
Peter Geye. Univ. of Minnesota, $27.95 (512p) ISBN 978-1-5179-1637-4
Geye (The Ski Jumper) sets this masterful tale about the limits of faith and fidelity on the rugged shore of Lake Superior. After Radcliffe student Willa Brandt’s father dies by suicide in 1910, her mother insists she return home to Duluth, Minn., and marry someone with the means to save th... Continue reading »

Louise Hegarty. Harper, $28.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-336055-6
Hegarty’s brilliant debut kicks off with a murder mystery–themed New Year’s Eve party at a posh London Airbnb. The guests of wealthy siblings Abigail and Benjamin include work acquaintance Barbara; Benjamin’s childhood friend, Stephen; bankrupt spoilsport Declan; extravagant couple Cormac and Olivia... Continue reading »

Hannah Kaner. Harper Voyager, $18.99 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-335014-4
Kaner expertly sticks the landing in her page-turning conclusion to the Fallen Gods trilogy (after Sunbringer), which sees gods and humans collide in an epic struggle for control over the land of Middren. To combat the fire god Hseth’s reign of violence, seafaring Lady Lessa Craier has relu... Continue reading »

Blair Fell. Alcove, $19.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 979-8-89242-034-1
A group of emotionally wounded queer men cobble together a found family amid supernatural threats and the pall of the AIDS crisis in this impressively drawn romance from Fell (The Sign for Home). Joe Agabian arrives on Fire Island in 1989 to discover his best friend, himbo Ronnie Kaminski, ... Continue reading »

David Rubín, trans. from the Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg. Oni, $34.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-63715-491-5
This introspective offering from Rubín (Cosmic Detective) unpacks an existential crisis in a visually stunning sci-fi narrative. With a massive meteorite headed toward Earth, the brilliant, egotistical architect Alexander Yorba takes the lead role designing a lunar colony to ensure the surv... Continue reading »

Imtiaz Dharker. Bloodaxe, $18.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-78037-709-4
Dharker (Luck Is the Hook) combines her poetry and drawings to deliver an exquisite and complex vision of exile, immigration, and adopted homelands. The poems go beyond simple ekphrasis to consider the power dynamics of language and text; in one entry responding to a 19th-century sketch by ... 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 »

Diarmaid MacCulloch. Viking, $40 (752p) ISBN 978-1-9848-7867-0
Historian MacCulloch (Christianity) notes in this sweeping study of Christian sexuality that the teachings of Jesus contain numerous heterodox statements regarding sex and gender. These include his famous call for mercy toward women adulterers, but also a less well-known observation concern... Continue reading »

Omid Roustaei. Weldon Owen, $35 (240p) ISBN 979-8-88674-183-4
“My mission has always been to make Iranian cuisine more inviting and accessible,” writes chef and culinary instructor Roustaei in his memorable debut. The vast selection of traditional fare includes pomegranate and cucumber salad as a starter, grilled lamb kebabs as a main, and rose rice pudding fo... Continue reading »

Kelsey Osgood. Viking, $30 (368p) ISBN 978-0-593-83467-1
In this illuminating account, memoirist Osgood (How to Disappear Completely) interweaves her own story with those of six other women who found religion in a rapidly secularizing society. All millennials currently in their 30s, Osgood’s subjects converted to faiths ranging from Mormonism to ... Continue reading »

Nova Ren Suma. Little, Brown, $18.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-61620-672-7
A teen recovered from an off-grid Catskills commune of female fugitives struggles to adapt to society in this evocative and empowering novel from Suma (A Room Away from the Wolves). After committing murder and arson to avenge her own rape, Pola Lasker takes her infant Talia and decamps to t... Continue reading »

