcome other demons, including his grief over his brother, the trauma of a near-death experience, and a history of alcoholism and self-harm.

Also, he’s in love with his best friend and personal guard, Elias Batesian, and harbors a growing attraction to Lady Penamour. Meanwhile, there’s corruption afoot and danger around every corner. In her debut fantasy novel, McPherson delivers a thrilling and emotional story with

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The Adventures of the Flash Gang: Episode Three: Berlin Breakout

By M.M. Downing & S.J. Waugh

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A King’s Trust

By S.E. McPherson

A King’s Trust McPherson, S.E. | Metaltail Press 382 pp. | $17.99 paper | March 3, 2025 9798992254310

remarkable worldbuilding.

Readers will instantly connect with the genuinely kind but snarky Beau, as he remains true to himself and his morals, and loyal to the people he cares about. Elias and Lady Penamour are also intriguing and well-­ developed characters. The romantic buildup between Beau and Elias, and between Beau and Lady Penamour, is

engaging and ultimately satisfying. The novel also offers strikingly sensitive and authentic representations of queer and trans characters, as well as polyamory. Family strife, intense battle scenes, and magic add interest to the palace intrigue.

A compelling tale with well-drawn characters and beautifully executed LGBTQ+ romance.

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Doing the Right Thing

By Debbie C. Miller

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INDIE

A very impressive debut novel.

SHADOWS OF TEHRAN

Flash Gordon: Volume 1: Escape From Planet Death!

Adams, Jeremy | Illus. by Will Conrad Mad Cave Studios (160 pp.) | $17.99 paper Feb. 25, 2025 | 9781545812488

Adams resurrects the famous space adventurer in this graphic novel.

Ming the Merciless, tyrant of the planet Mongo, has his new Unraveller (which fires “a ray of plasmatonic energy”) pointed straight at Earth, ready to vaporize the home-world of his hated nemesis Flash Gordon. Flash, who has joined the resistance attempting to liberate Mongo from Ming’s rule, manages to topple the Unraveller at the last minute, saving Earth—but destroying Mongo instead. When Flash regains consciousness, he discovers he is tied to a rack in a dungeon with robotic jailers. In this reconstituted world, the planets that survived the Unravelling have allied to govern the new universe, and Flash Gordon, the so-called “World Killer,” has been incarcerated on a prison planet known as Planet Death. When word reaches him that his beloved Dale Arden, a leader of this new alliance, is the target of an assassination plot, Flash launches a daring escape. With the help of a healer named Daranek, Flash must battle his way through a massive, labyrinthian prison, stalked by all manner of armed guards, deadly beasts, and an also-imprisoned Ming, who now arranges gladiatorial fights among the other prisoners. To escape the planet for good, Flash may have to do the most dangerous thing he can imagine—put his trust in Ming the Merciless. Adams understands the assignment, and he brings Flash to life with swashbuckling, space-opera gusto. The full-color artwork from 136

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Conrad beautifully realizes the pits, palaces, and spaceships in which Flash and his companions battle. The premise provides a reset for the geography and alliances of the established Flash Gordon universe, and Adams takes the opportunity to delve into his characters’ backstories. (Ming’s rise to power from a cohort of genetically engineered children is a particularly fun digression.) Old fans of the comic strip will find as much to enjoy here as those just discovering it for the first time.

An explosive reboot that captures the fun of the beloved classic series.

Bullied Enough To Murder Armstrong, J.E. | Self (230 pp.) | $13.95 paper | Aug. 19, 2024 | 9798336371116

A Nevada school system hires a seasoned pair of investigators to curb bullying in the district in Armstrong’s novel, the fifth in the Grand Auntie mystery series.

Auntie (aka Dr. Elizabeth “Lisbet” Armory) and her partner in work and in love, Dr. Aladar Gallant, are tasked with quelling the ramped-up bullying at four Las Vegas–area high schools. Dr. Yas Stillwater, the school district’s assistant superintendent, arranges for Armory and Gallant to meet the schools’ principals, each of whom lords “over his or her own fiefdom.” Stillwater also identifies several bullying ringleaders and gives descriptions of their psychological, physical, and online intimidation tactics. At the first school Armory and Gallant visit, their escort is Simp, a gangly, congenial second-semester senior. Not long after, Simp is found dead in Antelope Canyon, about a five-hour drive from the school, and it looks like a

murder—he was beaten badly, and has fentanyl and xylazine in his system. All of the principals appear shaken by Simp’s death, and each one seems to have something to hide. About a third of the way through the narrative, Armory’s sister, multibillionaire Countess Gladys Henson, and her new husband arrive from their honeymoon. The newlyweds have plans to build an animal sanctuary in Nevada for the twin elephants they are transporting from India. As charming as this diversion from the main plot is, it feels disconnected and superfluous; readers who are familiar with the first four books in the series will know Gladys’ backstory and eccentricities.

In addition to being a mystery, the book is a character study of high school students, administrators, and also Armory and her friends and family. Armstrong excels in descriptions of people—here, she limns Gladys’ architect, flown to Nevada to create the elephants’ habitat: The woman “alighted from the plane in a form fitting zebra bodysuit. She wore a hat the size of Manhattan.” An element of mysticism involving clay story dolls and evocations of the ambiance of Vegas add welcome layers to the story.

Enjoyable as they may be, digressions from the murder plot muddle this engaging mystery.

Shadows of Tehran: Forged in Conflict: From Iranian Rebel to American Soldier Berg, Nick | Greenleaf Book Group Press (300 pp.) | $27.95 April 22, 2025 | 9798991971409

A young Anglo-Iranian grows up fighting for freedom on many fronts while discovering who he really is and what he believes in Berg’s military thriller.

Life in Iran begins idyllically for Ricardo, who joins his mother Samira, American father David, and sister Hannah. Even when the Shah is installed, life is still tolerable. But the Islamic Republic is another matter, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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bringing religious tyranny and the Iraq/ Iran War (Ricardo is dragooned into the army). Long before that, though, David abandons the family, and readers realize that he is not what he had seemed (he will surface again and again). Ricardo, as a teenager, will not accept the repressive regime of the Ayatollahs; he becomes the motorcycle-­driving “Shadow Rider,” leading the Revolutionary Guards into blind alleyways where they can be attacked from the rooftops. Ricardo becomes a folk hero of sorts and a scourge of the government. Ricardo learns that he can withstand pain and torture, and when he is sent to the front lines against Iraq, it awakens a martial spirit in him.

When he escapes to the United States and joins the Army, he is practically ecstatic (“he had forgotten what it felt like to wake up knowing that the day wasn’t a battle to survive”); surely Sgt. Ricardo Rosen is on his way to many more hair-raising adventures in the future. This is a very impressive debut novel, and Ricardo wears his hero cape stylishly, figuratively speaking; hopefully, it won’t eventually verge into the cartoonish if subsequent stories follow. This line captures his ethos well: “You thought you could drown me in fear, but you only taught me how to breathe underwater.”

Berg says that the story is largely auto­biographical, and that he himself was Ricardo Rosen. Surely an interview would be fascinating.

Berg has earned entrance to this genre club—readers will hope for further adventures.

Betrayal & New Beginnings Bettes, Allison | Self (306 pp.) | $13.99 paper March 25, 2025 | 9798227661418 Series: Ranger Shield Security, 1

In Bettes’ romantic suspense novel, a woman fleeing an abusive past finds love and redemption with a former U.S. Army Ranger.

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Georgia, where her brother’s military friends offer her support and a fresh start.

She takes a job at a pub owned by Wade, a former Army Ranger with his own emotional scars. He’s protective but wary, haunted by past traumas that make him hesitant to get close to anyone. Their slow-burning attraction is built on mutual understanding and respect, although both must confront their fears before fully embracing their feelings. As Wade admits, “I didn’t think I was a good-enough man capable of a relationship, but you make me want to be that man, Ellie.” Bettes effectively builds tension, especially in the novel’s suspenseful elements; in one harrowing scene, for instance, a nightmare for Ellie comes true: “Beth opened the back door for me, and I followed her out….something flashed on my left side just around the door, and something hard hit my head. It hurt so bad, and I felt myself lurch forward, and then everything went black.” Bettes keeps things engaging, and a subsequent mission, led by Wade and his team, is fast-paced and cinematic.

The supporting cast, meanwhile, enhances the story with humor and warmth: Tammy, a tough but caring bartender, provides comic relief and sage advice, while Ruthie, a reserved but kind receptionist at Wade’s security firm, offers Ellie a much-needed friendship. These characters add richness to the novel’s setting and make the world feel lived-in.

The conclusion is deeply satisfying, as well, delivering a well-earned resolution that highlights the power of resilience.

A heartfelt exploration of trauma, healing, and second-chance love.

Such Good People Blumenfeld, Amy | SparkPress (360 pp.) $17.99 paper | July 8, 2025 | 9781684633227

In Blumenfeld’s novel, a teacher deals with her childhood best friend’s impending release from prison.

April Nelson is a Brooklyn, New York, native who’s built a solid life for herself in Chicago. She’s an elementary

school teacher who’s married to Peter, a lawyer who’s running for state’s attorney, and with three young kids to raise and aging parents back in New York, she has a busy life. However, elements of her past return to haunt her. In college, she and her childhood friend and neighbor, Rudy DeFranco, went to a bar, where an altercation ensued in which Rudy pulled a knife; after a struggle, the knife fell to the ground, April grabbed it, and she and Rudy fled the scene before fully taking in what happened. The other party died the next day, and Rudy ended up in prison; April was later expelled from college. Now, Rudy is being released from prison. April is already getting calls from the media, and she hopes to prevent any damage to Peter’s political aspirations, and to her other family members’ lives. Specifically, Jillian Jones, a journalist who went to college with April, has learned of the new developments; she covered the crime for their college newspaper years ago.

Now a newspaper reporter in Manhattan, she knows that it could be a big story. Blumenfeld’s follow-up to 2018’s The Cast features a clearheaded and ambitious protagonist who essentially carries the novel. The author effectively describes April’s history as a New Yorker, as well as her current circumstances and fraught emotions, in a way that feels realistic and relatable. Her history is complicated, as Jillian discovers, and April’s feelings about Rudy are, too, but the narrative relates it all clearly; however, readers may feel that the characterization of April’s politically ambitious husband is left on the back burner for too long. Overall, though, this engaging novel succeeds as a story of dealing with the consequences and challenges of decisions made in one’s youth.

A highly readable story of ties that bind and skeletons in the closet.

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Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder Bradley, Brandi | Rumor Mill Press (314 pp.) $17.99 paper | March 14, 2025 | 9798987261224

In Bradley’s mystery, a young, up-and-coming marketing professional is found murdered, and his ex-­ girlfriend is the prime suspect—­but the investigating detective feels compelled to dig deeper.

Ethan Moll is the very definition of an eligible bachelor: He’s handsome and charming, hails from a wealthy family, and is a rising star as a digital-marketing recruiter at Integrated Business Solutions.

When he’s found stabbed to death in the shower in his Kentucky home, some suspect his ex-girlfriend, Gabbi Edwards, who was openly distraught when he left her. Jenna, the fiancée of Ethan’s best friend, Ross, is absolutely convinced that Gabbi is the killer. Gabbi does seem a bit flighty as an enthusiast of whatever is the most fashionable spiritual movement of the moment; she runs a fitness coaching website and diagnoses herself a “Highly Sensitive Person.” However, Det. Lindy D’Arnaud is not so sure, as she keeps uncovering other possibilities; Ethan, for example, has mounting money problems, and he works for a shady and possibly criminal boss. Meanwhile, Lindy and her wife, April, manage a queer relationship in Pleasant Springs, a small town in conservative Kentucky that’s “smack dab in the middle of nowhere.” Their lives become more complicated when Jeff, April’s former college friend, decides to return to town, as he may be interested in establishing a relationship with his biological child.

Years ago, he’d donated sperm so that Lindy and April could have a daughter.

Nothing in Bradley’s absorbing novel is simple; indeed, the plot is as complex and as unpredictable as life itself, though it never feels convoluted. Instead, the author renders the mystery, and the everyday lives that surround it, with admirable clarity. The book’s 138

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characterization is its strongest suit, with each detailed portrait as fully realized as the next: “I swear to God, all Gabbi ordered was a cup of hot water with a lemon, a fruit cup and one—count it, one—scrambled egg white. I mean, who eats like that?” Overall, this is a captivating story on multiple levels.

A compelling tale of murder and small-town life with keen psycho­ logical insight.

Dreaming From the Trunk of an American Car Camaj, Pashko R. | MindStir Media (280 pp.) $19.99 paper | Aug. 15, 2024 | 9781963844610

An Albanian-born immigrant reflects on his journey to America in this debut memoir.

As detailed in the book’s harrowing opening chapters, Camaj first arrived in America in the 1980s via the trunk of a car. Denied entry into the United States, the author and his twin sister, Drita, traveled from their home in the former Yugoslavia to Mexico.

In Tijuana, they joined a distant relative, Luigji, who accompanied them on their journey across the U.S. border into San Diego. “I reluctantly became the last to hop in the trunk of an early 1980’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo,” Camaj writes; “the final sardine to fit in the can.” Told in intimate detail, the narrative chronicles the manifold difficulties encountered by the author and his sister in their quest to relocate to the United States. During their time in Mexico, for instance, the duo did not even know how to speak Spanish or English as they attempted to navigate a journey across the border that involved

significant physical and financial risks—a trip to California at the time cost them thousands of dollars, all paid under the table. Sprinkled throughout the book are flashbacks to the author’s life in the Malesia (highlands) region of Albania and Montenegro. (“A rugged geographic region,” he observes. “Malesia matches its people.”) Camaj recalls fond memories spent with family, including working alongside his father on an extended trip to Bosnia in 1979. (His father would tragically die the following year.) He also highlights the religious and ethnic diversity of the Balkans, providing firsthand sociopolitical commentary on the region. When discussing the area’s co-mingling of Christian and Islam faiths, the author notes that “our religion does not define us. Our nationality, Albanian, defines us.”

While the journey to the United States takes center stage, the author is especially adept at chronicling the psychological turmoil of an immigrant.

Camaj’s family had lived in the same house and toiled on the same land for as many as 16 generations. He asks himself, “did their legacy, for me and my birthplace, end with my departure—­ did I sin against them?” This sense of betrayal would continue to haunt the author long after finding success and settling down in the United States.

Ultimately, he concludes, it was only by leaving his home country that he was able to keep the legacy and memory of his ancestors alive. (“I could only realize my dreams in my new country,” the author reflects.) While much of the book’s narrative comes from Camaj’s own memories, it is supplemented by the experiences conveyed to him by his parents and other people he encountered along the way. Though the book’s jumbled chronology may at times be a bit disorienting, the author’s engaging

A compelling tale of murder and small-town life.

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writing style sustains reader interest throughout. The project’s authenticity is underscored by Camaj’s decision to use Albanian (and some Turkish and Serbian) terms throughout the text, and the book includes a glossary of non-­ English words to assist readers. This emphasis on engaging readers is further evidenced by a wealth of family photos.

A poignant reflection on the experiences of an immigrant to the United States.

From Panic to Profit: Uncover Value, Boost Revenue, and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle Canady, Bill | Wiley (256 pp.) | $26.6 April 29, 2025 | 9781394331581

A turnaround expert advises business leaders on moving to profitability.

In this business book, Canady draws on his experience as a CEO often hired to rehabilitate companies in financial and operational trouble to discuss how to establish the conditions that allow businesses to thrive. The Pareto principle underlies the author’s approach— Canady explains to readers how to shift a company’s focus to the 20% of products and customers that deliver the majority of the business’s revenue, resulting in more profitable operations. The author contends that businesses need to earn “the right to grow,” which they can do by setting a goal and making an action plan. The book provides a detailed example of such a process, using a pseudonymous company Canady once ran on behalf of its private equity owners. The author takes readers through the process of segmenting both products and customers into the profitable 20% and the unprofitable 80%, offering suggestions on how to maximize the value of the unprofitable majority. Canady advises readers on how to get staff aligned with corporate goals, how to measure progress and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

profitability, and how to approach an existing business with a fresh mindset in order to make the changes needed for its survival. Sometimes, the author’s analogies are overstretched (like his claim that Thoreau set a goal of “achieving a trivial-to-critical ratio of 95/5” when he moved into a cabin by Walden Pond), but readers will generally find enough substance in the text to allow them to overlook some rhetorical excesses and unnecessary repetition (the concept of “zeroing-up” is defined at length twice). On the whole, the book is highly readable, offers actionable advice, and gives readers a solid understanding of what it takes to make a business profitable. Canady’s enthusiasm for the turnaround process drives the narrative pace, making the book a quick read with meaty sections readers will return to when they are ready to apply its lessons to their own workplaces.

A fast-paced and engaging account of taking a business from weakness to strength.

Sunder: Tome 1: Small Beginnings Comtois, Pierre-Alexandre | Mad Cave Studios (168 pp.) | $19.99 paper May 6, 2025 | 9781545817919

A goat searching for the owner of a magical book comes across kindly strangers and formidable foes in Comtois’ graphic novel.

Zeek is a young goat and a humble librarian at a monastery. His daily excitement consists of snacking on freshly baked bread and reading adventure stories. One day, while shelving books, Zeek discovers one he’s never seen before (“it’s a very peculiar book indeed”). When opened, it emits a burst of light and knocks the librarian unconscious. The abbot, a soft-spoken bear, determines this book is one of magic; knowing Zeek has long yearned for an adventure of his own, he sends him to find its owner. Zeek’s first stop is a village where an apothecary’s customer

has bought rare ingredients used in alchemical recipes. For every accommodating person Zeek encounters, there’s another who’s outright sinister, from callous thugs to scary types who are after the book. Luckily, Zeek teams up with traveling thieves Immane, a muscle-­ bound ram, and the unironically named Mouse. They all soon get an inkling as to the book’s extraordinary nature and power. Comtois’ deft character development makes it easy to dote on Zeek; he’s an orphan who doesn’t hesitate to help others, even at his own peril. His adventure reveals details of a world set in a medievallike period (with knights in armor) in which space travel also exists.

The cast includes anthropomorphic animals, most of whom tower over Zeek; even Mouse, who often runs ahead of him (or sits on Immane’s shoulder), seems bigger. Much of the story is told through the visuals, courtesy of the author’s illustrations. The images detail striking physical traits (like Mouse’s tail or the abbot’s round belly) and create a sublime atmosphere with pitch-black shadows and blue-grey scenes illuminated by torches or candlelight. The ending makes it apparent that this delightful story is far from over.

Top-notch characters and sensational artwork whip up a crowd-pleasing series starter.

Kirkus Star

The Adventures of the Flash Gang: Episode Three: Berlin Breakout Downing, M.M. & S.J. Waugh Fitzroy Books (214 pp.) | $14.95 paper March 18, 2025 | 9781646035694

In Downing and Waugh’s latest middle-grade series entry, an American boy attempts to rescue his father, who is being held by the Nazis in 1930s Germany.

