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As a child Molly her older sister Eileen and their parents emigrated from New Ross Ireland to a bucolic farm in Ohio. Molly’s family members are close friends with their neighbors the MacLeiths owners of a profitable sawmill. Once Molly turns 15 she’s courted by one of their sons Andrew MacLeith. Although Molly is charmed by Andrew she dreams of storybook romances and worries that “to accept a proposal of marriage from a mere mortal was to abandon all those dreams.” Despite her concerns she marries Andrew and the couple are at each other’s throats from the get-go. After a bitter argument Molly runs away with Andrew’s brother Hugh a gambler who dreams of making his fortune in Pike’s Peak. Molly eventually leaves Hugh as well and follows a group of prospectors to Cherry Creek where she forges an independent life cooking meals and washing clothes for the prospectors. While she enjoys her new adventures memories of what she’s left behind still haunt her. The latest from Griffin (2025’s Morgan’s Landing etc.) is a stirring historical romance set against the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush during the late 1850s; however the novel’s relatively brief length leaves some plot holes and characters underdeveloped. Molly MacLeith is an amiable if impulsive protagonist. Her transition from a wife seeking new adventures to a self-reliant woman bravely facing the risks and hardships of life in Pike’s Peak is well rendered and the strongest element of Griffin’s narrative. That said at 87 pages the novel leaves very little room for the development of characters and storylines.
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From a 12-neck guitar to a euphonium that pours beer there is no limit to the musical instruments a human mind can dream up. In this encyclopedic collection Loughridge and Patteson expand on their website of the same name to bring an illuminating historical survey of “fictophones.” The chapters are divided into loose taxonomies. “Historical fictophones” include Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of the “viola organista” (“a keyboard instrument in which the strings were sounded not by plectra or hammers but by constantly turning wheels”) and “glissando recorder” (“whose pitch could be continuously controlled”). “Living instruments” include two ways to bring music out of a swine: a pig organ and a pig bagpipe. “Cosmic instruments” count the universe itself as an instrument citing the ancient Greek notion of the music of the spheres. “Computational instruments” twist our understanding of instruments even further such as with Torricelli’s trumpet a mathematical shape with a finite volume but infinite surface area. These creations are consistently interesting and even those with a wide knowledge in organology will learn from this specific niche. As the examples above show the book often reads like a list of oddities. While more anecdotes and analysis would be welcome the subject matter often doesn’t allow for it—few of the instruments mentioned have ever been built or played. Still the authors succeed in describing the various instruments and ample images illustrations and diagrams help readers imagine the impossible. In spite of the matter-of-fact presentation plentiful historical sources color the text such as this description of the cat organ from 1750: “Tho’ the cat-organ when accurately in tune is incomparably melodious…its persuasive harmony can at one time draw St Cecilia from the spheres and at another with proper alteration wou’d frighten away the Devil himself.”
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Jan Sorrensen is still scarred from his last encounter with a ghost an experience that he turned into a bestselling novel which gave him the funds to invest in a forthcoming tourist attraction: coal mine tours in small-town Dundee Pennsylvania. The mine that’s set to reopen was the site of a fatal fire back in the 19th century; now people are hearing strange noises from inside the mine some of which utter specific names. These disquieting incidents bring Jan’s friend Sheriff’s Detective Kaveetha “Kathy” Jensen into the story. Meanwhile a seemingly possessed boy escapes a local psychiatric hospital and gives Jan an ominous warning: “Stay out of my mine.” The mine’s sordid history which includes “open warfare” between the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the secretive violent Mollie Maguires may somehow explain the apparently ghostly events in the present day. Johnson’s second installment in his Ghostly Poconos series delivers a fair amount of mystery. The copious evidence of possessions leads Jan and Kathy to decipher which spirits are responsible and why which involves several scenes that unfold in 1873 and entries from one woman’s journal from the time: “The Company wasted no time pushing me and the baby growing inside me out into the cold.” Most of the narrative’s interest is thanks to the dynamic cast. Kathy’s girlfriend Lacey signs on as a mine tour guide (previous guides have quit out of fear) and Jan gets close to Amanda his physical therapist (he’s recovering from his ghost-related injuries). However the book has so much going on—romantic troubles ghostly possessions inexplicable deaths and recurring nods to the earlier installment—that the horror element can feel muted. As such the plot presents few opportunities for unnerving moments though the final act does ramp up the suspense. Ultimately readers will be eager for more adventures with Jan and Kathy.
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Tom Glass has a dream to reform the pharmaceutical industry by making prescription drugs affordable especially for the impoverished workers in developing countries who manufacture them. Endeavoring to discover untapped medicinal resources in the Amazon jungle Tom struggles to balance his grand ambitions with a severe alcohol addiction that’s devastated his family and relationships. After a disastrous business meeting and the sudden loss of his grandmother Tom commits to sobriety determined to reclaim his life and make his family proud. In the process he meets the woman of his dreams Claire De Abreu and embarks on a months-long jungle expedition to find a new life-changing drug. Aided by groundbreaking artificial intelligence tools that can help him research plants and their makeups Tom sets forth to change the world—only to be foiled by others and sometimes himself. Set primarily in Puerto Rico Brazil and Peru Midlam’s novel provides a harrowing deeply accurate account of the agonizing cravings and psychological battles inherent to the recovery process: “I found order from chaos. And now the invisible hand is dragging me back down to hell.” At the same time the narrative delivers sharp social commentary on an industry that bilks sick people for profit while its low-wage laborers can’t afford the very medicines they produce an insight enriched by the author’s own professional background in global pharmacy initiatives. The story also insightfully touches on global wealth disparity corporate greed and the human condition in general. While the text occasionally overexplains the chemistry behind the drugs and drifts into tangents while discussing psychedelics like ayahuasca the novel ultimately succeeds as an intimate study of a tortured soul finding redemption.
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Winston “Wince” Fisher Jr. is in a rut. After his daughter was born Wince tried to leave his high-octane life of crime behind for a safe career in wealth management but then his business partner forced him out and he signed a two-year noncompete clause. Now the former criminal and three-time divorcé has nothing to do but laze around his rental home in Austin Texas watching action movies and consuming massive amounts of cocaine. Everything changes when his dealer’s son invites him to assist on a drug run which makes Wince miss his old ways. Soon enough he’s building and selling AR-15s to Mexican cartels leading to another decision that could jeopardize his chance at ever having a normal life. Smith’s second novel following Arcade (2016) is a significant pivot offering a portrait of red-blooded Southern masculinity. It’s hard to tell exactly what sort of satire is intended; Wince’s highly traditional worldview is rarely subverted or challenged and many of the women and nonwhite characters are little more than thinly drawn caricatures. Still the book is compulsively readable building an air of paranoia and dread that persists whether Wince has been caught in a shootout or simply talking on the phone with his mother. The story shines in its asides from footnotes detailing the intricacies of gun barrels and drug laws to brief flashbacks that fill in Wince’s outlandish backstory—complete with DeNigris’ occasional charming hand-drawn illustrations. The tale is certainly not for the faint of heart taking readers on an antihero’s journey through a wasteland of sex drugs violence and organized crime. But as a snapshot of a very specific type of man in the 2020s it transcends its standard revenge-thriller trappings to offer a compelling character study.
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Mikaberidze professor of history at Louisiana State University writes that Spain claimed North America in the centuries after Columbus but gave it a low priority. In 1682 La Salle sailed from Canada down the Mississippi and claimed all of North America for France. France’s priorities however remained local leaving its colonies under-resourced and politically marginalized. In 1763 after the disastrous Seven Years’ War Britain acquired America east of the Mississippi while France in a futile effort to persuade Spain to enter the war had ceded her the west. By 1799 Spanish America faced pressures from American expansion and Napoleon who determined to match Britain’s empire wanted Louisiana back. A reluctant Spain returned it in 1803. By then Napoleon had changed his mind. War with Britain was about to resume. Colonies seemed a waste of money and in any case Britain’s huge navy made them indefensible. Only months after the handover Napoleon offered it to America. Mikaberidze continues his narrative into familiar territory in the final 200 pages. The cost (over $25 million with fees and extras) was a burden to a nation whose 1803 federal budget was less than five million and there was a surprising amount of opposition. White Francophile Louisianans adapted but the Purchase heralded catastrophe for Indigenous tribes and Black people. Slavery was somewhat less nasty in Spanish America and freed enslaved people enjoyed modest rights; American hegemony ended that. Few deny that the Purchase was our greatest bargain and the strategy behind America’s explosive expansion. And writes Mikaberidze “The Louisiana Purchase has taken on renewed relevance as discussions of US territorial expansion resurface in modern politics. President Donald J. Trump’s remarks about acquiring Greenland have reignited debates over how America asserts its influence and navigates international diplomacy.…They reveal how the idea of territorial expansion has remained a persistent element in American political imagination reflecting a belief in its strategic and economic value.”
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Rachel Sinclair is about to turn 40 as her doctors her friends and even strangers keep reminding her. As she prepares to enter a new decade she reckons with her past—from the accidental drowning of her father to the self-centered behavior of her “wacko” mother and later an ectopic pregnancy when she was 29. Since then she’s built a strong community around herself as the owner of the beloved restaurant Palms on the Cape. Her clientele is made up of visitors and diehard regulars but especially close to her heart is her longtime friend Carlos Hannigan a retired Boston Red Sox pitcher who now owns a construction business. During the restaurant’s karaoke night Rachel meets the charismatic Tripper Chambers and his friends who make up the self-styled “A-List”—a study group at the Vermont Business Collaborative on vacation for the week as they work on their capstone. She feels an immediate attraction to the 32-year-old Tripper who questions her close bond with Carlos. Later the story shifts toward Rachel and her friends as they try to reclaim control of her restaurant just before her birthday. The business-related plotline is as compelling to read as the slow-burn will-they-or-won’t-they romance between Rachel and Carlos: “You’re with him all the time and you have been for years” Tripper comments at one point. “I’ve just never had a female friendship like that”; Rachel replies with a classic rom-com allusion: “I guess we’re the answer to the age-old Harry and Sally question.” What truly stands out though is how the love and career stories never overshadow the emotional narrative of Rachel stepping into her 40s by healing familial and personal wounds.
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Did you know that the first union in the comic book industry to ratify a contract—Comic Book Workers United—only did so in 2023 over seven decades after the first group of comic workers attempted to organize? The long winding labor struggles of the industry are just one of the underexplored areas of comics history that Standal addresses in this essay collection. Another is the proto-feminism of Little Lulu the curly-haired character created by Marge Buell who “impishly fought against anything she deemed unfair particularly boys’ treatment of girls” first in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post and then as a cartoon character on the silver screen. Standal writes about Héctor Oesterheld the celebrated Argentinian author of The Eternaut whose political activity led to him being disappeared by his own government in 1977 and David Mazzucchelli the illustrator of celebrated 1980s runs of Batman and Daredevil who turned away from the big publishers at the height of his success to make and publish more personal stories for far less money. The book’s longest essay is a fascinating study of how three of the comics world’s most successful creators—Charles Schulz Jim Davis and Bill Watterson—navigated the hazards of stewarding characters popular enough to be turned into merchandisable products. “Calvin and Hobbes has remained a crown jewel despite Watterson ending the strip almost three decades ago” writes Standal in his plainspoken prose. “More impressive this popularity manifested even though there [haven’t] been balloons animated specials or toys to keep the characters in the public eye.” The effect of the book is a bit like if Mike Davis wrote a history of comics approaching the field through the lens of economic power structures. For those who only think of comics in terms of DC and Marvel superheroes Standal’s essays offer insight into the myriad systemic difficulties faced by artists attempting to make a living.
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In the 1850s and 1860s young Emma Thompson travels with her parents across the western United States and into the Utah Territory where they fall under the sway of a self-declared prophet known as Joseph Morris who’s left Mormonism to found his own sect known as the Morrisites. Hailed as the “Lord of the Earth” and the Messiah Morris encourages his followers to abandon their vocations and prepare for the imminent physical return of Jesus. His boasts draw the attention of the territorial government which dispatches Deputy Marshal Robert Burton to restore order. In a bloody skirmish later known as the Morrisite War Burton’s men besiege the Morrisites’ fort. A cannonball strikes Emma’s friend Mary Christofferson shattering her chin. Emma watches in horror as a man she identifies as Burton fires upon Joseph Morris and Isabella Bowman killing them instantly. Outraged by this apparent miscarriage of justice Emma awaits the day their killer will be apprehended. After the war ends still in her teens Emma marries a soldier named George Waldron—although as his lies and gambling debts accumulate she’ll come to wonder if that’s actually his real name. When George is jailed for horse theft Emma meets personally with a general and secures his release. When their marriage flounders Emma divorces George and marries Nels Just for reasons more pragmatic than romantic.
Just’s narrative is drawn from the journals of Emma Just a blood relation and memories shared orally with her daughter Agnes. At times in the journals Emma alludes only vaguely to events of which we have no further knowledge; reading between the gaps in the text Just has attempted to reconstruct what might have taken place based on informed speculation. (While the real George was arrested for horse theft how he escaped the jail remains a mystery; the answer Just offers is both persuasive and lends the fictional Emma some much-needed agency.) Where Just excels is in portraying the minutiae of daily life in the West during this era: the drying of stirring spoons the making of soap and candles from tallow the price of cows the effects of frost on crops and gardens. He skillfully renders Emma’s relationship with George; her naïveté and youthful eagerness to be seduced by a man of low character may remind readers of the title character in Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter (1929) who also acquires wisdom in a failed marriage. In one of the book’s more compelling scenes Emma slightly crazed by isolation on the frontier attempts to drown her sons in a river to save them from being murdered by Native Americans. Psychologically the scene is perhaps the most believable moment in the book: small wonder that it’s taken from the real Emma’s diaries. The love of literature displayed by Emma’s sons—who without formal schooling grow up reading classic novels—sounds a plangent note for the vanished mass literacy of a previous century.
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The author tells of when as a lawyer looking for a change of pace he stumbled into a job as assistant prosecutor in Camden County Missouri in the late 2010s. This job was different from anything he’d ever done before and in these pages he details the trials and tribulations of starting fresh in a new position. The problems that rural Missouri faced while he was on the job were unique and Cunningham’s narrative moves seamlessly between the appalling and the absurd. One chapter details the brutal trial of an abuser and master manipulator and explores what it takes to put a monstrous criminal behind bars. The next chapter tells the story of a defendant who was charged with assault and multiple counts of witness tampering but was “physically too big to go to prison” which caused logistical issues that officials had never encountered before. The stories culminate in the author’s attempt to run for head prosecutor the ensuing small-town political drama and the damaging aftermath. Cunningham’s prose is consistently compelling and the pen-and-ink illustrations at the start of each chapter add visual interest. Several moments of humor are sharp and well timed and readers are sure to let out a few chuckles. Other jokes are told in a manner that would be entertaining in fiction but feel uncomfortable in nonfiction even when the people are anonymized. Some descriptions feel quite uncharitable and needlessly harsh such as one of “a large-breasted blonde with duck lips a face of perpetual surprise and a pronounced reputation for drunken flirtation with men of means.” An acidic tone works well when talking about perpetrators of violence but not when referring to co-workers and political opponents. Such severity will inevitably put off some readers who might have otherwise enjoyed the work.
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“This isn’t just a story about Houdini’s death” writes surgeon and forensic historical medical researcher Gillespie at the beginning of her book. “It’s a story about how truth disappears—and why sometimes it takes science to bring it back.” In these pages the author provides a brief biography of magician Harry Houdini from his birth as Ehrich Weiss in 1874 to his transformation into a performer to his world renown as an escape artist to his death in 1926. “By the time Ehrich reinvented himself as Harry Houdini” Gillespie writes “the boy who once felt powerless had learned that control could be seized through skill spectacle and the mastery of perception.” The ironic circumstances of his death have been chronicled and dramatized dozens of times in the ensuing century: A young McGill student impressed by the performer’s frequent stage stunt of easily absorbing punches to his midriff caught Houdini by surprise and punched him in the stomach. The student didn’t know that Houdini was recovering from an operation for a ruptured appendix (some documents hold that the incident occurred before the operation) and the punch killed the magician several days later on October 31 1926. By her own admission Gillespie comes to this seemingly settled story as an outsider. “Houdini wasn’t on my radar” she confesses. “I wasn’t a magician or a collector or even particularly curious about escapes.” Rather the author is a forensic medical investigator and the settled story didn’t sit well with her. She examined Houdini’s death certificate and noticed that the doctor’s handwriting didn’t match what was on the document and just like that the search for what really happened to Houdini was on.
Gillespie’s enthusiasm is very infectious and her compelling text includes a wealth of engaging medical speculation. She notes for instance that Houdini’s second toes on both feet were longer than the big toes a rare anatomical quirk called Morton’s toe that may have aided in some of his escapes. Equally fascinating (although considerably more revolting) is the author’s examination of Dr. Max Thorek whose experiments transplanting monkey testes into humans caught Houdini’s attention and resulted in correspondence visits and possibly (Gillespie posits) an operation in June of 1922. “Thorek worked with scalpels Houdini with shackles” she writes “but both were in the business of defying limits.” Was a clandestine operation involving monkey glands somehow connected with—or even ultimately responsible for—Houdini’s death? “If I wanted to understand what really happened” Gillespie concludes “I needed to talk to the best Houdini experts.” These interviews with experts are as lively and colorful as everything else in the book and the rundown of possible persons of interest regarding Houdini’s death—from his wife Beatrice to his corrosively jealous brother Leopold to his half brother Hermann—gives the narrative the tension and momentum of a whodunit. Running through the more strictly biographical portions of the book are the kinds of gritty detailed assessments only a medical professional could make detailing the severe pain and damage Houdini incurred in many of his escapes and so skillfully concealed from his adoring audiences. It all adds up to a quirky irresistible search for hidden medical truth.
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Gladiator Eleanor “Ellie” Skinner triumphs in one more battle to the death in the arena. The reigning powers (called the Thral) of Draconia demand she fight in one grizzly battle a year; her other option is becoming a mother and Ellie has no interest in raising a child. In Draconia the men rule—they possess undefined magic powers that are stripped away from baby girls as soon as they’re born. Now at 35 with a wooden arm to replace the one she lost in battle sometime during her 17 years in the arena Ellie is the oldest undefeated gladiator in Draconia. Her best friend Rosalind “Roz” Butcher is unwillingly the second-oldest gladiator (unable to have a baby Roz was forced into the arena). Ellie is horrified to realize she herself has become pregnant after one night’s indiscretion. Roz has heard rumors of an old woman who lives by the ocean beyond Draconia who still has her magic; perhaps she can help Ellie get rid of the baby. But first she and Roz must escape from the city. They trek through the grimy sewers of Draconia where the women pick up a teenager named Sam who has his own reasons for wanting to escape. The narrative combines raw graphic violence with edgy humor and unexpected poignancy. Composed in contemporary lingo loaded with expletives the story also throws around occasional antiquated terminology just for fun—Ellie refers to the fetus she’s carrying as the “homunculus.” It won’t take readers long to begin to connect the not-so-subtle similarities between Draconia’s undergirding philosophy with the political and social rhetoric of today. This is not a novel for the squeamish but readers comfortable with the blood gore and rough language have plenty of satisfying adventure in store for them.
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In 1974 the 21-year-old author motivated by the early death of his father from a heart attack embarked on an ambitious attempt to answer two deceptively simple questions: How does one determine the optimal human diet and what diet would one discover with that method? Spitz clarifies early on that he’s neither a physician nor a dietitian but a “writer and self-taught student of nutrition” who approaches his vast subject with the zeal of a dedicated researcher. Beginning with humanity’s ancestral diet of fruits shoots nuts and seeds he traces the development of nutritional science from 18th-century chemistry through modern molecular biology. Along the way he introduces readers to figures such as Antoine Lavoisier whose work helped launch the chemical revolution and 19th-century researchers who sought to unravel the mysteries of protein metabolism carbohydrates vitamins and mineral absorption. He devotes entire chapters to the scientific community’s awakening to vitamins minerals essential amino acids and deficiency diseases. Along the way Spitz recounts animal experiments epidemiological surveys and wartime observations. The book also examines food policy from a deeply political perspective digging into the United Nations’ first forays into food policy after World War II. Spitz discusses the work of such researchers as Denis Burkitt and Michael Greger examining the specifics of what foods and medicines may affect diseases from diabetes to Parkinson’s. The evidence builds toward a central conclusion that nutritional science overwhelmingly supports a whole-food plant-based diet. As Spitz writes “When people eat a steady diet of meat dairy eggs and processed foods they set themselves up for a lifetime of chronic degenerative diseases.” Extensive appendices covering vitamin B12 vitamin D fatty acids sodium food additives genetically modified foods and other topics round out Spitz’s lengthy work.
The book succeeds in introducing readers to an enormous body of research. Rather than a conventional diet manual with meal plans and practical advice Spitz produces something closer to a history of nutritional science and metabolism offering plenty to admire. Spitz has clearly immersed himself in an impressive breadth of information and sometimes his playful asides help lighten the highly technical material. (“Ahhh…but now I’m getting ahead of myself” he jokes at one point.) But it’s not always clear whether Spitz is writing a textbook-style history or a persuasive layperson’s argument for a plant-based diet. Lengthy discussions of biochemical pathways metabolic cycles chemical formulas and historical experiments (including some rather gruesome ones involving animals) leave the book feeling more like a graduate-level survey course than a guide for general readers. Although his attention to detail demonstrates an impressive command of his subject his broader arguments can feel frustratingly distant. Spitz’s ultimate case for a plant-based diet is persuasive by the end and his synthesis of decades of research creates a compelling rationale for emphasizing whole-plant foods. But readers drawn in by the subtitle’s promise of a layperson’s guide may find themselves somewhat frustrated.Read more...
Apples carrots bread chicken cereal granola bars milk peanut butter potatoes and rice: These are the only 10 foods that Zillah Scriven will eat. Her extreme pickiness is one of several attributes that make the 23-year-old Zillah feel like a child. She’s also only five feet tall and still lives at home with her mother Paula whose obsession with safety causes her to indulge her daughter’s dietary restrictions much to the chagrin of nutritionists and Zillah’s absent father. Zillah is slowly working her way through college—her fear of using public bathrooms limits how many classes she can take per day—but she’s hoping to land an internship and move in with her boyfriend Cliff. One day while sitting in her bedroom Zillah hears a sentiment spoken in the next apartment that closely matches her own: “My life revolves around fear and the fear keeps me stuck here at home.…I want my adult life to begin.” She realizes that she’s listening to a neighbor’s conversation with her therapist. Zillah begins to regularly eavesdrop on these therapy sessions soon learning that the stranger is an agoraphobe who hasn’t left her apartment in months. Zillah begins to recognize that she shares several anxious tendencies with this woman and even wonders aloud about seeing a therapist herself although Paula quickly shuts down the idea: It’s “called ‘being an adult’ and you don’t need to pay some therapist to do it for you.” When Zillah unexpectedly befriends her mysterious neighbor—a woman named Lise—she begins to explore the reasons for her own diet and how they’ve been keeping her from living the life she wants.
Kinn brings Zillah to life with an idiosyncratic narrative voice capturing the revulsion and neuroses that dominate her life. Here for instance Zillah describes the horror of eating a strawberry: “I imagine the slippery spatter and viscera in my mouth. Invading my throat. Choking me. Leaving a taste I won’t be able to get rid of…My stomach tightens like I’ve drunk from a cup of dirty paintbrush water. It flows through me turning me to brackish yuck.” Kinn is a clinical psychologist and takes pains to accurately portray the condition known as ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder) as well as the treatment strategy ERP (exposure and response prevention therapy) which uses lighthearted activities and games to help patients confront their problems. The novel often feels like an enactment of such therapy placing readers convincingly in the position of Zillah in order to move them toward a state of understanding and catharsis. The book explores the protagonist’s realization that her intense pickiness isn’t pickiness at all but a peculiar regimen forced upon her—the result of a family history that she knows nothing about. Although the book lacks some of the sharpness that one might expect in a literary novel the reading experience is nonetheless transformative.
