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Despite her brief moment of internet fame after catching a killer at a crime writing festival in A Novel Murder (2025) Jane is without an agent or publisher and suffering from writer’s block. Still she has journeyed from Cumbria to London’s Willow Tree Books to celebrate the publication of a debut thriller by her new friend Natasha Martez. Joining Jane at the festive literary party is Daniel Thurston now a publicity assistant at Polar Bear Publishing Natasha’s publisher. But once again murder finds the strikingly tall but socially awkward writer when she stumbles upon not one but two locked-room crimes. In the bookstore’s storeroom she discovers the body of Daisy Olsson assistant to noted editor Hugo Strauss. Then Jane finds Hugo dead in his secret study. Besides their work association is there another connection between the two victims? As before Jane teams up with Natasha and Daniel to identify the culprit while irritating the local police detective. This meandering second outing by a former publishing professional lacks the lively spark and comic spirit that made the first book so enjoyable. Flatly drawn characters and a plotline that drags every which way make for a sometimes-tiresome read. But Jane remains a compelling protagonist as she tries to rebuild her life and resurrect her writing career.
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Introducing the main characters of “The Axe” the narrator—omniscient omnipotent and jaded—suddenly pauses: “But none of that matters because these aren’t real people and it’s hard enough to hold onto your own memories without holding onto theirs.” Some of Row’s characters are aware that they’re characters; some of his narrators struggle against the constraints of their own roles. (“None of these details are accurate by the way” says the first-person narrator of “The Sliding Door” midscene.) Stories that don’t explicitly satirize or deconstruct literary or literary-world conventions (see “Meditation for a Small Audience” or “Reading Group Guide”) explore storytelling meaning-making representation in other ways: In “Late Blues” two women contend with the legacy of a Black quiltmaker whose work was revered. In “Young Adult” a pair of teenagers engineer and then livestream robot sex. Throughout all this Row references Beckett Lukács Marshall McLuhan and other literary theorists but also seems to emphasize the ultimate futility—the tedium really—of all that theorizing about something we seem unable to finally quit. We go on telling stories—in books at the dinner table to ourselves. This is implied by the very fluidity of Row’s prose: Even as he (or his narrators) perform a kind of ironic detachment—“As if what happens to me matters to anyone else except to flatter their own better judgment. The story is arrogant; the story is an elaborate inside joke”—you can’t stop reading. In other words Row’s storytelling is masterful even as he tears down the very tropes that stories are defined by. Some stories are stronger than others (“Dear Yale” feels particularly bloodless) but as a whole the book is brilliantly conceived and executed.
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British academic/researcher Challenger (How To Be Animal 2017) takes off from and frequently returns to Aristotle’s thinking in this wide-ranging sometimes confounding meditation on theories of what distinguishes life from non-life. For Aristotle and for Challenger life resides in the individual organism—whether plant animal or other—navigating in a world of other organisms as well as non-living elements and forces. She adopts his term “psyche” interpreting it as meaning a “goal-directed self-regulating living body” and takes off from it to speculate on the existence of a “psychosphere” “a realm of intention perception and responsiveness that overlaps and interacts with the material world.” Dipping into the work of multiple scientists and philosophers she devotes much of the book to arguing that life and intelligence are by their nature embodied whether in the simplest of organisms or in human beings and that thoughts of anything like a soul or consciousness separate from the body are misguided. She also makes a case that artificial intelligence—which she believes ought to be called “artificial obedience”—belongs to the realm of the mechanical and material rather than the living. At times Challenger seems to have bitten off more than she can chew: A long chapter on the various theories of the origins of life on Earth adds little to her argument and bogs down in a recognition of the “formidable challenges when it comes to considering life’s origins.” However she is at her best when delving into the intricacies of life as a sequoia tree or a bee or making her readers question their assumptions of life as it is subjectively experienced rather than attempting a grand synthesis of its meaning.