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early-20th-century American history and a well-calibrated orphan-in-peril vibe. Exploding Experiment (2023) introduced Lewis Carter, a bespectacled, asthmatic, then-11-year-old boy, left homeless in 1930s Pittsburgh after his chemist father’s mysterious apparent death. Using his dad’s secret “recipe” for an explosive but harmless substance, he survived by stealing food for himself and ragtag fellow street kids. Newspapers and police called them “The Flash Gang,” and assumed they were adults; then, real evildoers came after them. In Treasonous Tycoon (2024), Lewis and his best friend, brave Pearl, experience Pittsburgh’s deadly flood of 1936, and fight mobsters, corrupt moguls, and Nazi sympathizers. Now, in this third entry, Lewis’ father is apparently imprisoned in Adolf Hitler’s Berlin (before the start of World War II), and Lewis and Pearl embark on a rescue mission. Thanks to an attache working for Pearl’s despised but rich absentee father, the pair cross the Atlantic, going first-class on an ocean liner with everything necessary to get in and out of Berlin. However, they wonder why the attache is so helpful, and they also later puzzle over why a particular doddering old lady won’t leave them alone. Is the American singer (with a French stage name) they meet as nice as he appears? And is it a coincidence that a suspect watch repairman is on the ship, too?

Readers who are familiar with the series will correctly surmise that things don’t go smoothly for Lewis and Pearl once they reach Nazi-controlled Berlin.

However, just how completely and quickly their luck changes darkens the plot with a notable and palpable sense of unease—one that is only heightened by the pervasive menace of Hitler’s brownshirts and SS officers. At one point, Lewis has a vicious encounter with some members of the Hitler Youth. Such chaos and hate seem to contradict the outwardly orderly world that the pair must navigate: “I don’t understand why nobody cares!” Lewis says. “Violence seems to be committed so…so casually. Nobody does anything.” Without ever feeling exploitative, the story takes care to 140

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portray the very real dangers of the time in a direct manner. The different ways that anxious Lewis and intrepid Pearl react to the various, profound plot twists throughout the story ring true—because this book, like the two series entries that precede it, is about fathers and what it means for children when adults make sacrifices for the greater good. Although the title of one of the last chapters here is “The End of the Adventures,” the epilogue makes clear there are still some loose ends to tie up and challenges for Lewis and Pearl to pursue. With its multiple plot twists and vivid sense of danger, this book doesn’t disappoint. Here’s hoping that this terrific first-rate middle-grade series continues.

A third series installment that offers compelling storytelling with emotional depth and chilling suspense.

The Most Amazing Machine Dunckle, Emily | Illus. by Danika Runyan Dolan Publishing (40 pp.) | $24.99 | $13.99 paper | March 25, 2025 | 9798218508234 9798218508241 paper

Dunckle offers an introduction to the different functions of the brain in this picture book.

In lilting rhymes, the author addresses the organ that controls everything in the human body. She likens it to a “busy train station”—a depot through which everything passes. However, not all trains are alike, and neither are all brains, which can “have different sizes or parts….Connectors are there, and they’re all working hard…but tracks may be bumpy, or pathways are barred.” Not every brain solves problems the same way, or even at all, notes the narration. However, each one is unique and thus moves at its own speed, working hard while bringing something special into the world.

Dunckle’s debut picture book is a high-level explanation of the central nervous system and a celebration of

neurodiversity. The vocabulary is simple enough for a kindergartner, and the work’s railway similes and path metaphors are constructive in how they explain different brains’ methods of approaching tasks. In the same vein, Runyan’s full-color cartoon illustrations include not only a variety of children with various skin tones, but also a rainbow—a well-known symbol of neurodivergence.

A basic but elegant survey for young readers of the many versions of the human brain.

Good (Enough) Mother: Stories and Essays Fenker, Ashley | Self (119 pp.) | $14.99 paper March 11, 2025 | 9798992383102

Fenker reflects on her path to motherhood in this set of essays and stories that encourage extending grace to mothers and their difficult journeys.

At 16, the author was diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder more often attributed to “women in their 60s,” she writes. At 30, she was diagnosed with lupus. And, despite these difficulties, she became pregnant at 32, fulfilling a great wish: “Yes, that doctor who told me I couldn’t have a baby, or something like that, was very wrong.” This collection chronicles the shifts in her attitudes toward motherhood throughout her adult life, culminating in the birth of her son in the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown.

The most notable of these stories are “A Hallway to the Nursery” and “Nursery Dreaming,” in which Fenker tells of the country house she bought with her husband, which was idyllic and quaint, but lacked any hallways. The house, as she describes it, had an open floor plan in which access to some rooms required entry through others. Upon learning that she was pregnant, Fenker and her husband renovated the house to add a hallway, a passage to a more K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A shrewd, likable protagonist gives this straightforward crime novel a boost.

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comforting existence. However, she also calls its origin a “long and messy story”; at other points, the author describes a difficult pregnancy, including preeclampsia that extended her postpartum recovery. Finally, though, she brought her son home to his new nursery.

Fenker’s interior, epistolary style of writing deepens her reflections, allowing readers an intimate view of her world, including the traumas and emotional complexities of her illnesses and pregnancy. The episodic structure of her narrative makes for an immersive read, and her clear, honest prose offers readers a heartfelt look at one woman’s experience. However, the more salient chapters sit among more ephemeral ones, detailing grocery lists and addressing the “fears of your readers,” which prove distracting at times.

An often poignant, if somewhat disjointed, collection of personal stories.

Red Lily Graham, Janice | Vendome Books (378 pp.)

May 26, 2025 | 9798992174724

In Graham’s novel, a man travels to France to settle the estate of his recently deceased aunt and encounters more than he bargained for.

Carl Box calls it “a bit of mischief” when he learns that Aunt Lillian has left him land in France upon her apparent death. He doesn’t want to travel at all, much less for someone he barely knows, and what little he does know of his aunt suggests she was estranged from the family for unclear reasons. When he arrives in Paris, he K IR KU S R E V IE W S

does all of the right things; he goes to her apartment and searches for information. After retrieving her ashes, Carl learns three things about his aunt: She is, in fact, alive; she’s being pursued by a mysterious killer; and she’s been smuggling KGB documents from Moscow to Paris to use as leverage to free her lover from wrongful imprisonment in a psychiatric institution. She has, along with faking her own death, selected her nephew to lend credibility to this ruse, but once he becomes a suspect in her murder, Lily gets him to help her gather information and escape certain death. Graham folds these largerthan-­life events together masterfully, using humorous dialogue and specific details to bring readers into the world and make it real. Her vivid descriptions make easy work of picturing each situation and place: “Billy had taken to his Prussian blue dog bed like an overwrought lady in a Victorian melodrama.” Likewise, Graham does a remarkable job of building suspense throughout her novel, and each section comes with both new questions and answers, continually giving readers fresh developments to ponder. Additionally, the cast’s voices infuse levity and personality into the text. For example, in response to Carl revealing that the police suspected him to be Lily’s killer, she replies nonchalantly: “‘But of course you didn’t,’ she said soothingly while spooning potatoes onto [Carl’s] plate.” These parts swirl together to create a striking balance of excitement, humor, and sincerity, perfect for anyone seeking a lively, twisty adventure.

An engaging, tender tale of two people uncovering the truth about the world, each other, and themselves.

Under the Black Flag - Piracy Is Not a Victimless Crime Guigli, Jim | Labrador (420 pp.) | $32.95 $21.95 paper | Dec. 12, 2024 9798989333721 | 9798989333714 paper Series: A Bart Lasiter Mystery, 1

In Guigli’s mystery sequel, a Sacramento-­ based private investigator digs into an increasingly complicated kidnapping case.

It’s 2007, and cop-turned-PI Bart Lasiter is initially “dumbstruck” by the attractive, blue-eyed, blond-haired woman who walks into his office, which doubles as his home. Mrs. Drake Concannon, as she calls herself, is distraught over her husband, Drake, a retired engineer and former consultant in the gambling industry who vanished while out on the lake in his small boat; she produces a ransom note she says she received, in which the anonymous perpetrators demand $5 million, due in two days’ time. Bart willingly accepts the case, assuring her that he’ll deliver the ransom personally and ensure her husband makes it home safely. In the meantime, he looks into identifying the kidnapper, or kidnappers; the ransom note ends with an apparent pirate insignia. Soon enough, Bart has a run-in with a trio of piratelike bikers— one of whom even has a stereotypical peg leg. Further investigation takes the PI to a yacht club and later reveals a possible Mafia connection. Unfortunately, the ransom drop-off doesn’t go quite as expected and Bart soon finds himself in peril. Guigli’s lowly protagonist, who first appeared in the novelette Bad News for a Ghost (2013), has some intriguing quirks, including the retro Casio wristwatch he wears and the fact that, prior to the investigation, he has to buy his pistol back from a pawnshop.

He’s also armed with terrific allies, including his landlord and former police training officer, Fred Clifford, and resourceful friend/newspaper reporter, Al Wexler. The mystery itself is relatively lightweight, with few MAY 1, 2025

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surprises; Bart is a methodical private eye who works with a to-do list, stealthily follows people, and smoothly questions others by roping them in with easygoing conversations. The final act also decelerates the action considerably; the elucidation of details takes a bit too long, and several chapters near the end deliver offer good lines that could have appealingly closed the novel, but don’t.

A shrewd, likable protagonist gives this straightforward crime novel a boost.

Ripples in Stone Harper, Claire | Self (450 pp.) $29.95 | $19.95 paper | March 1, 2025 9798218547806 | 9798339467113 paper

Harper’s historical YA novel imagines the lives of a family caught up in the French Revolution.

