Ruiz-Grossman’s captivating debut chronicles a wildfire’s impact on a diverse set of residents of Berkeley, Calif. Abigail, 50, organizes a fund-raiser at a friend’s house in the Berkeley Hills for a mixed-income apartment building on the city’s west side. She hires Willow, a young woman who ran awa... Continue reading »

Pook (Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter) delivers a brilliant historical about a woman’s search for the truth behind her sister’s death during an Arctic expedition. After a tantalizing prologue, Constance Horton, 20, disguises herself as a cabin boy to join the Makepeace on its ... Continue reading »

Booker Prize–shortlisted Chung (Cursed Bunny) makes a dazzling return with these eight inventive tales. The collection opens with “The Center for Immortality Research,” which imagines bureaucracy, hierarchy, and capitalism continuing on for eternity. In “A Very Ordinary Marriage,” a man’s s... Continue reading »

Payne’s sparkling and sultry latest diverse Jane Austen adaptation (after Pride and Protest) puts a refreshing spin on Sense and Sensibility’s Dashwood sisters. Shenora “Nora” Dash’s world is thrown into chaos when her ex-boyfriend releases their sex tape without her consent, leadi... Continue reading »

Through a vibrant visual tapestry, French cartoonist and Angouleme’s Prix Orange debut comics winner Damezin reimagines a centuries-old Persian love poem. Since childhood, Qays has adored Layla, a woman with a “face like the moon” and “teeth of sugar... tall as a cypress.” His love turns to obsessio... Continue reading »

The contemplative latest from Pulitzer winner Pardlo (for Digest) explores fear as the basis for legal judgment. As Pardlo explains in the introduction, the fear-driven imaginings used by white men to condemn those accused in the Salem witch trials have been similarly employed against nonwh... 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 »

British artist Thomas’s stunning debut presents her paintings of two dozen women who have endured persecution and displacement across the globe, including Yazidis who fled ISIS, Rohingya who escaped conflict in Myanmar, and Nigerians who survived Boko Haram. Thomas visited compounds and refugee camp... Continue reading »

This thought-provoking debut from OR Books cofounder Oakes weaves meditations on fasting into an account of his successful attempt to go a week without food. He reports undertaking the fast as a kind of “personal exorcism,” realizing by the end that “I eat out of habit” and “routine can be the enemy... Continue reading »

Rabbi Brous, founder of the justice-driven Jewish spiritual community IKAR, explores in her compassionate debut how to better connect with others in a social climate of widespread division. For Brous, of foremost importance is simply “showing up” for others in hard times, a principle that’s illustra... Continue reading »

Substituting water bears for little pigs, Fay’s playfully STEM-centric tale introduces a trio of tardigrades dwelling together “in a cozy little drop of H20.” Though the family has a lovely life “ingesting algae, digesting algae,” and “excreting by-products of algae,” Mother Tardigrade at last tells... Continue reading »