A young Chinese American woman learns the secrets of a sinister wellness company in Huang’s incisive and disquieting debut. After the unnamed narrator’s parents are involved in a severe car accident, she abandons her classical music career to focus on their care. She receives an auspicious invitatio... Continue reading »

At the start of this stellar mystery from Sutanto (Dial A for Aunties), 60-year-old, strong-willed widow Vera Wong discovers a body with a flash drive in its hand in her tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Vera contacts the police, but confident she can do a better job at pinpointing the... Continue reading »

This vivid and masterful domestic horror novel from Moulton (Tinfoil Butterfly) centers on generations of women locked in loving mortal combat. First introduced are the eponymous Volt sisters, Beatrice (or “B.B.”) and Henrietta (“Henrie”), who, in the 1980s, grow up together on Lake Erie’s ... Continue reading »

Holton returns to a magic-infused Victorian London in her fiendishly clever third Dangerous Damsels romantic adventure (after The League of Gentlewoman Witches). When the Agency of Undercover Note Takers (A.U.N.T.) learns that a pirate is plotting to assassinate Queen Victoria, rival agents... Continue reading »

L.A. Times Book Prize winner Harkham (Crickets) delivers an ambitious panoramic period piece set in the early-1970s Hollywood exploitation film milieu. Seymour, a 20-something Iraqi Jewish immigrant, works as an editor for Reverie, a production company specializing in cheap grindho... Continue reading »

Browne’s moving latest (after I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love) commemorates the struggles of Black women, drawing on episodes from her life and stories from family members. While these poems vividly relay the threat of violence (“the gun answers the door before/ anyone ever... Continue reading »

Jane Austen fans will delight in this nimble series launch from Klassen (Shadows of Swanford Abbey). In 1819, the four Summers sisters face reduced circumstances after their father’s untimely death, and they move into a seaside home in Sidmouth, England. Their mother is ill and the family i... Continue reading »

Journalists Au-Yeung and Jeans debut with a nuanced, sympathetic biography of Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, tracing his life from Silicon Valley wunderkind through his spiraling addiction and death in 2020. Hsieh was raised in Northern California by Taiwanese immigrant parents, and from an early age he... Continue reading »

Interior designer Wentz debuts with a striking tour of 12 homes she’s decorated, including her own, that showcase her vibrant, “modern-meets-traditional” style. “Design is about finding the happy,” she contends, showing how she’s applied that mantra to homes in Florida, Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania... Continue reading »

Root, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, debuts with a fascinating biography of pioneering televangelist Oral Roberts. Roberts, one of the 20th century’s most recognizable evangelical figures, left behind a legacy build on three pillars, each of which Root shrewdly analyzes. First,... Continue reading »

In this picture book by the creators of I Talk Like a River, first-person lines from a child speaker describe a grandmother who “lives in a chicken coop beside a highway,” where the child is dropped off every morning before school. Scott’s gentle narration reveals that “my Baba didn’t have... Continue reading »