April 2023 BookPage

DISCOVER YOUR NEXT GREAT BOOK

APR 2023

HISTORICAL FICTION HAS NEVER BEEN HOTTER Rachel Beanland’s The House Is on Fire + 10 more must-read historical novels that will stand the test of time

Victor LaValle’s homesteader horror

Celebrate Earth Day with young readers

A debut memoir from Daniel Wallace

Lone Women will forever change the way you think about the Wild West

Four inspiring picture books explore the natural wonders of our amazing planet

The author of Big Fish discusses the difficulties of nonfiction writing

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BookPage

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APRIL 2023

features

reviews

feature | poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Five new collections offer perfect snapshots of our world in this moment

fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 nonfiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

behind the book | emily tesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A villain redeems herself in this complex space opera

feature | forbidden romances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Two tantalizingly off-limits love affairs

q&a | victor lavalle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The author of The Changeling returns with a powerful new take on the Wild West

young adult. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 children’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

columns the hold list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

cover story | historical fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 A new season of historical fiction is in bloom, and these are our 11 favorites

behind the book | daniel wallace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 whodunit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 cozies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The author of Big Fish discovers just how hard writing a memoir can be

feature | inspirational living. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Four nonfiction books that will make you feel a little bit better about being human

interview | leta mccollough seletzky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 The author reckons with her father’s past as a spy during the Civil Rights era

romance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 book clubs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 lifestyles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

feature | young adult fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Escape reality with two novels set in wild and magical forests

feature | earth day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Four picture books celebrate the wonders of the natural world

feature | meet the author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Meet Andrea Zuill, the author-illustrator of Gustav Is Missing!

Cover inspired by The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland (Simon & Schuster). Images used: The Cloakroom, Clifton Assembly Rooms, Sharples, Rolinda (1794-1838) / Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, UK / © Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives / Purchased, 1931. / Bridgeman Images. The Interior of the Alhambra Theatre, London, 1900, Hacker, Arthur (1858-1919) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.

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the hold list

5 books worth the hype Every once in a while, it feels like everyone in the world is reading the same book—and we can all admit that sometimes, that book isn’t very good. This month, we’re celebrating books that are extremely popular and are actually (believe it or not) as excellent as everyone says.

I’m Glad My Mom Died

Tuesdays With Morrie

Lessons in Chemistry

I’m Glad My Mom Died is a celebrity memoir, but even if you (like me) have never heard of actor Jennette McCurdy or seen a single second of “iCarly” on Nickelodeon, getting sucked into this frank and deeply nuanced tale of a troubled mother-­daughter relationship is almost inevitable. McCurdy’s story kicks off when her mother, Debra, pins her own dashed dreams of stardom onto her shy 6-year-old daughter. The pressure’s on, and things get worse from there.

McCurdy writes from the perspective she had in the moment, creating tension for the reader, who can see the unhealthy dynamic between McCurdy and Debra long before McCurdy can understand it herself.

After reading I’m Glad My Mom Died, it’s impossible to see Debra as a good parent, but McCurdy’s commitment to portraying her mother as she truly was still somehow feels like a tribute.

—Trisha, Publisher

I first read Tuesdays With Morrie in high school.

Much like Mitch Albom’s teacher Morrie Schwartz, my English teacher Mr. Baker longed for his students to understand what makes life worth living. As the book begins, Albom, a successful young columnist in Detroit, walks through life dead-alive, driven by the pursuit of fame and personal gain. During his Tuesday visits with his old professor, Albom begins to realize that the dying man is more alive than he is. We all need Morrie’s reminders to dance with our eyes closed and reach down into the darkness for the sake of pulling up another.

I still find myself in need of Morrie’s teachings—that love is all that stands at the end of time. For readers who share my appreciation of this book, be aware that Rob Schwartz, Morrie’s son, will publish his father’s writing posthumously in The Wisdom of Morrie later this month.

—Emma, Editorial Intern

Humor must be just about the toughest thing to get right in fiction. It’s so subjective, first of all, and it’s tricky to balance lightheartedness with the serious bits.

And then to be funny without being mean? Practically impossible. Bonnie Garmus’ delight of a debut novel made me laugh—often and loudly—while still honoring the hard road of its heroine.

Elizabeth Zott is a female chemist and single mom in the 1960s, so obviously the world has it in for her, and this includes an assault early in the novel. But in the face of such cruelties, she is pragmatic and determined and wry, like a grown-up version of Roald Dahl’s indomitable Matilda. She ends up starring on her own cooking show and finds herself surrounded by a supporting cast that’s as endearing as can be. She also has a dog (named Six-Thirty) who’s enough of a lead character to tip the story into the fantastical. Like so many other readers, I absolutely loved it.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Uprooted

The Testaments

Naomi Novik’s Uprooted is the type of fantasy novel that seems tailor-made for the exact type of crossover success it has achieved. It’s a seemingly simple story of a young peasant girl trying to save her friend from dark magic, and with its fairy tale-inspired setting, engaging characters and just the right amount of romance, it appeals to a wide swath of readers. I am as intrigued by these types of books as I am leery of them. It’s easy for a story to rest on folklore references and well-known character types within an aesthetically pleasing world and still never quite step out of the shadows of other works. But Novik didn’t set out to just retell a fairy tale: She wrote her own, and it’s so enthralling that it gave me the type of stay-up-all-night reading experience I had when I was a 13-year-old first discovering fantasy. Its impossibly perfect ending made me cry, and I still think about it more than a year later.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

One of the perks of working at BookPage is getting to read books before they are published, but occasionally a high-profile title gets embargoed, meaning advance copies aren’t sent to the press. If members of the media do receive a copy, they’re forbidden to share the review before the publication date. I’ll always remember the day I was opening mail at the office and unwrapped a finished copy of The Testaments, the long-awaited and heavily embargoed sequel to Margaret Atwood’s groundbreaking 1985 bestseller, The Handmaid’s Tale. Set 15 years after the events of the dystopian classic, the suspenseful plot is driven by the narratives of three women whose fates converge just when their world’s authoritarian regime, Gilead, begins to crumble.

The Testaments is the work of a writer at the top of her game; Atwood sticks the landing in a thrilling conclusion to an all too culturally significant tale.

—Katherine, Subscriptions

Each month, BookPage staff share special reading lists—our personal favorites, old and new.

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audio

H Bird by Bird Anne Lamott’s classic love letter to aspiring writers, Bird by Bird (Random House Audio, 6.5 hours), was first published in 1995. This new audiobook, narrated by the author for the first time, reminds us of just how deeply she admires new writers for having the audacity and desire to write. Let’s be clear: Lamott is not a gushy or sentimental reader. She has a dry, ironic delivery that can turn on a dime. She can make us laugh out loud at the many ways writers sabotage themselves and then, suddenly but with clarity and humility, disclose her own struggles. She urgently wants her students to write not with the intention of achieving fame or wealth but because storytelling is an essential mark of our humanity, and her passion resonates throughout this inspiring recording.

—Deborah Mason

NEW AUDIOBOOKS

are in the air

READ BY JEANETTE ILLIDGE

READ BY A FULL CAST

READ BY THE AUTHOR

READ BY KATHLEEN MCINERNEY

READ BY CAITLIN KELLY

READ BY ISABELLA STAR LA BLANC

READ BY VICTORIA VILLARREAL

READ BY DANIEL HENNING

Available from

Macmillan Audio

H Maame Jessica George’s debut novel, Maame (Macmillan Audio, 10 hours), explores the complexities of immigrant families through the story of Maddie, who lives in London with her Ghanaian family and seeks to balance responsibility and self-discovery. In the audiobook, George’s delightfully delicate command of language is enlivened by visual artist and actor Heather Agyepong’s brilliant narration, which reveals not only variations in Ghanaian and British accents but also emotional worlds.

—Sarah O’Neal

Behind the Scenes Rose Josten feels like something’s missing from her life, even though she’s got her family, a consultant career and a successful ASMR video channel. (ASMR stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response” and refers to a calming, tingly reaction to auditory stimulation.) Ash Stewart is a struggling filmmaker who gets the chance to pitch a film to a major investor.

Brought together by chance, Rose and Ash might be able to make the movie a reality and find love along the way. Sound is an important part of Karelia StetzWaters’ romance novel, and narrator Lori Prince rises to this challenge with creativity and flexibility. She even performs Rose’s ASMR videos. If you’re looking for an immersive, mature romance, go Behind the Scenes (Hachette Audio, 10 hours).

—Tami Orendain

Butts Butts: A Backstory (Simon & Schuster Audio, 8 hours) by Heather Radke is a sometimes cheeky but always fascinating cultural history of the butt.

Emily Tremaine’s narration is lighthearted when describing an unlikely race between humans and horses (we win, thanks to our butts), convincing when connecting society’s changing definitions of the unattainable “ideal butt” to racism and sexism, and passionate when she gives voice to Radke’s call to reject those expectations and instead embrace ourselves—butts and all—as unique and valuable and beautiful.

—Deborah Mason

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Katharina and Bianca

Revelation Through Science

Elizabeth Reinach

James G. Martin

Elizabeth Reinach brings feline admirers and feminists a delightful story told in sonnets. Follow journey of two shecats dominating the hero of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Are science and faith incompatible? With eleven first-place book awards, Revelation Through Science is written for the educated non-scientist who may be troubled by apparent conflicts between science and religion.

$13.29 paperback

$16.99 paperback

978-1-9845-9378-8 also available in hardcover & ebook

978-1-6641-3586-4 also available in hardcover & ebook

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

www.xlibris.com

Three Dimensions

Aging Wisely

Lizzies Fizzies

Life from Fifty to Seventy-five Years

Elizabeth Reinach

Viola B. Mecke, Ph.D., ABPP

Inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets, this poetry collection details the life and dubious works of a large tabby tom cat, who lives with the narrator, an indulgent and adoring finance director.

A rich commpendium of knowledge for growing older.

Four stages of aging present some complex challenges and unexpected problems that lead to positive growth and contentment in aging.

$14.40 paperback

$16.99 paperback

978-1-9845-9240-8 also available in hardcover & ebook

978-1-6698-4499-0 also available in hardcover & ebook

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

www.xlibris.com

Heirs of Deceits

Family Guide To Celebration Of The Jewish Holidays

Elizabeth Reinach Sir Gilbert was rejected by his social class because he first hired his illegitimate children as servants, then recognizing them to the world’s horror.

Murder and chaos followed.

Learn about various Jewish Holidays in this book including Sabbath, Passover, Shavout, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Hanukkah & Purim.

$20.17 paperback

$14.95 paperback

978-1-9845-8983-5 also available in hardcover & ebook

978-1-4697-3219-0 also available in ebook

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

www.iuniverse.com

Tom – the Cat

On The Healing Road

The Life and Work of Tom Cat in Sonnets

Through The Eyes Of An Adoptee

Elizabeth Reinach

The Poet Dena

Expressed in Shakespearian sonnets, this anthology describes the life and dubious works of a large tabby tomcat, who lives with the narrator, an indulgent and adoring finance director.

Therapeutic poetry is what The Poet Dena offers.

As you read On The Healing Road, you will find at least a few words to help lighten your own inner or outer struggles.

$20.17 paperback

$13.99 paperback

978-1-9845-9051-0 also available in hardcover, ebook & audiobook

978-1-5462-6875-8 also available in ebook & audiobook

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

www.authorhouse.com

Tom – the Cat

Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs

Elizabeth Reinach Inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets, this poetry collection details the life and dubious works of a large tabby tom cat, who lives with the narrator, an indulgent and adoring finance director.

Carl-Evert Jonsson Find out how to use a method that will give new life to photos with the insights in Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs.

$21.72 paperback

$17.22 paperback

978-1-9845-9571-3 also available in ebook

978-1-6655-8881-2 also available in ebook

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Real Authors, Real Impact

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Leonard and Linda Chesler

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feature | poetry

Poetry is always the answer Five new collections show the truths of our world—right here, right now.

When we think about how life will look in 10, 50 or 100 years, we might not consider the poetry that those societies will produce. But if we think about how those societies will look back at us, here in 2023, I would argue that these poetry collections are the perfect snapshots of our world.

Ranging from joyous odes to lamentations, the poems in these five collections speak to us and challenge us. They provide answers to our most pressing questions when the future seems uncertain. They remind us that poetry is the only refuge from life that, upon closer examination, is actually just life itself.

H Promises of Gold What is love? José Olivarez has the answer in Promises of Gold (Holt, $24.99, 9781250878496). In both English and Spanish, these poems explore the facets of love that pop songs rarely do—the gritty, painful parts that everyone sweeps under the rug. In these verses, Olivarez primarily explores the presence and absence of love in Chicano and Mexican communities, creating sparkling, nostalgic portraits of family and friends. Many of the poems also have a political angle, tackling religion or masculinity and ensuring that the forces that continue to shape Mexican culture are thoroughly critiqued.

This is not to say the collection is overly analytical, as it is often in Olivarez’s most earnest moments that he is able to pierce the culture, arriving straight at its heart.

Couplets Poetry has always existed in a state of tension: What does poetry have to look like? What should it look like? Should it rhyme? Can it be prose? In Couplets (FSG, $25, 9780374607951), Maggie Millner replies with a sweeping “Why does it matter?” By employing two forms, the couplet and the prose poem, Millner suggests that these questions don’t need answers and that, within uncertainty, there is room for personal complexity. A love story through and through, this collection uses poetry to document the personal struggles inherent in falling in and out of love. Sometimes love can be uplifting, giving you butterflies; other times it can be obsessive and neurotic, leading you down rabbit holes of insecurity. Millner’s words occupy both forms and feelings, giving the collection a back-andforth, will-they-won’t-they quality. It’s in this liminal space that Millner settles, showing how writing is transformational, both for the self and the world around us.

H Above Ground In Above Ground (Little, Brown, $27, 9780316543033), Clint Smith proves that, in the words of William Wordsworth, “The Child is father of

the Man,” as his poems explore the beauty, fear and sacredness of being a child and then raising his own. Written to and for his kids, Smith’s verses build a nonlinear narrative of his journey into fatherhood, including health difficulties and his attempts to teach his children how to exist in a troubled world. Wonder and joy are prevalent throughout the book, with Smith writing many odes to his children’s quirks and the idiosyncrasies of child rearing, including first smiles and hiccups. In a time when the future is increasingly uncertain, such a touching and profound statement on parenthood is desperately needed. Smith provides the shot in the arm, reinvigorating our ability to love and nurture.

Trace Evidence For a second it seemed like American culture was approaching a racial reckoning. Though that moment has passed with few tangible results, Charif Shanahan takes advantage of the still-burning embers in Trace Evidence (Tin House, $16.95, 9781953534668), speaking to the country in sharp, unifying language.

Despite perpetual division, or perhaps because of it, Shanahan is able to produce answers to racialized questions of belonging through these poems, emphasizing how humanity goes beyond such constructions. His words are moving and muscular, with each line pulsating with wisely crafted feeling and thought.

Poems like “Talking With My Boss About Diversity and Inclusion” allow Shanahan to really shine, showing not just how a person is impacted by race but also how race is shaped by all of us, individually, in every moment.

a “Working Life” It is important to stay happy, to maintain daily reminders of goodness and wonder, and in a “Working Life” (Grove, $26, 9780802161895), Eileen Myles helps us do just that. With their streamlined style and singular devotion to mundane wonder, they show how life can still be surprising despite the inevitability we may feel each day. Contradictions and coincidences, joy and despair, the intricacies of life and death are all captured in these brief, fleeting poems, told in tight verse and with some lines only a word long.

They reflect how quickly time goes by and how each second provides something deep and new, creating an infinite loop of meaning—a message that is helpful and frustrating, uplifting and perplexing. Really, it’s life.

—Eric A. Ponce

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whodunit

by bruce tierney

You Know Her Meagan Jennett’s You Know Her (MCD, $28, 9780374607098) is a crackerjack debut thriller. There are many books about serial killers, but books about female serial killers are in shorter supply, and a book where a female serial killer is a narrator is fairly unusual. But here’s the kicker: You kinda want her to get away with it. Our soonto-be-murderer Sophie Braam is a bartender when You Know Her begins. She has seen it all, and most of what she has seen has not been pretty. And then one day, a minor grievance becomes the proverbial backbreaking straw. A stolen glass of wine should not be a death sentence, you might argue, but if you had that argument with Sophie, there’s a good chance she would bring you around to her way of thinking. Sophie’s new best friend (although it is a somewhat guarded friendship) is police officer Nora Martin, one of the investigators of the first of Sophie’s murders. Nora has also seen it all, or so she thinks, but nothing can really prepare her for Sophie. Which brings us to kicker number two: You also kinda want the skillful, hardworking Nora to solve the murders. She deserves a big win to help her rise to the rank of detective, which would be a reward to be savored in her toxic, good-ol’-boy, small-town police department. Only one can win— let the games begin.

The Last Heir to Blackwood Library Hester Fox’s The Last Heir to Blackwood Library (Graydon House, $17.99, 9781525804786) contains romance, fantasy, the occult and religious zealotry gone off the rails; in short, it’s not your standard whodunit. However, fans of supernaturally tinged mysteries from authors such as T. Jefferson Parker and John Connolly will be intrigued by this historical spin on the subgenre, and other readers will be enticed by Fox’s first-rate writing, which is engrossing from page one. In 1927 London, the fortunes of one Ivy Radcliffe have radically changed. One day, she is sharing a drafty bed-sit apartment with her best friend, living hand to mouth and mourning the loss of her brother in World War I. The next day, she is anointed Lady Hayworth, complete with a large manor house in Yorkshire, staff, motorcar, income and a couple of handsome potential suitors. However, the solicitor who informed Ivy of her windfall neglected to tell her about the previous title holders, all of whom met with a premature and mysterious death. The Last Heir to Blackwood Library hews more closely to the mystery and suspense genre than to any other, I would say. And even though it’s more of a “whatdunit” than a whodunit, mystery readers of all types will enjoy it.

So Shall You Reap

Heart of the Nile

As So Shall You Reap (Atlantic Monthly, $28, 9780802162366) opens, Donna Leon’s Venetian sleuth Commissario Guido Brunetti visits a lovely, albeit somewhat neglected, old palazzo to inquire for a friend as to whether the property is for sale. A Sri Lankan man answers the door and informs him that the house is not on the market. It will not be their last interaction: The following evening, Brunetti will identify the man’s body after it is pulled from a canal.

The subsequent investigation unearths inflammatory political screeds both from Sri Lanka and Italy in the man’s personal effects, which seem to be at odds with his devout Buddhism and calm demeanor during his interaction with Brunetti. It tosses Brunetti’s thoughts back to his time at university, when he was somewhat more radical in his politics than he is now as a world-weary police officerman approaching retirement age. Italy in Brunetti’s younger days was plagued with bombings, kidnappings and murders, some of which are still unsolved. But one of them is about to be solved, in part by the dogged persistence of Brunetti, and in part by the almost humanlike persistence of a dog. This is the 32nd book in the series, and if it is your first Commissario Brunetti mystery, you will most likely turn immediately to the other 31.

Although many readers regard Will Thomas’ Barker & Llewelyn mysteries as an homage to those starring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I would suggest that they more closely resemble Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin mysteries. In both cases, the main sleuth’s assistant is the narrator, with both Goodwin and Llewelyn taking a decidedly tongue-in-cheek tone, especially regarding the vicissitudes of their curmudgeonly senior partners. Both teams regularly run circles around the cops, be it the NYPD or Scotland Yard, engendering awe (occasionally) and annoyance (much more regularly). Thomas’ latest mystery, Heart of the Nile (Minotaur, $27.99, 9781250864901), deals with the discovery of a mummy in the British Museum’s collection of ancient artifacts, a mummy that may be the remains of Cleopatra herself. Supporting that notion is an immense uncut ruby laid in the chest cavity once occupied by her heart. The ruby disappears, people start to meet untimely and violent deaths, and Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are summoned to unravel the mystery. This is an exceptionally entertaining series, jampacked with Victorian arcana and 19th-century London history, anchored by the quick wit and pithy observations of narrator Llewelyn.

Bruce Tierney lives outside Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he bicycles through the rice paddies daily and reviews the best in mystery and suspense every month.

8

cozies

by jamie orsini

The Raven Thief Tempest Raj, author Gigi Pandian’s magician/sleuth, has an intriguing new lockedroom mystery to solve in The Raven Thief (Minotaur, $26.99, 9781250805010).

Lavinia Kingsley holds a mock seance to celebrate her divorce from her cheating ex-husband, mystery writer Corbin Colt.

Tempest, her grandfather Ashok “Ash” Raj and her magician friend Sanjay Rai are among the eight guests when disaster strikes. Corbin’s body literally crashes the party, seemingly falling from the ceiling onto the table below. When it comes to light that Grandpa Ash had a history with Corbin, Tempest’s beloved grandfather becomes the prime suspect. The Raven Thief is a worthy sequel to Under Lock & Skeleton Key, with all the magic, misdirection and intrigue that fans are hoping for. Tempest is an exciting, engaging lead whose knowledge of stagecraft, magic and classic whodunits, combined with her devotion to her family and friends, allow her to solve a seemingly impossible crime.

ENEWSLETTER PERSONALIZE YOUR TBR

H Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Berkley, $17, 9780593549223) by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a delightful cozy mystery that brims with humor and warmth while introducing an unforgettable lead character. The titular Vera leads a quiet life, but her routine is disrupted when she discovers a dead man in her tea shop.

She’s not sure the police will take his death seriously, so she identifies some suspects and starts investigating on her own. Vera is feisty and meddlesome, with a big imagination and bigger heart. She’s riotously funny, often without trying to be. Along the way, she even helps many of the dead man’s friends and family heal and become better versions of themselves. Sutanto hits all the right notes in this cozy mystery, perfectly blending meddling, murder and found family.

The Golden Spoon “The Great British Baking Show” meets Knives Out in The Golden Spoon (Atria, $27, 9781668008003), Jessa Maxwell’s delicious, atmospheric debut. Betsy Martin has hosted “Bake Week” from the grounds of her Vermont estate for the past decade. But as the new season gets underway, things start to go haywire. The contestants believe someone is sabotaging their bakes—and when a dead body is discovered, everyone becomes a suspect. Maxwell expertly unspools her mystery, switching among the perspectives of all six contestants, plus Betsy. Most of the book—80%!—is devoted to following the characters through “Bake Week” and getting to know their motivations for competing. It’s not until the last fifth of the book that Betsy’s initial discovery is revealed, and from there, the plot quickly unfolds. Mystery fans may find the twists easy to spot, but Maxwell’s careful characterization makes The Golden Spoon a delight to devour.

Jamie Orsini is an award-winning journalist and writer who enjoys cozy mysteries and iced coffee.

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9

behind the book | emily tesh

The villain saves herself in this one Debut novelist Emily Tesh reveals why she wrote a “horrendously angry beast” of a protagonist—and then gave her a redemption arc.

I’d spent years mostly writing stories with male protagonists. But I changed all the pronouns in my opening scene, and suddenly I had a monstrous, cruel, ambitious, abused, horrendously angry beast of a character: Kyr. She began as an echo of Azula, a major antagonist in “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” who unlike her brother, Zuko, never gets a redemption arc or a second chance.

Kyr is awful. She really, truly sucks. I found that being subtle about it didn’t work; we have expectations about teenage girl characters, words like “relatable” and “likable.”

Male characters are allowed to be complex, difficult, morally gray, even outright shitheads and still get sympathetic antihero arcs. But female characters aren’t supposed to behave that way. Girls don’t get to be shitheads. And if they are, they don’t get any sympathy.

I didn’t want anyone to mistake Kyr for “relatable” and “likable.” If you want to write a villain redemption arc, you have to start with a villain.

Kyr is the villain. The monster girl, the unlovable and unworthy. I remember writing an early scene in which she mercilessly bullies a small child in a glowing triumph of self-righteous arseholery and thinking, is this clear enough? Will they even let me do this? Do I have to tone her down? I was a long way outside my creative comfort zone. But you can feel it, as a writer, when the thematic underpinnings are locking into place: justice or vengeance, heroism or self-destruction, the past or the future. Kyr proves in that original opening scene that she can do what every lovable teen protagonist has to do sooner or later: sacrifice herself to save the world. I had to spend the whole book turning her inside out, remaking her, undoing her, until she finally found a way to do the opposite: sacrifice her cruel and narrow and hateful world in order to save herself.

—Emily Tesh © NICOLA SANDERS PHOTOGRAPHY

The main character of Some Desperate Glory (Tordotcom, $28.99, 9781250834980) is a vicious, ambitious teenage girl brought up in an isolated community of humans dedicated to avenging the destruction of Earth. Kyr is anything but “likable”—according to author Emily Tesh, that’s the point.

••• A few years ago, I had an idea for a novella. I thought of it as something squarely in my comfort zone: a cute little queer romance between two very different people, one of them Large and the other Chatty. (If you have read my Greenhollow Duology, cute queer romance novellas about Large Gruff Type x Chatty Weirdo is about as precisely my style as it is possible for a story to be.) The fun part of this one would be the setting—in space!—and actually, perhaps there could be a cute alien involved? And I’d just been rewatching “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which contains one of my favorite villain-to-awkwardteammate arcs of all time, so could I maybe do a Zuko thing?

“I found that being subtle about it didn’t work; we have expectations about teenage girl characters.”

I wrote one scene: the protagonist reenacting the death of the Earth, racing against time to save a doomed world, sacrificing their own life and still failing. It’s still the opening scene of the book, almost unchanged from that rapid first draft. But after I got 500 words into my cute little romance, I thought: This isn’t cute. This isn’t little. And this would be better if it were about the Zuko-esque character’s awful sister.

review | some desperate glory People love an underdog story. But in Some Desperate Glory, author Emily Tesh takes this trope in a dark direction, illustrating how single-minded zealotry can spiral into overt fascism.

Some Desperate Glory follows Kyr, a girl born into an extremist human sect living on the fringes of known space. The inhabitants of Gaea Station have dubbed themselves the saviors of humanity and prepare day in and day out to defeat an alien confederacy called the majoda. In their mid-teens, people are assigned to permanent roles, which can be anything from combat service, to maintenance to keep the station afloat, to bearing sons in the Nursery to keep the community supplied with

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soldiers. It’s as abhorrent as it is absolute, but Kyr thinks this system is righteous, a necessity of her people’s quest.

Tesh describes Gaea Station in impressively revolting detail without losing focus on Kyr’s growth as a character. A talented and devoted warrior, Kyr finds herself at odds with her cultural programming when she is assigned to the Nursery. After her brother leaves the station under mysterious circumstances, she defies her orders and takes off after him, a quest that thrusts her into the wider universe. She meets an alien for the first time and starts a grueling journey to peel back years of programming. As she learns more about the rest of the universe, Kyr realizes she must confront the sinister

underbelly of the shiny, nationalistic Gaea Station, which is beginning to look more and more like a cult.

While heavily invested in Kyr’s personal struggle to find meaning and purpose, Some Desperate Glory is also rife with rich settings and history. The majoda are fascinatingly inhuman, composed of refreshingly distinct alien species. (Don’t worry, there aren’t any “They’re basically humans but their skin is blue” races in this story.)

An examination of the dangers of unchecked nationalism, Some Desperate Glory will resonate with readers looking for messy morality and antihero redemption arcs.

—Ralph Harris

romance

by christie ridgway

H Hotel of Secrets In Hotel of Secrets (Griffin, $17.99, 9781250809452), Diana Biller whisks readers away to 1878 Vienna. Hotel Wallner is Maria Wallner’s somewhat tarnished family legacy, thanks to her unmarried parents’ decadeslong affair.

She’s determined to help the place regain its former glory during Vienna’s traditional ball season. American Secret Service agent Eli Whittaker arrives at the hotel to investigate the theft of secret codes but is soon beguiled by the beautiful, sophisticated Maria and her glittering city. This delightful, highly recommended romance is chock full of fascinating history as it enchantingly depicts late 19th-century Austria, and its secondary characters are just as three-dimensional and as appealing as the leads.

Ana María and the Fox Three Mexican heiresses make a splash in British high society in Liana De la Rosa’s endearing Victorian romance, Ana María and the Fox (Berkley, $17, 9780593440889).

When France invades Mexico, Ana María Luna Valdés and her sisters are sent to London for their safety. Once there, Ana María makes the acquaintance of Gideon Fox, an ambitious member of Parliament. The grandson of a formerly enslaved woman, Gideon is passionate about ending the slave trade and finds a sympathetic ear in Ana María. Sparks fly between the pair, even though Ana María’s already engaged to a man her powerful father approves of.

But then political machinations put Ana María in danger, and she must turn to Gideon for help. The Lunas are a welcome addition to historical romance, and as series starring sisters are always fan favorites, readers will surely anticipate more happily ever afters from De la Rosa.

Romantic Comedy A sketch comedy writer finds love in the time of COVID-19 in Romantic Comedy (Random House, $28, 9780399590948) by Curtis Sittenfeld (Eligible). Sally Milz writes for a weekly late-night comedy show—think “Saturday Night Live.” During the frantic pace of production, she finds herself crushing on the show’s latest guest host, popular singer-­ songwriter Noah Brewster. Sally’s convinced she’s too average to keep his attention, and she smothers the smoldering attraction. But two years later, an email from Noah shows up in Sally’s inbox, and they become pandemic pen pals. Might they make a go of it after all? Sittenfeld does a stellar job making the reader feel not just the hectic excitement of comedy show life and Sally’s surges of adrenaline as she interacts with Noah, but also the wistful, heartfelt hope of two people sharing their pasts and their dreams via email. Noah and Sally are a charming and, of course, funny pair who are easy to root for all throughout this delightful read.

Christie Ridgway is a lifelong romance reader and a published romance novelist of over 60 books.

feature | forbidden romances

Two tales of star-crossed love There’s nothing sweeter than a tantalizingly off-limits love affair.

H The Nanny Lana Ferguson’s The Nanny (Berkley, $17, 9780593549353) is a heartfelt and thoughtful romance between the titular nanny and the single father she works for.

Cassie Evans thought she’d moved on from her OnlyFans days, but with a pending eviction following the loss of her job at a children’s hospital, it seems like her only option to pay the bills.

So she’s thrilled when she lands a position as a live-in nanny—not because she’s ashamed of her former work, but because she closed her OnlyFans account after falling for a client who got cold feet before they met up in person.

That client is none other than Cassie’s new boss, sexy executive chef and single dad Aiden Reid, who has no idea who Cassie is when he hires her.

The pair have an immediate and increasingly distracting attraction to each other, and as they spend time together, they begin to suspect the other’s identity. Cassie and Aiden’s chemistry sizzles hotter than a kitchen flash fire, but their status as employer and employee obviously complicates the decision to potentially act on their feelings.

Everything about The Nanny is enjoyable: the plot, the pacing, the characters and especially Ferguson’s wise and funny voice.

It’s also refreshing to see sex-­ positive characters who approach intimacy with maturity. Aiden doesn’t shame Cassie for her work on OnlyFans, and she doesn’t shame him for engaging with it.

If you’re a fan of dirty talk and slow-burning chemistry, you’ll love The Nanny.

—Dolly R. Sickles

The Scandalous Ladies of London: The Countess The trick to a great love story is having a really good reason why the characters can’t fall in love. In Sophie Jordan’s The Scandalous Ladies of London: The Countess ( Av o n , $19.99, 9780063270701), it’s that the man of Lady Gertrude’s dreams is courting her daughter.

G e r t r u d e, the Countess of Chatham (Tru to her friends), will do whatever it takes to make sure her daughter, Delia, finds a husband who will cherish and respect her. But Tru’s callous wastrel of a husband decides that Delia’s debut is his chance to select a suitor with deep pockets. Things get even worse when he reveals that his selection for their new son-in-law is Jasper Thorne, a man Tru has met just once before— during a brief encounter that was more sensual, more intense than anything she has ever experienced.

Jordan knows how to deliver the heat, and the chemistry between Jasper and Tru is scorching. At the same time, The Countess doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of their situation, or the difficulties of other women within Tru’s circle.

This book is an intriguing introduction to a series that will explore the love lives of these fierce women, all of whom resigned themselves to unsatisfying marriages because that’s what the strictures of high society demanded. Jasper and Tru have to fight against those strictures to get their happily ever after, and that makes The Countess a compelling read. If love came easily, watching a couple fight to win it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

—Elizabeth Mazer

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q&a | victor lavalle

Nowhere To hide In Victor LaValle’s powerful fifth novel, the wide-open spaces of the West offer a new start— if you can survive to see it.

It’s been six years since Victor LaValle published his acclaimed modern fairy tale, The Changeling. Now the author returns with another fantastical story that could only take place in America. Set in 1914 Montana, Lone Women follows Black homesteader Adelaide Henry, who, after the mysterious death of her parents, flees her home in California with only an extremely heavy, firmly locked steamer trunk in tow.

who could make it here was welcome. This was all fascinating, so I dove into more and more of this history. At first I was reading simply to educate myself, but eventually I realized I was doing research for a novel.

The historical details in the book, from what it was like to stake a claim to the growth of opera in the American West, make it feel incredibly concrete. What was your research process like?

It all began with Dr. Carter’s book, but after that I went on a tear. I read books by homesteading women (their journals) and histories of homesteading across the state. I read a great deal about the Black experience in the West, a history I admit—sadly—I knew very little about. I spent a few years just reading and making notes. Altogether, I’m sure only about a quarter of what I learned made it into my novel. I wanted it to be enough that the world felt concrete but not so much that the reader was pulled out of the story. It’s my hope that I found the right balance.

Montana is nearly a character in and of itself in Lone Women—both the initial, utopian vision of it in Adelaide’s imagination and its harsh reality. What drew you to Montana?

This whole book began with a work of nonfiction called Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One’s Own, edited by Dr. Sarah Carter. The book is a great overview of the H Lone Women women who traveled to Montana to homeOne World, $27, 9780525512080 stead land at the start of the 20th century. I’d never known they existed!

Horror Even more surprising? This phenomenon wasn’t reserved for white women. There were some Black women homesteaders. There were a few Latina women, too. There was a goodThe maxim that history is simple but the past is complex appears mulsized Chinese population in the state at the time, but they were not legally tiple times in Lone Women. How did this idea influence the way you allowed to homestead because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law created Adelaide’s story? to make any kind of immigration to America “illegal.” Before that, anyone That phrase, that idea, came to me at some point in my research. There was

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Photo of Victor LaValle © Teddy Wolff. Art from Lone Women © 2023 by Victor LaValle, designed by Tal Goretsky. Reproduced by permission of One World.

book clubs so much I thought I understood about this place and time, but the more I read, the more I understood the past simply couldn’t be summarized by the kinds of texts we’re given in, say, high school or in our popular entertainment. You can’t include everything. But what gets left out, and why? That’s what I really wanted to get at. A woman like Adelaide—and the other lone women at the heart of my novel—is usually edited out of the official history. The gift of being a novelist is that I can, in my small way, write them back in.

“A woman like Adelaide . . . is usually edited out of the official history.”

Why do you think the Henrys chose to keep their burden rather than be rid of it?

I wanted to tackle this question in the most honest way I could. Why does any family accept the burdens placed on them? To take a step back, I wondered how and why a family decides that something, or someone, is a burden rather than a gift. I know there are families that split apart and never speak to one another again, but my own experience is that family pushes and pulls at one another; we grow weary but we are also bound by history and love. In this sense, I imagined the Henrys were like so many of us.

The Mudges, a family Adelaide encounters multiple times in Montana, are at once irredeemable and intensely compelling. Did you have any particular inspiration for that family?

The Mudges were inspired by some particularly awful neighbors we had when I was a teenager growing up in Queens, New York. I knew them as a general nuisance, but they were a particular problem for my mother. They have become a bit of a family legend: the worst neighbors we have ever known. Their name has become shorthand between my mother, sister and I whenever we want to explain a particularly awful person we encounter.

I poured all that feeling into the Mudges because, with time, I realized those neighbors may have been terrible, but they sure were memorable.

In recent years, your oeuvre has expanded to include comic books.

How is your process different as you move from medium to medium?

How does it stay the same?

At heart, I’m trying to tell stories that tackle ideas that matter to me at the time I’m writing them. My hope is that my concerns are, at least in part, concerns that others have as well. My comics tackle questions of climate change and police brutality, just as my novels wrestle with questions of history, of love and guilt. The biggest difference is that my words in the comics are accompanied by brilliant and beautiful artwork.

At the very least, even if you hate the writing, the images will give you something to love.

Lone Women is in many ways a very intimate book, and it feels claustrophobic despite its vast Montana landscape. Was that juxtaposition present from the beginning? What did that contrast reveal for you as a writer?

I’m glad this feeling came through. I hoped the reader would experience the landscape as a grand and open arena, but, of course, Adelaide is trapped no matter where she goes. Adelaide is stuck inside her family history, and her role within that history, and whether she’s in Montana or California or even on the moon, she’ll stay stuck until she faces the truths of her history with all honesty. It’s only then that she might have the chance to breathe deep and inhale new, fresher air.

—Laura Hubbard Visit BookPage.com to read our starred review of Lone Women.

by julie hale

Inspired by a true story Barbara Chase-Riboud’s The Great Mrs. Elias (Amistad, $17.99, 9780063020016) is based on the life of Hannah Elias, a Black woman who made a name for herself in early 20th-century New York City real estate, accruing enormous wealth along the way. But in 1903, a murder takes place at Hannah’s opulent home, and her carefully constructed existence changes forever. The narrative flashes back to recount her difficult childhood in Philadelphia and her decision to take on a new identity—a choice that has grave repercussions. Atmospheric and richly detailed, Chase-Riboud’s novel provides a compelling portrait of a remarkable woman.

Famed sniper Mila Pavlichenko is the heroine of Kate Quinn’s The Diamond Eye (William Morrow, $19.99, 9780063144705). A librarian and single mother, Mila serves as a sniper for the Soviet Union during World War II and becomes These fascinating well known thanks to her exploits, including a body historical novels shed count of more than 300 soldiers. When she’s wounded new light on the past and sent to America to bolby dramatizing real-life ster support for the war, Mila finds a kindred spirit in figures and events.

Eleanor Roosevelt and makes new connections, but she also faces danger from a former adversary.

Quinn’s use of historical sources and the role of women in war are among the novel’s rich discussion topics.

The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. (Harper Perennial, $17.99, 9780063140011)

by Lee Kravetz examines poet Sylvia Plath and the writing of her 1963 novel, The Bell Jar, through three narrators: Ruth Barnhouse, Plath’s real-life psychiatrist; Boston Rhodes, a jealous, competitive poet who serves as a stand-in for Anne Sexton; and the fictional Estee, a curator who comes across what might be the original manuscript of The Bell Jar in 2019. Each narrator offers a deeply personal perspective on Plath, womanhood and the creative process, with Estee’s quest to find out the truth about the manuscript serving as the suspenseful centerpiece of this mesmerizing novel.

In Take My Hand (Berkley, $17, 9780593337714), author Dolen PerkinsValdez takes inspiration from an infamous 1973 lawsuit to create the fictional story of Civil Townsend, a Black nurse in Alabama in the 1970s. Civil becomes involved in the lives of India and Erica Williams, sisters who Civil discovers have been surgically sterilized by the clinic where she works.

The girls, ages 11 and 13, come from an underprivileged Black family, and their circumstances haunt Civil as the years go by. This electrifying novel’s powerful exploration of racism, family and civil rights make it a rewarding choice for book groups.

A BookPage reviewer since 2003, Julie Hale recommends the best paperback books to spark discussion in your reading group.

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Discover 11 historical fiction novels filled with sumptuous detail, transportive narratives and family secrets that go back generations.

THE SCARS LEFT BY WAR

by Alice Winn

H In Memoriam

SPRING’S BEST HISTORICAL FICTION

cover story | historical fiction

It’s 1914, and the Great War has begun to kill the schoolmates of Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, best friends at an English boarding school. When the two boys enlist, an epic war story unfolds, capturing the unremitting trauma of World War I. In Memoriam (Knopf, $28, 9780593534564) is also an epic love story as Henry and Sidney sort out their feelings, not knowing if they’ll see each other again as their classmates die senseless deaths. Alice Winn so deeply inhabits her characters, their vanishing prep-school world, the end of empire and the arrival of brutal modern war that it’s hard to believe this gorgeous novel is her debut.

—Sarah McCraw Crow

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash Told from alternating perspectives over the course of nearly four decades, Beyond That, the Sea (Celadon, $28, 9781250854377) explores the formative experiences during World War II that remain with two families.

—Carla Jean Whitley

Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai Through intersecting stories of Vietnamese and American characters, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s luminous Dust Child (Algonquin, $28, 9781643752754) portrays the heart-wrenching collateral damage that resulted from a fleeting love during the Vietnam War. —Alden Mudge

Once We Were Home by Jennifer Rosner Many books have been written about children transported to various places for safety during World War II, but Jennifer Rosner’s moving, well-researched second novel offers a penetrating look at the myriad murky moral choices involved. An excellent choice for book clubs, Once We Were Home (Flatiron, $27.99, 9781250855541) gives readers much to ponder.

—Alice Cary

F A M I LY Weyward

Homecoming

A welcome addition to the feminist field of “witcherature,” Weyward (St. Martin’s, $27.99, 9781250280800) follows three timelines—2019, 1942 and 1619—of Weyward Cottage’s women, keeping the tension high as each character faces danger and difficult decisions.

—Sarah McCraw Crow

The Turner-Bridges women’s secrets are real doozies. As these secrets start to emerge, tendril by tendril, and Homecoming (Mariner, $32, 9780063020894) gallops toward its close, you may be able to sense what’s coming: a conclusion that is both ghastly and thrilling.

—Arlene McKanic

by Emilia Hart

by Kate Morton

The Last Russian Doll

by Kristen Loesch

Spanning eight decades and three generations, The Last Russian Doll (Berkley, $27, 9780593547984) embeds a riveting mystery within a masterfully researched family narrative. History enthusiasts will enjoy piecing together this fresh perspective on 20th-century Russia, while fans of contemporary whodunits will relish the ever-increasing drama.

—Sydney Hankin

by Jacqueline Winspear Part Agatha Christie, part “The Equalizer,” The White Lady (Harper, $30, 9780062867988) follows Elinor White, a former World War II operative who leverages her past to help those who cannot help themselves.

—Elyse Discher

Infamous

by Lex Croucher In Infamous (Griffin, $16.99, 9781250875655), Eddie Miller is a Jo March-esque heroine in Regency England who must decide between her complicated relationship with her lifelong friend Rose and the glittering world offered by suitor Nash.

—Elizabeth Mazer

by Rachel Heng

H The Great Reclamation

SAGAS & SECRETS

A LEAD CHARACTER WE’D FOLLOW ANYWHERE

by Rachel Beanland

The House Is on Fire

The action comes fast and furious in Rachel Beanland’s second novel, inspired by the real-life theater fire that occurred in Richmond, Virginia, on December 26, 1811, which has been described by many historians as the first great disaster of our young nation. In Beanland’s retelling, the story unfolds in a quick succession of short chapters told from the perspectives of four real people who experienced the events firsthand. Through the author’s extensive research into letters, census data and newspaper archives, as well as her historically accurate creative liberties—both of which Beanland elaborates upon in her author’s note—The House Is on Fire (Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 9781982186142) captures the disastrous night hour by hour, a method reminiscent of watching a true crime drama on TV. Most importantly, Beanland’s choice to explore the tragedy through four very differently privileged people allows the story to go beyond facts and into the moral fabric and social norms of the time.

—Chika Gujarathi

The White Lady

There are magical islands in Rachel Heng’s Singapore; there are competing political factions and questions of power and control; there are familial relationships and love interests in a world that is being rebuilt. This is the realm of The Great Reclamation (Riverhead, $28, 9780593420119), and through the story of a curious boy named Ah Boon, Heng captures the individual and collective challenges of being human, and explores what a modern country might become after the disruption and displacement of World War II. Every bit of it is a delight.

—Freya Sachs Visit BookPage.com to read our full reviews.

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behind the book | daniel wallace

T h e b ook th at mad e Daniel Wall ac e a differ ent w r it er The acclaimed novelist wondered how hard writing a memoir could really be.

As it turned out: very, very, very hard.

The books I’ve written so far began almost accidentally. Not the dayBut this was a bit of a leap. I’d never written a book of nonfiction before, to-day, year-to-year accumulation of words—no accidents there. But the had never wanted to, had no idea how to go about it. Even so, I thought, inciting moment or the controlling idea that ended up as the buttress for all writing is hard; how much harder could it be? the whole contraption was unplanned, and usually came from me just playAs I discovered over the next five years, very hard. Very. Very. Very hard. ing around with words. With Big Fish, I was passing the time taking care of Each book presents its own challenges, its own problems to solve. You my baby son and writing brief modern myths while he napped, and after would think that with practice a writer could skate from book to book witha couple of years, I discovered I had enough of them to make a book. The out breaking a sweat. But nothing about writing has gotten easier for me, and each book has taken longer than the last to finish. So I was ready for Kings and Queens of Roam, a long and complicated story about two sisa learning curve. But writing nonfiction asked me not just to write differters, two men, blindness and revenge, began as a couple of pages about an ently but to become a different kind of writer. abandoned town in the middle of nowhere. Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician was drawn I was drawn to becoming a fiction writer from a character in a discarded screenplay. in the first place because of the freedom of This Isn’t Going to End Well, my first nonthat form. In a novel I’m constrained by logic fiction book, followed this same script but in and time and character, but I’m in charge of a different way. The accident didn’t come the constraints; I make up the rules I am then expected to follow. In writing a so-called true in the form of an unforeseen inspiration but in the accidental discovery of my brother-instory, you enter a world that’s already been law’s journals, 10 years after he died. They created, telling a story that has already hapwere hidden in the back of a closet beneath pened and maybe already been told. A novel the stairs of my sister Holly’s home, covered in is a story only one person (the novelist) has dust and protected by a herd of camel crickaccess to; a story about an actual person is a story dozens, maybe hundreds of people ets. My brother-in-law, the writer and artist William Nealy, died in 2001 by what the death know at least a small part of. If you knew my brother-in-law, or my sister, or me, you are in certificate described as an “intra-oral gunshot wound.” Then in 2011, his wife, my sister Holly, some tangential way a part of the story; you died herself of what seemed like a dozen difhave feelings about it, about him. This meant that in order to write the book, I actually had ferent things, including diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and grief. My remaining two sisters, to leave my office and talk to people. I had my wife and I were cleaning out her house to interview them. I recorded conversations when I found the journals. There were about and quoted from them or used them as “back15 of them, and they dated from 1977, when ground.” Suddenly it was as if I were collaborating with a small village.