The novel opens in 1786 on protagonist Lady Geneviève de Mailly-Nesle’s 14th birthday as the family sets off on a long journey. Geneviève’s older sister, Félicité, is King Louis XVI’s mistress, a situation that’s complicated by the growing civil unrest and the fact that a third de Mailly-Nesle sister, Celeste, has also recently slept with the king. This invoked the wrath of the Vatican, which demanded that Geneviève be sent to a nunnery as restitution. The family’s current journey is to bring Geneviève to her new home. Geneviève finds the nuns’ constricting clothing and simple, cloistered life to be oppressive. She’s often reprimanded by the Mother Superior and others, which only increases her yearning to leave. She does make a few friends, including sea shanty–singing Sister Victoria. Félicité is also sent to the nunnery. However, as the revolution heats up, some nuns are displaced, rehomed, and even join in the rebellion. The complex story ends on a hopeful note. Over the course of this novel, Harper takes care to include a multitude of details to set scenes in her novel, but in a way that enhances and engages the reader, rather than 142

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An engaging novel of 18th-century France with a spirited protagonist.

RIPPLES IN STONE

distracting them from the flow of the narrative. Harper notes that while her story’s overall timeline is true to actual French history, she took creative liberties with the real-life de Mailly-Nesle family and their fate. The final chapter of the novel helpfully clarifies what’s based in historical fact, and on the author’s extensive research, and what’s not. This is a wonderful inclusion, especially for readers for whom this may be a gateway into learning more about this sweeping period of history.

myriad of marvels and the materials from which they were cleverly engineered, providing detail for the story. The prose is measured in describing the external world of daily life, but when Marcus gets a new idea, the pace picks up speed: “As he pulled out his pencil, the blocks in the corner caught his attention. // Suddenly, his busy brain shifted. // He got out of his chair, a builder on a mission. // He was inspired!” The story’s conclusion stands out for its celebration of Marcus’ unconventional worldview.

Marvelous

Good Digital Citizen: Everyday Ethics for an Intentional Digital Existence

An engaging novel of 18th-century France with a spirited protagonist.

Hoffman, Alexandra | Illus. by Beatriz Mello Wishing Star Publishing (32 pp.) | $12.99 paper | March 17, 2025 | 9781998751310

A boy struggles to focus on anything other than building things in Hoffman’s picture book.

Marcus is a little boy with a mop of curly black hair and brown skin. He loves to build things with blocks, pencils, library books, sticks, and rope; if Marcus can touch it, he can create something with it. The trouble is, Marcus’ penchant for making towers, bridges, rocket ships, zip lines, and palaces distracts him from doing other important things—like math, spelling, and playing with the other children. Ms. Anderson, Marcus’ teacher, asks the class to design a blueprint for a new school playground.

When it’s time to present their designs, everyone shows off their drawings, except for Marcus; he has built a whole marvelous model of a playground.

Mello’s digital cartoon illustrations are brightly colored and show Marcus’

An inclusive embrace of a brain that was built for building.

Kastell, Kori | Archway Publishing (182 pp.) $33.99 | $16.99 paper | Oct. 28, 2024 9781665765794 | 9781665765770 paper

An author takes an ideological approach to the overwhelming ubiquity of the digital world.

As Kastell points out at the start of her nonfiction book, nearly five billion people on the planet are fully engaged in the digital age, “heads buried in their smartphones, iPads, and laptops, which mediate most of our conversations and intimate connections,” completely hooked into the “Internet of Things.”

“We now recognize,” the author writes, “that the overwhelm we feel about overload, unsavory digital exchanges, and online negativity are taxing everyone.”

Her plan for dealing with this feeling is drawn from the ancient world, specifically the principles of Stoicism: accept K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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events as they occur, control your reactions to things, continuously take stock of what’s really important in life—a totality she refers to as “Stoic scrolling.”

“You are not in control of the world around you,” she reminds her readers, “but you can control how you let it affect you—or not—and how you respond, if at all.” This philosophical angle runs throughout the book, with Kastell touching on figures like Kierkegaard and the literary theorist René Girard and drawing from their writings to formulate strategies for handling our “responsibility to be rightful and truthful in how we use technology.” This approach is intriguing, and the author deepens it as she goes along, bringing in a wide variety of technology-related subjects, always with an upbeat, optimistic attitude.

Even on touchstone controversies like artificial intelligence, she’s more hopeful about the possibilities than anxious about the dangers: “We are synergizing with our technology. It is not replacing us. It is empowering us.”

This positivity, plus the much-needed call for balanced self-control, makes all this a refreshing take on the digital miasma that fills the modern world.

A concisely argued, worthwhile call to adopt Stoicism in key relationships with the online world.

The Boughs of Love: Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration Kitchen, Nathan | By Common Consent Press (472 pp.) | $31.95 | $16.95 paper Nov. 5, 2024 | 9781961471146 9781961471153 paper

A gay member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­ day Saints fights for acceptance and equality in this heartfelt memoir.

Arizona-based author Kitchen—­a lifelong LDS churchgoer and the past K IR KU S R E V IE W S

president of the group Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons, Families & Friends—recaps his journey as a gay member of a faith that, he says, has decidedly antigay leadership and a doctrine that emphasizes traditional marriage and procreation as the cornerstones of salvation. He recalls, at the age of 17, revealing the fact that he was gay to his bishop, who told him to suppress it and marry a woman; he dutifully complied and went on to raise five children with his wife before they divorced. He recounts his long coming-out odyssey, which met with support from some churchgoing relatives and anger from others, including his son, although open communication led to reconciliations.

Kitchen joined Affirmation and became an outspoken critic of LDS policies, especially the 2015 “exclusion policy” declaring gay marriage an act of apostasy and banning children of same-sex couples from receiving some sacraments. The issue was particularly urgent to him because of his impending marriage to his husband, which, he says, led to a drive by LDS officials to excommunicate him. Kitchen presents an incisive, well-informed analysis of LDS policy toward LGBTQ+ members and its contradictions, noting its shift from demonization to a stance that allows sexual minorities to remain members—as long as they remain celibate.

It’s a sharp, confrontational critique, but the author remains optimistic that the Church’s teachings on love will lead to a full embrace of LGBTQ+ members. Kitchen is savvy about the struggle’s politics and ideology, but the book is also a passionate profession of faith in the Church and in gay rights, couched in stirring religious imagery. When his stake president pressed him not to marry Matthew, Kitchen writes, “The Spirit immediately descended upon me like fire,” telling him to “go forward with no fear. Your marriage is blessed in me.”

The result is a sophisticated and deeply personal testament.

A compelling case for the sanctity of gay love, combining rigorous argument and emotional drama.

Kirkus Star

Doing the Right Thing: Simple Solutions, Essential Tips, & Helpful Resources for Assisting Aging Loved Ones Miller, Debbie C. | Self (176 pp.) | $16.99 paper | June 19, 2024 | 9798218363499

Miller offers a guide for millen­ nials becoming caregivers for the elderly.

The author draws on her experience as a certified senior advisor, certified aging in place specialist, and real estate associate broker in these pages to help millennial readers navigate the many options and issues that come with becoming a caregiver for an elder. The author discusses the pros and cons of a wide range of living options, including the more commonly known active adult and continuing care communities, as well as lesser-known options like Accessory Dwelling Units and RV living, among others. Miller concisely explains reverse mortgages and strategies for selling a home. She also provides helpful lists regarding criteria for aging in place, evaluating assisted living communities and potential trust and estate attorneys, and items needed for probate. Tips for effective decluttering are supplemented with easy-to-follow flow charts. Throughout the book, the most important material is indicated by a boldfaced comment: “Do This Before It’s Too Late.”

References to additional resources go beyond the government and AARP to include the Genworth Cost of Care Study and the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance. Miller acknowledges the financial and emotional challenges of caregiving, including difficult conversation, escalating stress, and grief and mourning, always stressing honesty, empathy, and compassion. “It can be rewarding but requires your time and sacrifice. Much of the sacrifice is financial and it will be important for you to take care of yourself emotionally MAY 1, 2025

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and financially,” she cautions. Behindthe-scenes anecdotes of her experiences interspersed throughout the book provide helpful illustrations of the unpredictable roadblocks that can arise at any point in this journey. Although the guide is aimed at caregivers, the author’s relatable prose and sensible approach to this difficult subject will prove helpful to anyone who wants to put their affairs in order.

A well-written and necessary guide for anyone dealing with the issues of aging.

At the Risk of Recovery Morgan, Finn Adair | Self (246 pp.) $12.00 paper | Jan. 28, 2025 | 9798308544197

After waking up from a drug-­fueled bender, an amnesiac is plagued by violent memories and a sinister voice in his head, drawing him dangerously close to an active serial killer in Morgan’s SF/horror novel.

A startling prologue features a written confession from a man named Adrian Darrow, who claims to have murdered multiple people. The action switches to and remains with a different man, Aran Moreau, who wakes up on a pier in the year 2354 with no memory of recent weeks. As he retraces his steps to his apartment in the city of Sahm Avana, he learns that he recently quit his job as a banker at Maritime Union and has changed his abode; he also discovers that he has an alarmingly large sum in his bank account. As the days pass, disturbing scenes appear in his mind’s eye, as does a vicious voice that guides

him toward clues about a string of murders. As Moreau moves among a series of local haunts, including a dive bar, a sex worker’s apartment, and his psychologist’s office, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. As it turns out, Darrow is no stranger to him; he first entered Moreau’s life at the psychiatric ward at a hospital known as Sahm Avana West, and, somehow, the memories that Moreau is experiencing have arisen from “imprinted visualizations.” Although Moreau is relieved that he isn’t a serial killer, his own life proves to be somewhat empty and characterized by dubious morals; for example, his old circle included money-obsessed misogynist Jonathan Yates, whose friendship is effectively a hangover from Moreau’s childhood. He has conversations with other friends, and he responds to revelations about his old self by trying to carve out a better way of life.

