Mystery writer Patton (Death and the Devil’s Revenge) makes his nonfiction debut with an unflinching examination of his tumultuous childhood. In anecdotes both hopeful and dire, Patton recounts growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father, and his own attempts to escape the cycle of abuse as an adult. “There is no yardstick for measuring the depth of the scars when your beatings begin as a baby,” he begins, setting the stage for an unvarnished, hyperdetailed account of his early years in West Virginia as the youngest of four children. He renders his first experience crashing a bicycle and the first time he saw his father hit his mother with equal intensity. Though the bulk of the narrative covers Patton’s coming-of-age, the most powerful chapters concern his adulthood, during which Patton grappled with the traumas his father suffered before Patton was born. Ultimately, he manages to extend hard-won empathy to his tormentor long after he’d died of a heart attack. Though occasionally long-winded, Patton is a forceful writer, bestowing his harrowing narrative with page-turning momentum. Readers looking to heal their own family trauma will find comfort here. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/25/2024 | Details & Permalink

A comic book writer has an episodic relationship with a cosplayer in this steamy but meandering debut romance from comics author Glass (The Pride). Welsh indie superhero comics creator Arran Wilson gets on Grindr to stave off boredom at a 2018 London comic con and connects with Cameron Perkins, a dreamy accountant who’s also attending the con as a cosplayer. Despite their age gap (Arran is nine years older than Cam), the two men’s chemistry propels them through the weekend and across several years of conventions where they meet up for deliciously described sex. Arran’s insecurities and career stumbles, including his longtime artistic collaborator landing a permanent gig with Marvel, choke off the chances for a deeper emotional investment, even after Cameron treks to Swansea for a visit. As Cameron pushes for more, Arran, under attack by bigoted online trolls after a platform agrees to support his LGBTQ superhero series, yearns to be able to offer a real relationship but can’t get out of his own way. Glass’s plot advances in fits and starts, and Cameron comes off as a bit too perfect at times, but the chemistry between the leads and rawness of their emotions makes up for the plodding pace. With a unique fandom focus and high-heat love scenes aplenty, this is sure to hook nerdy queer erotica fans. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/25/2024 | Details & Permalink

In Miller’s poignant debut, an elderly woman takes in a homeless boy and the pair get into mischief. Ruth spies the unnamed eight-year-old narrator outside her retirement home, eating sunflower seeds from her bird feeder because he’s starving. She invites him inside for cookies, and they bond while watching baseball on TV. She secretly allows him to stay, defying the building’s restrictions on overnight guests and insisting he hide whenever someone comes to the door. They also have a rule against talking about the past; it’s too painful, Ruth explains. In addition to watching baseball, they pull pranks on Ms. Millie, a neighbor Ruth dislikes, such as ordering pizza for her under the name Innedova Bath. When Ms. Millie catches the narrator living there and threatens to report Ruth, the pair takes drastic measures to silence her. More trouble follows, and when Ruth suffers a head injury, their roles reverse as the narrator attempts to care for her while holding onto his new home. Miller convincingly portrays the characters’ uncommon friendship as their initial caution fades and they go to great lengths to stay together. Miller’s curveball coming-of-age tale lands in the strike zone. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/25/2024 | Details & Permalink

This gentle multiverse fantasy from Steuernagel (the Fractured Orbit series) highlights the power of friendship and booze. Emma Corvus is a Hunter of the Cursed, tasked with ridding her medievalesque world of magic alongside her partner and crush, Liam. Then she discovers powers of her own—she can create magic-infused cocktails—and she’s forced to flee Liam and her former life. In the remote village of Cuanmore, she meets fairy Vespa; Professor Aldrich, who insists his wild inventions are built on science rather than magic; and Aldrich’s “quantum accelerator,” which can communicate with Emma and quickly becomes fond of the nickname Demon Box. When Liam catches up to Emma, she, Vespa, and Aldrich use Demon Box to escape, transporting them to a series of parallel worlds that differ in their amount of magic and tech, and the nature of the relationships between fairies and humans. As they adventure through the multiverse, the three become fast friends and Emma realizes her true calling is to become a magical bartender. Without the alcohol theme (and a few included recipes), the interpersonal dynamics and worldbuilding would fit right into a middle grade novel. Still, there’s plenty here that adults will find charming. It’s a worthy addition to the growing trend of cozy fantasy. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/18/2024 | Details & Permalink

American cartoonist Feign (The Flower Boat Girl) takes a tender look at the Hong Kong village he calls home in this whimsical memoir. Blending diary-like dispatches and vivid photographs, Feign presents a loving portrait of Wang Tong, the village on the southern coast of Lantau Island in the South China Sea where he’s lived since 1991, after moving from mainland Hong Kong with his wife and sons. With a population under 300, “even the local police don’t know where we are,” Feign writes. Through profiles of his neighbors, including Wang Tong’s last living farmer and the village’s elected chief, he captures the villagers’ intimacy and interreliance in such rosy terms it’s liable to stir envy in readers, though he also takes note of construction projects across Lantau that threaten the environmental stability in Wang Tong. Even with those worries, however—plus Feign’s admission that dilapidated homes and garbage-strewn streets make Wang Tong far from picturesque (“Appearances aren’t a major concern for most villagers”)—what emerges is a poignant love letter to community and life’s small pleasures. This has charm to spare. Photos. (Aug.)

Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly described the book as self-published.

Reviewed on 10/04/2024 | Details & Permalink

Kenig debuts with a high-octane thriller about a journalist who stumbles on an international terrorist plot. Decorated investigative reporter Kate Brennan travels to London to reunite with her best friend, Ruby Cunningham, who moved to England three years earlier for her job at the U.N. Soon after Kate arrives, she learns that Ruby was killed in a motorcycle accident—a tragedy made stranger because the bus that hit her seemed to do so intentionally. Kate then learns that Ruby changed her name when she moved overseas, and that her real employer was the CIA, not the U.N. With her hopes of a restful vacation dashed, Kate fires up her reporter’s instincts and discovers that Ruby was entangled in a plot to assassinate a real-life political figure. While the details of that plot, once they’re revealed, undercut the tension somewhat, Kenig provides plenty of interpersonal betrayal and gunslinging action to keep readers invested. This satisfies. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/04/2024 | Details & Permalink

A young woman comes of age on a charming adventure in Lowry’s sweet and simple debut. Fourteen-year-old orphan Sophie Farrier has always wanted to escape her dreary island village of Seaside. She finally gets some excitement in her life when an unnamed and mysterious Navigator washes up on Seaside’s shore. As soon as he awakens from a deep slumber in the village’s clinic, he rushes to Fairport to carry out a secret mission. Sophie decides to follow, fleeing her increasingly chaotic home life and leaving her brother Damon behind. In her wake, the Merling King emerges from the sea, demanding that the villagers surrender the Navigator or he’ll send waves to wash away the village. Lowry effortlessly toggles between village intrigue as the townsfolk scramble to accommodate the Merling King and Sophie’s quest, which sees her learning more about both the world and her own past. The result is a affecting tale of growing up and discovering one’s identity. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

“All flourishing is mutual,” according to this rousing treatise on the benefits of communal values. Potawatomi environmentalist Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) explains that the Potawatomi root word for “berry” (min) is also the root word for “gift,” illustrating how in the tribe’s “culture of gratitude,” natural resources are seen as offerings that carry with them “responsibilities of sharing, respect, [and] reciprocity.” Such principles are needed to counter the concentration of resources in the hands of the few, she contends, calling for “gift economies” in which “the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away.” By way of example, she discusses how Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest mark life milestones with celebratory potlatches at which individuals “enhance their prestige and affirm connections with a web of relations” by giving away possessions. Kimmerer is clear-eyed about the challenges of transitioning to a gift economy, acknowledging that it’s susceptible to bad actors and will require a drastic change in mindset. However, she observes that modern examples of successful gift economies abound, from public libraries to open-source software and Wikipedia. Kimmerer doesn’t attempt to outline a practical plan for vanquishing self-centeredness borne of capitalism, but she nonetheless succeeds in bringing attention to the fact that alternatives are possible. It’s an eloquent call to action. Illus. Agent: Sarah Levitt, Aevitas Creative Management. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

Johnson makes an auspicious debut with this evocative Southern crime novel. Mary Beth Cain, the 40-year-old sheriff of Jasper County, W.Va., has her hands full with a steady stream of criminal activity—much of it perpetuated by her mother, the leader of a syndicate known as the McCray County Mafia, and her brother, a right-wing talk radio host with a significant following who’s stockpiling weapons to form a militia. Meanwhile, she’s under scrutiny for allegations of coerced confessions and evidence tampering. The pressure on Mary Beth increases drastically when her ex-boyfriend, federal prosecutor Patrick Connelly, shows up in Jasper County to make an offer: if Mary Beth goes after Sawyer and his violent followers, the feds won’t pursue charges against her, which could include civil rights violations and election fraud. At first, Mary Beth refuses, knowing most (but not all) of the charges are unfounded, but then Sawyer and his followers carry out a terrorist attack at a local courthouse, and she agrees to try and stop him before things get any bloodier. Johnson perfectly marries pace and character development, resulting in a breakneck neo-noir populated by complicated people whose actions never feel inauthentic. Eli Cranor and Ace Atkins fans should take a look. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

Brennan (Loose Lips) impresses with this atmospheric whodunit set against the backdrop of Jack the Ripper’s killing spree in 1888 London. Rather than the mean streets of Whitechapel, however, Brennan focuses on “the golden age of the gentleman’s club,” the most notorious of which is Sizar’s, an establishment whose members are “soilingly, ruinously ungentlemanly” in their sexual proclivities. Stewart Marsh, who scouts young men willing to have sex with Sizar’s members, is on holiday in Brighton when he stumbles on the drowned corpse of London escort Marty Piper. Marsh’s gruesome find soon comes to the attention of Det. Insp. Oscar Glass, who investigates London’s gentleman’s clubs for criminal activity. While Glass struggles to narrow the list of suspects—Piper accrued plenty of enemies as a “boy-whoring master villain”—he’s handed a second, possibly connected murder to solve. Brennan’s reveals, when they come, are plenty shocking, but the narrative’s main strength is its vivid portrayal of a segment of Victorian society rarely depicted in mysteries. This illuminates a dark corner of British history, with grimly satisfying results. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/13/2024 | Details & Permalink