
Xiaolu Guo. Grove, $18 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-8021-6649-4
NBCC Award winner Guo (Nine Continents, a memoir) delivers a spectacular retelling of Moby-Dick, in which she recasts Ishmael as a 17-year-old girl and Ahab as a Black freedman named Seneca who’s battling the “white devil.” In 1858 England, Ishmaelle’s parents and baby sister die f... Continue reading »

Tim Sullivan. Atlantic Crime, $17 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-8021-6777-4
Sullivan’s shrewd second procedural featuring neurodivergent detective sergeant George Cross (after The Dentist) opens with Cross being called to the site of a Somerset demolition crew’s grisly discovery. When the crew leads Cross to the male corpse wrapped in polythene that they found in a... Continue reading »

Maria Tureaud. Kensington, $28 (368p) ISBN 978-1-4967-5541-4
Masterfully blending well-researched history with Irish folk horror, Tureaud’s striking adult debut (after the YA novel The Last Hope in Hopetown) is the haunting tale of a young woman’s experience of Ireland’s Great Hunger. In 1848, Maggie O’Shaughnessy struggles to adjust to life in the w... Continue reading »

Iman Hariri-Kia. Cosmo Reads, $18.99 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-72827-064-7
A devoted romantasy fan embarks on an outrageous quest to find her soulmate in this hilarious and intelligent romp from Hariri-Kia (The Most Famous Girl in the World). A dutiful copywriter by day and beloved fan fiction writer by night, Joonie Saboonchi credits A Tale of Salt Water and ... Continue reading »

Jibola Fagbamiye and Conor McCreery. Amistad, $48 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-305879-8
This rousing celebration of Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti (1938–1977)—Afrobeat star, truth-teller, commune leader, and frequent “rascal”—blends brisk biographical storytelling with urgent cultural and political history, gorgeous evocations of the power of music and dance, and bursts of bloody violence both fa... Continue reading »

Lyn Hejinian. Wesleyan Univ, $18.95 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-8195-0197-4
The wry and sprawling final offering from the late, great Hejinian (Fall Creek) comprises a book-length prose poem in which the speaker moves through the motions and emotions of the “every day,” engaging with a cast of local characters. By doing so, Hejinian and her narrator explore a centr... Continue reading »

Marcus 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 »

Jung Chang. Harper, $35 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-348004-9
Historian Chang (Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister) parallels China’s political upheavals with the evolution of her and her mother’s relationship in this powerful memoir. Born in 1952 Yibin to an influential Communist couple who were frequently imprisoned for speaking out against Mao Ze... Continue reading »

Rocio Salas-Whalen. Rodale, $29 (288p) ISBN 978-0-593-98120-7
Endocrinologist Salas-Whalen offers a compassionate and comprehensive guide to losing weight with GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. She walks readers through the process of evaluating GLP-1 medications (short for glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone that regulates blood sugar le... Continue reading »

Kelly 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 »

Chanel Miller. Philomel, $17.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-593-62455-5
A seventh grader jeopardizes everything she likes about herself for a chance at popularity in this sensitive novel by Miller (Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All). Luna believes in “language as a balm for emotional wounds” and frequently lends her classmates books that she believes will help allevia... Continue reading »