Some of the secondary characters, such as Yates, feel one-note, but others, such as bartender Mitsuko and unemployed engineer Maddy, offer Moreau a place to escape the chaos, albeit momentarily. The setting of Sahm Avana is a worthy backdrop for the action; it’s a hard town in which everyone seems to be hustling. It has only a few “oxygen regeneration sites” remaining, where artificial orchids cover the “mechanical metal monstrosity underneath.” This is an apt image, as many of the characters’ outward appearances strikingly contrast with their motives. For example, Edy Mab, a gossip blogger, continues to break news of the murders in the name of public interest and safety, but her smug delight at revealing these dark details clouds her journalistic intent. Mitsuko, who runs his local dive, is a no-nonsense barkeep who insists that there’s no illegal drug consumption or purchasing in her establishment; however, her extensive

A compelling neonoir dystopian mystery with a fractured protagonist.

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knowledge later enables her to identify the drug Moreau suspects he used to take. Elsewhere, Moreau’s professional confidant Dr. Valerie Ecclewell, a criminal psychologist, has a renewed interest in his amnesia but doesn’t show her hand until late in the text. As protagonists go, Moreau is rather unlikable, but he allows Morgan to effectively weigh questions of social responsibility on a personal and governmental level.

A compelling neonoir dystopian mystery with a fractured protagonist.

Make Things in America: How tax reform can reduce the tax burden on American workers Olsen, James R. | Breaking Wave Publishing (104 pp.) | $14.00 paper | April 11, 2025 9781734233254

A plan for tax reform that aims to relieve American workers of undue financial burdens and restore the nation’s competitiveness as a manufacturer.

Despite being an “economic powerhouse,” the United States “has managed to lose much of its manufacturing prowess,” and most low-tech production has taken flight to other countries like China, observes Olsen. We cannot simply accept an economy that runs singularly on services, he asserts. “We need to make more of our own things.” Much of the problem lies in the tax code, per the author, which seems to punish the average American worker— the linchpin of the nation’s economic competitiveness—and reward risky financial speculation. To remedy the problem, Olsen lucidly proposes a sweeping tax reform plan and suggests adopting a single-payer national health care plan and a “Child Sustenance Assistance Service.” The money to pay for these programs and tax cuts will come from taxing stock market and real estate speculation, the latter of which, according to the author, not only artificially raises K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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housing prices but also destabilizes communities (these are provocative points argued with impressive analytical rigor).

Olsen’s approach is free of any partisan rhetoric or ideological axioms; in fact, he roundly criticizes both communism and free-market capitalism as “too mechanistic.” At the heart of the book is a stirring paean to the nobility of work and the central significance of the American worker to the economy as a whole. (“A foundational principle of America is that the economy’s very purpose is to serve the needs and aspirations of the American workforce.”) This is a very brief book— well under 100 pages of main text—and such a quick treatment of so many complex issues can’t be decisively persuasive. The author’s discussion of alleviating poverty is particularly vague, and seems to amount to little more than hiring more case managers. However, the true value of this slim volume is that it stimulates further discussion by offering a perspective often neglected—one that places everyday workers, rather than disruptive entrepreneurs, at the top of the nation’s economic hierarchy.

For all its limitations, a worthwhile contribution to an important discussion.

Ways of Virtue O’Neill, Liz | She Writes Press (256 pp.) | $18.99 paper Sept. 30, 2025 | 9798896360247

In O’Neill’s historical novel, a young woman confined by societal pressures finds her world turned upside down with the arrival of a handsome pilot with a complicated past.

In June of 1954, 19-year-old Sabina McTigue is staying with her Aunt Poppy at her house on Cape Cod for the summer. According to her family’s expectations, Sabina will attend Weston College in the fall and settle down into marriage with a suitable man. The problem is, she isn’t sure that’s what she wants for her life (“In her mind, Sabina K IR KU S R E V IE W S

could see it all unfolding: the next four years of her life, like a series of grim snapshots”). She becomes more uncertain after she meets Colin Hatch, a pilot who has been mysteriously discharged from the United States Army and has a reputation for romancing the local women. Sabina and Colin are drawn to each other, but the arrival of actress Isolde Martin complicates matters when she hires Colin to be her personal pilot.

More dramas unfold as a socially significant wedding gets underway (with surprising results), Colin raises the ire of a wealthy real estate developer (whose scheme to turn Cape Cod into the next major tourist area depends on getting enough votes from the locals), and a hurricane barrels toward them all.

O’Neill constructs an intricate web of societal and emotional entanglements that could easily snag in less capable hands; here, all of the pieces manage to fall into place with relative ease. (The somewhat drawn-out summary of Colin’s checkered past near the novel’s conclusion is a rare instance of narrative clumsiness). With snappy dialogue (“Congratulations. I do crossword puzzles in my bed jacket. Let’s not burn daylight, dear”) and well-developed characters (even the minor players feel rich and fully drawn), O’Neill has written a compelling story of love, dashed expectations, and second chances.

A delightful small-town drama expertly bedecked with all of the trappings of a classic romance.

Still Life with Saints: Italian Adventures of Magical Spirit Paolantonio, Angela | Self (256 pp.) | $19.95 paper | Dec. 3, 2020 | 9798571716765

An American woman connects with her Southern Italian heritage in this sequel memoir.

In this follow-­ up to The Ghosts of Italy (2016), Paolantonio tells of how, in 2008, she was ready to make the switch

from Mulholland Drive, which started right outside her Los Angeles home and ran along the mountains, to Via Fontana, a road in Calitri, Italy, that runs along the lands of her ancestors: “How do I feel when I have to leave the place that is now running in my veins?” she reflects on the Italian village. “I am lost.” The book is as much a history of women in Italy as it is a memoir, and Paolantonio masterfully weaves the two threads together throughout. In one instance, she highlights cultural differences in a recounting of an airport pickup in Rome. After mixing up one of her flights, she details how Giuseppe, an Italian man with whom she had a long-distance relationship, drove three hours to pick her up—an uncommon thing to do in Southern Italian culture. Because she wasn’t at that airport, Giuseppe went all that way for no reason, and would likely lose his job for doing so, as taking a day off was “not easy or even condoned in Southern Italy.” The author explores other cultural details throughout the book, such as how all the women in the village produced their own food, and the unspoken hierarchy of how to clean an Italian kitchen after a midday meal. There’s a strong emphasis on folklore and concepts of magic, with Paolantonio looking into her possible connection to spirits and even providing detailed instructions for a few elixirs, said to be magical. The story travels beautifully through LA, New York City, and Italy as the narrative goes on, although it bounces somewhat randomly through time, which can occasionally be confusing. Still, Paolantonio offers a revealing look at how she learned how to belong in her ancestral home.

An often engaging personal and cultural journey.

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The Never List Presley, Jade | Entangled: Red Tower Books $32.99 | April 1, 2025 | 9781649377524

A woman beset by four gorgeous, magical princes enjoys them all in this rollicking fantasy romance.

Rylee Gray, a downtrodden Ashlander in the kingdom of Lumathyst, infiltrates the royal palace to snoop for information on her missing sister, Erin, by attending the Choosing, a masked ball at which a woman is selected to be the collective mate of the Legends of Chaos, the realm’s four princes. Rylee hates royalty and is dismayed when she herself is chosen, which contractually obligates her to have sex with the Legends; but her dismay ebbs when she beholds their handsome faces, splendid physiques, and beguiling powers.

There’s nice-guy Kal, who can fly; earthy horndog Axl, who controls the sea; suave brainiac Pierce, who reads minds; and, most tantalizing of all, brooding bad-boy Jax, dubbed the Nightmare for his wolfish grin and ability to emotionally manipulate people into feeling terrified. To assess compatibility, Rylee spends a month at each Legend’s estate getting to know him personally and carnally, and, for good measure, she helps fight a rebel group called the Faders. But she worries that she will be executed if it’s discovered that she’s an Ashlander as well as a “demi” with the power to control wind; both conditions disqualify her from matehood. She also fends off Jax’s cruel father, King Baydel, who vacillates between trying to rape her and wanting to kill her. Rylee’s courage, compassion, and erotic adventurousness soon has the Legends—even prickly, sardonic Jax—eating out of her hands.

She then faces a final hurdle to becoming their official mate: the Athanry, a ritual that will make her immortal—if she survives it. Presley’s sketchily developed fictive world is full of contrivances designed mainly to set up Rylee’s lavish, graphically detailed sex scenes, which include spanking, bondage, disembodied mental sex, group sex, and floating-up-inthe-sky sex. Fortunately, her punchy 146

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prose conveys it all with elegant characterizations—“She was a jagged diamond of indifference in a sea of attention-seeking wealth”—and horny verve. (“He’s so damn tall, with bronze skin over tons of muscle, and his energy is just as large.

It’s a marvel there’s space enough for him in this room; it makes me wonder what else about him might be big.”)

Rylee’s mix of public feistiness and bedroom submissiveness to her buff suitors will keep readers stimulated.

An entertaining sex romp sprinkled with sword-and-sorcery pixie dust.

Tidelines Sasson, Sarah | Affirm Press (288 pp.) | $27.15 paper | Jan. 30, 2024 | 9781922848420

A young woman reflects on the years leading up to her beloved brother’s disappearance in Sasson’s novel.

In 2012, “Grub” Donohue sits outside the home of the man who she believes is responsible for the loss of her brother. The story hops back to the start of the millennium, when she’s a 14-year-old living with her family in Sydney, Australia. Her warmhearted parents love both of their children, though everyone, it seems, has a particular fondness for Grub’s older brother, Elijah. He’s a skilled swimmer, an inspired artist, and, like his mother, an exceptional cellist. He also dotes on his little sister, whom he’s often playful with and always protective of. Grub doesn’t like it when Elijah starts spending so much time with the same-aged Zed, even if she’s mysteriously drawn to this boy. It’s not just that he’s taking away moments

with her brother; Zed may be a bad influence, too (the friends, for example, sneak out on a weeknight). Years later, in 2010, Grub works toward her dream of becoming a physician—she’s a student and part of a group researching diseases affecting memory, mood, and movement.

