Big Kiss, Bye-ByeClaire-Louise Bennett. Riverhead, $29 (224p) ISBN 979-8-217-04664-5
Bennett (Checkout 19) serves up a striking novel about a writer’s retreat into solitude in the aftermath of a love affair. Having relocated from London to the English countryside, the unnamed middle-aged narrator ruminates on the past, beginning with memories of her former lover Xavier, a “... Continue reading »
A Bitter Wind: A Billy Boyle WWII MysteryJames R. Benn. Soho Crime, $28.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-64129-646-5
Espionage and tensions among allies animate Benn’s outstanding latest Billy Boyle mystery (after The Phantom Patrol). On Christmas Day, 1944, U.S. Army investigator Boyle and his girlfriend, Capt. Diana Seaton of the British SOE, discover the bludgeoned body of U.S. Air Force Maj. Frederick... Continue reading »
HerculineGrace Byron. Saga, $28 (272p) ISBN 978-1-6680-8786-2
A brilliant addition to the growing genre of trans horror, Byron’s debut is narrated by an unnamed trans woman struggling to make it as a writer in New York City. Her emotional demons stem from a stint in conversion therapy and a soul-sucking retail job, but she’s also matter-of-factly pursued by li... Continue reading »
Last on the ListAmy Daws. Canary Street, $18.99 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-335-49842-7
In the sweet and spicy fifth romance in Daws’s Wait with Me series (after Take a Number), a precocious 11-year-old helps her father find love. Colorado millionaire Max Fletcher is nervous about spending the summer with his daughter, Everly, while his ex-wife heads on vacation, as it’s been ... Continue reading »
The Name and the Mark (Vattu #1)Evan Dahm. Iron Circus, $25 trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-1-63899-155-7
The spectacular first volume of Dahm’s long-running webcomic ushers readers into an instantly immersive fantasy world. In the year “855 of the Blue Age,” a girl named Vattu is born into a nomadic tribe of diminutive, musical people called “fluters.” As Vattu grows up, she develops a contentious rela... Continue reading »
Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly Edited by David Baker and Michael Collier. Norton, $39.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-32410-593-0
This definitive retrospective gathers the work of an allusive, musical, and stylish writer and introduces nine new poems to his oeuvre. As in Plumly’s Selected Poems, the entries are presented in reverse chronology, helping to highlight the evolution of the poet’s voice, his turn towards a ... 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 »
Dead and Alive: EssaysZadie Smith. Penguin Press, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-83468-8
Novelist and critic Smith (Feel Free) brings an incisive eye and keen wit to art, music, fiction, politics, and more in this wide-ranging essay collection. Whether analyzing the misogyny faced by female muses; celebrating the work of a generational novelist, such as Toni Morrison; or pointe... Continue reading »
Real Japanese Cooking: The Only Japanese Cookbook You Will Ever Need!Makiko Itoh. Tuttle, $39.99 (512p) ISBN 978-4-8053-1615-3
This excellent compendium from Itoh (The Just Bento Cookbook) offers an encyclopedic introduction to “the complete range of modern Japanese home cooking.” She breaks down Japanese food into three main styles: washoku, or traditional fare, includes sake-steamed cod, mixed rice with greens (“... Continue reading »
Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and BelongingAngela Buchdahl. Viking/Dorman, $32 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-49017-4
Buchdahl debuts with an affecting account of becoming the first ordained Asian American rabbi. Born in 1972 to a Jewish American father and Korean mother, Buchdahl grew up in her father’s hometown of Tacoma, Wash., finding in its small Jewish community a visceral sense of meaning (prayer was “a voca... Continue reading »
Family Feast!Carole Boston Weatherford, illus. by Frank Morrison. Crown, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-89829-1
Boston Weatherford and Morrison reteam for this joyful celebration of food, family, and tradition. Rhythmic lines describe Big Ma and Pops rising at five a.m. to begin preparations for an intergenerational Black family’s unspecified gathering. As relatives trickle in from all directions, everyon... Continue reading »
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