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Rosalind knows all too well what happens when patriarchs let their vanity spoil their stewardship of their families’ fortunes. Her own father’s disappearance left her nothing but a pile of bad debts. Although marrying Devon Winterbourne son of the Duke of Casselmaine would have secured her future Rosalind chose the road less traveled earning her keep by helping the genteel women of Regency London solve domestic problems large and small. Since she’s remained on good terms with Winterbourne she’s not surprised when he wants her to meet his intended Clara Kinsdale. But Winterbourne has a greater surprise: He wants Rosalind to visit Clara’s home in Bath. Having frittered away most of the Kinsdale fortune Clara’s father Sir Anthony hopes to put his family back on sound financial footing by running his thoroughbred Kinsdale’s Pride in the Somersetshire Sweepstakes with the help of Mrs. Lynn a dodgy Bath widow. The city’s racing pundits rate the mare as closer to the glue factory than the finish line so Winterbourne is counting on Rosalind’s insight and her experience with feckless fathers to figure out what’s really going on. Wilde’s feisty heroine does not disappoint. Rosalind is a delight as are her colorful companions; it’s a shame that Alice Littlefield and Amelia McGowan are consigned such small roles in this adventure. A minor note: Wilde could occasionally use some editing. “Principle officer” is an easy mistake to decode but repeatedly calling a parterre a “pied-à-terre” is confusing.
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Mia’s got a brand-new diary—and a dream: joining Greenpeace “to save the baby seals.” But her mom is dating her algebra teacher her crush barely knows she exists and her dad’s just informed her that she must move to Genovia to learn to be a princess. It’s been decades since the 2000 release of The Princess Diaries and the 2001 Disney film adaptation and the story’s late 1990s setting shines through. Illustrator Crandall depicts the fashions the landline phones and the chunky desktop PCs—with no social media or celebrity gossip blogs in sight. Yet the fairy tale doesn’t feel dated—or no more so than any story wherein the protagonist discovers she’s the hereditary princess of a small European country. The full-color manga-influenced art depicts an abbreviated version of Mia’s torments as her Grandmère attempts to mold her into a stylized femme ideal of a princess. Mia’s best friend Lilly Moscovitz wholly disapproves of her new aesthetic on social and political grounds. Mia takes the opportunity to befriend classmate Tina Hakim Baba (one of the few characters who isn’t white). She also grows much closer to Lilly’s brother Michael who “knows HTML” and “looks really good without a shirt.” This graphic novel adds nothing new but still solidly communicates the charm and humor of the original.
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It’s the Sunday before Tess Lowell’s second wedding but the painstaking planning for her union to practically perfect state Senate hopeful Warren Ashley didn’t prepare her for the drama that’s about to unfold over a week at her family’s Cape Cod estate. Because unbeknownst to Tess her troublemaking brother Sebastian invited her ex-husband Peter Hyun to the festivities. Peter a working-class artist doesn’t relish the thought of re-entering Tess’ WASPy world but five years after she divorced him while he was in treatment for alcoholism he can’t resist the idea of finally getting closure. Even more tempting is the thought of showing up at the wedding with Maynard “Mitch” Mitchell on his arm. When Peter meets the handsome young aspiring writer at a dinner party they hit it off right away. Mitch agrees to attend the wedding as Peter’s fake boyfriend in the hope of getting some juicy material for his next project. But when Peter and Mitch are drawn into Tess’ orbit the tension among all three of them threatens to boil over. Fans of the Hollywood classic will recognize the original in broad strokes here—the privileged daughter of a well-to-do family the handsome ex-husband she can’t quite shake the bumbling but charming writer thrown into their midst—but readers hoping for the screwball humor and crackling dialogue of the original may be disappointed. Stoddard’s decision to connect the central love triangle on all sides is inspired and Peter and Mitch’s bisexuality add welcome depth. But the text is overstuffed with characters and padded with unnecessary plot points that slow everything down.
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Clara Cowan and Seb Bonami meet in London when they’re both at the beginning of their adult lives. Clara dreams of being a director and is already hard at work making films with her obnoxious actor boyfriend. Seb has tried music modeling and acting but none of them feel like a calling to him. It takes the two of them some time to end up together but when they do their love affair is big and passionate. But as time goes by their often-dramatic partnership begins to show cracks. Although Clara has always known that she’s meant to work in film Seb is not quite sure what his purpose is. Clara pushes him to keep going but he can’t help but feel that none of it matters to him—in fact he’d much rather quit and start a family if only Clara would agree. When Clara casts him in her biggest film yet their clashing personalities and desires lead to a breakup so explosive that there’s no chance of reconciliation…except that because of their shared friends they keep running into each other. Palmer creates an expansive love story that spans years and holds lots of surprises. The unique structure is a standout—each chapter is told by a different person in Clara and Seb’s life whether a friend a parent a barista or a random passenger on the bus. Palmer doesn’t flinch putting Clara and Seb through the wringer as they endure losses and betrayals that make it hard to believe they’ll ever find their way back to each other. For readers who like romances with plenty of angst and torment this is a satisfying read.
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Seventeen-year-old Aria Lendell has always been a hopeless romantic and inveterate daydreamer. But ever since something terrible happened to her identical twin Cady her imagination has lost its spark. Aria suddenly starts having lucid dreams at midnight; the fantastical settings offer a reprieve from reality. She shares the dreamworld with Strat Madigan who attends St. Swithun’s a boys’ prep school in nearby Sacramento. The white-presenting pair’s encounters at midnight in daydreams and in real life lead to the return of memories complicating things even more. Aria and Strat realize they must have gotten memory erasures from Aracen Exradere. While this elective surgery is common for adults it’s permitted for minors only in exceptional circumstances. Why and how did Aria and Strat erase each other—especially when their memories are the stuff of fairy tales? And why is the normally surefire ArEx procedure failing? As they piece together the puzzle they confront the old and present versions of themselves. Using vividly descriptive prose Bourne explores relationships particularly the gaps between expectation and reality. Both leads have frequently capitulated to what others needed them to be at the expense of their real selves. Now that they have a second chance at love they learn to embrace truth in all its messiness and manage relationships new and old romantic and familial. The plot unravels slowly with allusions and teases but the story maintains a fast pace.
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In the year 3989 Sook Joo begins her teen years living at an orphanage with her grandfather Ryu a village surgeon and master practitioner of Orikido an ancient form of martial arts that uses traditional techniques and locally fabricated steel weapons. When the gentle peace of the orphanage is broken by a group of “Slängers”—a notorious gang of enforcers for the underworld boss Quan—Ryu is killed defending his home. Sook Joo is separated from her pseudo-sibling Futotta and sent to live with her Uncle Hai himself a degenerate who allows Sook Joo to be raped to pay off a debt. She’s then kidnapped by a human trafficking ring and selected by the mysterious Cho who will deliver her to her ultimate fate: to be interred aboard a nightmare ship where passenger-slaves are made to fight each other often to the death. Though she did nothing to deserve such a punishment Sook Joo is well equipped to survive it given her experience in Orikido and as she fights to stay alive she plots her revenge against the powerful sinister forces led by Quan. Cooke and Ryan’s gripping novel takes place in a world not entirely different from our own despite being set nearly 2000 years in the future. The setting is an intriguing reality in which 21st-century technology (and its imagined advances) mingles effectively with the old-world ways of life concerning loyalty honor and martial arts. The combat scenes are well drawn especially when the opponents are mismatched: “Sook Joo kicked her in the groin threw a sharp punch to her nose and again cast her to the ground. Tòa half-blinded with blood and tears leapt up and took a series of wild swings. She’d clearly had no training. She was a farm girl or street orphan nothing more.” While Cooke and Ryan may not be breaking new ground they’ve delivered an entertaining action-packed revenge tale.
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