Elijah, who’s still glued to Zed, is the quintessential starving artist with a perpetually empty wallet. Zed ropes Elijah into taking a job that’s more than it appears, and Grub’s once-affectionate brother takes a turn for the worse. Then he suddenly vanishes, leaving his family with more questions than answers. Is it all because of Zed? Or is there something else Grub has yet to learn—or simply doesn’t want to face?

Sasson methodically unspools Grub’s and Elijah’s stories. Grub, who narrates, is the true focus, and she easily wins the reader’s sympathy—this girl, who rarely complains, practically lives in her brother’s shadow; her longtime best friend crushes on him, and her mother gives the impression that she’s disappointed Grub isn’t as creative as Elijah.

The Donohues are an intriguing bunch.

The siblings’ dad was born in Northern Ireland, and their mom comes from a family of Sephardic Jews who emigrated from Egypt. This creates a visual distinction between the siblings, as Elijah sports a tan year-round and Grub’s skin is “so pale it glow[s].” As the story progresses, Grub experiences adolescence in convincing ways: She endures school bullies, has more than one romantic interest throughout the years, and deals with body image issues (her teen peers develop much faster than she does). Although readers will likely deduce which way Elijah’s story is headed, there’s a shock or two before the end. Before then, the protagonist mixes with dynamic characters, from Zed (who always has a scheme he’s cooking

An entertaining sex romp sprinkled with sword-and-sorcery pixie dust.

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up) to a teacher who leaves a lasting impression. Grub’s narration often approaches the poetic: “I carried around this secret of wanting to be a physician like carrying something stolen in my pocket. I tried to hide it but at the same time I couldn’t resist reaching in and pulling it out to toy with.”

This measured, thoroughly engaging coming-of-age tale hits all the right emotional notes.

Ollie the Civil Engineer Schleuter, Lisa | Inventive Minds Media (24 pp.) | $19.99 | $9.99 paper | Jan. 31, 2025 9798992218602 | 9798992218619 paper

Schleuter’s debut picture book follows a civil engineer through a typical day’s work.

Ollie is an indigo-skinned, elven-eared young man. When he gets ready for work, he covers his wild, violet hair with a yellow hardhat. He dons a yellow safety vest and sets out to the building site where a tower block is being erected. Ollie checks the supplies, then moves on to a second site where a bridge is being constructed.

Here he consults with other team members—all with skin hues evoking different colors of the rainbow—then embarks upon the planning of a road between the two sites. Ollie returns to his office to make calculations on his computer. Schleuter lays down a brief, fact-driven narrative across nine two-page spreads, favoring end-rhymes without any great sense of metric rhythm: “Asphalt over layers of rock and sand. / The design is ready, the work / can be planned.” Given the essentially nonfictional nature of the story, budding engineers may have preferred plain prose. Nonetheless, Ollie’s job is portrayed in vibrant, energetic scenes that instill a sense of wonder and emphasize the importance of the work being done. 2 Create Labs’ digital illustrations are appropriately functional, capturing much of the constructive clutter of genuine worksites while indulging in some nice K IR KU S R E V IE W S

artistic touches in the background buildings and Ollie’s work desk.

A simple and effective introduction to a profession not often touched upon in picture books.

The Heart of It: The Ten Pillars of Mindful Impact Investing Segal, Rick | Amplify Publishing (280 pp.) $24.52 | Jan. 21, 2025 | 9798891383029

Segal offers a thoughtful and compelling guide to impact investing.

Partly a memoir but mostly an investment guide, this book weaves together the author’s personal story with his investment philosophy and case studies. That philosophy is “impact investing”— investing that generates both profits and positive social impact. The author had a traditional finance and venture capital career before finding his calling in impact investing, which led him to establish Rethink Capital Partners. The crux of the book is Segal’s “Ten Pillars of Mindful Impact Investing,” which include asking questions such as, “Does the Enterprise Serve All Stakeholders?”; “Is There a Compelling Origin Story?”; “Are You Fully Leveraging Technology?”; “Does the Investment Reflect the Population it Serves?”; “Is the Company a Good Citizen?”; and “Are You Investing in Women?” In discussing his pillars, Segal promotes sustainability, inclusivity, building brands, making societal change with investments (improving education and expanding health care access are used as examples), diversity when it comes to leadership teams, and groups like Rethink Impact, a fund focused, in part, on investing in female founders (Segal is an investment committee member of this fund). The author concludes that impact investing is more than a niche—it’s an evolution of capitalism. Bottom line? Impact investing is a way to restore trust in the financial system while at the same time

driving real change. Though the concept of impact investing is not particularly new, Segal’s approach to the topic is refreshing. The standard elements are here, woven into his Ten Pillars, but he combines investment wisdom with storytelling, beginning with a 25-1/2page memoir—a nicely written intro detailing the people and places that shaped his philosophy. This striking combination of autobiography and how-to makes this a must-read not only for investors but for any entrepreneurs who want to make a difference. Segal provides a blueprint for marrying investments with values, and he makes a convincing case that mindful investing can be both financially rewarding and socially transformative.

An economic how-to that’s also a good read.

The Singing Sheriff of Baltimore: The Old Gray Mare and the Stolen Election Smith, Kathleen Marie | Self (356 pp.) $17.99 | $18.99 paper | Sept. 10, 2023 9798861011785 | 9798861011785 paper

Smith offers a fictionalized account of the life of a hard­ working and straight-­shooting Baltimore legend.

Tom McNulty, Jr., who was born in 1859 and died in 1932, is known for two things: a striking tenor singing voice and incorruptibility. In Smith’s novel, he leaves school early to help support his family, getting a job as a delivery boy and beginning to build a reputation for hard work and honesty. Slowly, he gets into Democratic politics, not as a candidate but by boosting others, and that is when his voice becomes invaluable; he has sung in church from an early age, but now he is hired by candidates who quickly discover that when Tom McNulty sings the good old songs at rallies and crab boils, the boyos will stomp and cheer, and remember—electoral gold, he is. In fact, it was Tom McNulty who composed MAY 1, 2025

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(and sang) a song we all know: “The Old Gray Mare” (“The old gray mare / she ain’t what she used to be…”) was actually a campaign song, and it is often credited with getting his friend, Ferdinand Latrobe, the owner of that superannuated horse, elected mayor of Baltimore. Tom, though successful in many enterprises, has always set his sights on becoming the sheriff of the city of Baltimore, the perfect job for a man of his aggressive probity. Twice he tries and twice he fails to win the Democratic nomination, despite being known and admired far and wide. But he is indefatigable. In the primary of 1911, he gets not a single vote in his own precinct; by happy accident he learns that many men did in fact vote for him, and that sets in motion the wheels of justice that call to account the corrupt Democratic machine that rigged the primary for someone more accommodating.

There is no doubting Smith’s sincerity in this hagiography, or that of McNulty’s descendent, who was her source. He really must have been a remarkable man, an inspiration in times when cynicism seemed the order of the day. But perhaps his story would have been better told as straight history, not historical fiction. In Smith’s fictional treatment, the reader often encounters very awkward passages in which the dialogue feels scripted and Tom comes off as an officious lecturer. Some of the necessary but dry exposition simply cannot believably be mouthed by “real” characters. When a character says, “We moved here to 398 East Monument in 1868 after the last raise,” that precise address seems lifted from an old newspaper account and not like something real (fictional) characters would say to each other. Another example: In the midst of a terrifying fire in 1873, with flaming timbers falling all around, Tom spots a cop who had been rude to a friend of his, stops right there in the street, and demands that he apologize. If this is meant to show Tom’s goodness and righteousness, it does nothing of the kind; instead, he seems like a pompous jerk celebrating his moral superiority in the midst of great peril. In the backmatter are copious notes and some photographs and political cartoons of the time. Smith relies heavily on the Baltimore Sun, as she should.

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A labor of love for a man who deserves such, but perhaps not in this particular form.

The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir Stanton, Maureen | Columbus State University Press (256 pp.) | $22.95 paper March 15, 2025 | 9798991456500

An award-­ winning author explores love and loss in this poignant memoir.

“Some people are fools for love,” Stanton writes in a description of herself and her one-time fiancé, Steve. When the two first met in New York in the 1980s, Steve was an electrician from Michigan who was sent to Wappingers Falls for a temporary job and Stanton was a college graduate who tended bar while still searching for a career. Steve, as it turned out, was stuck in a failing marriage, and within two months of first meeting the two had fallen helplessly in love. The memoir’s opening chapters read like a romance novel; the two lovers shared a kiss that “tilted the trajectory of my life,” writes Stanton. Many chapters are tastefully erotic as the two explore each other’s bodies (“This became my mission,” Stanton writes; “to introduce him to hedonism”). While the couple thought they finally knew what love was, they would find out what it truly involved “the hard way” when Steve’s diagnosis of an aggressive form of cancer decimated their life plans. They became engaged shortly before Steve’s death, and while the author would fall in love again, she would never again wear the engagement ring of another. The book’s emotionally raw narrative addresses rarely covered topics pertaining to cancer and chemotherapy’s impact on romantic relationships, including the sexual aspect. “How could I allow myself to feel pleasure when Steve felt pain almost constantly?” Stanton asks. The book’s final third centers around the author’s grief; she initially processed her loss by writing letters to

Steve every night for months and grappled with when to liberate herself from the symbolic heft of her engagement ring. A professor of creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Stanton is a skilled author whose prose sparkles with literary panache. She deftly connects her story to universal experiences, from the first stages of infatuation and passionate love to the excruciating pain and confusion that accompanies the death of a partner.

A poignant, evocative story of love, death, and survival.

Runaway Husbands: The Abandoned Wife’s Guide to Recovery and Renewal Stark, Vikki | Green Light Press (214 pp.) | $17.19 paper | July 24, 2023 9781988498010

A comprehensive resource to support women who have been abruptly left by their husbands.

Stark introduces readers to the term “Wife Abandonment Syndrome” (used to describe a situation in which a seemingly loving husband leaves his wife—usually for another woman—and immediately shows signs of anger and aggression) and shares her own experience with the phenomenon. She uses that personal knowledge, as well as information culled from over 400 interviews, to construct a guide to both the “whys” (why are some men compelled to act this way?) and the “hows” (how does one move on with one’s life after such a betrayal?) of WAS. The topics progress in a linear fashion, from the initial abandonment and typical hallmarks of WAS (“systematically devaluing his wife and the marriage, the husband denies what he had previously described as positive aspects of the couple’s joint history”) to possible reasons for such behavior (such as boosting the ego or reacting to a midlife crisis) to healing and rediscovering the joy of one’s own company. The author’s advice and anecdotes are complemented K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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by intriguing statistics, like the fact that 44% of women surveyed were deserted between November and January. Stark’s voice is inherently warm and encouraging as she walks readers through all of the various emotions they might be feeling.

She coins useful terminology (relating the eight stages of recovery to nature phenomena, for example) to help illuminate various concepts. While there is one section that feels a bit mean-­ spirited, in which women describing their exes’ affair partners make remarks like “she’s a crazy lady” and “she’s downright ugly,” the overall tone of the book is overwhelmingly positive and supportive.

The author also tackles the effect that WAS can have on kids, including a section on the different types of dads that ex-husbands might become (like a “Windowseat Dad” or a “Disneyland Dad”). The result is a comforting rallying cry for WAS survivors to reclaim their lives and happiness in the wake of a traumatic life change.

An inspirational collection of advice offering practical strategies for coping with spousal abandonment.

Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family Straub, Gail | Illus. by Will Lytle Greenleaf Book Group Press (324 pp.) $28.95 | June 10, 2025 | 9781963827194

Empowerment Institute co-­ founder Straub offers a memoir of her journey to discover and refine her empowerment pedagogy via world travel and cultural study.

Straub’s story begins with her high school trip to Paraguay in the mid-1960s and ends in Morocco in 2018, moving chronologically, with each chapter devoted to a different region where the author spent time. Straub takes the reader with her as she visits the Sahara, on her walking pilgrimage in southern Ireland, to Burkina Faso and the Annapurna Circuit in the Himalayas in Nepal, and to K IR KU S R E V IE W S

Russia during the late 1980s and early ’90s. She writes in an immediate present tense, so readers exist beside her at every step; however, she sometimes breaks the illusion with the benefit of hindsight and acknowledgement of regrets and missteps from the perspective of an older self.

Straub’s voice offers a rare balance of humility and self-assertion. In each chapter, she tells the reader about her teacher or teachers in that section’s geographical focus—whether they are an interpreter, a sherpa, or other guide—and she thinks back to past instructors as the book proceeds. In effect, the work is a lengthy origin story of her own teachings on empowerment and her role as executive director at the Empowerment Institute, which she founded with her husband, David Gershon, and it feels in accordance with these same principles, which celebrate connection and collaboration. In a chapter set in Jordan, for instance, she learns something about hospitality that feeds her teachings; in another, set in China, she reminds herself that the “best way to truly understand what’s going on in another culture is to travel to that country and listen as the people speak directly for themselves.”

A great deal of travel writing tends to fetishize cultures, but Straub takes a balanced and nuanced approach with keen awareness of colonialism and other global issues. Lytle’s occasional grayscale drawings include simplified maps and cultural touchstones.

A pleasurable remembrance that revels in the author’s complex wonder at the world.

Charity Trickett Is Not so Glamorousl Stringer, Christine | SparkPress (320 pp.) $17.99 paper | June 10, 2025 | 9781684633166

A young Canadian moves to Hollywood and faces new loves, bitter jealousies, and the possibility of her dreams coming true in Stringer’s novel.

At 26 years old, Charity Trickett is ready to chase her dreams. Already a relatively successful production assistant on film sets in Vancouver, she leaves for Los Angeles after finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman. Awaiting Charity in Hollywood is a job with Casper, an up-and-coming director at Canopy Studios; it’s the perfect stepping stone to ultimately becoming a screenwriter. Unfortunately, what is also waiting for her is Saffron, Casper’s associate producer, who is immediately envious of Charity and pulls every petty trick in the book in an attempt to sabotage her. In spite of Saffron’s tactics, however, Charity’s skills shine through. She befriends Vivy Parker, a famous actress; meets Kai, a sexy assistant who flirts with her at every opportunity; makes strides with her script; and even begins her own pitch for a film.

Later, though, after a copy of Casper’s latest movie is stolen and the finger of blame is pointed straight at Charity (as well as an investigation by the FBI), Hollywood seems to turn its back on her, and Charity doesn’t know if her career will recover or if her dreams are dead for good. Stringer’s 1997-set story is mostly a nostalgia-lite romp, though it does suffer slightly from a couple of issues.

The first act is cluttered with relatable, self-­deprecating humorous interior monologues from the endearing protagonist, who always has good intentions (“we don’t think about unbuttoning our coworker’s oxford shirt”); the trope works, but it’s a gambit used too often at the start of the story. Additionally, the narrative does not always seem to know what it wants to be, beginning as a fun, fish-out-of-water tale before making a hard left into intellectual property theft, kidney infections, and verbal abuse.

Though the ups and downs of Charity’s experiences in Los Angeles feel authentic, the changes in tone can be jarring.

A largely lighthearted, charming tale that takes some bumpy turns.

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Rise. Recover. Thrive.: How I Got Strong, Got Sober, and Built a Movement of Hope Strode, Scott | Stand Together Press (336 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2025 | 9798891381384

A recovering addict with nearly 30 years of sobriety shares his story of childhood trauma and the philosophy behind “the Phoenix movement.”

One night in 1997, Strode found himself at the end of an “uncontrolled nosedive,” crash-landing on his bathroom floor in the dark, snorting cocaine off a CD case, paranoid that the police were coming for him. He was sure that he was eventually going to die of a cocaine overdose if he didn’t stop using. “Instead of dying,” the author writes, “that’s the day Scott Andrew Strode was born.”

Strode writes that he was dealing with unaddressed childhood trauma from living with an unstable father who routinely terrorized his children and threatened suicide if Strode’s mother ever left him. The author describes a typical interaction with his father this way: “I flinched and, looking down, girded myself as always for a possible strike. But his words always hurt far worse. ‘You’re more trouble than you’re worth!’ Sadly, I was beginning to believe him.” His journey to recovery, while discovering a love of mountain climbing and other sports, travels some ground that will be familiar to readers of recovery memoirs.

However, it’s a lean, propulsive narrative that also serves as the necessary backdrop for understanding The Phoenix—the nonprofit organization that Strode started in 2007 to help others overcome trauma and addiction in a sober, active community. About the addiction crisis, he writes, “when addiction and overdose deaths reach an all-time high, it may be time to ask: What is it about today’s toxic culture that is causing so many deaths of despair?” The author asserts that those who suffer the most from addiction issues are just “canaries in the coal mine.” He further asks, “What’s out there killing 150

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the canaries that will eventually take down the rest of us too?” These are important questions to explore, and Strode’s decision to place them within an absorbing personal narrative makes them all the more engaging and relatable.

A thoughtful memoir of recovery and empowerment.

Survival Taylor, J. | FriesenPress (198 pp.) $22.49 | $13.49 paper | Jan. 10, 2025 9781038329721 | 9781038329714 paper Series: The After Series, 2

A teenage girl and her friend find new companions and encounter unexpected dangers in Taylor’s YA SF sequel.

Charlotte and her friend Anna, Nova Scotian teenagers who lost family members in the ENO.9 worldwide pandemic, are seeking shelter and safety. After Charlotte’s father Glen and older brother Samuel disappeared while on a supply-­ gathering trip, a man named Dave Steveston appeared at Charlotte’s family homestead. Steveston threatened their lives; the girls escaped from the homestead and began a search for new lodgings and supplies. They find another homestead which appears to be abandoned; however, they soon locate the bodies of 13 people, all victims of the virus. Despite the grim discovery, the girls decide to stay on the property.

When a teenage boy named Luke returns to the homestead to discover he’s lost his entire family, the girls find an unlikely but steadfast ally, and Charlotte experiences her first crush.

Despite the respite from the dangers caused by the virus, concerns about Charlotte’s father and brother linger for both girls, and Anna decides to return to Charlotte’s homestead to see if they have returned. The simple plan soon becomes a fight for survival when a natural disaster and severe injury put Charlotte and Luke in grave danger.

The second installment of Taylor’s The

After series improves upon its predecessor by expanding the worldbuilding and deepening the friendship of its main characters. The author moves the primary setting from Charlotte’s homestead to Luke’s, giving Charlotte (and readers) insight into the ways the virus has affected other families. The expanded setting comes with the introduction of an intriguing new character: Luke, a 17-year-old whose tentative romance with Charlotte provides some of the novel’s most poignant moments and demonstrates how love can engender a sense of hope even in the midst of tragedy. The friendship between Anna and Charlotte forms the emotional center of the narrative as a relationship that began as transactional (“I needed you and what you had much more than you needed me, Char”) becomes a sisterly bond.

A skillfully crafted tale of survival and the power of hope and connection.

Prometheus for Breakfast: A Darkly Absurd Tale of Death, the Afterlife, and the End of Everything Tilde, Jack | Dover Sole Publishing (218 pp.) $14.99 paper | Jan. 18, 2025 | 9798992222401

In Tilde’s novel, a recently deceased factory worker has quirky adventures in the afterlife.