William was 25 years old. I put them all in a glass-doored bookcase in the hallway outside This turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be. I was able to see old of my office and finished the novel I’d been working on, Extraordinary Adventures. friends and meet new ones, and as a reporter, Two years passed before I took them out I got to ask them questions a civilian could of the bookcase. It took me that long to parse never get away with. through all the incumbent taboos, the ethiOn a craft level, I didn’t know how to create cal considerations and my own desires. Were a scene from my own life that’s as compelling H This Isn’t Going to End Well as one I could make up, with all the bells and they mine to read? Did I even want to read his Algonquin, $28, 9781643752105 journals, and if I did, why? What did I think I’d whistles of inventive possibility. Is imaginaget out of that? William’s suicide was, like all tion possible in this ready-made world I was Memoir suicides, the kind of tragedy that changes the writing about? course of many lives; even after 13 years, it felt fresh. And though he’d left Yes—kind of. It’s not really imagination, though. Writing nonfiction is three long suicide notes, two to Holly and one to his mother, they somehow closer to reimagination, where you’re calling forth a memory and giving it felt insufficient to explain what at the time I saw as the ultimate betrayal of life on the page. Memories half a century old are dim, fragile and fleeting. my sister, of me, of everyone who loved or knew him. I was mad at him for You have to pin them down the best you can and take a long look at them, killing himself and stayed that way for a long time. But eventually I dove editing them for meaning and clarity and supplying supporting details in, was mesmerized from the very first page and knew almost immediately (what the room looked like, what the weather was like that day, what you were wearing) that might be, at best, stabs in the dark. that I would be writing about this, about him—that William’s story would But the hardest part of this project was writing a book about people become a book. To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail; to a person with a word processor, everything is a story.

I knew and loved. There was so much I wanted to say about them! So

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© MALLORY CASH

lifestyles

by susannah felts

H An A–Z of Pasta I don’t believe I’ve ever met a pasta I didn’t like. There are, however, many pasta shapes I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting—yet. In An A–Z of Pasta (Knopf, $37, 9780593535394), Romebased author Rachel Roddy introduces readers to 50 of them, some of which are not often found beyond specific Italian regions. (As if I needed another reason to visit Italy someday.) This is no mere collection of dishes, however; it is a specific window into Italian history and geography, thick with sense of place. Take fregula, little balls similar to couscous that are native to Sardinia, where women have traditionally been tasked with making them (not a small job, despite the small shape).

Roddy is a knowledgeable storyteller and low-key witty. Her lamb ragu with lots of herbs sounds amazing, as do numerous other recipes included here. This book is essential for anyone passionate about Italian cooking.

Buzzworthy

“To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail; to a person with a word processor, everything is a story.” many stories. The first few drafts of this book were twice as long as the final version ended up being, which is not unique for early drafts. But each time I had to cut a scene, I felt like I was cutting out a part of their lives, and I believed (and still believe) that without all these stories the reader wouldn’t get to know them for who they were. The story, for instance, of William hunting down the man who stole the motor off my mother’s pool filter, or how he tried to save a man’s life at the drugstore. And what about the time Edgar (William’s best friend who died in 1993) was robbed and tied to a chair in a hotel room, left there until he was discovered by the staff eight hours later? The time Holly wrote a song about our father and rented a recording studio to record it? And so many other cool things. I could write another book about them, I think. And maybe I will.

This Isn’t Going to End Well isn’t “drawn from life,” the way my novels are; it’s full of people who actually existed, same as you and me. In this book I’m not trying to create or imagine a life, I’m trying to reconstruct one. I think I’m also trying to resurrect my sister, my brother-in-law, their best friend—a risky enterprise (see: “The Monkey’s Paw”). In this book I share details from their lives that would embarrass them, were they here, and, in some cases, get them into a lot of trouble. But they’re not embarrassed or in trouble because that’s one of the pluses of not being alive. Which is the real difference between this book and all the others I’ve written, and the most stubborn of facts I can’t deny or get around: Their deaths are what made it possible.

—Daniel Wallace Visit BookPage.com to read our starred review of This Isn’t Going to End Well.

Did you know that the margarita is a “tribute cocktail,” a drink named in honor of a person? In this case, the honoree is Margarita Henkel, daughter of a German ambassador. In Buzzworthy (Prestel, $19.95, 9783791389165), Vancouver-based author Jennifer Croll builds on this concept, introducing cocktails inspired by female writers from the 19th century to the present, from poets to graphic novelists and everything in between. Each recipe is paired with a brief bio of the writer, so you’ll get a dash of literary trivia with your tipple. The book is forward-thinking in its inclusion of low- and zero-proof options, as well, such as the Louise Erdrich: muddled strawberries, juniper-cardamom syrup, lemon juice and soda. Between Rachelle Baker’s punchy illustrations of the literary ladies with their eponymous drinks and book covers, and the “tipsy” typeface, the whole effect is effervescent, with the final section, a curated TBR list of the writers’ works, acting as the ideal digestif.

The Madman’s Gallery First came The Madman’s Library. Now comes its weird kid sister, The Madman’s Gallery (Chronicle, $35, 9781797221762), packed with très bizarre art through the ages. Words won’t quite do it justice, of course, but mastermind author/curator Edward Brooke-Hitching does his best: “Here is the art of ghosts, the art of madness, imaginary art, art of dog-headed people, the first portrait of a cannibal, and a painting of the Italian monk who levitated so often he’s recognised as the patron saint of aeroplane passengers.” We’re talking giant Olmec heads, phalluses growing on trees, decaying cadavers, Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” a nude Mona Lisa, Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s fruit and veg portraits, hirsute women, Salvador Dalí’s clocks, Frida Kahlo as wounded deer, AI creations and so much more.

This one is occasionally disturbing, and always fascinating.

Susannah Felts is a Nashville-based writer and co-founder of The Porch, a literary arts organization. She enjoys anything paper- or plant-related.

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feature | inspirational living

Books for a spiritual boost These four nonfiction books will make you feel a little bit better about being human.

The Lives We Actually Have

H Dancing in the Darkness

Like the psalmists, authors Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie (Good Enough) examine and affirm the multifaceted human experience in The Lives We Actually Have (Convergent, $25, 9780593193709). In 100 entries written in verse, Bowler and Richie celebrate the beautiful, lament the ugly and recognize the mundane alongside the blindsiding. This book is not the shallow expression of prayer most of us are used to. Instead, these pages hold blessings that make every human experience, even a “garbage day,” worthy of noting and appreciating.

The authors include blessings for every kind of day, including ordinary life, tired life, lovely life, grief-stricken life, overwhelming life, painful life and holy life. Along the way, they do an incredible job of reclaiming blessings from social media’s “#blessed” culture, speaking truthfully about the range of experiences inherent to being human instead of offering blessings for the pristine, uncomplicated lives we wish we had.

Bowler and Richie go where most Christian authors won’t: right to all the messy truths of being alive. Their willingness to meet us where we are makes life feel a little more manageable and a little more worthy of love.

Through their words of blessing, readers will find courage, rest, hope to carry on—and maybe even a laugh.

Rev. Otis Moss III is the senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his ministry is steeped in a theological tradition of liberation, love and justice.

Dancing in the Darkness (Simon & Schuster, $25, 9781501177699), his latest collection of essay-sermons, lays out the need for Americans to use the tools of “Just Love” (love linked to justice) to overcome despair and denial. Because of our country’s racialized history, Moss writes that we are doomed to stay in a state of “political midnight” if we don’t reckon with injustice while holding onto agape love.

Moss weaves personal stories, history and prophecy together in a fastpaced, faith-filled way. Readers will breeze through these essays and feel energized to hold onto hope despite the challenges we face as a society.

With practical calls to prayer, meditation and authenticity, Moss leads readers into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for a “beloved community.”

Dancing in the Darkness is a wonderful soul-reviver. Readers will come away feeling spiritually buoyed, just like they might if they attended worship at Moss’ church. The effect is empowering without giving into unrealistic visions of utopia. It’s like a spoonful of sugar that will help us fight for the world our children deserve to inherit.

The Book of Nature

All My Knotted-Up Life

Born out of author Barbara Mahany’s curiosity, The Book of Nature (Broadleaf, $27.99, 9781506473512) weaves together theology, nature, science, liturgy and poetry. Instead of losing readers in so many captivating details, she brings all these seemingly different mediums together to create a compelling argument that the natural world is the key to understanding God. To Mahany, and the countless theologians, authors and scientists she references, nature is what makes sense of scripture.

Mahany opens her book by sharing how she came to write about the Book of Nature, which is an ancient name for the practice of “reading” nature like a sacred text, “the text of all of creation, inscribed and unfurled by a God present always and everywhere.” Her initial spark of interest led her down a rabbit hole, finding references to the Book of Nature throughout Christian history. She then explains how the separation of religion and nature—that is, science— came about during the Enlightenment and reminds readers that it doesn’t have to be that way now. Through her essays on the earthly, the liminal and the heavenly, Mahany reveals the divine’s presence in our world.

For those in the Christian faith who grew up learning about God only from Bible lessons, The Book of Nature provides permission to wonder, get curious and find God in the tiny details of a sprouting garden, a forest glade, birds in flight or the moon. By showing readers how many respected theologians, seminarians, desert mothers and fathers, tribal leaders and saints found God in nature, Mahany reminds us that there are different ways to encounter God all around us, beyond just in scripture.

Many readers have been anticipating the release of All My Knotted-Up Life (Tyndale House, $27.99, 9781496472670), author and minister Beth Moore’s memoir. After decades as a women’s Bible study teacher in the Southern Baptist Church, a denomination that only allows men in leadership roles, Moore finally shares her story. She reveals a few surprising secrets here, but her trademark belief in the goodness of Jesus is the memoir’s main draw.

Beginning with her childhood, Moore tells her story of living in a home fraught with mental illness and sexual abuse and the safety she felt going to the Baptist church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. As Moore moves chronologically through her life, we see her family fall apart and come back together, and we see Moore get married and have children all while feeling called to ministry. Moore struggled to figure out what that would look like in the Southern Baptist Church, but she found a way—first by working around the Southern Baptist Convention’s gendered leadership rules and then by leaving the organization completely—and became one of the most well-known leaders in evangelical Christianity.

All My Knotted-Up Life will leave some readers wishing they knew more of Moore’s story. Because of her ability to see the humanity in all people, including her abusers, I was personally left wanting to see more of her process of forgiveness. But for Moore, true forgiveness is up to Jesus, who is at the heart of this tender memoir.

—Brittany Sky

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interview | leta mccollough seletzky

Author, mother, daughter of a spy Although Leta McCollough Seletzky wasn’t Jim Crow Mississippi that she stopped reading after three pages. It wasn’t until five years later born until eight years after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she has always been that she finally read to the end of the letter. After haunted by the famous photo of that tragic night. that, she plunged into years of writing, research, And no wonder, since in it, her then 23-year-old Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews father, Marrell “Mac” McCullough, can be seen and, most importantly, collaboration with her kneeling beside Dr. King on the balcony of the father. The resulting book provides an account Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, holding not only of the amazing trajectory of her father’s a towel over the civil rights leader’s wounded face life but also of her own reconciliation with his to staunch the bleeding. Several people stand mysterious past as a Black man spying on a Black nearby, pointing toward a spot in the distance.

Power activist group for the police.

“In my mind, those were While writing The accusatory fingers. I felt a Keeling Man, Seletzky and sense of blame, that on some her father visited King’s level, those fingers were assassination site together, pointing at me or [at my and she also facilitated a 2017 meeting between her father],” the lawyer-turned-­ father and Andrew Young, memoirist says, speaking an early leader in the civil by phone about her fascirights movement who nating debut, The Kneeling was also present the night Man. This “black-andwhite image of horror” was King was murdered. “It felt something Seletzky’s family like walking into history,” rarely discussed, despite Seletzky says. “I mean, not her father’s presence in it. only were we meeting with His work had always been Andrew Young, but we shrouded in secrecy and were at his house. It was silence, and in many ways, something I’ll never forget.” the fact that he eventually One of the most endearing opened up about it is nothmoments of their encounter ing short of a miracle. was Young’s recollection of Seletzky’s parents sepaDr. King playfully swatting H The Kneeling Man rated when she was 3 and him with one of the Lorraine Counterpoint, $27, 9781640094727 later divorced. In high school, Motel’s pillows just hours before his assassination. she learned from a news­ Memoir paper article that her father, “He was a hero, but he was who by then lived elsewhere and worked for a human being,” Seletzky says. “I feel like somethe CIA, had been an undercover officer for the times this gets lost when we lionize people.”

Memphis Police Department at the time of King’s Seletzky also interviewed numerous memassassination, tasked with infiltrating and keepbers of the Invaders, the activist group her father ing tabs on a group of young Black activists called was spying on, and was surprised by their warm the Invaders. “The revelation felt like a body welcome. “They were not upset,” she says. “They blow,” she writes. Had her dad’s work spying on were not angry.” In fact, she’s come to think of one of the group’s leaders “as family.” the Invaders been similar to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s tactics for harassing and controlling the On the night of King’s assassination, Mac and Black Panthers, she wondered? Despite her curiseveral Invaders had just returned from a shoposity and concern, Seletzky didn’t inquire about ping trip with one of Dr. King’s aides, who invited Mac’s role until 2010, after the birth of her second them to dinner. As they walked from Mac’s car son. “One of the main reasons I thought it was toward the motel, shots rang out, and Mac, who so important to tell this story,” she says, “was so had been in the Army, sprinted up the stairs to [my sons] would not be left wondering or feeling the balcony. “He was trying to save Dr. King’s that sense of silence and dread.” life, and he ran into the zone of danger to try to When Seletzky eventually asked her father do that,” Seletzky says. Although federal investiabout that night, he responded with a 17-page gators never raised concerns about Mac’s presdocument. However, Seletzky was so saddened ence that night, he was eventually questioned by his description of growing up in poverty in and called to testify at a Select Committee on

© GRETCHEN ADAMS

Leta McCollough Seletzky knew her father had been with Martin Luther King Jr. the night King died. But she didn’t know he had been working undercover for the police.

