House of Day, House of Night Olga Tokarczuk, trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Riverhead, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-71638-0
This vivid 1998 novel from Nobel winner Tokarczuk prefigures the discursive style of her later work such as Flights, with the story of a woman who moves with her husband from their Polish city to rural Silesia. There, the unnamed narrator posts an ad in the local paper about her interest in... Continue reading »
Cape FeverNadia Davids. Simon & Schuster, $27 (240p) ISBN 978-1-6680-9073-2
Set in a fictional British colony in 1920, this striking psychological thriller from Davids (An Imperfect Blessing) finds a housemaid questioning her employer’s motives. It dismays Soraya Matas to learn that her new job cooking and cleaning for widowed British settler Alice Hattingh is live... Continue reading »
Lies Weeping: Vol. 1 of the Black Company Saga: A Pitiless Rain or, the Orphans’ TaleGlen Cook. Tor, $29.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-250-39799-7
After 25 years, Cook returns to the grim world of his cult classic Chronicles of the Black Company series (last visited in Soldiers Live) with an exhilarating spin-off launch. The focus is on the next generation of an elite group of mercenaries that doubles as “a sad, constantly squabbling,... Continue reading »
House of RayneHarley Laroux. Kensington, $32 (496p) ISBN 978-1-4967-5683-1
Bestseller Laroux (Her Soul for Revenge) is out for blood in this visceral and deliciously dark gothic romance set against the moody backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. Salem spends what was supposed to have been her wedding night in a dive bar hooking up with Rayne, a gorgeous, secretive st... Continue reading »
The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of GriefCarol Tyler. Fantagraphics, $39.99 (232p) ISBN 979-8-8750-0143-7
In this intricate, wildly inventive graphic memoir from Eisner nominee Tyler (Soldier’s Heart), grief is a physical place populated by odd but helpful guides. Carol is hit by an “anvil of sorrow” when her mother, sister, and multiple friends die in quick succession, and she enters a “long r... Continue reading »
Death of the First IdeaRickey Laurentiis. Knopf, $27 (160p) ISBN 978-0-593-80270-0
Laurentiis’s visionary sophomore outing (after Boy with Thorn) showcases her incredible lyric range and incisive commentary. At its core, the collection charts a 10-year period from 2015 to 2025 chronicling the speaker’s gender transition; along the way, the poems address the speaker’s poli... 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 »
Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic WorldSudhir Hazareesingh. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $32 (432p) ISBN 978-0-374-61107-1
“The enslaved rebelled against their captivity throughout the entire [400-year] period” of the Atlantic slave system, according to this stunning revisionist saga. Historian Hazareesingh (Black Spartacus) chronicles myriad examples of “verbal expressions of dissent,” escapes and slave ship m... Continue reading »
For the Love of Chocolate: 80 At-Home Recipes from a Master Chocolatier’s ImaginationPhillip Ashley Rix. Harper Celebrate, $32.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4002-4454-6
“I consider myself a storyteller, and chocolate is my love language,” writes debut author Rix, the founder of Phillip Ashley Chocolates, in this irresistible collection of melt-in-your-mouth recipes. Rix opens with a crash course on “Chocistry 101,” covering chocolate’s origins (the cacao tree’s Lat... Continue reading »
Beard: A Memoir of a MarriageKelly Foster Lundquist. Eerdmans, $28.99 (250p) ISBN 978-0-80288-473-2
Lundquist, an English professor at North Hennepin Community College in Minnesota, debuts with a wrenching account of the breakup of her marriage to a gay man. Lundquist met her future husband in the late 1990s at a Christian camp, where the two bonded over their love of TV soaps and off-kilter humor... Continue reading »
Popo the XoloPaloma Angelina Lopez, illus. by Abraham Matias. Charlesbridge, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-6235-4457-7
An accompanied journey ends in rest and remembrance in Lopez’s arresting debut, which, in English and Spanish, blends Indigenous Mexican myth with a story of loss. Popo, Nana’s tiny Xoloitzcuintle, “is the best apapachador, always looking for cuddles,” which the two share during evenings in front of... Continue reading »
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