Richard Wilkins is an unremarkable fellow who wakes up after an accident at his assembly line factory job and finds that he is dead. He’s entered the afterlife and is waiting to be evaluated at the DMV—the Department of Mortal Vacation—by a man named Peter who’s not “the Saint Peter”: “Shoot, I’m not even the only Peter in this hallway. There are three more Peters between offices 316C and 392C.” The DMV is a part of GOD (General Observable Dimension Inc.), a profitable corporation managed by the mercurial Joe. Heaven and hell are merely corporate divisions, and hell, Richard’s new home, isn’t anywhere near as bad as he expected; K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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it has its own seasons, architecture, and customs, and is led by the democratically elected Aster, who opposes Joe’s control of GOD. Richard befriends Rigot, his eccentric building representative and former assistant to Lucifer, who once co-managed GOD before being “fired” and cast into hell. Hell, as it happens, is threatened by a chaotic force called entrophy—a combination of entropy and atrophy generated by a teapot that once belonged to Lucifer. A cosmic battle between order and chaos ensues, and Richard and his companions must try to prevent the total collapse of hell—and the rest of the universe. With a blend of philosophical musing, absurdist humor, and nerdy dialogue, Tilde’s novel offers an adventure tale that recalls comedic novels in the vein of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and it’s peppered with references to such things as the TV series Breaking Bad and the work of philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Self-aware and silly, it touches lightly on various complex topics, including the nature of religious tradition to existentialism and the absurdity of bureaucracies.

The dialogue is punchy throughout, and the humor is ironic and sometimes appealingly corny. Along the way, Tilde’s protagonist takes readers on a journey into the concept of free will and the consequences of blind obedience; indeed, Richard effectively comes to life in death by rebelling against the established order and making his own choices.

A lighthearted and thoughtful journey to hell and back.

String Tobin, Paul | Illus. by Carlos Javier Olivares Mad Cave Studios (120 pp.) | $17.99 paper May 20, 2025 | 9781960578839

A woman solves crimes via psychic visions of strings connecting murderers to their victims in Tobin’s fizzy graphic novel.

The story unfolds in an unusually grungy Seattle beset by so many killings by K IR KU S R E V IE W S

A page-turner with plenty of hang-dog wit and pictorial pizzazz.

STRING

gangs and street crazies that the police turn to clairvoyants for help. Stepping up is Yoon-Sook Namgung, a 20-­something woman resplendent in long pink hair and heels who has somehow been able to see black strings coiling between the bodies of murder victims and their killers ever since her own parents were assassinated. (She also sees blue strings linking people who have had sex with each other, which furnishes many awkward revelations and blackmail opportunities.) Yoon-Sook teams up with Detective Lucas Mayfield, who takes her to the cold case morgue; there, she sees a black string trailing into the distance. It leads them to a lunatic who hurls a French bulldog at Yoon-Sook and then blows himself up with a dynamite vest. Repairing to her apartment with the orphaned bulldog, Yoon-Sook sees a black string attached to herself, suggesting that she is soon to be murdered—or commit murder herself.

Yoon-Sook and Lucas start sleuthing, assisted by Litty Mondo, a porn star who hires Yoon-Sook to find out who murdered her dog. Tobin populates this straightforward paranormal private-eye yarn with lots of quirky characters, gonzo scenes with comic-book sound effects (“THAKK…unhh!” is the sound of a porn star slugging her sleazy manager with a potted plant), and hilariously off-the-wall dialogue. (“The toilet didn’t work. Sager just liked sitting on toilets.

They calmed him down.”) Illustrator Olivares and colorist Colella create a slightly noirish but richly colored world with lurid highlights, muscular megaliths, and goggle-eyed banshees with gaping, sharklike maws. The result is a page-turner with plenty of hang-dog wit and pictorial pizzazz.

An entertaining suspenser with slyly funny writing, captivating visuals, and a cool, spunky hero.

Tyrant: A Collection of Stories Wilde, Michael | FriesenPress (348 pp.) $43.23 | $25.99 paper | Dec. 23, 2024 9781038320681 | 9781038320674 paper

A collection of disquieting short stories.

Composed of 13 stories, Wilde’s collection is unified by futuristic scenarios and dystopian themes.

Fantastical creatures abound: The unknown planet depicted in “Harness” houses a beast nicknamed the Landlord— the size of a building, ruthless, agile, and armored, it’s a combination of “panther and a rhinoceros beetle.” Other stories include yetis, a werewolf, and a ghost.

Drug dealers in “Tank” keep a giant and possibly man-eating fish in their headquarters. In the story “Temple,” mortal combat is promoted between two manufactured goliaths, resulting in a “human-hybrid… mutant freak show blood sport.” The nightmarish atmosphere set by the inhuman creatures is intensified by portrayals of dark, all-too-human characters. The contracted killer who narrates “Dirge” emotionlessly shoots four men. Jude, in the story “Fugue,” cares deeply for his little sister Maggie, but he is forced to hurt her by their father, a human monster who tyrannizes his family with violence and abuse. In “Propagation,” Stan lives a disconnected and meaningless life; he’s lost the ability to taste food and his job consists of poking an eel in a tank every 30 minutes to produce electricity. Though bleak, Wilde’s stories hurtle forward energetically, propelled by his use of short sentences—or even just a series of single words—as in “Harness”: “Sign of life.

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happen.” The sparse “Two Tails” resembles a poem (all action and no dialogue) while the story “Tank” is mainly dialogue, set up as interviews conducted with residents of a left-behind community. Wilde’s settings further the reader’s sense of uneasiness.

Characters exist in desolate surroundings, such as the coffinlike city apartments called “iso-pods” in “Mulligan.” In “Tank,” people dwell under bleachers or in the rubble of a destroyed warehouse. Riggers in “Harness” get lowered into a dark and claustrophobic space called the trachea, repairing or debriding rotted flesh. Amid the desolation, Wilde allows a few dim glimmers of hope, as when the riggers work together when one gets stranded, or a hitman regrets one of his kills.

Compelling, imaginative, and doomladen bursts of fiction.

Too Big To Care: Adopt Sustainable Business Practices or Embrace Defeat Wood, Glen S. & Tatsuhiko Nakazawa Lioncrest Publishing (296 pp.) | $17.99 paper | Jan. 14, 2025 | 9781544540948

Two forward-­ thinking logistics experts weigh in on environmentally and economically responsible leadership strategies in this nonfiction debut.

Wood and Nakazawa offer a vision of better, more responsible corporate leadership that, they assert, is both realistic and good for the bottom line: “If they choose to, corporations and governments can utilize resources without damaging the environment,” they write. “They can find ways to add value to the world while being extraordinarily profitable.” The authors take as their starting point the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), pointing out that in the modern era, investors are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to environmental goals, as well as concepts such as gender equality, antipoverty, and antihunger initiatives.

Those who ignore such issues may actually 152

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do damage to their companies, they point out, by creating “social problems, management problems, and even legal problems and lawsuits from employees.”

The authors, who in 2019 co-founded Smart Vision Logistics, draw on their experiences advising other companies to examine, in part, the ways that “environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals” can affect future performance. To aid the formulation of such strategies, Wood and Nakazawa present researched chapters, key takeaways, and “guided reflections” such as “How are you currently demonstrating to investors that your business is not only in the business of making outsized profits, but is also adding value to society?” The authors infuse most of their discussion with an infectious enthusiasm, urging their readers to see SDGs not as a burden but as a series of opportunities: “For while a company doesn’t have to solve the world’s problems, it’s time to consider that solving some of them is the right business strategy,” as it can not only attract investors who want the same goals, but also reduce risks of scandals. Their narrative can sometimes take surprising turns, as when they digress about the “very authoritarian” corporate environment of Japan, comparing the system to China’s. However, the bulk of the book deals effectively and very knowledgeably with fundamental changes in the business world.

A knowledgeable and convincing call to view SDG and ESG initiatives as profitable.

The Carpenter and the Apprentice Zacaroli, Grace | Palmetto Publishing (380 pp.) | $16.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2024 9798822968530

A dispirited soldier learns lessons from a preternaturally wise carpenter in Zacaroli’s philosophical debut novel.

Danat, a young soldier haunted by his experiences during a war—one that

destroyed his home and killed his entire family—wanders into a desert town and immediately spies a beautiful woman with a broken cart. Wanting to help her fix her cart but lacking the skills to do so, he finds the town carpenter and offers to sell the man his labor in exchange for him repairing the cart. The carpenter sees through the young man’s scheme, and though he refuses to help him seduce the woman, he does invite Danat to become his apprentice. The apprentice bristles at the carpenter’s oblique lessons, which seem to have little to do with his trade, but after Danat helps defend the town from a marauding army, the carpenter releases him from his service, asking him to help lead the townspeople to safety before a second attack arrives. It is on the final night before the apprentice and the townspeople leave that the carpenter—who cannot go with them—finally teaches Danat the lessons he needs to know. But will those lessons be enough to face the trials ahead of him as he seeks to be a leader in his newly chosen community?

The novel recalls Coelho’s The Alchemist (1988) in its blend of folkloric elements—including a minimalist, expository narrative style—with long conversations informed by psychology and spirituality. “The fear that has tormented you most of your life is teaching you something very important,” the carpenter tells his apprentice.

“When you learn what it is, the fear will subside like the floodwaters after a sudden downpour.” While Zacaroli does an admirable job keeping the plot moving, with a large cast of characters and sequences straight out of an action movie, the reader will nevertheless require a high tolerance for self-help speak to fully enjoy this novel.

An ambitious if didactic saga about overcoming one’s past in order to build a better future.

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