Millet (A Children’s Bible) delivers a crystalline and mordantly funny linked story collection about a web of friends and neighbors in Southern California. In “Tourist,” divorced mom Trudy gets her kicks by “courting her own disgust” via scrolling her phone for cringy updates from a former friend turned “wife guy.” She also marvels at the disconnect between her friend Amy’s curated online world (jet-skiing with the fam) and trouble at home, which Trudy discovers over drinks with Amy. “Fetishist” follows Amy’s husband, Buzz, as he discovers geriatric porn in the family computer’s browser history, which he deduces was viewed by his live-in son-in-law, Luis. He commits a “major tactical error” by telling Amy, who, instead of sharing a laugh with him as he’d expected, pressures him to confront Luis. In “Gerontologist,” a recent high school graduate volunteers in a nursing home, where an elderly resident tells her about having sex with a fellow resident, who has dementia, on his “lucid days.” Millet’s cutting dialogue is as sharp as ever (Amy “needs to invest in some Spanx. Like, yesterday,” claims a cruel friend of her daughter’s in “Dramatist”), and the stories end with surprising and moving insights into her characters’ deepest fears and desires. The author is at the top of her game. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this intriguing study of fairy folklore, neopagan witch Daimler (Pagan Portals) examines themes of sexuality and gender across centuries’ worth of fae legends, ballads, and literature. Drawing on well-known depictions like Shakespeare’s Titania and J.M. Barrie’s Tinkerbell, alongside firsthand claims of fairy encounters from Celtic times to the present, Daimler shows that fairies occupy a unique space in mythology as humanlike but not held to human moral standards, an ambiguity that lends itself to “narratives where deviance from... cultural mores are almost expected.” Daimler traces the evolution of fae folk from tempestuous revelers in medieval ballads to childlike naifs in Victorian literature to androgynous, ephemeral beings in 20th-century high fantasy; throughout, she finds evidence of gender nonconformity and boundary-pushing sexual liberation, even as in the real world fairy became slang for people who break sexual norms, first promiscuous women and later gay men. In a later segment Daimler also examines mythology about fae-human romantic relationships and fairy marriages, at which point the author will likely lose more skeptical readers with her credulous reports on contemporary fairy believers who claim everything from encounters with fairies in dreams to impregnation by fairies. Still, both fantasy fanatics and scholars of gender and sexuality will find much to interest them. (May)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

Author duo Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey, writing as Brady (The Beach Trap), gently riff on You’ve Got Mail in this cute but predictable rom-com. Chaotic Ryan Lawson runs Happy Endings, a romance-only bookshop in Boston that will soon be merging with Tabula Inscripta, the neighboring literary fiction bookstore managed by uptight Josie Klein. When Ryan and Josie learn that only one manager will survive after the businesses combine, competition ignites. Ryan and Josie trade heated barbs and attempt to one-up each other with book events. Meanwhile, both characters take solace in conversations with an anonymous internet friend, though neither realizes they’ve been messaging with each other. The authors throw a kitchen sink worth of tropes into their plot and winkingly comment on them through romance loving Ryan, who’s genre-savvy enough to recognize that he’s in an enemies-to-lovers scenario with Josie—especially when they’re forced to share only one bed. It can feel a bit like the authors are going down a checklist, and as a result the plot becomes somewhat rote, but the leads are charming and it’s easy to see how carefree Ryan helps soften Josie’s sharp edges. Readers looking for a light and sweet love story will want to check this out. (June)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

Writer and composer Hamlin (Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories) unspools an intriguing epic about a mysterious century-old sonata. In 2018 Chicago, 54-year-old Ben Weil, creative director of a music studio, receives in the mail five blue wax cylinders of an unknown sonata played for the wealthy Oren Sanborn and his family in 1917 in Winchester, Mass. The sender, antiques dealer Willa Blount, hopes Ben might identify the performer, known only as J. Garnier, and the composer. Ben is enraptured by the avant-garde performance, which was ahead of its time (“The notes explode in a fusillade of sparks, setting everything they touch on fire”). The project also helps Ben cope with his recent divorce and the onset of a debilitating illness. He spends months transcribing the music, and is enraged and terrified when his new lover, pianist Ana Clara, believes he’s the one who wrote it and surreptitiously circulates it to composers and pianists during her European tour. Along the way, Hamlin fills in the details of Ben’s marriage and the aristocratic Sanborns in 1915 Boston, with whom Bell Company graphophone sales rep Elisabeth Garner ingratiates herself. Though the momentum tends to flag from so much backstory, Hamlin holds the reader’s attention with his impassioned depictions of Ben’s and Elisabeth’s mutual love for music. Musicologists and lay readers alike will find much to enjoy. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Inspired by her own family’s refugee journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, Văn’s (If You Were Night) spare picture book, powerful in its deliberate simplicity, follows a black-haired, pale-skinned child as they, their guardian, and two younger siblings join other asylum seekers for a perilous maritime voyage. In a third-person voice, Văn anthropomorphizes objects, relaying their wishes: “The dream wished it was longer,” one spread reads, as a balding, mustached guardian holds the protagonist close, and a guardian with a bun rouses the second child to dress them. “The clock wished it was slower,” the subsequent pages read, as the two children tearfully hug their mustached guardian goodbye. The narrative continues as the now family of four make their way onto the boat and beyond. A final-act switch to first-person perspective drives home the journey’s personal nature. Intricate, lissome fine-lined art by Ngai (Dazzle Ships) recalls classical Asian compositions, Japanese woodblock prints, and an evocative sensibility in a gradated, surrealistic color palette. A seamless interweaving of elegant prose and atmospheric art marks this affecting immigrant narrative. Back matter includes heartfelt author’s and illustrator’s notes. Ages 4–8. (May)

Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the book's text.

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In a straightforward picture book debut by Meloy (the Apothecary series), a red-orange octopus is “happy in his cave,” until a human, portrayed as a pale hand, tricks the cephalopod into occupying a glove and subsequently takes him to “a glass house that wasn’t a cave.” Though the octopus is offered interactive tests and activities—including building blocks, a jar to unscrew, tight passages to navigate, and a camera to photograph visitors to his aquarium home—his days lack differentiation, and the pining octopus soon devises an intrepid plan to return home. The sympathetic prose is rhythmic, allowing readers to see the octopus’s perspective at every step of the process: of the glass house, “There were no waves. No little shivery ones. No big tumbling ones.” Sala (Green on Green) contributes vibrant art rendered in gouache, watercolor, and pastel on paper; particularly effective are spreads of the sinuous subject’s ocean life, with its richly varied flora and fauna. The Finding Nemo–esque adventure follows a predictable arc, but the tender narrative is gratifying and may serve as an effective jumping-off point for discussions about animal captivity. Ages 3–7. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink