Guggenheim fellow Kurtz (Three Minutes in Poland) uncovers the identities of the construction workers immortalized in the Empire State Building photographs of Lewis Hines, who famously posed his subjects on steel beams dangling hundreds of feet above ground. Following a clue left behind in Hines’s own handwriting, Kurtz was able to connect the photographs to a long-overlooked plaque in the building’s lobby honoring skilled craftsmen involved in the skyscraper’s 1930–1931 construction. From there, Kurtz pieces together bare-bones but poignant accounts of the craftsmen, including 22-year-old stone setter James Patrick Kerr, whose father, a Northern Irish immigrant, was killed in a streetcar accident when he was three years old and who lived with his mother and stepfather in a $17-a-month apartment on Tenth Avenue when Hines snapped his portrait; and Ukrainian-born glazier Samuel Laginsky, father of five, who suffered a gruesome death on the job just two years after his photo was taken. Kurtz emphasizes how this reframing of the Hines snapshots as a planned photo shoot memorializing local craftsmen’s excellence puts a populist lens on a building that has more often served as a symbol of corporate might, while also puncturing the myth that the photos are somehow “documentary” records of the work itself. New York history buffs will be thrilled by Kurtz’s discovery. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

This angsty, kink-forward gay romance, the second in Cate’s Sinful Manor series (after Keep Me), reunites former college roommates turned messy friends with benefits seven years after the brutal argument that decimated their relationship. Artist Declan Barclay, whose fear of commitment stems from a traumatic past, is shocked when old flame Colin Shelby, now an actor, shows up at his family manor, intending to use it as the venue for his wedding to fellow actor Pierce Michael Hall. Declan hates Pierce on sight but, due to a bet with his sister, has to make sure the fast-approaching wedding goes off without a hitch. The narrative toggles between past and present, with the flashbacks laying a solid foundation for the men’s relationship. When Declan realizes that Pierce doesn’t treat Colin well, he has just six days to stop the wedding—and possibly win back the love of his life. Declan is just the kind of wounded hero Cate’s fans will swoon for, and it’s deeply satisfying to see Colin come into his own as he learns to name and claim his desires. Readers will find this as heartfelt as it is spicy. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Unfolding like a fairy tale, this enchanting fantasy from Kechacha (To Catch a Moon) plays out over a single day in the life of a dance company devoted to performing an otherworldly ballet. No one knows the origins of the show. The Grub, the train on which the company lives, travels from town to town, and upon the company’s arrival in a new place, their theater building, The Grit, manifests as well. Once pledged to the company—for one year and one day—dancers become beholden to the show, and reneging on a pledge can have dire consequences depending on the will of the Crow, the deity to which they all answer. The narrative jumps between members of the company, exploring their relationships with both each other and the show itself, their motivations for joining the odd and dangerous endeavor, and their intentions for the future. Kechacha weaves these individual strands into a glimmering, dreamlike whole, darkened by nightmares that lurk in the wings. Fans of traditional stories of the Fae won’t want to miss this. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Writer and film producer Fischer (The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures) explores in this entertaining group biography the lives and works of filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. He begins on the set of the 1968 film Finian’s Rainbow, one of the last gasps of Hollywood’s Golden Age. After winning a scholarship from Warner Bros., a young Lucas was tasked with observing the film’s director, the up-and-coming Coppola. The two had an instant connection and went on to start their own production company, American Zoetrope. Meanwhile, Spielberg, another promising young director, had landed a contract directing TV shows for Universal Studios but was eager to make movies. Fischer documents how the three ushered in a new era of film that rejected the old system of powerful studios controlling production and instead centered high-concept, director-driven blockbusters. Along the way, he chronicles how Coppola transformed The Godfather, a pulpy novel about the Mafia, into a film that “pushed the bounds of the medium”; follows Spielberg’s animatronic innovations in Jaws; and traces how Lucas turned his idea for a “sort of space opera thing” into the Star Wars franchise. Throughout, Fischer leverages a novelistic style that makes his extensive research and interviews a pleasure to read. This is a sure-fire hit for cinephiles. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Social media personality Brown debuts with a chatty guide that aims to help readers “begin showing up for yourself in the way you deserve.” He recounts how heavy drinking and tumultuous relationships derailed his professional acting goals before a 2018 reckoning in a hotel room prompted him to rethink the insecurities holding him back (“What would you say to your bestie right now if she were saying these things about herself?”). Drawing from his subsequent efforts to get his life back on track, the author explains how readers can identify damaging beliefs and coping mechanisms that erode self-esteem, “affirm the shit out of yourself” by embracing personality quirks and refusing to accept poor treatment from others, and begin “shaping your reality with intention” by clarifying goals and working to achieve them. Brown’s caustic humor (“What good is a dead bitch?” he asks in a section on emotional exhaustion) bolsters his refreshingly direct wisdom on how to live more authentically. Fans and newcomers alike will get plenty out of Brown’s sharp and sassy insights. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

