Between Two MoonsAisha Abel Gawad. Doubleday, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-385-54861-8
A young Muslim woman comes of age in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, during a period of heightened anti-Arab prejudice in Gawad’s astonishing debut. The story unspools in 2014 on the cusp of Ramadan, as college-bound 17-year-old Amira Emam contends with a series of ruptures in her family life. Her “party girl”... Continue reading »
The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying WomanMolly Lynch. Catapult, $27 (288p) ISBN 978-1-64622-142-4
Mothers disappear from their homes across the world in Lynch’s spectacular debut. Writing professor Ada Berger, 39, lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., with her husband, Danny, and six-year-old son, Gilles. Ada’s most comfortable in remote, unspoiled places and is in a perpetual state of fear that climate ch... Continue reading »
No One Dies from LoveRobert Levy. Word Horde, $19.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-956252-06-4
Levy (The Glittering World) delivers a viscerally unsettling collection of 12 horror shorts rooted as much in human psychology as in the fantastical and speculative. The stories all start from an exploration of lost love, but blossom in myriad gruesome and strange directions: in “Conversion... Continue reading »
Mortal FolliesAlexis Hall. Del Rey, $18 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-593-49756-2
Set in a magic-infused Regency England and narrated by the hobgoblin Puck, of A Midsummer Night’s Dream fame, this stirring outing from Hall (Boyfriend Material) proves a fresh and delightful addition to the queer romance canon. Maelys Mitchelmore, a noblewoman, falls desperately i... Continue reading »
Girl JuiceBenji Nate. Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-77046-663-0
This technicolor tour de farce from Nate (Hell Phone) reads like the TV show Girls drawn by Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley. The narrative circles around a group of young housemates and the mundane wackiness of their everyday lives. There are the wannabe influencer whose u... Continue reading »
Black Observatory Christopher Brean Murray. Milkweed, $16 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-63955-026-5
In this playful and haunting debut, Murray turns his gaze toward the ordinariness and expansiveness of human life. Murray’s poems defy convention, propelling down the page with generous narrative energy, spinning stories about characters—“Winston,” “Knut,” and “Segovia”—with the detail-oriented eye ... 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 »
What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic BirdsJennifer Ackerman. Penguin Press, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-29888-6
In this masterful survey, nature writer Ackerman (The Bird Way) explores the physiology and behavior of owls. She provides an overview of owls’ intelligence, evolution, mating strategies, nest-building abilities, and communication skills, relating how variations in owl calls allow the birds... Continue reading »
Simply Tomato: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Your Favorite Ingredient All Year LongMartha Holmberg. Artisan, $30 (248p) ISBN 978-1-64829-037-4
James Beard Award winner Holmberg (Modern Sauces) informs and delights in this paean to the tomato, offering up more than 100 recipes ranging from variations on classics like caprese salad and tomato soup to more advanced dishes, including “time-consuming-but-worth-it” ratatouille. In a con... Continue reading »
Tell Me the Dream Again: Reflections on Family, Ethnicity, & the Sacred Work of BelongingTasha Jun. Tyndale Momentum, $22.99 (240p) ISBN 978-1-496-45957-2
“I’ve always been caught between worlds... struggling to find a firm place to land,” writes Jun of negotiating a biracial identity in this stirring debut. The daughter of a Korean mother and a white father, Jun recalls how, as a kid, she’d think of purging the fridge of kimchi before her friends cam... Continue reading »
It’s Not Bragging If It’s True: How to Be Awesome at LifeZaila Avant-garde with Marti Dumas. Random House, $17.99 (144p) ISBN 978-0-593-56899-6
Avant-garde, the first African American Scripps National Spelling Bee champion and a two-time Guinness World Record holder, shares tips and tricks that helped her “level up” in this instructional guide. The teenager details each suggestion via conversational prose; chapter titles reference the advic... Continue reading »
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