Lockwood (No One Is Talking About This) portrays the lingering effects of Covid-19 on a successful author’s body and mind in this scintillating narrative. After contracting the virus, the unnamed narrator suffers for many months from an array of debilitating neurological symptoms, including short-term memory loss. In an effort to regain her sense of self and return to writing, she attempts “to rewire my brain with mushrooms,” but succeeds “mainly in becoming temporarily psychic and reading Anna Karenina so hard I almost died.” Vignettes about life during the pandemic touch on the narrator’s family, her marriage, and the workaday realities of her profession—interviews, TV adaptations, and conferences where she feels out of place (“If all else failed,” she tells herself, “I could say things about Virginia Woolf’s heart problems”). Just as she seems to be recovering, her husband falls sick and must undergo several critical surgeries, reversing the roles of caregiver and patient. The narration oscillates between first and third person: “Some mornings she seemed true, and then she was I; some mornings she seemed false, and then she was she.” What remains consistent is Lockwood’s lyricism, as she renders her protagonist’s attempt to form meaning from a profoundly difficult ordeal: “The soul is a floor. It is there to bear us up and keep us standing, not merely to be clean.” The author’s fans will find her trademark humor, originality, and depth on full display. This is a knockout. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Ruta (Last Day) serves up a deceptively breezy tale of a 30-something Manhattan food writer’s found family. When Sandy unexpectedly gets pregnant during a date with Justin, an aspiring rock musician, she decides she likes him enough to try to “make it work.” Tara, Justin’s mom in Brooklyn, hosts an embarrassingly retro baby shower and lets slip that Justin previously fathered a child with a woman named Steph, whom she describes as a “witch.” Things fizzle with Justin and Sandy arranges to meet with Steph, immediately connecting with her and her eight-year-old daughter, Ash. Steph is pursuing a doctorate in psychology at Columbia and deeply in debt, and the women support each other by sharing an apartment and managing their kids’ school, day care, and playdates. Then they meet another woman, a hairdresser named Kaya, who has had a child and is pregnant again, by none other than Justin, though he denies being the father, and the three mothers move in together. The plot thickens amid a custody battle with Justin, but what stands out the most are the women and children’s efforts to define themselves, as Ash comes out as nonbinary and Sandy resolves to go to law school. Readers will fall in love with this winning novel. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

In McGhee’s enticing and off-kilter debut collection, Black girls and women search for acceptance and find cruelty. In the title story, Daisy opts to live with coyotes after her protective mother torments her with stories of dead girls. “Valerie” chronicles a woman’s frustration with her lovers and her mission to have her first orgasm from another person’s touch. A “sexospiritual” healer gives her a tea meant to release her “tamped down” desire, but it only makes her uncomfortably hot (“I’d rather be a fake bitch than a sweaty bitch,” she reflects). In “Be Good,” a runaway teen changes her name and moves in with a trio of seemingly virtuous Christian video bloggers and saleswomen, only to unearth their hypocrisy. “A Matter of Survival” follows a teen who is sent to her grandmother’s house for spring break after her mother catches her on a date with another girl. At her grandmother’s, she learns of her family’s troubling and violent history. In each entry, McGhee commits to a deep exploration of physical, emotional, and sexual desire. These are accomplished and visceral stories. Agent: Ismita Hussain, Great Dog Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Seattle Times critic Macdonald debuts with a lively tale of three dissatisfied people linked by a Seattle bookstore. April, single at 33, laments the isolation of working from home for her tech job. She decides to leave a note for her crush in a book at the bookstore where he works, reasoning that “you just have to throw something out into the world and see what happens.” Westley, the bookseller, is oblivious to April, and though he loves the store, he feels destined for bigger and better things. During a movie shoot in the store, he throws himself into his role as a background character. In a comedy of errors, 40-ish widowed single mother Laura, a fashion consultant, finds April’s note in a book Westley sells her and thinks it’s for her, and that he was its author. Neither April nor Laura knows Westley’s name, and the trio’s continued correspondence yields a series of false starts and humorous twists. Macdonald shades in the details of her protagonists’ lives with colorful depictions of their friends and relatives, quirky coworkers, and awkward former lovers. It’s a diverting slice of life. Agent: Allison Hunter, Trellis Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Reed (Free Spirits) delivers a heartwarming tale of second chances, focused on two middle-aged brothers and lifelong rivals. Stone Hunnicutt, a litigator in Madison, Wis., receives a letter from Harmony, the partner of his younger brother Ted, asking for $10,000 to renovate a historic home in her rural community, a hippie commune called Peace and Joy. Stone visits Ted, whom he hasn’t seen for 10 years, to determine if he should donate to the cause. There, Stone discovers that Ted, a former professor who has published one well-received novel and was their father’s favorite, is now living in poverty. While Ted is momentarily away, Stone finds a cache of his unpublished novels and steals the manuscripts. Moved by love for his brother and a desire to improve Ted’s life, Stone sets out to get the books published, drawing ire from Ted for invading his privacy. The feud escalates until Stone’s wife and Harmony try to get the brothers to make peace. The writing is a bit rough (a cherry placed on a napkin “bled brightly like fresh blood”), but Reed offers appealing insights on the relationship between art and life and generally sidesteps sentimentality in her portrayal of the brothers’ conflict. This has plenty of charm. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Orner’s searching latest (after the essay collection Still No Word from You), struggling novelist Jed Rosenthal tells the story of Hollywood starlet Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet’s unsolved murder in 1963. It begins with Cookie’s father, Chicago gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet, arriving in Los Angeles with his close friend Lou Rosenthal—Jed’s grandfather—and Lou’s younger brother, Solly, to collect Cookie’s body and bring it back to Chicago. Solly, who will go on to work as muscle for the mob, is here to guard Irv from the press, while Lou, a probate lawyer, is on hand to help with the paperwork. In a metafictional thread that runs through the novel, Jed admits he’s “out of other ideas” and years past the deadline for his manuscript based on the case. Jed’s obsession with the murder stems from the mysterious break between Irv and his wife, Essie, and Jed’s grandparents Lou and Babs (“She dropped us like old shoes,” Babs says about Essie) after Cookie’s death, which Jed points to as the cause of his family’s misfortunes. Over the course of the sprawling and sharply fragmented narrative, Jed spins indelible stories of his grandfather’s legal troubles, Solly’s untimely death, his parents’ divorce, and his painful separation from his partner. Eventually, he lands on a satisfying solution to the mystery. It’s a rewarding literary experiment. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Wei debuts with a sensitive if occasionally overwritten portrait of two sisters as they come of age in 1990s Singapore. Gen is an only child until age eight, when her family takes in seven-year-old Arin under scandalous circumstances. It turns out Gen’s grandfather had not in fact been politically exiled from Singapore decades earlier; instead, he’d secretly established a second family in Malaysia. Now, having fallen on hard times, his Malaysian son begs Gen’s family to take in Arin, his youngest daughter. Initially fearful and standoffish, Arin eventually becomes part of the family, and the girls cement their sisterly bond. During adolescence, Gen buckles under the crushing pressure of the Singaporean academic system and auditions for hosting shows on a local YouTube channel, while Arin, who excels academically, lands a gig on a YouTube gaming show. The dual timeline narrative shuffles from their childhood to 2015, when Gen reveals and reflects on their legacy of betrayals. Though a middle section chronicling Gen’s faltering attempts at adulting feels somewhat extraneous, the novel regains its footing in the closing chapters as the sisters contend with their rupture, Throughout, Wei treats their complex bond with humor and pathos. The result is a remarkably nuanced exploration of sisterhood and its limits. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

This daring and delightful historical novel from Christensen (Azorno) boldly reimagines day-to-day life within the Gonzaga palace in Renaissance Italy. The focus is on the small details and soap-opera intrigues within the palace, which are as intricate as the detail in the frescoes by Andrea Mantegna that adorn the walls: “There is more life in the paintings than in all of these lively and rapturous spectators who simply put on airs because they are afraid of the pictures’ souls which is their own.” Among the deliciously surprising cast of characters is Prince Lodovico, Mantegna’s patron, who keeps a secret lover locked away in a garden, and his daughter Nana, a dwarf, who falls into a complicated and possibly miraculous marriage with Piero, Pope Pius II’s illegitimate unclaimed son. There’s also Marsilio, the royal secretary, whose diary makes up the first section of the novel, and whose love for Mantegna’s wife threatens to interfere with his duties and loyalties; and Bernadino, Mantegna’s young son, who imagines a life for himself within the vast and mysterious realms of his father’s paintings. Christensen, who died in 2009, casts her strange visions with stunning clarity. It’s as much a worthy introduction to the author as a treat for her fans. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Smith (Salvage This World) unspools an atmospheric and spare Southern gothic of two unsavory men on a mysterious criminal odyssey and their encounter with a mystical young girl. At the story’s center are the brutal Burdean and the haunted Keal, the latter of whom has premonition-filled dreams. Together, they travel through a blasted landscape of kudzu and wildfire embers. As Burdean explains to Keal, their mission is to enter the cellar of a particular church, where their task will reveal itself to them: “Whatever it is we’ll know it when we see it.” They find the church at the edge of a swamp, with the bodies of four dead men propped against the door. Inside, they retrieve what proves to be their quarry: a young girl who Keal senses is the one “responsible for the lighting of his dreams.” With the girl in tow, the men continue on until they’re tracked down by a woman named Cara, who understands the girl’s power. As more betrayals and uncanny events ensue, the body count rises to an apocalyptic level. Smith sustains a feeling of slow-burning dread, shot through with vivid bursts of biblical imagery. This bracing fever dream is worth a look. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Attorney Suthammanont blends elements of Presumed Innocent and Serial for his intricate debut, about two siblings who investigate whether their father committed the murder he was acquitted of 30 years earlier. The dual timeline narrative begins with young father John Lo, the only Asian American partner at his New York City law firm, on trial for the murder of Jessica DeSalvo, a coworker with whom he was having an affair. Three decades later, his daughter Brennan is following in his footsteps, working as a lawyer and entangled in an affair with a partner at her firm, and she’s convinced John did not kill Jessica. Her brother, Hunter, a war correspondent, is equally certain of John’s guilt, and their long-held disagreement has made them estranged. After they reunite upon learning that their mother has cancer, they conduct interviews with people involved in the case and discover that the police and prosecutor withheld evidence of another potential suspect. Their digging prompts threatening anonymous phone calls, and Suthammanont keeps the reader guessing as to whether John really did it and who’s trying to intimidate the siblings. Flashbacks to John’s affair with Jessica and his struggles with holding down a job after the trial add to the intrigue and build a complex portrait of a broken man. It adds up to a well-plotted human drama. Agent: Ellen Scordato, Stonesong. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink