McDaniel’s stunning latest (after Betty) draws on a string of real-life unsolved murders and disappearances in Chillicothe, Ohio. The economically depressed town reeks of funk from the paper mill and an equally pungent stench of despair. Twin sisters Arcade and Daffy retreat into their fier... Continue reading »

At the start of Edgar winner Box’s outstanding 23rd Joe Pickett novel (after 2022’s Shadows Reel), the Wyoming game warden comes across a grisly scene after pursuing an injured elk: inside an isolated ranch outbuilding there’s a body of a man with the top of his head missing. With a snowsto... Continue reading »

Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kingfisher (What Moves the Dead) goes Southern gothic (Waffle House visits included) in this hilarious and gruesome contemporary horror novel. After archaeoentomologist Sam Montgomery’s dig gets put on hold, she drives to her deceased grandmother’s house in rura... Continue reading »

Jasmine Randhawa, the heroine of this highly emotional rom-com from Lalli (A Holly Jolly Diwali), has stubbornly forged a path away from her family’s Punjabi traditions. Now she’s broke and newly single and hates that she’s living up to her family’s expectations of her as the “problem child... Continue reading »

Artist Colomba and documentary filmmaker Lévy team up for a rollicking retelling of the incredible life of Stephanie St. Clair, a Depression-era Harlem racketeer who outmaneuvered such mobsters as Dutch Schulz and Lucky Luciano while frustrating the police at every turn. With her enforcer “Bumpy” Jo... Continue reading »

Hillman (Extra Hidden Life, among the Days) wades provocatively into the strange times and stresses of contemporary human (and nonhuman) life. These poems turn their boundless attention on physical and interior landscapes to explore the relationship between experience and one’s capacity to ... 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 »

Theater critic Hofler (Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne) delivers a spellbinding behind-the-scenes look at the seminal 1973 film The Way We Were. When playwright Arthur Laurents pitched the idea for the movie to producer Ray Stark, the politically minded script was partly a way fo... Continue reading »

Food writer Thompson celebrates her Jamaican heritage in her stellar debut. Inspired by her dad’s tales of growing up in Jamaica, England-born Thompson found herself transported through food to a country she had never visited and here offers a rich and deeply satisfying collection of recipes, some o... Continue reading »

Essayist Iyer (A Beginner’s Guide to Japan) visits regions of religious import in this immersive and profound survey of earthly paradises. “I’d begun to wonder what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict—and whether the very search for it might not simply aggrav... Continue reading »

In kinetic sketches and sensorial prose both warm and electric, late Caldecott Medalist Pinkney recalls his post-WWII childhood and path toward making “something of my name.” Three quick-paced sections and an epilogue span the figure’s early life on Philadelphia’s East Earlham Street (“our tight-kn... Continue reading »