Spufford (Golden Hill) spins alternate narratives for five Londoners who died during the London Blitz in this magical yarn. The story opens in 1944 as the characters are killed in a rocket attack during Hitler’s “Vengeance Campaign” against Great Britain. After conjuring this tragedy, the n... Continue reading »

Delta Dawn, the narrator of Carter’s outstanding debut, is a much-sought-after photographer of children’s fetes among Brooklyn’s artsy set, who has the ability to create picture-perfect moments of connection that never were through the magic of Photoshop and other manipulations. Trouble is, the egoc... Continue reading »

The impeccable third Ghost Roads urban fantasy (after The Girl in the Green Silk Gown) explores and expands on McGuire’s modern-day mythology, brilliantly marrying old traditions and more recent urban legends to create an enthralling tapestry of highway hauntings and hard-traveling horrors.... Continue reading »

MacGregor (Wild, Wild Rake) packs this saucy Regency-era romp, the first in the Widow Rules series, with scandalous secrets and sordid affairs that threaten the welfare of a successful businesswoman. Boutique owner Katherine “Kat” Greer married her husband, Meriwether Varek, never suspectin... Continue reading »

Rendered in stark black-and-white and repetitive four-panel grids, Hofer’s extraordinary debut chronicles her dizzying descent into anorexia and bulimia. She opens with the admission that she still struggles with disordered eating: close-up depictions of her emaciated face from “two weeks ago” fill ... Continue reading »

In this extraordinary debut, Wang (Carceral Capitalism) creates a symbolist dream diary for catastrophic times. A cross between Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s elliptical poetic treatises and Marosa di Giorgio’s fevered fables, Wang tells stories that begin in clarity but unfurl into complex landsc... Continue reading »

Wade continues her Misty River Romance series (after Stay with Me) with this enjoyable story about identity and opening one’s heart after trauma. When high school math teacher Leah Montgomery takes a genetic test, she discovers she is not biologically related to her family. After talking to... Continue reading »

MacArthur fellow Miles (The Dawn of Detroit) paints an evocative portrait of slavery and Black family life in this exquisitely crafted history. She frames her account around a cloth sack packed in 1852 by an enslaved woman named Rose for her nine-year-old daughter, Ashley, when the girl was... Continue reading »

When Mauro, host of Food Network’s Sandwich King, was growing up, he writes, “come on over” meant two things: family and food. In this charming and utterly scrumptious collection, he shares recipes and humorous anecdotes that will entertain as well as sustain, offering an eclectic array of ... Continue reading »

In this charming memoir, Pieh Jones (Stronger than Death), an expat American writer living in Djibouti, recounts her experiences moving from Minnesota to the horn of Africa when her husband took a professorship there, showing readers how her time in Muslim regions freed her from Islamophoic... Continue reading »

In this gently paced debut novel by Lukoff (When Aidan Became a Brother), 11-year-old Bug, a transgender boy, is having a difficult summer. His beloved uncle Roderick, a former drag queen who lived with Bug and his single mother for years, has just died after a long illness, and Bug’s remot... Continue reading »