Redel’s sensuous latest (after Paradise) explores the fraught relationship between Dutch Golden Age painter Maria van Oosterwijck and Gerta Pieters, her servant turned apprentice. Gerta enters Maria’s household disguised as a boy named Pieter, chopping wood and slaughtering rabbits for Mari... Continue reading »

Weaver’s chilling debut imagines a climate-ravaged near future where the fortunate live on floating islands and a new world leader is about to be elected. Striving to accurately inform the voters of 2050 is influential journalist Marcus Tully, who works with a team of assistants in London, which, li... Continue reading »

Rosson, who put a fresh spin on the zombie apocalypse trope in the Fever House duology, is equally creative with vampires in this brilliant horror novel set in 1970s Oregon. After returning from the Vietnam War, Duane Minor takes a job at a bar owned by his in-laws. He and his wife, Heidi, adjust to... Continue reading »

Time travel disrupts the filming of a Jane Austen movie adaptation in Bell’s captivating adult debut (after the YA novel The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray, written as Christine Calella). Sassy American actress Tess Bright has been depressed since her Austen-loving mother’s death, which has ne... Continue reading »

In his impressive first solo graphic novel, animator Wickey (Supper with the Stars) does for Salem, Mass., what From Hell did for London, building layers of history around a crucial act of evil. At the core of the story sits Giles Corey, a victim of the 17th-century Salem witch tri... Continue reading »

In her excellent sophomore outing, Skillings (Fort Not) combines the brutal and acerbic honesty of confessionalism with the self-deprecating humor of the New York School to create an irresistibly original work. She excels at probing her own mind, bringing gravity to even seemingly banal or ... Continue reading »

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 »

Poet and memoirist Antonetta (The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here) offers a striking study of the evolution of modern psychiatry. The narrative centers around the Sonnenstein, a fortress in Saxony famed at the turn of the 20th century for its progressive treatment of psychiatric pat... Continue reading »

Bloom (Breast Cancer in the Workplace), a former employee benefits attorney, delivers a powerful resource for women dealing with serious illnesses. Aiming to help readers address healthcare and workplace concerns, Bloom offers valuable advice on navigating HIPAA laws, fighting arbitrary ins... Continue reading »

Former White House speechwriter Hurwitz (Here All Along) makes a full-throated case for Judaism’s relevance in an increasingly secular and often openly antisemitic world. Raised on a “cultural Judaism” from which she gleaned mostly “a collection of social justice slogans and self-­help clic... Continue reading »

Lighthouse keeper Bear, a squat gray figure with dots for eyes, lives alone on a remote island. Having dispensed with official duties (gouache and colored pencil illustrations offer a glimpse of the lighthouse happenings via a vertically oriented cutaway), it’s time to catch lunch. Down at the shore... Continue reading »