Visit BookPage.com to read our starred review of The Kneeling Man.

Assassinations in 1978. He was even warned that the attorney of James Earl Ray, the convicted killer, might stand up and accuse Mac of assassinating King. “Sometimes I think about what it would feel like if you had tried to save someone’s life and instead you were painted as having been a wrongdoer,” Seletzky says.

But the toughest part of Seletzky’s writing process was writing about herself. “It was difficult to weave my story through the magnitude of his,” she says. “I felt that it really should just be all Mac, but at the same time, I feel this story is more than that.”

Ultimately, Seletzky is thrilled that writing this book brought her closer to her father. “I am in awe of him,” she says, “and the way he allowed his experiences to mold him into who he is.” She was also pleased by her mother’s response to The Kneeling Man. Her mother was a reporter in Memphis for many years, and when Seletzky let her mom read the final draft, she told her daughter, “Leta, I didn’t know 75% of what is in this book.” “I was shocked,” Seletzky says, “because she was born and raised in Memphis, and she was married to my dad for several years.”

When Seletzky asked her father what he wanted people to understand about his life and choices, he responded, “What I want them to understand is exactly what you wrote in that book.” That, Seletzky says, was her proudest moment. “At that point, I said to myself, ‘OK, well, the book is a success no matter what.’ ” —Alice Cary

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reviews | fiction

H The All-American

By Joe Milan Jr.

Coming of Age When 17-year-old Bucky Yi is sent from the United States to South Korea, leaving the only home he knows, he must summon all the pluck and perseverance he has gained as a high school football player to survive in a place that is both his birth country and foreign to him.

Bucky has lived most of his life in the rural town of Tibicut, Washington, having moved there after his mother’s death and his father’s remarriage to an American woman. After his father’s later abandonment, Bucky continued to live with his stepmother, Sheryl, and became determined to get a football scholarship so he could leave Tibicut, where he is one of only three Asian American students at his school. But after getting involved in one of his Uncle Rick’s disruptive outbursts, Bucky is arrested and ends up in an immigration detention center. Unable

Hello Beautiful

By Ann Napolitano

Family Drama Following on the heels of her best­ selling third novel, Dear Edward (a 10-episode adaptation was recently released on Apple TV+), Ann Napolitano offers a lively homage to Little Women with Hello Beautiful (Dial, $28, 9780593243732).

Chronicling the lives of the four Chicago-based Padavano sisters and one of their suitors, this sprawling drama stretches from 1960 through 2008, tracing the arc of their family dynamics. Like Little Women, Hello Beautiful also thoughtfully examines the comforts and challenges of home life, work and romantic love, but with a distinctly modern perspective.

The novel begins with William Waters, whose life has been defined by the death of his 3-yearold sister just days after his birth. The tragedy casts a permanent pall over his parents’ days, and they ignore William thereafter—to a perhaps unbelievable degree. As William realizes, “They’d only ever had one child, and it wasn’t him.” Basketball becomes his primary source of stability, and he leaves his suburban Boston home after earning a basketball scholarship to Northwestern University. At school, he meets self-assured, determined Julia Padavano, who

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to provide official proof of his American citizenship, Bucky is deported to South Korea, where he is forced to serve in the Korean army.

Korean American author Joe Milan Jr. spins an immersive, fastpaced story in his debut novel, The All-American (Norton, $28.95, 9781324035657). Bucky is an intriguing and sympathetic character. He’s vulnerable and strong, raw and mature. He finds common ground between the divergent points of his birth and adopted countries, such as discovering a way to communicate in Korean while drawing on his experience as an American.

Milan’s writing is tight, with fresh and vivid

descriptions that illuminate the contrasts in Bucky’s background and cultural makeup. The novel raises questions about who and what exactly determines your identity. Is it your birthplace, or where you’re raised? Is it your parents or your name or the papers you carry? Is it perception, either from yourself or others?

Rich and engrossing, this coming-of-age story offers an intricate exploration of identity and transformation that will be especially appealing to fans of Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, My Year Abroad by Chang Rae Lee and China Boy by Gus Lee. —Maya Fleischmann

decides during their first conversation that he’s the one for her.

The two marry, and slowly but surely, William becomes part of the Padavano clan, which also includes long-suffering mother Rose, goodhearted father Charlie and Julia’s three sisters: artistic Cecelia and nurturing Emeline, who are twins, and literary Sylvie, who kisses boys in the library stacks while waiting for a “oncein-a-century love affair.” Julia repeatedly warns Sylvie about her idealism: “The kind of love you’re looking for is made up,” she says. “The idea of love in those books—Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina—is that it’s a force that obliterates you. They’re all tragedies, Sylvie.

Think about it; those novels all end with despair, or death.”

Julia’s prophecy proves to be apt, with slow-simmering events reaching a shocking culmination. The family is torn apart in dramatic fashion, despite the fact that the four sisters “had beat with one heart for most of their lives.”

As Napolitano switches narrators throughout the book, readers become fully enmeshed in the sprawling lives of her characters, watching them change and grow over decades. They’re a likable bunch, and as with real friends and family, readers may sometimes want to intervene, or at least offer some advice, as they make life-­altering decisions. Napolitano goes to great lengths to explain and justify her characters’ choices—at times, at the expense of action and dialogue.

Still, William and the Padavano sisters remain memorable, and Napolitano’s sharp plotting provides a gripping conclusion that radiates

love and kindness, the sort you wish that all feuding families might find their way to.

This bighearted domestic novel reaches comforting highs and despairing lows as Napolitano examines the many ways that families pull each other together and apart.

—Alice Cary

H Biography of X

By Catherine Lacey

Literary Fiction Catherine Lacey’s fourth novel, Biography of X (FSG, $28, 9780374606176), is a feat of technical brilliance, a fictional biography about a mysterious and notorious 20th-­ century artist known as X. The biographer is X’s widow, C.M. Lucca, who insists that she’s telling X’s story, but as her research into her wife’s past reveals more and more shocking surprises, it becomes clear that she’s actually telling her own story—and that of the country she lives in. In the novel’s America, most of the South seceded in 1945 to become the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy divided from the Northern and Western territories by a wall and ruled by a ruthless autocratic dictatorship.

Though the novel’s world building lacks a critical engagement with race, which Lacey

reviews | fiction only mentions in passing, and though it sometimes feels more like a stylized thought experiment than a book with a beating, human heart, Biography of X is still a stunning achievement.

It is nearly impossible not to get lost in Lacey’s exquisitely detailed version of America. Nothing about it feels fictional, from the extensive footnotes, images and assorted ephemera included, to the slightly altered references to real people and events (activist Emma Goldman and David Bowie, among others).

Even more compelling is the assuredness with which Lacey inhabits the persona of C.M. Lucca.

There’s something unhinged and upsetting— but legible, even understandable, at times—in Lucca’s unwavering devotion to her late wife, even as she spirals deeper into the disturbing realities of X’s life and work. Lucca isn’t merely an unreliable narrator; her involvement in the story she’s trying to tell is too complicated and multilayered to be explained through a simple narrative device. Through Lucca, and through X, Lacey explores bigger, thornier questions about authorship and identity, art and futility, obsession and abuse. She pokes at reality and perspective, probing what it means to seek out the truth of another person, even—maybe especially—when that truth proves impossible to find.

Biography of X is a dazzling literary chimera, at once an epic and chilling alternate history of the United States and an intimate portrait of a woman coming apart at the seams. It is also, in its own subtle way, a love letter to writing and writers. With the pacing of a thriller and the careful consideration of a definitive biography, this is a sure and surprising novel that will haunt its readers for quite some time.

—Laura Sackton

Small Joys

By Elvin James Mensah

Coming of Age Some people feel like outsiders every day of their lives. One such person is Harley Sekyere, a 21-yearold gay Black man in England who comes from an unsupportive household, felt at sea at college and has no idea where to turn. That’s a situation plenty of people will relate to. And it’s the premise of Small Joys (Ballantine, $27, 9780593499962), Elvin James Mensah’s sympathetic debut novel.

It’s 2005, shortly after terrorists coordinated a series of subway and bus bombings that devastated London. Harley had grand plans to graduate from university with a degree in music

journalism but dropped out. Bereft of any other constructive goals, overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and depression, he makes a drastic decision: Back home in the town of Dartford, southeast of London, he wanders into the woods with a small X-ACTO knife.

He catches a break. Muddy, a straight white man “holding a pair of binoculars,” approaches Harley, sees that he’s bleeding and stops him from proceeding further. Fortuitously, Muddy is more than just a devoted bird-watcher who happened to walk by. He’s also about to become Harley’s roommate.

Mensah then introduces other characters who become part of Harley’s support network.

They include Chelsea, a young white woman whose father owns the apartment building where Harley and Muddy live. She’s a friend of Harley’s and helps him reclaim his old job at the cinema where she works. Also in the mix are Finlay, Muddy’s best mate, whom Chelsea is dating; and Noria, a Black woman who’s dating Muddy and is obsessed with styling Harley’s hair.

The center of all of this is Harley, of whom Mensah writes with great affection. He offers unforgettable details, such as when he notes that Harley is so self-conscious that he sometimes stores food in his cheeks “to create the illusion [he] was eating quicker than [he] actually was.” Harley’s lack of assurance, he says, comes from “anxiety and queerness and failure.” It also comes from his homophobic father, a religious man hoping to convert his son; his relationship with an abusive older man; and his burgeoning feelings for Muddy.

Small Joys is simpler and more predictable than the books to which it is already being compared, among them works by Brandon Taylor and Bryan Washington. The raw emotions in Mensah’s book, however, will resonate with anyone who has ever felt as if they don’t belong. Harley may feel like an outsider, but as Mensah astutely notes, he’s got a lot of company.

—Michael Magras

H Y/N

By Esther Yi

Literary Fiction It’s time for the literary world to take fanfiction seriously.

Well into the internet age, contemporary literature is profoundly shaped by online aesthetics and sensibilities, but for some reason fan­ fiction remains outcast. Esther Yi’s debut novel

gives fanfiction, and stan culture more broadly, the piercing, unhinged analytic treatment it deserves. Beginning with an unnamed Korean narrator living in Berlin who is lured into an intense K-pop fandom, Y/N (Astra House, $26, 9781662601538) takes readers on a surreal, self-reflexive adventure that blurs and ultimately dissolves the borders between reality and fiction, self and other, and admiration and fetishization.

Though the unnamed narrator is the catalyst for the novel, both she and Yi make it clear from the start that this book is not really about her; it is about the limits of fandom. The novel opens with her first exposure to Moon, the youngest member of a Korean boy band that captivates international audiences in sold-out arenas. From her nosebleed seat, the narrator falls instantly for Moon, except it is not love she falls into but rather something like delusion.

Soon after, our narrator starts writing fanfiction in which the protagonist is called Y/N (fanfic lingo for “your name,” which allows readers to insert themselves into the story). But soon Y/N takes over the narrative, traveling to Korea to meet Moon and destroying any semblance of selfhood that the narrator had.

Esther Yi has set a new standard for internetinfluenced literature with one of the most daring novels of the year.

Yi speaks to some of the most pressing ideas in today’s culture with wit and grace. Y/N illustrates how serious fandoms can be, how their influence reaches beyond bedroom wall posters to shape politics and identity. When Moon livestreams and calls his fans “liver,” insinuating both “lover” and the idea that his fans are somehow a part of his body, we see how a fandom forms a collective, though with a strict hierarchy. Parasocial relationship is an apt term, but in this case, it’s not necessarily the other that is the object of one-sided connection, but rather a fictionalized version of the self. With this in mind, Yi explores how gender discrimination and racism (particularly fetishization) can be the outcome of such constructed realities, as characters repeat Korean stereotypes and parrot a culture they have no real link to.

Considering all of this, it is clear that Y/N is one of the most daring novels of the year. Yi has set a new standard for internet-influenced literature by showing that online and literary narratives exist hand in hand, creating the world with every word.

—Eric A. Ponce

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reviews | nonfiction

H A Fever in the Heartland

By Timothy Egan

American History Most American history buffs have seen the terrifying photograph of the Ku Klux Klan’s parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1925, with the U.S. Capitol visible in the background. Sadly, that’s just a minor glimpse of the klan’s sway during an era we prefer to remember as the Jazz Age. But in fact, there are more white robes concealed in musty attic trunks than we may realize; at its height, the klan had 6 million members.

The KKK originated in defeated Confederate states after the Civil War, but the epicenter of the revived klan in the early 1920s was well to the north of the Mason-Dixon line. The Upper Midwest was a stronghold—particularly Indiana, where the klan effectively controlled the state’s political system. In his latest enthralling historical narrative, A Fever in the Heartland

Egg

By Lizzie Stark

History Eggs are the ubiquitous breakfast food, served up every day in kitchens and restaurants around the world. They are also a cornerstone for many savory dishes and added to baked goods to provide leavening.

But have you ever considered the egg’s importance beyond its vast utility as a food source?

In Egg: A Dozen Ovatures (Norton, $28, 9780393531503), author Lizzie Stark (Pandora’s DNA) dishes up 12 ways eggs have affected and benefited humans. Blending fascinating factoids, historical tales and her own personal stories, Stark highlights the remarkable, the unusual and the extreme.

Each chapter focuses on a different topic, describing how eggs have been treasured as artistic objects, hunted by eccentric egg collectors, traded as a precious commodity, used in scientific cures and even sent to the moon.

Throughout, Stark fills readers in on related practices and definitions, such as egg candling, “a technique used since ancient times, [that] employs light—a candle in the early days, and later electric lamps—to reveal what’s under the shell.” Such historical and scientific facts are

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(Viking, $30, 9780735225268), Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Timothy Egan charts the klan’s rapid rise and spectacular collapse in 1920s America.

The new klan rose in reaction to four things: high levels of immigration from Catholic and Jewish people, the Great Migration of Black Americans, the release of the racist movie The Birth of a Nation and the widespread popularity of fraternal organizations. The KKK pretended to benignly uphold “Americanism” but not-so-secretly terrorized anyone who wasn’t a white Protestant, with the complicity of a staggering number of clergypeople.

Egan, author of bestsellers including The Worst Hard Time and A Pilgrimage to Eternity, homes in on Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson, “the most talented psychopath ever to tread the banks of the Wabash,” who ran the Indiana KKK, of which the governor was a proud member.

A serial sexual predator, Stephenson had not-­unrealistic aspirations for high office— even the White House. But his plans were derailed when he sexually and physically abused Madge Oberholtzer, an educated young professional whose brave response helped turn public opinion.

Egan skillfully leads readers through the horrifying experiences of Oberholtzer and a handful of other beleaguered klan opponents.

American democracy had a close call in the 1920s. The KKK disintegrated as a powerful political force, but not before its influence helped pass much of its anti-immigrant and Jim Crow agenda. Its malevolence went underground for a while, but history shows that it has resurfaced again and again, like in the 1950s and ’60s. A Fever in the Heartland is just one important chapter in an ongoing history.

—Anne Bartlett

combined with contemporary cultural touchstones in a style that is witty, engaging and descriptive.

Stark also adds moments from her own personal history, which provides a perfect balance to the data points and statistics. From egg experiments with her dad and decorating Ukrainian pysanky eggs with her mom, to her decision to have her ovaries removed to stave off the high likelihood of developing ovarian cancer due to an inherited gene mutation, Stark is skilled at making connections between eggs’ symbolic meaning and real-life significance. Egg is surprising, revealing and entertaining. After reading this delightful book, you will never look at an egg the same way again.

