The protagonist of True Confections (Shaye Arehart, Dec). Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky, is not the easiest person to like. She's so strongly and clearly drawn by Katharine Weber that her voice will get inside your head. She's got her quirks, but she clearly cares a great deal about the family business, which is a candy manufacturing business that has a complicated backstory of inspiration from Little Black Sambo, a children's book by Helen Bannerman, that leads to no small amount of the hilarity in this book. True Confections is written as an affidavit, the reasons for which slowly come into focus. In a nutshell, this is the story of one very complicated Jewish family, two fires, and a whole lot of chocolate, sugar, and vanilla. The pages begin to turn themselves as the reader puzzles over what's the truth and what's, well... just Alice. There are plenty of fascinating tidbits about the real-life candy industry as well, which add a whole other dimension to this entertaining and fresh-voiced new novel.