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After finding a love that was more than she’d ever hoped for Claire Sutherland finds herself alone again. A boating accident left her a deeply traumatized orphan. A mysterious neurological ailment took her fiancé. When Elias’ mother invites her to their home for a memorial service Claire hesitates at first. She’s never met any of Elias’ relatives because he wanted nothing to do with them. But the lure of family is too strong for Claire to resist so she accepts the invitation to the Ashbury clan’s island compound. “Looming above everything like a dragon on its hoard” Harrow Point is a massive assemblage of spires and gables carved into a cliff. What Claire doesn’t see from the outside is the labyrinthine rooms that spiral down into the dark depths of the ocean. Whitten has assembled all the essentials for a gothic novel. There’s an isolated and endangered heroine. There are family secrets that won’t stay hidden. And the setting is the perfect blend of the sublime and the uncanny. What this novel lacks is compelling characters and persuasive worldbuilding. There’s one character in this story who has depth and it’s not the protagonist. It is instead Elias’ brother Ash and Claire’s refusal to recognize that he’s trying to help her gets annoying fast. She’s grieving she longs to be part of a family again and nothing she learned about Ash from Elias makes her inclined to trust her fiancé’s older brother. That said Claire is dense to the point of being ridiculous and scenes that should be terrifying aren’t. One reason gothic novels are often set in the past is that this makes it easier for readers to suspend disbelief. Whitten’s contemporary setting means that the more the reader learns about the Ashbury family’s dark secrets the less plausible they become.
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Poppy and Granddad’s Sunday tradition involves whipping up recipes from scratch. Not only does Granddad cook he also collects memories and recipes from the whole family which he documents in a scrapbook. Poppy loves hearing his stories about the rest of the family—and is especially excited to try making Great-Great-Granddad’s famous sweet potato pie. So this Sunday Poppy and Granddad head to the farmers market for the necessary ingredients. Semmer’s warm flat digitally rendered illustrations let the colorful patterned pages of the family recipe book and Poppy’s hand-drawn shopping list pop off the page. And the farmers market—with its large sunflowers and freshly baked breads—offers a delightful detour. Back in the kitchen Poppy sports a green-and-white polka-dotted apron and Granddad a cream-colored one as they begin baking. Characters in this loving Black family differ in hairstyle and skin tone; shifts from closeup spot illustrations of Granddad and Poppy prepping the meal to an overhead full-page spread of the dinner table make for a visually dynamic depiction of family. Appended are two recipes (sweet potato pie and a perhaps much easier sweet apple heart).
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What is one to do upon discovering that a favorite artist is a monster? That’s one of the questions that Dixon an assistant professor of philosophy at Cardiff University grapples with in this provocative work. Her goal is “to take you on a journey through the history of immoral art exploring some of the most controversial and volatile works humanity has ever produced” from “erotic literature that has inspired murderers” to “beautiful paintings created by paedophiles.” Dixon compares the concept of depraved art to a “Hydra of five screeching heads” and identifies five areas of closer investigation: the varying definitions throughout history of what constitutes obscenity; art that incites or is believed to have incited criminal behavior; cultural products that “prop up systems of oppression” by objectifying women as in Édouard Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) or suggesting the inferiority of people of color; immoral artists whose works are meant to malign or demean as when Paul Gauguin a predator who “used his colonial privilege to sexually abuse girls as young as thirteen” painted Spirit of the Dead Watching (1892) “the depiction of a dark-skinned girl in an abusive relationship with an older white man”; and the question of works in which acts of cruelty are part of their creation from “the problematic use of ivory in medieval sculpture across the world to twentieth-century conceptual art that involves setting live animals on fire.” She concludes with a timely chapter on authoritarian attempts to manipulate culture by “not only targeting the art of persecuted groups but driving out any cultural products which threaten their totalitarian power” from Nazi book burnings to President Trump’s “Orwellian” attacks on American museums. Whatever one’s opinion on the question of whether one can or should separate the art from the artist readers will find much to ponder in this well-researched effort.
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An omniscient narrator explains that Shy (who’s white with brown patches) is “the smallest and quietest pup at the shelter. She seldom made a sound.” When a light-skinned man with floppy brown hair visits the shelter and says that he’s looking for a dog “who can keep me company and help me concentrate while I work” Shy seems like a natural fit. And she is—initially. But when the man who is a pianist tells Shy that he must practice she’s all kinds of disruptive: “At first she gave a small whine. Then a soft woof under her breath. Then…‘Ow-WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’” The man tries to divert Shy so he can prepare for an upcoming concert but it’s no use: She keeps yowling along as he plays. The tale's ending is fairly inevitable but it’s heartwarming nonetheless and it can also be taken as a gentle rebuke to artistic rigidity. Andrews and Hamilton have blended their voices into a graceful storytelling instrument and Byrne’s pen-and-ink art has a timeless quality channeling the urbanity of Hilary Knight’s work in the likewise New York–set Eloise books. An authors’ note reveals that Shy is based on a poodle Andrews owned years ago who also liked to make herself heard.
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After a meteoric rise within the National Ballet Theatre Zahara Douglass a 21-year-old Black ballerina has the life she always dreamed of. But Zahara is emotionally detached haunted by a fissure in reality that only she seems able to remember: When she was 16 she saw her twin sister Annica get into a car and disappear. Moments later history seemed to rewrite itself—without Annica. Now Zahara’s return to her hometown of Modesto California for a performance sparks painful memories and fuels her determination to seek answers. The looming threat of the Y2K millennium bug creates a sense of unease and danger in contrast to prose filled with movement reflecting Zahara’s identity as a dancer. Characters stridently debate whether technology isolates people or connects them with no consensus. Teaming up with a private investigator Theo Morgan Zahara digs deeper into a past that doesn’t seem to exist and finds evidence of fantastical abilities. The author weaves together threads of myth and technology interspersing evocative tape recordings that Zahara’s late father left her along with entries from Annica’s computer diary bringing these characters’ vitality to the page. Zahara and Theo’s travels through California in search of answers unfold with echoes of a noir mystery saturated with the ever-present question of who to trust and how much. Zahara’s quest for the truth unearths one of the book’s central preoccupations: What would you sacrifice for those you love and are you prepared to live with the consequences?
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Ever since Roxana’s mum died in a car accident four years ago her father hasn’t been the same. When he accepts a job in America it seems to offer a second chance at happiness. Roxana’s older sister Azar stays in England while she and her younger brother Ehsan travel with Dad—although in just six weeks Roxana will head to London for university. Since childhood Roxana has struggled with sleep paralysis; it intensified after Mum’s death. Newly arrived in Colorado she has a recurring nightmare in which she and a beautiful golden-haired boy are hunted down and die tragically—this time they’re tied up and burned at the stake. Terrifyingly her dreams are manifesting into reality. Not only are Roxana’s wrists bruised when she awakens as if they’d been bound together but she later encounters Zain an Iranian American teen who looks exactly like the boy from her dreams. When Roxana witnesses Zain killing a creature in an alley her life changes irrevocably. She learns about a hidden family secret the centurieslong bond between herself and Zain—and their impending doom. Unfortunately Zain’s character is too lightly developed to make the love story convincing. Uneven pacing and worldbuilding that feels forced and rushed result in a densely packed stand-alone novel that would have benefitted from being expanded into a duology.
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Math unnerves Nikhil who prefers art storytime and gardening. But Nikhil’s teacher Ms. Oates suggests that the youngster write letters to math (“She thinks it will help us be friends. It won’t”). Over time Nikhil’s hostility (“You make my tummy hurt” “I still don’t want to be friends”) turns to curiosity and even passion. Told entirely through letters the book spans a school year as Nikhil begins to realize math is everywhere. Shapes like octagons are all around us; folding snowflakes helps the child learn about symmetry—and lets the youngster fuse a love of art with an appreciation for math. Turns out that astronauts also use math—another career path for Nikhil. Humor and clever wordplay drive the narrative (“Did you hear the one about the hen who counts her eggs every day? She is a brilliant mathemachicken” riffs Nikhil at one point). Haldar makes clear that the child’s dislike of math is rooted in a fear of messing up—something that will resonate with many students. But she emphasizes math is about more than getting the right answers; it’s about passion and discovery. Martinez’s energetic artwork has a childlike flair (doodles appear on Nikhil’s letters) while also clarifying the concepts discussed. Brown-skinned Nikhil is cued South Asian.
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Three siblings look ahead to a long weekend with older sister ’Tea in charge while Momma is working. Middle child Taylor is delighted that morning to find the titular postcard in the kitchen. Indeed the whole neighborhood is abuzz with excitement over the opportunity to exchange their postcards for a surprise box “filled to the brim with wonder and possibility.” Taylor’s particularly excited about the possibility of finding “fancy little macaroni” in her box and she declares “This time I’m going to be the first in line!” As ’Tea holds their baby sister Taylor takes the lead to the pick-up point gleefully greeting and kindly helping others along the way while recalling memories of boxes past. When Taylor’s family finally receives their box Taylor’s initial disappointment at the lack of macaroni is quickly rectified by generous Ms. Penny who hands over a package of the pasta. Momma already home is ready to create “magic... and macaroni!” Allen’s pages are vivid with colorful energy her contagiously expressive characters thoroughly diverse in skin tone (Taylor is brown-skinned ’Tea beige-skinned and their baby sister pale-skinned). Her thoughtful author’s note highlights the “great shame around food insecurity” and reveals she was once one of those hungry children. She poignantly dedicates the book to her younger self.
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Despite efforts to bring them up to speed readers unfamiliar with the series opener may flounder as the mildly surreal continuing storyline takes a few more dizzying spins in this second entry. Being the last of the murderous Paladins still at liberty after Rodeo’s application of the Plunger of Truth bad guy Athelstan concocts an uncharacteristically clever ploy to steal the powers of the “fiendish tweenzilla” who wielded it by exploiting her friendship with the multiverse’s last living Sidney—newest and only boy member of her closely knit posse the Daughters of Mayhem. The trap is sprung naturally just as a tiff has Sidney questioning the depth of that friendship. Breakneck visual pacing and the frequent use of silent sequences and reaction shots to enhance both comical and dramatic moments give Miles’ cleanly drawn frames an appealing cinematic feel as events hurtle toward a tumultuous climax. At the head of a cast that is thanks to incremental differences between worlds wildly multicolored and multispecies the two brown-skinned leads come through swimmingly for one another—and also deal just deserts to Athelstan with an assist from Rodeo’s large and astonishingly versatile wad of bubble gum.
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In this exacting and verbose recounting Roberts tracks Washington’s travels from Manhattan to Maryland following the defeat of the “mighty British Army.” Along the way he’s feted by admiring crowds. Finally he reaches his destination and the pivotal moment that Roberts has been musing over: What power will the influential Washington choose to exert? Will he become king? Instead shocking everyone Washington “bows to the citizens of his new country” and resigns. The book is laser-focused on this brief period and the moment Washington relinquishes authority to the people is powerful. But young people will need to navigate a fairly wordy narrative before arriving at this symbolic moment. Additionally the book assumes readers have considerable prior knowledge about America’s birth. The work is clearly well researched reflected in the thoughtful backmatter (which includes an afterword a timeline bibliography and further reading) but some elements—for instance how Washington’s commitment to democracy clashed with his role as a slave owner—would have felt more germane incorporated into the main text. Gilbert’s realistic densely crosshatched art in subdued tones has a classical grandness befitting the book’s solemn topic; these sweeping spreads would look right at home on a museum wall. Figures from all walks of life including elegant ballroom occupants dark-skinned children perched in trees watching fireworks and weary tattered soldiers have theatrical flair.
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A mock trial becomes intensely personal for Indian American sophomore Siya Kumar when the case her team is working on is eerily similar to the circumstances of her lawyer mother’s death. She has a budding crush on good-looking Rajiv Raghavan school all-star and co-head of the mock trial team but things get even more complicated when truths become mired in controversies secrets and distrust obscuring Siya’s foundational relationships and memories. Still the aspiring attorney holds on to her mother’s belief in telling the truth. The story becomes entwined with that of the goddess Sita from the Ramayana. Siya’s mother loved Sita the wife of Rama even giving her daughter one of her many names. (Raj coincidentally was named after Rama.) Siya’s English teacher encourages her to consider depictions of women and she reflects on what it takes to tell the truth and how Sita’s “story ends with loss…not because she couldn’t prove herself a truth-teller but despite the fact that she did.” The book questions privilege social media fallout and bitter rivalries but it also tenderly portrays grief and its aftermath as the Kumars navigate changes including Siya’s college-aged sister Asha’s disapproval of their father’s dating the widowed Aparna Auntie. In her YA debut LaRocca weaves a gripping narrative with sharply etched characters a tightly written plot and emotional highs and lows.
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A primly besuited bunny—bowler hat and suit a clear nod to the painter René Magritte—prepares to bite into a delicious carrot but is stunned to discover that it is not in fact a carrot at all. Turns out Hungry Bunny is handling a mere picture of a carrot. Distraught (and ravenous) Hungry Bunny sets out to find a real carrot to munch on. Eventually our hero stumbles upon a farm with what appears to be a real tractor a real cow and a real carrot! But as the cow points out none of this is real. Our protagonist isn’t “real” either though so what does Hungry Bunny care? Hewitt goes right to the edge of breaking the fourth wall of this story yet never quite clarifies that the reason everything here is paper and paint is because it is in fact in a book. The fun mixed-media art proves the true lure instead; Hewitt has fun with an array of different art styles for the different carrots. The influence of Magritte will be evident to adult enthusiasts but familiarity is not required for comprehension. Rather the book should serve as inspiration for art teachers interested in replicating different types of carrot-inspired media.
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Mo Ellery never wanted to get involved in detection. All she wanted was to hold on to her live-in boyfriend and keep her job at a Chicago marketing agency. After losing both within a few minutes of each other (the losses are connected but you’ll never guess how) she moves to downscale Buffalo Park and takes the only job she can get as a crossing guard near a city school. A driver with a car full of poodles constantly harasses her until the whole crew gets swallowed up in a sinkhole that opens beneath her eyes leaving him dead and the poodles in urgent need of adoption. Scared of being called out by the police Mo reluctantly agrees to take custody of the late Cran Johnston’s show dogs—Jean Valjean Louis XIV and Jacques Cousteau—with the idea of fobbing them off on Tond Johnston Cran’s brother and heir or on Benny the dog trainer Cran had just fired or really on pretty much anyone. Along the way she gets sucked into investigating not one but two maybe-murders. Working with Marlowe Golden a pink-haired 12-year-old who shifts smartly from giving Mo a hard time about crossing the street to installing herself as Mo’s sidekick she follows a series of hunches that cast suspicion on nearly everyone in Chicago from Alderman Merle Carey to Tasha his hot assistant who quickly becomes Mo’s new lover. The frantic pace will make many readers accept a plot that’s even wackier than the protagonist.
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If everyone in Clifton County knows everyone else that may be because half the people in North Falls one of the county’s four cities are named Clifton. Det. Allison Vickery doesn’t turn up for the funeral of acting sheriff Emmy Clifton’s mother Myrna Joy Clifton first because she’s fleeing her abusive husband Bill Garrison then because she’s shot dead. Her murder pulls Emmy who inherited her job and all its headaches when her father veteran sheriff Gerald Clifton was killed six weeks ago and retired FBI agent Jude Archer the much older sister who ran off to San Francisco 40 years back away from the funeral rites and into another of Slaughter’s matchless webs of intrigue inside and outside the Clifton clan. Allison wasn’t the only person shot in the house she was frantic to leave and the evidence suggests that the shooter had also been targeting her teenage daughter Mandy all along. Working closely together even though their troubled family history puts them constantly at odds Emmy and Jude thrash through a thicket of wrongdoing from a thriving drug ring to a corrupt cop who’s rumored to have buried some crucial evidence before they link Allison’s killing to an ancient murder trial that took a 180-degree turn after one of the jurors died. Every twist in the path to the truth is riveting—especially the final revelation which puts all the others in the shade—but the most important relationship is between the two investigators one of whom harbors a secret the other can’t imagine.
