Set in contemporary Johannesburg, South Africa, playwright and actor Patel’s exceptional debut is told by five narrators of different races and religions, whose paths cross in unexpected ways. Cathleen Joseph, the sly, drug-addled teenage daughter of a once well-to-do family, enters the terrifying w... Continue reading »

Supernatural noir fans will relish Connolly’s excellent 18th thriller featuring PI Charlie Parker (after 2019’s A Book of Bones), an origin story set in 1999. The murder of Parker’s wife and daughter ended his career as an NYPD detective, but the ghosts of his loved ones still literally hau... Continue reading »

There is not a single false note among these 29 stories and poems of dragons collected by Strahan (The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, editor). Strahan’s passion for the mythological creatures is infectious and evident in his selections, which draw from many different myths and cultures,... Continue reading »

Bybee cushions a serious subject in a gentle tale of love and support in her endearing second Creek Canyon contemporary (after My Way to You). Erin Fleming escapes her abusive husband and assumes a new identity in Santa Clarita, Calif., but she’s afraid to think of her newfound safety as an... Continue reading »

Eisner-winner Sacco (Safe Area Goražde) travels to northern Canada to talk with members of the Dene, a First Nations group located largely in the Northwest Territories, in this arresting exploration of a community on the brink. Fracking is the hotly contested issue at hand; it brings money ... Continue reading »

Hemsell’s startling and ecstatic debut situates American citizenship and domestic life in the shifting “whole unknowable cosmos,” rendering marriage, motherhood, and home maintenance in electric, sensory detail. In these 46 lyrical, mostly first-person poems, Hemsell bridges the underworld with the ... Continue reading »

Denton (Glory Road) delivers a moving story about the friendship of two women reeling from betrayal and divorce. In Safe Harbor, Ala., Lily Bishop comes home one day to find an apology note from her husband alongside signed divorce papers. Rose Carrigan, the co-owner and manager of a local ... Continue reading »

Journalist Hill’s fantastic debut blends true crime and Southern history to chronicle the transformation of Hot Springs, Ark., from a spa town into a hotbed of horse racing, prostitution, and illegal gambling between the 1930s and 1960s. Hill tracks the history through the lives of three central fig... Continue reading »

“Fish shouldn’t be scary,” the team at America’s Test Kitchen writes in the introduction to this wildly useful guide to cooking fish and shellfish. They make good on the promise to demystify cooking seafood, serving up 198 easily sourced and prepared recipes, offering advice on techniques such as br... Continue reading »

Documentary producer O’Grady (And Man Created God) presents a dazzling, lucid history of evolving, tenuous religious toleration. Starting with the Roman Empire and the beginnings of Islam, O’Grady shows how toleration was a pragmatic decision to consolidate power among diverse populations a... Continue reading »

At nearly 17, Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic with her aunt, where she dreams of attending medical school at Columbia University, near her father, whom she only sees for a few months each year. Skilled chess player Yahaira Rios, 16, lives with her Dominican parents in New York City, next... Continue reading »