The FoursomeChristina Baker Kline. Mariner, $30 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-309799-5
Orphan Train author Kline offers a daring and deeply empathetic tale of the sisters who married conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874). Immigrants from Siam, Chang and Eng respectively marry Addie and Sallie Yates, distant relatives of the author, in 1843 Wilkes County, N.C. Salli... Continue reading »
Night Objects Eli Raphael. Grand Central, $29 (384p) ISBN 978-1-5387-7587-5
A woman reflects on the suspicious death of her boarding school classmate in Raphael’s riveting debut. In chapters titled “Before,” 15-year-old Lenny Winter describes her childhood on a houseboat in Port Angeles, Wash., with her mother and stepfather. After her mother’s untimely death, Lenny is acce... Continue reading »
The ThinningInga Simpson. Akashic, $17.95 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-63614-294-4
Simpson (The Last Woman in the World) brings both a powerful understanding of human emotion and a solid background in natural science to this resonant and exquisitely constructed eco-thriller. Teenager Fin Kelvin’s parents were prominent NASA astrophotographers, until her father died and he... Continue reading »
PuckSamantha Allen. Zando, $18 trade paper (218p) ISBN 978-1-63893-341-0
This cheeky riff on A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Allen (Patricia Wants to Cuddle) drops Puck, here reimagined as a nonbinary reality TV producer, into a friend’s wedding week, where they can’t resist their professionally honed urge to meddle. Puck arrives at the luxurious Athenia... Continue reading »
The WoodchipperJoe Ollmann. Drawn & Quarterly, $25 trade paper (216p) ISBN 978-1-77046-823-8
Nothing comes easy for the denizens of Hamilton, Ontario, in these wry, bruising, and mordantly funny stories from Ollmann (Fictional Father). In “Nestled All Snug,” a toppled pile of boxes traps a bookstore employee in a dingy staff bathroom. In “Meat,” a security guard at a meat-packing f... Continue reading »
Swirl & VortexLarry Levis, edited by David St. John. Graywolf, $35 (576p) ISBN 978-1-64445-371-1
This monumental volume of Levis’s collected works is a study in the development and deepening of his gifts, from his debut in 1972 to poems published following his death in 1996. Levis’s bruised, engrossing voice suggests the “long, volleying/ Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where/ I spent it ... Continue reading »
The Long March HomeMarcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee. Revell, $26.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8007-4275-1
In this tour de force from Brotherton (A Bright and Blinding Sun) and Lee (A Single Light), four friends’ lives change irrevocably when America becomes embroiled in WWII. In 1930s Mobile, Ala., preacher’s son Jimmy Propfield shares an idyllic upbringing with childhood sweetheart Cl... Continue reading »
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of BeliefRichard Holmes. Pantheon, $35 (448p) ISBN 978-0-307-37967-2
In this dynamic biography, historian Holmes, author of The Age of Wonder, uses the ideas of poet Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) as a window onto the “intellectual and spiritual schizophrenia” that permeated the Victorian era. Holmes zeroes in on Tennyson’s early career, when his “thought and p... Continue reading »
My Jamaican Table: Vibrant Recipes from a Sun-Drenched IslandAndre Fowles. Artisan, $35 (328) ISBN 978-1-64829-374-0
“I discovered food as a bridge to hope,” writes chef Fowles, three-time Chopped champion, in his bold and flavorful debut. In more than 100 recipes, the Kingston native pays homage to his island roots, drawing particular inspiration from his grandmother’s kitchen. The vibrant flavors of Jam... Continue reading »
We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American ChristianityKristin T. Lee. Broadleaf, $27.99 (256p) ISBN 979-8-88983-502-8
In her penetrating debut, physician Lee uses the Japanese art of kintsugi, the practice of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer, to illustrate how she repaired a faith fractured by a childhood steeped in Western theology. Lee grew up in an immigrant church in Iowa that practiced Chinese customs ... Continue reading »
The Great FrogKatie Palazzola. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8234-5978-0
Two siblings make sense of a fragile world in an insightful picture book debut from Palazzola that’s set around a clutch of frogspawn. When Kit’s little brother Peedie pokes at a bunch of frog eggs, Kit (who “knew about science” and “about little brothers”) explains that they take the form of a blob... Continue reading »
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