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An unlikely crush on international climate activist Greta Thunberg sets in motion a fatal chain of events in this small-town story with far-reaching implications. Inspired and besotted by Thunberg Olaf Svensson embarks on a mission to build a wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod’s Provincetown by any means necessary. His convoluted plan involves hiring fellow Swedes scientists and newlyweds Leif and Astrid Borgen who get hired at Outermost Aquaculture with promises to use genetic engineering to create bigger better and thus more valuable scallops. Secretly they’ll conduct their own work on behalf of Olaf developing a toxic variant of scallops that will ravage the area where he wishes to build his wind farm. But when Provincetown locals start getting sick and even dying from the poisonous shellfish the wheels quickly come off the plan. Astrid is burdened by guilt and Leif turns to alcohol and women as his marriage falls apart. All while Samantha Fuller—Pulitzer-winning journalist for the Boston Times—gets wind of a story that’s much bigger than tainted seafood. Also caught in the turbines is Isabella Ferreira a local fisherwoman who becomes the unexpected political voice of reason between the various environmentalist camps. At its heart the novel navigates the terrain between the necessity of viable and affordable alternative energy sources to fossil fuel and the real-world impact they may have on livelihoods and even the environments these solutions are purported to save. The author’s background as an award-winning health columnist is evident throughout giving clear-eyed explanations of complex scientific material. She also has a firm grasp of the complexities that arise in relationships between ambitious career-minded couples. Those who have a keen interest in coastal life or environmental policy would do well to put this on their summer beach-reading list.
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“You start with a blank canvas. / Any size or shape will do. / Because the canvas is your world…” Second-person narration guides readers through basic instructions for painting on canvas. Corresponding images tell the story of Bob Ross (1942-1995) the small-screen painting instructor famous for his philosophy that there are no mistakes only “happy accidents.” Sometimes Ho’s text draws a connection to Ross’s life as an artist: The words “You fill a palette with globs of paint” appear above an illustration of young Ross finger-painting in his high chair. At other times the text is more open-ended: “The canvas beckons. / A limitless sky and a waiting horizon” finds Ross as a young man in front of an armed forces recruiting center. Young readers whose PBS-viewing habits are limited to children’s fare will likely have no idea who Bob Ross was—and Ho keeps things vague until a more concrete author’s note—but they should nevertheless enjoy the book’s calming Ross-like narration and Miyares’ ink-and-gouache art: It looks woodblocky at times and painterly at others and suggests a talent unlikely to have been cultivated while watching an instructional TV show no matter how good.
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Sixteen-year-old Kit who’s “prone to freckle under the dimmest sunlight” has “murky hazel eyes” and is affected by a painful disability that reads like rheumatoid arthritis. She was a commoner until her mother married the king. Kit and her new sister Catherine who has pale skin and dark hair in ringlets are dear friends but Catherine is the target of Kit’s mother’s jealousy—and Kit has been victimized by the king since she was 14. After fleeing from their parents (and the consequences of a magical body swap) the princesses try to help the handsome northern island prince who’s afflicted by a selkie curse. Kind brown-skinned Prince Idris discovers on his 18th birthday that his ancestor wronged one of the Hidden Folk (the “mermaids finfolk and selkies” who inhabit this alternate Scotland). Now in a much-delayed fairy revenge he’ll dance himself to death. Kit can break Idris’ curse but struggles with her shameful secret desire not to swap back into her own body which is the price of saving him. The source of this work the Orkney folktale “Kate Crackernuts” is feminist in the oral tradition; this modern retelling doesn’t change the original themes of empowerment. All in all this is a solid enjoyable entry in the well-established genre of moody romantic folktale adaptations.
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