—Becky Libourel Diamond

words compel us to follow her on a beautiful but difficult journey of loss.

Chung was born prematurely to Korean parents who felt they could not care for such a fragile baby. She wrote about her adoption by a white couple, and her search for her birth family as she became a mother herself, in her bestselling 2018 memoir, All You Can Ever Know. Now Chung continues her story, returning to the Oregon mountains of her childhood at the moment her beloved adoptive parents’ health began to fail.

Chung’s struggle to be present for her parents as a daughter, while also being a wife and a mother in another city three thousand miles away, will be familiar to many readers. When her father’s health began its slow downward spiral, he was still young enough to seek a better job with better health resources but was stymied by his limited education—and proud enough to resist the government assistance Chung begged him to request. When he finally did, he was denied, falling through the cracks of a broken health care system. By that time, his illness had taken an irreversible toll. Chung’s grief and frustration over his death were fanned by the costly miles between them, but she resolved to do better by her widowed mother. However, Chung’s time with her mother eventually ran out as well, as the gathering storm of the COVID-19 pandemic spread its own brand of pain and panic.

A Living Remedy makes this era of collective grief more personal, as Chung honestly explores her childhood and the lives and deaths of her parents. She gives these hard times a purpose, absorbing them with both fury and compassion,

H A Living Remedy

By Nicole Chung

Memoir The epigraph at the beginning of Nicole Chung’s vivid memoir A Living Remedy ( Ec c o, $29.99, 9780063031616) in­ cludes a line from Marie Howe’s poem “For Three Days”: “because even grief provides a living remedy.” As Chung immerses readers in her experience of grief, her powerful

reviews | nonfiction making them part of her own legacy to pass along to her daughters. For her, this is indeed a living remedy.

—Priscilla Kipp

Alexandra Petri’s US History

By Alexandra Petri

Humor Imagine if Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been distracted from her suffrage efforts because she fell in love, Hallmark movie-­ style, with a local Seneca Falls man. Or if Emily Dickinson contacted tech support but could only communicate in her trademark poetic style. Or if the Gettysburg Address had been written by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin.

Alexandra Petri has long entertained Washington Post readers with her absurdist columns on the latest political and pop culture news. In her dazzling book of historical humor, Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) (Norton, $27.95, 9781324006435), she shows again why legendary humor writer Dave Barry called her “the funniest person in Washington.”

Petri’s seemingly effortless ability to reimagine American history in the most bizarre ways makes this one of the most entertaining books you’ll read this year.

In an essay titled “Why the National Parks Were Set Aside,” Petri records the reasons she assumes some of our most famous landmarks were preserved: “Yellowstone: GEYSER SQUIRTS HUGE AMOUNTS OF WATER INTO AIR WITHOUT WARNING. . . . Zion: Seems steep. . . . Grand Canyon: Big hole in the ground without proper signage. Leave it as it is.” And in “John and Abigail Adams Try Sexting,” Petri imagines the Founding Father and his wife writing a series of racy (for the 1700s) letters while he is in Paris. “I am attired in a woolen gown and a cap of a stiff linen material, as well as five petticoats, my bustle, and my customary stays. I was wearing stockings, but I am not wearing them any longer,” Abigail writes. “I hope that soon you shall be wearing merely four!” John replies.

Hot stuff!

Petri’s previous book of essays, the excellent Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, focused on current topics such as QAnon conspiracies and the Trump administration. This new collection feels somewhat sweeter and gentler, albeit still side-splittingly funny. It’s a satirical salve at a time when we need humor more than ever.

—Amy Scribner

Go Back and Get It

By Dionne Ford

Memoir As she approached the age of 40, Dionne Ford, co-editor of the 2019 anthology Slavery’s Descendants, wondered how she had become “an invisible woman.” Who was she behind the mask she’d created to survive white supremacy and evade her struggles with mental illness? In Go Back and Get It (Bold Type, $28, 9781645030133), Ford, a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellow, skillfully blends illuminating research and moving prose to describe her path to self-liberation.

Ford’s quest began when she discovered an early 1890s photo of her greatgreat-grandmother Temple “Tempy” Burton; Tempy’s enslaver, Colonel W.R. Stuart; and the colonel’s wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s family were North Carolina plantation owners who bequeathed Tempy to the couple as a wedding gift. Tempy’s six children with Stuart included Ford’s great-grandmother Josephine, who was born a decade after emancipation. Although an internet search had uncovered this ancestral information, there were still considerable gaps in Ford’s family history.

Driven by the need to understand and contextualize Tempy’s life, Ford mined genealogy records, newspaper articles, county archives, ancestry message boards and the murky memories of relatives. Ultimately, Ford didn’t unearth clean-cut answers. The reasons Tempy stayed with her enslavers well after slavery had been abolished remained opaque, as did the interpersonal dynamics of Tempy’s relationships with the couple. But the intergenerational project cracked open the darkness of Ford’s trauma, which manifested as PTSD and alcoholism. Through efforts that often challenged her comfort, Ford restored the silenced voices of her ancestors, connected with distant cousins who were propelled by the same mission, and learned how to heal from childhood sexual abuse inflicted by a male relative.

Go Back and Get It is as deeply empathetic as it is introspective. With this striking work, Ford magnifies the interconnectedness of pain and forgiveness, cruelty and reconciliation. In order to regain autonomy—to feel at home in her body and to fully own her Blackness—she had to confront the dead rather than erase them. “Remember and recover,” Ford writes.

“Re-member. Put yourself back together again and again.”

—Vanessa Willoughby

Poverty, by America

By Matthew Desmond

Social Science Poverty, by America (Crown, $28, 9780593239919), the new book from Pulitzer Prize-winning Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond (Evicted), focuses on the root causes of Americans’ economic suffering. Mixing statistics and tales from real people’s lives, Desmond makes a convincing argument that poverty is a sinkhole too powerful for anyone to pull themselves out by their bootstraps alone.

Early in the book, Desmond establishes that poverty is about not just money but “a relentless piling on of problems,” with housing insecurity, eviction and the instability of low-wage gig and temp work at its core. The rising cost of living in American cities and the decline of career work with benefits are also contributing factors, as are our country’s aggressive carceral and criminal justice systems.

One of Desmond’s fundamental assertions is that America has little incentive to reduce its level of poverty because those in power profit from the labor and rent money of those living more precariously. For example, employers’ gradual victory over unions is a major reason employees are now unable to escape workplace exploitation. Payday loans, overdraft fees and racially discriminatory interest rates are other ways American institutions financially benefit from civilians’ poverty. This all combines with the costly privatization of more and more public goods and services.

Desmond devotes a fair section of this slim volume to proposed solutions, repeatedly stating that those living well will need to sacrifice some affluence to alleviate others’ suffering.

However, he balks at the phrase “redistribution of wealth,” saying it “distracts and triggers.”

Instead, his practical solutions seem tailored to those who are willing to sacrifice in moderation—for example, by supporting businesses with unions, paying their full taxes and pressuring upper classes to do the same. Few of his solutions seem likely to form the political pressure cooker needed to regulate predatory banking, end exclusionary zoning and pry tax dollars from executives’ claws.

While Poverty, by America may not be a how-to for the revolution that many Americans are calling for, it’s a solid primer for those living in relative comfort about how the suffocating tendrils of poverty work, and who they benefit.

—Annie Harvieux

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reviews | nonfiction Seventy Times Seven

By Alex Mar

True Crime The latest book by journalist Alex Mar (Witches of America) is a valuable contribution to the true crime genre. Taking its title from a verse in the Gospel of Matthew, Seventy Times Seven (Penguin Press, $28, 9780525522157) begins with a heinous murder but then follows the difficult, inspiring path of forgiveness and redemption traveled by those whose lives were forever altered by that crime.

On May 14, 1985, 15-year-old Paula Cooper and three teenage friends entered the Gary, Indiana, home of Ruth Pelke, a widowed Bible teacher and grandmother approaching her 79th birthday. What began as a hastily conceived plan to snatch cash and jewelry ended with Ruth dead on her living room floor.

The brutal death of an elderly white woman at the hands of four Black girls in Gary, a city many white residents had fled after the election of its first Black mayor in 1967, sparked public outrage and made prosecutor Jack Crawford’s decision to seek the death penalty an easy one. After pleading guilty without a plea bargain, Paula was sentenced to death, making her, at the time, the youngest person ever to receive the death sentence in modern American legal history.

At that point, Paula’s story took an unexpected turn. Sitting in his crane one night at the steel plant where he’d worked for many years, Ruth’s grandson, Bill Pelke, sensed in a moment of profound personal crisis that his grandmother was calling on him to forgive her killer. But Bill went far beyond that single generous act of compassion to embrace an entire life of activism against the death penalty. In tandem with Bill’s journey—one that took him across the United States and as far away as the Vatican—Mar describes the efforts of the lawyers who fought tirelessly for the abolition of the death penalty for juveniles.

The details of Paula and Bill’s relationship and how their lives unfolded in the more than four decades after Ruth’s murder are readily available on the internet, but readers should instead rely on Mar’s intimate and highly sympathetic account. Anyone moved by Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, Just Mercy, will find Mar’s book a compelling companion piece on the issue of crime and punishment in America. It’s a story that beautifully marries tragedy and hope, illuminating some of the worst and best of which human beings are capable.

—Harvey Freedenberg

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All of Us Together in the End

By Matthew Vollmer

Memoir The lights started shortly after Matthew Vollmer’s mother died. It was the fall of 2019, and Vollmer’s father now lived alone, sleeping in the same bed where his wife of decades had released her final breath. He had spent 10 years caring for her as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases slowly took their toll.

Now Vollmer, his sister, their respective families and their father were learning to live without their mother’s buoyant laughter.

So it was understandable when friends and acquaintances offered a quick explanation for the appearance of mysterious lights near the elder Mr. Vollmer’s rural North Carolina property. They must be Mrs. Vollmer, of course, signaling to her husband from beyond the grave.

This easy answer didn’t sit well with Vollmer, who had long wrestled with matters of faith after leaving the Seventh-day Adventist Church in college. The other members of his family were still Adventists, and this well-meaning explanation didn’t align with their beliefs either.

Adventists believe that once you die, you’re dead until Christ’s return and resurrection.

Vollmer’s father even suggested to a few people that the lights might not have been from his late wife but from a demonic source instead.

Vollmer explores these possibilities with open-minded curiosity in All of Us Together in the End (Hub City, $16.95, 9798885740050). An English professor at Virginia Tech who has previously authored short story and essay collections, Vollmer brings a fiction writer’s knack for narrative to this account of his life, vividly recounting family gatherings during the COVID-19 lockdown and other tender moments. Likewise, Vollmer’s analytic prowess shines in his research into possible causes for the lights. He turned to an author of a ghost lights book and a shaman, among other sources, attempting to make sense of not only this phenomenon but also the hole Vollmer’s mother left in the family.

Throughout this journey, Vollmer invites readers into his world via detailed renderings of the places he’s called home. He recalls his childhood house with exquisite detail and recounts searching for the lights outside his father’s window so powerfully that readers can place themselves in the scene. And as he searches, Vollmer evokes a painfully universal experience: the process of moving forward with a life that doesn’t make sense after a loved one’s death.

—Carla Jean Whitley

The Best Strangers in the World

By Ari Shapiro

Memoir Throughout his broadcasting career, journalist and host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” Ari Shapiro has made connections with people from all walks of life. In his sparkling memoir, The Best Strangers in the World (HarperOne, $28.99, 9780063221345), Shapiro intimately invites readers into his childhood and beyond to show them how his youthful curiosity and desire to learn have helped shape him into the person he is today.

When he was a child, Shapiro’s family moved to Portland, Oregon, where he embraced public speaking. As a teenager in Portland, he came out as gay and joined the city’s queer underground to nurture his sense of identity and community.

Throughout the book, Shapiro explores his gay and Jewish identities and the surprising ways they have both affected and not affected his life.

After recounting the almost magical story of becoming a host on “All Things Considered,” Shapiro delves into his most fascinating experiences as a reporter, including an international incident in Ireland, a surprise interview with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One and a chance to report on the war in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Along with these stories, he supplies some very entertaining vignettes about his side gig as a singer for the band Pink Martini.

However, Shapiro is at his best when he’s discussing the most poignant and personal moments in his life. “Happy Endings,” which describes his whirlwind 2004 wedding to his husband, Mike, and “The Other Man I Married,” about his best friend and former producer, Rich, are two of the strongest and most moving pieces in the collection. Full of emotion and wit, these essays remind readers how funny and heartbreaking, often in equal measure, life can be.

They also emphasize that anyone can have impostor syndrome or feel scared to be authentic, even when they’re someone who has interviewed the president of the United States.

NPR listeners will especially appreciate this book as a trusty companion to “All Things Considered,” but you needn’t be an NPR listener to enjoy these essays. Personal and contemplative, but also funny and at times devastating, The Best Strangers in the World will instill a newfound appreciation for the hard work journalists do and a sense of awe for the scope of history they get to observe up close.

—Sarojini Seupersad

reviews | nonfiction

H The People’s Hospital

By Ricardo Nuila

Medicine As COVID-19 swept across the U.S. in 2020, health care professionals and patients quickly learned about the flaws in the public health system.

Questions arose about equitable access to health care, the role of insurance and the quality of care in public hospitals versus private hospitals. Taking the public Ben Taub Hospital—Houston’s “largest hospital for the poor . . . who cannot afford medical care”—as an example, physician Ricardo Nuila explores these issues in The People’s Hospital (Scribner, $28, 9781501198045).

Nuila has been an attending physician at Ben Taub for over 10 years. Using the stories of five patients, he weaves an intricate web of questions about the shortcomings of insurance and corporate medicine. For example, there’s Christian, a patient with chronic kidney disease who developed mysterious, debilitating knee pain. Because he was uninsured and had to pay out of pocket for his diagnosis and treatment, he traveled to a clinic in Mexico where he hoped his money would go further. A few weeks into his therapy, his knee pain diminished, and he moved back to Houston—but within weeks, he found himself facing the same medical issues again. When his kidneys started to fail and the insurance company denied him coverage, his mother admitted him to Ben Taub, where he started receiving hemodialysis on a regular basis and eventually left the hospital with hope.

Readers also meet Ebonie, who was 19 weeks into her pregnancy and experiencing dangerous levels of obstetric bleeding. At Ben Taub, Nuila and another doctor developed a plan to deal with bleeding in the future and made sure Ebonie would be admitted to Ben Taub when it happened. Ben Taub also helped her apply for Medicaid so she would have an insurance safety net. Through his own experiences, and those of his patients and fellow health care professionals, Nuila paints a picture of a world where “people find healthcare and revere it like treasure.”

The People’s Hospital is an inspiring book that raises crucial questions about the future of American health care. Nuila illustrates that hospitals that make holistic decisions about care provide more effective and equitable treatment than those that ask simply about the ability of patients to cover expenses, reminding readers that the most effective health care systems elevate human needs over monetary gain.

—Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

H A Madman’s Will

By Gregory May

American History John Randolph, a wealthy enslaver from Virginia and member of Congress for almost 30 years, died in 1833.

In the will that he created in 1821, he stipulated the freeing of every enslaved person on his plantation, which would amount to one of the largest manumissions in American history: 383 people. Before this could happen, however, the court system had to deal with the legality of a will Randolph created in 1832 that did not grant those people freedom. To determine the legality of the latter will, the courts had to consider whether Randolph was “mad” or sane when he prepared it. Meanwhile, the enslaved people whose freedom was on the line waited anxiously for 13 years for a final decision. Historian and lawyer Gregory May brilliantly captures these extraordinary events with his compelling, meticulously documented and beautifully written A Madman’s Will (Liveright, $30, 9781324092216).

Randolph was not only “a political celebrity, but a colorful character of the first order,” May writes—someone who “always craved public attention” and who, over the course of his political career, both defended and denounced slavery. Two of his early wills, prepared in 1819 and 1821, “freed all of Randolph’s slaves and provided funds to resettle them outside Virginia,” May writes. However, Randolph’s final will did not offer anyone freedom but instead indicated that most of the people he enslaved would be sold. May includes a fascinating look at the legal and medical framework the courts used to examine Randolph’s sanity after his death.

There were many stories about his “peculiarities,” including “fluctuations between excitement and dejection, enthusiasm and gloom,” especially during the last 10 years of his life.

In the end, May writes, neither Randolph nor the people he enslaved “could escape the underlying pull of prevailing white assumptions about race and social order.” Many white people could not comprehend the plight of people who were enslaved and were indifferent about their predicament. And so when the courts finally sent those 383 formerly enslaved Black people to the “free” state of Ohio, they were met by a white mob—and white residents’ violent objections to their settlement continued from there.

May’s account shows that “freedom” of any kind was virtually impossible for Black people in the United States in the early 1800s, no matter

how carefully planned. This important book should be of interest to a wide range of readers interested in American history.

—Roger Bishop

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

By Maggie Smith

Memoir “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself” reads the epigraph to poet Maggie Smith’s memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Atria, $28, 9781982185855).

Fans of Keep Moving, Smith’s bestselling self-help book based on tweets from the period following her separation and divorce from her partner of 19 years, will be eager to hear about her search for and ultimate reclamation of herself.

Written as a series of prose vignettes, You Could Make This Place Beautiful recounts the narrative of Smith’s divorce, beginning on the evening that Smith found a postcard in her husband’s work satchel that revealed romantic intimacy with a stranger. This prompted a whirlwind of couples therapy, arguments and reflection on how the relationship had soured prior to the betrayal. She compares their marriage to a fruit whose pit of love is pure but surrounded by rotting flesh. As the images and metaphors for loss gather momentum, the book simultaneously doubles back on itself, asking unanswerable questions: How to heal? How to carry this trauma forward? How to set it down? How to forgive? How to grieve?

As these queries show, this memoir is both the story of the dissolution of Smith’s marriage and also an inquiry into the act of telling that story—how to determine the beginning and the end, how to locate the center, how to represent the brokenness and beauty. Music plays an important role throughout this book, and I loved listening to the songs Smith referenced as I was reading. (As it turns out, Smith’s story inspired the song “Picture of My Dress” by the Mountain Goats, which began as a Twitter exchange between Smith and songwriter John Darnielle.) In Keep Moving, Smith addressed the role that art and artists have played in her search for herself, and in You Could Make This Place Beautiful, she offers readers a personal playlist.

Smith’s memoir is a beautiful example of how metaphor and imagery can capture the essence of experiences that are difficult to explain, and it will lead readers to think more deeply about the relationships in their own lives.

—Kelly Blewett

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reviews | young adult

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls

By Cherie Dimaline

Speculative Fiction Sixteen-year-old Winifred Blight lives in a small house near the gates of one of the oldest cemeteries in Toronto with her father, who runs the crematory. For as long as Winifred can remember, her father has been in mourning for her mother, who died giving birth to her.

Winifred, too, has been shaped by this absence, as she knows her mother only through the now-vintage clothes and records left behind.

Desperate to assuage her father’s grief and form her own deeper connection with her mother, Winifred goes to her favorite part of the cemetery one day and calls out to her mother’s spirit—but she summons the ghost of a teenage girl named Phil instead. Soon, Winifred no longer aches with loneliness, nor does she care that her best (and only) friend doesn’t reciprocate

An Appetite for Miracles

By Laekan Zea Kemp

Fiction Raúl loves the guitar and volunteers as a music therapist with his uncle, a pastor, although he holds secret doubts about his family’s faith. It’s while volunteering that Raúl meets Danna, who loves lists, poetry and food. In fact, Danna loves food so much that she believes that it can help restore her beloved grandfather, whose memories are beginning to fade from dementia. Together, Raúl and Danna go on a journey to find the perfect dishes to heal her grandfather. Along the way, they help each other heal too.

Pura Belpré Honor author Laekan Zea Kemp’s An Appetite for Miracles (Little, Brown, $18.99, 9780316461733) is her first novel written entirely in verse, and she develops distinct voices for each teen. Danna’s pages are expressive and lilting, while Raúl’s are cutting and raw. Kemp also incorporates lists, text messages and other ephemera into the novel. This blend of forms makes it feel like you’re really witnessing two people as they fall in love for the first time.

An Appetite for Miracles explores weighty subjects without dwelling in darkness; instead, it turns toward the light of hope at every

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her romantic feelings. But Winifred and Phil’s intimate connection is threatened when a ghost tour company wants to exploit the cemetery and Winifred’s con­artist cousin risks exposing Phil’s existence. To protect Phil, Winifred will have to sacrifice the only home she’s ever known.

Acclaimed author Cherie Dimaline’s Funeral Songs for Dying Girls (Tundra, $17.99, 9780735265639) is a lyrical coming-of-age ghost story that’s more interested in capturing emotion than explaining the nuts and bolts of its supernatural elements. Phil is a specter who appears when Winifred thinks of her, but her body is, at times, corporeal; in one scene, Winifred braids Phil’s long hair. The novel instead focuses on how the bond between the girls lessens the grief that roots them both in place as Phil slowly reveals to Winifred what

happened in the months leading up to her death.

Dimaline is a registered member of the Métis Nation of Ontario, and Winifred and Phil’s Indigenous identities play crucial roles in the novel. Winifred’s mother and great aunt Roberta were Métis, and Winifred infers that Phil is Ojibwe. The stories Phil tells about her life as a queer Indigenous girl growing up in the 1980s are often harrowing, as she recounts moving from the reservation to the city to escape a miserable situation at school only to find herself in even worse circumstances that ultimately lead to tragedy.

Wrenching and poignant, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is a haunting tale about what it means to search for home—not the place, but the feeling you carry with you.

—Kimberly Giarratano

opportunity. Danna struggles with loss and self-image, and Raúl wrestles with faith and his relationship with a close family member who is incarcerated, but when the two teens meet, their connection sparkles with vulnerability and affection. As Raúl and Danna’s relationship grows, it gives them the strength and insight to make vulnerable, daring and transformative choices that ultimately lead to a well-earned and satisfying ending.

Honesty and hopefulness can often seem like fundamentally opposed concepts. With An Appetite for Miracles, Kemp has created a novel replete with both.

—Tami Orendain

heart of Sam’s ongoing conflict with her mother in Maurene Goo’s inventive, funny and moving Throwback (Zando, $19.99, 9781638930204).

Goo does an excellent job conveying the acute pain of clashing with someone you love fiercely—and who makes you feel profoundly misunderstood. After Halmoni, Sam’s beloved grandmother, has a heart attack, Sam and her mom have an argument that Sam fears they’ll never recover from. Will Sam and her mother end up like Priscilla and Halmoni, distant and polite but with no affection in sight?

As if all that isn’t stressful enough, Sam winds up stranded at the mall, so she downloads a new rideshare app and steps out of the driver’s old car . . . and into 1995. The teens are all wearing baggy jeans; there are no cellphones; and everyone’s backpacks dangle from their shoulders by a single strap. Oh, and the gorgeous, popular, mean-girl cheerleader downplaying her Korean heritage as she campaigns for homecoming queen? Yep, that’s Priscilla at age 17.

Like Marty McFly before her, Sam quickly realizes that she’d better figure out her goal here fast, because her rapidly dying cellphone is the only way to hail a ride back to the present.

In the week before homecoming, Sam works to befriend Priscilla and help her get elected queen; contends with racism, sexism and heteronormativity from students and teachers alike; and struggles to hide her true identity even as she gains precious insight into Priscilla’s relationship with Halmoni.

Goo explores the challenges and joys of intergenerational relationships with empathy

Throwback

By Maurene Goo

Science Fiction Samantha “Sam” Kang has long felt like the odd one out in her family. Her brother is a “literal genius” at Yale, while Sam is a B-minus student.

Her mom, Priscilla, is a lawyer, and her father is a doctor; Sam observes that together, they look “like an attractive, wealthy Asian couple in a BMW commercial. The American Dream realized.”

What that dream consists of, exactly, is at the

reviews | young adult and heart. Readers will root for Sam as she achieves new understandings of her family and herself. By story’s end, they’ll also resoundingly agree with Sam’s declaration that, no matter the decade, “Mariah [Carey] heals all wounds.”

—Linda M. Castellitto

Brighter Than the Sun

By Daniel Aleman

Fiction Every day, thousands of young American citizens who live in Mexico cross the border into the U.S. to receive their education. They endure arduous commutes, long lines and stressful interactions with border agents, simply to make it to class on time. In Brighter Than the Sun (Little, Brown, $18.99, 9780316704472), author Daniel Aleman unpacks the consequences of splitting a life in two—and the joys of putting it back together.

For years, Sol Martínez woke before dawn to travel from Tijuana, Mexico, to attend school in San Diego. Sol desperately wants to embody the shortened form of her name, which means sun, and not her full name, Soledad, which means solitude, but lately it’s been difficult for her to feel anything but isolated. She just moved in with a friend in the U.S. so that she could get a part-time job to help her family. Despite the money Sol earns, and even with glimmers of hope like new friends and a kind, cute boy, the move seems to cause more problems than it solves. Sol feels cleaved from her family and pushed beyond exhaustion. She must endure racist behavior and her grades slip, threatening her dreams of college. “Deep down,” she thinks, “I wish I could return to a time when I could just let someone else carry all this weight for me.”

Aleman navigates Sol’s difficult experiences with nuance and a gentle touch. He imbues Sol with a steady resilience, even when she begins to feel guilt for enjoying her new life in the U.S. Brighter Than the Sun affirms Aleman’s gift for telling the stories of Mexican and Mexican American teens with care and love.

Many young people in situations like Sol’s grapple with false binaries: Are you one of us or one of them? Will you stay or will you leave?

Will you pursue your dreams or sacrifice them to help those you love? These impossible questions have no right answers, but Aleman’s sophisticated writing and tender storytelling remind us that there are no wrong answers either. Brighter Than the Sun is a healing and joyous read.

—Luis G. Rendon

feature | young adult fantasy

Into the woods Escape reality with two novels set in wild and magical forests.

H Greymist Fair

H Lucha of the Night Forest

Hidden in the woods beyond the Idle River lies the village of Greymist Fair. Traveling merchants who follow the road to the village discover that their watches stop, while those who try to mark paths through the surrounding forest find their markers obliterated. Wolves and wargs stalk the shadows between the trees, and village children are warned never to stray from the lantern-lit path lest they be stolen away, leaving only their empty boots behind.

In Greymist Fair (Greenwillow, $19.99, 9780063161696), seven intersecting stories move back and forth in time. The tailor’s daughter seeks the witch in the woods and makes a shattering discovery. A prince grants wishes to those who correctly answer his riddles. A ghost’s revelation exposes a terrible secret. A beautiful noble yearns for a normal life. And a Yuletide celebration takes on particular significance as the ordinary and the extraordinary collide.

Fairy-tale readers have certain expectations: Animals will talk, wishes will go awry, male and female characters will pair up and everyday people will vanquish evil. In Greymist Fair, author Francesca Zappia nods at such expectations before subverting and exceeding them. She freely remixes her source materials, which include familiar Brothers Grimm tales such as “Hansel and Gretel” and more obscure stories like “The Fisherman and His Wife.” The book’s nonlinear structure allows effects to be introduced long before their causes, creating revelatory moments as dots connect and wider pictures emerge.

Meanwhile, platonic and familial relationships, rather than romantic connections, provide the most compelling sources of love.

Zappia frequently places the heartwarming and the frightening side by side, enabling them to reflect and amplify each other. The strongest element in these stories are their redemptive arcs, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes sorrowful but always deeply satisfying. In Greymist Fair, even when darkness threatens, second chances for lasting harmony are still possible if we make peace with our worst fears.

—Jill Ratzan

Lucha Moya is a fighter. Born in Robado, on a lifeless strip of land known as the Scar, Lucha has grappled her way through life alongside her community.

Robado is surrounded by a strange and monstrous forest, and grotesque, skeletal creatures stalk its edges, leaving it isolated from the rest of an unknown world.

Haunted by legends of a demonic presence known as El Sediento, Robado lives under the violent thumb of Los Ricos, who control access to a powerful drug that makes users forget their troubles. Lucha’s mother has been losing time to the drug while Lucha struggles to support herself and her younger sister, Lis. When Lucha’s mother fails to return from her latest bender, Lucha and Lis are evicted from their home and their precarious existence becomes even more fraught. Amid this desperate situation, Lucha discovers a new power and strikes a dark bargain that will change Robado—and the wider world—forever.

Acclaimed author Tehlor Kay Mejia’s Lucha of the Night Forest (Make Me a World, $18.99, 9780593378366) is a powerful allegorical fantasy. Embedded in its story of magic and sisterhood are questions about justice and the price of activism. The Scar mirrors real neighborhoods where infrastructure is failing, food deserts are growing and crime is the only way to survive. In a place where nothing is nurtured, how can anything grow? Robadan tales of El Sediento and a longlost forest goddess echo these contradictions, as one figure brings rot and decay while the other promises verdant life. Lucha, too, learns harsh truths about who, in her world, hopes for change and who must bear the pain and sacrifice required to make change happen.

Lucha of the Night Forest will appeal to fantasy readers and young activists alike.

Seasoned genre fans will enjoy its fast-paced storytelling as well as its fresh take on naturebased magic within a vivid setting filled with glowing mushrooms and otherworldly forests. But it’s Mejia’s clever and compelling incorporation of social justice themes that make this such an impactful, enduring read.

—Mariel Fechik

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feature | earth day

LOVE LETTERS to PLANET EARTH

Four picture books celebrate the wonders of the natural world and offer inspiring ways to preserve them for future generations.

Pick up one of these picture books for Earth Day and discover amazing connections among plants, animals and people. There are so many ways that you—yes, you!—can make a difference in our shared future.

This Is the Planet Where I Live This Is the Planet Where I Live (Beach Lane, $18.99, 9781481465632) is the perfect way to jump-start a young environmentalist’s education. Its eye-catching illustrations will capture the reader’s attention, and its lively text will hold it. This is the sort of book that grows alongside children, gaining broader, deeper meanings as their comprehension develops.

Author K.L. Going writes in rhythmic, occasionally rhyming cumulative verse that focuses on connections. “Here are the people / who share the planet / where I live,” she begins. On the next spread, she continues, “These are the homes / that shelter the people / who share the planet / where I live.” Page by page, Going explores the links between humans, animals, insects, birds, trees, clouds and oceans, her plainspoken verses becoming more complex with each new addition. Finally, she concludes

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quite simply, “Animals, fields, / shelter for friends, / every creature alive / on each other depends— / all on the planet / where we live.”

Debra Frasier’s dazzling photo-collage art transforms Going’s text into a visual feast for the imagination. Her illustrations will remind many readers of On the Day You Were Born, her beloved 1991 picture book that also makes wonderful use of planetary imagery and themes of interconnectedness. Here, repeated images of Earth and a sunflower-bright sun provide a grounding motif that echoes Going’s cumulative lines, helping young readers realize how all the things mentioned in Going’s text—included readers themselves—rely on one another.

Along the way, Frasier portrays fascinating variety within each category, such as fields of food that include tomatoes, broccoli and strawberries, or birds such as goldfinches, eagles and seagulls. Bright colors leap off the page, adding energy to every spread. Frequent use of swirls and spirals, which can be seen in clouds, landscapes and, notably, a large curlicue of birds looping in the air, reinforces the central notions of interdependence and the circle of life.

This Is the Planet Where I Live gloriously captures the teeming natural treasures of our beautiful, delicate world.

—Alice Cary

H One World Imagine if you could travel around the world in a single instant. If you began in Australia at 10 a.m. and went to Brazil, it would already be 8 p.m. there! Author Nicola Davies and illustrator Jenni Desmond follow two children on one such magical journey across time zones in One World: 24 Hours on Planet Earth (Candlewick, $18.99, 9781536226133). Along the way, the pair witness a variety of wild animals and learn about the threats that climate change poses to the creatures.

As the book opens, two children huddle together in a blanket fort in their Greenwich, U.K., bedroom, using a flashlight to look at a book. A clock on the wall shows that the time is about 11:45 p.m. Davies offers a brief, helpful introduction to the concept of time zones, then, as midnight arrives, whisks the pair out their bedroom window and off to Svalbard, Norway.

There, it’s 1 a.m., and a family of polar bears are hunting for seals.

With each stroke of midnight back in Greenwich, readers instantly travel to a new time zone, where they discover a new species.

At 8 a.m. in the Philippines, we see whale sharks “gulping plankton into mouths the size of trash cans.” We visit a mob of kangaroos at 10 a.m. in the scorching Australian Outback, marvel at

Illustration from This Is the Planet Where I Live © 2023 by Debra Frasier. Reproduced by permission of Beach Lane Books.

feature | earth day emperor penguins at noon in Antarctica and more. Every spread discusses dangers to habitats, such as pesticides and deforestation, or protections needed, including anti-poaching measures and the development of alternative energy sources. Davies is careful to depict both the harmful and helpful impacts that humans can have.

The two children, one wearing a yellow nightgown and the other clad in red- and whitestriped pajamas, are keen observers. They hang upside down with a sloth in Ecuador, nestle in the petals of a wildflower in California and float alongside humpback whales in the ocean near Hawaii. Their bright clothing ensures that they stand out in every scene.

After soaring over plastic-filled seas and a brightly lit metropolis, the children return home. It’s the first hour of Earth Day, and Davies urges readers to “think of all the wonders that we’ve seen,” then “shout them out . . . and tell the sleepers to WAKE UP because tomorrow is already here.” Filled with informative prose and stunning art, One World delivers on its creative concept and leaves readers with not only a sense of awe at our planet’s remarkable biodiversity but also newfound feelings of respect and responsibility.

—Alice Cary

The City Tree Dani’s drab days are revived by color and beauty when a tree is planted in the “sometimes dusty, sometimes puddly” hole in the sidewalk in front of her home. Now, instead of waking each morning to the clamorous cacophony of city traffic, Dani greets her day with birdsong from nesting friends outside her window.

Dani quickly learns that the tree is so much more than just a tree: It’s also a helpful guide to dressing for the weather (“leaves fluttering said breezy today . . . branches bending said bundle up”), a soothing, protective presence against the city’s noise and pollution and a listening ear for Dani’s “stories, wonders, worries” and more.

Some people don’t seem to appreciate the tree as much as Dani. She finds signs tacked to its bark and trash dumped around its trunk,

and she even sees a dog doing its business beneath its branches! But Dani and a group of kindhearted neighbors work together to care for the tree so that everyone will be able to enjoy it for years to come.

The City Tree (Clarion, $19.99, 9780358423416) highlights a special relationship that will be instantly recognizable to any child who has their own beloved city tree.

Author Shira Boss’ text is lovely and engaging, filled with vivid turns of phrase. Dani’s sidewalk is “a carpet of concrete,” for instance, and when winter comes, the tree’s bare branches “rested like paintbrushes in a cup.” Four pages of back matter elaborate on the importance of urban trees and how city dwellers can support such trees.

The City Tree reminds us that nature can flourish wherever it’s nurtured.

Illustrator Lorena Alvarez goes above and beyond to make The City Tree shine. She builds a wonderful contrast between the cold, gray hues of Dani’s city street that give way to the slow spread of bright, saturated colors once the tree is planted. Page by page, the windows of the buildings around the tree fill with more people following creative pursuits—bakers, sculptors, musicians, designers, all seemingly inspired by the new burst of life heralded by the tree. Alvarez also incorporates subtle examples of all the ways the neighborhood cares for the tree, from building birdhouses and planting flowers around its base to picking up litter and recycling.

It can be easy to imagine cities as places disconnected from the natural world, but The City Tree is an excellent reminder that nature can flourish wherever it’s nurtured—even outside your own window.

—Lisa Bubert

Maple & Rosemary Alison James and Jennifer K. Mann’s inversion of The Giving Tree begins with a nod to

Shel Silverstein’s enduring, controversial classic: “Once there was a tree who was very lonely.”

Things change when a distressed girl named Rosemary rushes, in tears, across the field to the sugar maple. Children at the nearby school have hurt her feelings, and Maple offers her friendship. Their bond deepens as Rosemary visits daily; she even plants some maple seeds beneath her friend’s branches.

When Rosemary suddenly stops visiting, Maple grieves, but as seasons and years pass, she manages to bloom and grow anyway. The eager saplings shooting up under Maple’s brilliant leaves also mature. Finally, Rosemary returns, now a grown woman, to tell Maple that she’s become a teacher at the school. She hangs a swing from one of Maple’s branches and introduces her students to her old friend. In the end, we see Rosemary as an older woman, her dark hair white with age. She settles next to Maple with a book and, beneath the sheltering leaves, reads aloud to the tree.

With touching emotional authenticity, Maple & Rosemary (Neal Porter, $18.99, 9780823449675) explores the bonds of friendship and the promises it entails. James portrays conversations between Rosemary and Maple in straightforward dialogue, as though Maple is actually speaking and Rosemary can understand her. When Rosemary’s visits cease, James writes that Maple “ached with loneliness,” because “once you have a friend, you know what you are missing when they are gone.”

Mann’s artwork seamlessly complements James’ vivid text. When we first meet Rosemary, James describes her from Maple’s perspective as something “raining from its eyes” and moving “bright and fast like a shooting star.”

Mann brings the story to the page with lush landscapes filled with greens of every shade.

She captures Maple beautifully throughout the seasons, and her occasional use of panels expertly progresses the pacing as needed.

“Leaves bloomed, burned, then fell,” we read as Mann depicts pink-tipped buds, then verdant green leaves and finally the fiery reds of autumn.

This tender story is essential reading for tree-whisperers everywhere.

—Julie Danielson

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reviews | children’s

H Nic Blake and the Remarkables

By Angie Thomas

Middle Grade Nichole “Nic” Blake and her father, Calvin, have moved 10 times in as many years. In Jackson, Mississippi, Nic has finally managed to make a friend, JP, by bonding over their shared love of the bestselling Stevie James fantasy book series, but there’s one thing Nic must hide from her friend. She and her father are Remarkables, born with a Gift that’s “more powerful than magic,” and Nic’s father has promised to teach her to use it, so long as she keeps it a secret from Unremarkables like JP. But when Nic’s birthday arrives, Calvin instead gives her a hellhound puppy and the same old promise: “Next year.”

Nic’s world turns upside down at a Stevie James book signing when the series’ author, TJ Retro, reveals to her that the books are actually based on his childhood, with two characters inspired by Nic’s parents. The revelation sets

H Big Tree

By Brian Selznick

Middle Grade Brian Selznick often centers his richly imagined, deeply cinematic stories on children growing up alone and navigating worlds both dangerous and wonderful. Selznick explores similar themes in Big Tree (Scholastic, $32.99, 9781338180633), but this novel’s children aren’t human; they’re the seeds from a massive sycamore tree.

Louise and her brother Merwin have spent their lives packed onto a seedball alongside their siblings, dangling from a branch of their enormous tree. Like all parents, Mama hopes to give her children “roots to settle down, and wings to bravely go where [they] need to go.” Louise is a dreamer, while Merwin is a pragmatist, and when a fire ravages their forest, the two must work together to find a safe place to put down roots. But the world and time itself have more in store for the siblings than even Louise’s wildest flight of imagination could conjure.

Louise and Merwin’s story spans millennia and poses provocative questions about the relative prominence of the human species when

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off a chain of events that leads to Calvin making his own confessions, including that he’s actually been on the run for the past decade. Nic, JP and a newly revealed relative are thrown into a quest for a powerful weapon called the Msaidizi that offers the only way to clear Calvin’s name.

Award-winning, best­selling YA author Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give) makes her middle grade debut with Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy (Balzer + Bray, $19.99, 9780063225138), the magnificent and hilarious start to a planned series. Nic’s opinionated commentary makes her instantly appealing, and Thomas’ skill for conversational prose and dialogue shines.

Rapid shifts in tone keep readers on their toes and turning pages as quickly as possible.

What makes this novel truly special is Thomas’ world building. She seamlessly intertwines fantastical Remarkable history with

real-life Black history, as when Calvin explains that “nothing about any Black people started with slavery” and describes how “the Gift was first given to our ancestors . . . in Africa.” Fans of mythology will be delighted to learn that the Msaidizi has been used by folklore legends John Henry, High John and Annie Christmas. Just as captivating is the concept of Glow, colored auras visible only to Remarkables that signal the identities of vampires, giants, fairies, merfolk and Manifestors like Nic. It can be challenging to satiate the appetites of readers who devour beloved middle grade fantasy series like Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books, Dhonielle Clayton’s The Marvellers and B.B. Alston’s Amari and the Night Brothers.

Those readers will inhale Nic Blake and the Remarkables—and then begin counting down the days to its sequel.

—Emily Koch

compared with the vast history of planet Earth.

Like many of Selznick’s novels, Big Tree is, well, big. At more than 500 pages, it’s epic and substantial, yet its text is spare and often feels like a fable. The narrative unfolds through both words and pictures, and some plot points are only conveyed visually. Exquisite double-page spreads of Selznick’s signature pencil artwork compose much of the book.

Big Tree is an odyssey, a survival tale and an invitation to think philosophically and scientifically about the world around us. It’s sure to prompt readers to bring a sense of wonder to their next walk in the woods.

—Norah Piehl

hers. But the morning of Hamra’s 13th birthday finds her disinclined to heed such rules. Her parents are preoccupied by the pandemic, and her grandmother is losing her memories to dementia. When Hamra takes a magical fruit from the jungle, she earns the ire of the weretiger to whom it belongs. The tiger makes Hamra a deal: If she will help him regain his human form, he will forgive her crime and heal her grandmother. What follows is a series of dangerous tasks that takes Hamra, her best friend and the tiger through the jungle and beyond.

Acclaimed author Hanna Alkaf’s powerful use of imagery and metaphor makes Hamra’s inner life of simmering anger and fierce love as vibrant as the magical world around her.

All three of the novel’s heroes are persistent and believably flawed. Even the tiger takes on human complexity as his growing friendship with Hamra forces him to face his past.

Perfectly entwined with the narrative’s fairytale and folkloric roots are concerns that will feel realistic to young readers, including the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, the difficult transition into adolescence and the heartache of watching a family member be transformed by incurable illness. The bravery Hamra shows in the face of these challenges mirrors the valor she displays on her quest.

Featuring engaging characters and fantastic thrills, Hamra and the Jungle of Memories (HarperCollins, $19.99, 9780063207950) is an unforgettable adventure.

—RJ Witherow

H Hamra and the Jungle of Memories

By Hanna Alkaf

Middle Grade Th i s stu n n i ng retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” brims with big emotions, big adventure and very big teeth.

Hamra knows the rules about the jungle behind her house: Never enter without asking the jungle’s permission, never use her real name and never take anything that isn’t

feature | meet the author

meet ANDREA ZUILL

By Andrea Zuill

© ROXANNE YOUNG

A

ndrea Zuill was born and raised in Bakersfield, California. She loved to draw from a young age and originally painted with oils before transitioning to picture book illustration. Her work has been displayed at the San Diego Museum of Art and the Brand Library & Art Gallery in Los Angeles. The author-­ illustrator of picture books including Sweety, Wolf Camp and Business Pig, Zuill has also illustrated picture books written by Nelly Buchet (Cat Dog Dog) and Laura Gehl (Donut).

Gustav Is Missing!

How would you describe your book?

Who has been the biggest influence on your work?

Who was your childhood hero?

What books did you enjoy as a child?

What one thing would you like to learn to do?

What message would you like to send to young readers?

Little Cap is a shy, anxious mushroom who feels safest when surrounded by the comforts of home and the companionship of his best friend, Gustav, a lovable slug.

But one day, Little Cap discovers that the gate of his white picket fence is open and Gustav is nowhere to be found, so he musters his courage, packs a bag and ventures into the unknown to find his friend.

Along the way, Little Cap faces many obstacles. He must scale a rocky cliff and traverse a deep gorge. He’s even forced to deal with the indignities of life in the wilderness when he steps “in something really, really gross.” He also meets his neighbors, including a mole, a mouse and a grasshopper. Many seem kind and willing to help, and one of them has even seen Gustav! The news spurs Little Cap on, even as he continues to worry about his friend.

But will he ever find Gustav?

Andrea Zuill’s Gustav Is Missing!

(Random House Studio, $18.99, 9780593487471) is a heartfelt picture book filled with lively detail and personality.

Her expressive illustrations capture every emotion Little Cap experiences on his journey, from trepidation and frustration to determination and bravery. Zuill makes Little Cap’s small-scale world feel expansive through whimsical touches such as dandelions as tall as trees. Text and image contradict each other in several funny moments, as when Little Cap expresses distrust of “highly suspicious individuals” and we see him backing slowly away from an innocent-looking stalk of broccoli.

Zuill created distinct, playful characters in previous books such as Regina Is NOT a Little Dinosaur, and Little Cap and Gustav are adorable additions to her repertoire.

With his white-spotted red hat, Little Cap is recognizable as a fly agaric mushroom, but his blue overalls and big, round eyeglasses give him a childlike quality.

Meanwhile, Gustav’s bright red collar and yellow body bring to mind an affectionate golden retriever; in one vignette, Little Cap pats Gustav’s head as the slug’s tongue lolls out of his mouth like a panting dog.

Young readers who enjoy friendship tales and pet stories, and especially those in need of a fable about confronting fears, will cheer for Little Cap along every step of his quest. Be sure to look for Gustav on the book’s endpapers as well. You never know where that silly slug might be hiding!

—Callie Ann Starkey

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