This intricate and erudite study by Harvard historian Givens (Fugitive Pedagogy) explores the racist origins of the U.S. education system, finding that Black, white, and Native children’s educations in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not merely “unequal” but actually interdependent and “relational.” Through rigorous research, Givens surfaces a vast web of material and ideological connection. He spotlights the ways in which profits from slavery and the seizure of Native land underwrote white students’ educational expenses, and notes that the era’s curricula served to create a “national white identity” while alienating Native and Black children from their own cultures. He also uncovers deeper, thornier interconnections between government, education, and race, such as how white-run schools in Choctaw territory served as hubs for government-run tribal “enrollment and allotment” programs, which sought to “assimilate” Native people by forcing them onto individual plots of land; as well as how, before their forced removal, the Five Southern Tribes attempted to appease and assimilate with their white neighbors by enacting “anti-literacy” laws banning the education of Black people. Marvelously complex and expansive, this paints a troubling picture of how government-run education has served as a powerful apparatus of state control and racial domination in U.S. history. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Al-Wasity’s debut blends gothic fantasy with grounded refugee and class concerns to engrossing, if occasionally uneven, effect. Three years before the start of the book, Leena Al-Sayer developed “an affliction”­—the ability to see ghosts. With her widowed father imprisoned for trying to form a union and her brother desperately ill, Leena takes the secret of her affliction to the powerful Bram St. Silas, also called the Saint of Silence, in hopes of trading it for enough money to buy medicine. St. Silas does indeed pay for Leena’s secret, and also, unexpectedly, hires her to track down a ghost for him, leading Leena deep into the secrets and conspiracies woven into the fabric of both their lives. The details of Leena’s cultural heritage and refugee community are well-drawn and fascinating, but, in the second half of the story, they take a backseat to more familiar feeling aristocratic drama. Still, captivating characters, unexpected romance, and a devastating cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for more. Agent: Chloe Seager, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Dean (Ice Town) chronicles a dysfunctional family’s implosion in this grim domestic thriller. Drew and Peggy Jenkins live with their 14-year-old son, Samson, on a canal boat in an unnamed Midwestern town where they’ve relocated after Drew forced them to sell the bungalow they inherited from Peggy’s mother. The domineering and abusive Drew—who’s seen in the prologue locking his parents in their bedroom and burning down his childhood home—won’t let Peggy work and makes little money himself. As Samson faces bullying at school, Drew tries to make his artistic dreams come true by plugging away at his novel. Secretly, Peggy has been writing one too, in between volunteer shifts at the local library. When she finishes her manuscript before Drew completes his and excitedly tells him of her success, including interest from a publisher, he’s thrown into an especially intense rage, pushing the family to the brink of disaster. Dean subjects Peggy and Samson to one humiliation after another at the hands of Drew but fails to generate enough narrative tension to justify the onslaught of misery. There’s a certain dark pull to Dean’s characterization of the sociopathic Drew, but this ends up being too predictable for its own good. Agent: Kate Burke, Friedmann Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this sometimes tender and often bitter outing from Korean Swiss writer Gremaud (All the World’s a Mall), a woman traces the footsteps of her “generator,” the father she never knew, from one nuclear power site to the next. The narrator, born Lee Hye-rin in Korea and going as Jennifer Ball where she now lives in Switzerland, travels to coastal Holyhead in Wales, where her father was born 82 years ago. From there, she travels to the nearby Wylfa nuclear plant, where he began his career, and on to Linkou in Taiwan, where he married a local Chinese woman and fathered two children. In Korea, she visits the site where the generator had an affair with her mother while he was there to help build the Kori I nuclear reactor. When the narrator was born in 1977, the generator’s career was at its zenith. By the late 1980s, after the Three Mile Island accident and meltdown at Chernobyl, his work dried up amid anti-nuclear sentiment. The novel offers intriguing insights into the nature of identity and one’s origins, along with pointed commentary on the generator’s achievements and the deep uncertainty left in his wake. This leaves readers with much to chew on. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Shriver’s jumbled latest (after Mania) blends a wicked satire of bleeding-heart liberals with a disingenuous parable about the dangers of unchecked immigration. In 2023, the New York City government offers a $110 per diem to residents who provide incoming asylum seekers with food and shelter in their own homes (in real life, a similar initiative was proposed but never enacted). Gloria Bonaventura jumps at the chance, having won her massive Brooklyn Queen Anne in a recent divorce and struggling with the cost of upkeep. She agrees to house Honduran migrant Martine Salgado over the strident objections of her do-nothing son, Nico, 26, who tells Martine the U.S. should have tighter borders. He’s suspicious when Martine claims that her three children have been kidnapped in Honduras, and that she needs $30,000 for the ransom. Meanwhile Gloria scrambles to come up with the money. The situation devolves into a nightmare out of a paranoid yuppie thriller after Martine’s brother Domingo joins the household, then invites a group of his “henchmen” to crash with them, and the story reaches a violent climax as the Bonaventuras’ fear clashes with the migrants’ greed. Some of the jokes land, as when Shriver bathes Gloria’s naive liberalism in self-satisfied patriotism (“We should be flattered so many refugees would rather live here”), but even readers who appreciate anti-woke provocations will be left scratching their heads. It’s a mess. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink