This tender and frank adult debut by YA novelist Moriarty (The Year of Secret Assignments) follows one woman’s search for happiness in a world as brimming with promises of healing as it is overflowing with letdowns. On her 16th birthday, Abi Sorenson’s beloved brother went missing. On the v... Continue reading »

British technology philosopher Chatfield (Netymology) makes his fiction debut with an accomplished and chilling high-tech thriller. In the ominous opening chapter, a disillusioned publicist for the jihadist cause, who’s caught in a battle in Syria in 2014, takes a photo of his cousin’s corp... Continue reading »

Newitz’s mind-rattling second novel (after Autonomous) is a multilayered tale of “editing” history, human rights, and the ripple effect. Geologist and time traveler Tess (2022 CE) is fighting a misogynist group set on subjugating women across the present and future, then destroy the time machines to... Continue reading »

Allen’s third visit (after Kiss of the Spindle) to her lightly supernatural, steampunk fairy tale world is a clever riff on the “Rapunzel” story that blends exotic undersea travel with a dark mystery and a glee-inducing, respect-first romance between awkward colleagues. The setting seamlessly merges... Continue reading »

Punctuated with close-ups of the details that fill a small boy’s life, Dandro’s debut memoir is an extended poetic gaze on intergenerational helplessness and the violence it begets. Dandro draws both his six-year-old and teenage self with empty circles for eyes, as if he is a vessel for receiving hi... Continue reading »

The searing third collection from Brown (The New Testament) begins with the luminous “Ganymede,” in which Heaven is described as “that far terrain/ between Promise and Apology.” Brown inextricably weaves exploration of race, religion, and social burden: “I am a they in most of America./ Som... Continue reading »

In this finely wrought story, Vogel Sawyer (Waiting for Summer’s Return) takes reader to the 1895 Cotton Exposition in Atlanta. Willie Sharp takes a job at the Expo to pay for his father’s medical treatment after he suffers a stroke. Laurel Millard, meanwhile, is expected by her older sibli... Continue reading »

Man Booker Prize finalist Auster (4 3 2 1) gathers 44 pieces of nonfiction and essays in this wide-ranging and probing collection. His insightful literary criticism, written in the 1970s and ’80s for Commentary and the New York Review of Books, among others, discusses Kafk... Continue reading »

Called the Queen of Cake by Saveur magazine, Heatter (Maida Heatter’s Pies and Tarts, etc.) delivers an outstanding and approachable collection of classics for bakers of all ages and skill levels. Most of the recipes, like old-fashioned fudge cake, are simple, but even for the more... Continue reading »

This riveting memoir from Prejean (The Death of Innocents) describes her life as a nun, starting with her entrance into a convent in 1957 at 18 years old and ending in 1982 when she began her work with the Louisiana death row inmate that would form the foundation of her bestselling Dead... Continue reading »