UniversalityNatasha Brown. Random House, $24 (176p) ISBN 978-0-593-97730-9
Brown’s ambitious and stimulating sophomore novel (after Assembly) begins with an assault during an illegal rave on a West Yorkshire farm. The event, held in violation of Covid lockdown protocols, is recounted in a magazine article that makes up the novel’s first section, which describes ho... Continue reading »
The Four Queens of CrimeRosanne Limoncelli. Crooked Lane, $19.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 979-8-89242-227-7
Limoncelli makes a splash with her riotously entertaining debut, which imagines real-life crime writers Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham teaming up to solve a murder in 1938. At the outset, the women, all friends, have agreed to host a fundraising gala for the W... Continue reading »
The Hymn to DionysusNatasha Pulley. Bloomsbury, $29.99 (416p) ISBN 978-1-63973-236-4
This fresh and stylish reimagining of the myth of Dionysus from Pulley (The Mars House) follows Phaidros Heliades, who, trained as a knight in the Theban army from childhood, grows up traveling all over the region with his regiment and his commander, Helios Poly. At age four, he and Helios ... Continue reading »
The Trouble with AnnaRachel Griffiths. Gallery, $19.99 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-66805-294-5
Debut author Griffiths’s delightful Regency romp kicks off with spirited horsewoman Lady Anna Reston learning that the terms of her grandfather’s will require her to marry the man he names as her guardian, Julian Aveton, the ninth Earl of Ramsay, if she wants to inherit her home and her beloved hors... Continue reading »
The Legend of KamuiShirato Sanpei, trans. from the Japanese by Richard Rubinger, Noriko Rubinger, and Alexa Frank. Drawn & Quarterly, $39.95 (600p) ISBN 978-1-77046-729-3
Shirato’s politically aware ninja manga, which ran from 1964 to 1971, makes its English-language debut in this glorious collection, the first of 10 volumes. In 17th-century Japan, the ninja Kamui is born an “outcast,” the lowest caste in the feudal system. He rabble rouses tirelessly against the pea... Continue reading »
Outside the JoyRuth Awad. Third Man, $17.95 trade paper (96p) ISBN 979-8-98661-459-5
Awad’s deeply felt sophomore collection (after Set to Music a Wildfire) reverberates with lines as hard and true as rock: “The lie is that I survived because parts of me didn’t.” She shifts and complicates the sentiment, adding, “we tell the version of the story/ that lets us live with ours... 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 »
Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the PowerfulDavid Enrich. Mariner, $32.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-337290-0
New York Times editor Enrich (Servants of the Damned) offers a chilling deep dive into “a largely under-the-radar legal movement that is weaponizing [an] obscure field of libel law.” Ever since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1964 decision in New York Times Company v. Su... Continue reading »
Hot Date!: Sweet & Savory Recipes Celebrating the Date, from Party Food to Everyday FeastsRawaan Alkhatib. Chronicle, $35 (272p) ISBN 978-1-79722-644-6
The stunning cookbook debut from poet and artist Alkhatib (King Crab, a board book) sings the praises of dates. She provides a mouthwatering history of the “holy fruit,” extolling it as a symbol of survival and bounty for many cultures. With more than 3,000 varieties, the date is a remarkab... Continue reading »
Aflame: Learning from SilencePico Iyer. Riverhead, $30 (240p) ISBN 978-0-593-42028-7
Novelist and essayist Iyer (The Half Known Life) shares in this luminous account the lessons that more than 30 years of visiting a Benedectine monastery in California have taught him about silence. Convinced by a friend to visit the retreat in 1991, he describes it as less a place of solitu... Continue reading »
The Trouble with SunshineYamile Saied Méndez. Scholastic Press, $19.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-546-12274-6
In a heartfelt novel about adapting and overcoming personal challenges, Méndez (The Beautiful Game) spotlights the camaraderie to be found in difference and the joys one discovers while learning to fit in. Thirteen-year-old Dorani Gutierrez is multitalented: she’s smart, compass... Continue reading »
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