Books

A fairy tale that is charmingly told and delightfully illustrated, The Sweetest of Lemons is truly the sweetest of books. While traveling by car to visit his grandfather’s farm outside of Isfahan, Iran, a boy listens to a storyteller share the fantastic tale of a young man’s journey to take back “a lemon so perfectly

In 2020 and 2021, news articles speculated that the few dozen remaining lesbian bars in the U.S. might soon be gone. This concerned Rachel Karp, who had made memories in several of these bars and recognized them as repositories of queer knowledge and records of queer lives. As she puts it, “For centuries, queerness was

Walter Mosley appears on our video call in a room bathed in sunshine. Small rectangular abstract prints on the wall behind him glow, and glass and plastic bottles on shelving near the window shimmer. When I ask where he’s calling from, Mosley says “Santa Monica”—which also happens to be the setting for the opening pages

Wild animals and even wilder times greet the corporate crew of Cartwright Media’s annual retreat in Rachel Moore’s Safari Murder Party. On a private island off the coast of Madagascar, an aspiring photojournalist discovers that lions, cheetahs and spotted hyenas aren’t the most feral beasts. Fletcher Spence has been biding her time as Dyer Cartwright’s

Fans of the cult-classic film Jennifer’s Body, lovers of modern gothic fiction and those who studied abroad in Paris take note: Leslie Baird’s debut novel, Salomé, may be your next favorite book. Salomé is a feminist retelling of the biblical tale of the daughter of Herodias who danced for Herod in exchange for the head

Some memoirs swagger with the author’s self-importance. Not historian Ada Ferrer’s magnificent, aptly titled Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter. Ferrer, a habitué of musty, fragile archives and a brilliant writer, won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Cuba: An American History. In this memoir, she writes “as the strange daughter who loves

Emma Mills takes readers to 2008 Los Angeles, where tabloid journalism and internet gossip sites are on the rise, in Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet. Rachel West is working as a copy editor for a celebrity-focused tabloid when she befriends actress Molly Byrne, a former child star who’s just as likely to make headlines

Since the death of their adopted aunt at the hands of a gang called the Lucky Crows, the three Kawakami siblings have rebuilt their lives with an eye toward revenge. But just when their target is within reach, Toshiko Kawakami blows her cover. In a moment of panic, she steals a magical pearl from one

By the time she was 40, Jesmyn Ward had won two National Book Awards for her novels Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing—the first woman, and first Black American, to do so. Ward grew up poor in the poorest part of Mississippi, and as a young writer, she was determined to tell the stories

When Donna Barba Higuera and her husband, the children’s author Mark Maciejewski, moved from their city to their country home in Washington state, they added a turret to gain additional views of the adjacent fjord and Olympic National Forest across the water. They anticipated getting lots of writing done amid such beauty and peace. “I

Nick Cutter has built a ravenous fan base thanks to his knack for portraying the visceral elements of horror. From his breakout novel, The Troop, all the way through more recent releases like The Queen, to pick up a Cutter book means finding new ways to make your skin crawl. The Dorians is no exception. A

Katherine Center’s The Shippers is bursting with festive wedding celebrations and a meddling, good-hearted cast of characters. Her newest rom-com follows the reunion of childhood best friends, Josephine “JoJo” Burton and Cooper Watts, and the hijinks that ensue when Cooper returns home from London. Moments before walking down the aisle, anxious JoJo is shocked to

Mortedants can talk to the dead. Sort of. What they can actually do is sift through the bitter miasma of a soul’s confused and terrified last moments, and that’s only if they’re actually good at their job. Mortedant Hasp is good at his job. He is also a misanthropic prick who needs to pay his

Meticulously researched and vividly written, Yale historian Alan Mikhail’s Newcomers: The Story of Anthony and Grietje and the Founding of New York is the story of a poor, newly married couple who left Amsterdam behind and played an important role in the establishment of what became New York City. When Anthony and Grietje Jansen van

“All children understand what the first glimpse of the white night-blooming lily means,” declares Xiong Liang’s mythical and inventive series starter Lost in Peach Blossom Paradise). It’s a sign of summer’s end. As a return to school draws near, Little Yu spends one last day by the river, where she follows a trail of peach

Running parallel to the events in Kennedy Ryan’s first installment of her Hollywood Renaissance series, Reel, second-chance romance Score is a powerful companion piece that shines on its own. Like Reel, most of Score’s narrative centers on the making of a biopic about the (fictional) Harlem Renaissance singer Dessi Blue, retelling the story behind the

Neriya knows that the crows of her shtetl are far smarter than any she’s met anywhere else. Every summer when her family returns to the country, she is amazed at how quickly the corvids figure out the puzzles and games she sets for them. But Neriya may never get to follow her dreams of studying

We know Martin Luther King Jr. as the dynamic minister and activist whose leadership during the Civil Rights Movement led to the passage of landmark legislation that brought all Americans closer to equal rights. But how did he become this towering figure? Lerone Martin, professor of religious studies and director of the Martin Luther King,

These first-time novelists burst onto the scene with books that push the envelope. Originally published here.

The Secrets of the Abbey Jean-Luc Bannalec’s Commissaire Dupin books, set on the windswept coast of Brittany, have been bestsellers since the series’ inception in 2012. The Secrets of the Abbey is the latest and arguably best thus far. When a magpie flies into the house of an elderly, wealthy Bretonne, the woman regards it

Under Water Readers of Tara Menon’s stunning debut novel, Under Water, will be as mesmerized by scenes of exploring Thailand’s coral reefs as they are by her depiction of overwhelming grief. Read more Originally published here.

★ Death’s Daughter S.A. Barnes puts a paranormal-horror spin on an engrossing romance in Death’s Daughter, first in The Children of the Old Ones series. The story stars Jocasta Trelane, a college student and member of a nonhuman race with magical powers. As a renounced descendant of Death, Jocasta feeds off of her classmates’ disappointments and

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was married to her late husband, writer and political adviser Dick Goodwin, for 42 years. Her memoir, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, takes stock of their relationship and mutual passion for politics and history. As she chronicles the massive project they tackled together—sifting through 300

“It’s really hard to get at who Emily Brontë was,” biographer Deborah Lutz remarks, “but also interesting because it is challenging.” In This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, A Life, Lutz approaches the enigma of the “weird, strange, difficult, mysterious person” who created the monumental Wuthering Heights. For Lutz, who is a professor of 19th-century English

What are your bookstore rituals? For example, where do you go first in a store?  I am a good browser in that I go all over the place. I am not a category person. I just like good books, whatever their type or genre. So, you could find me almost anywhere, I suppose.   Tell

As Hurricane Sandy approaches New York City in 2012, 20-something Marissa works at a travel magazine promoting luxury hotels to the uberwealthy. Her editor wants her copy to make subscribers “be able to close their eyes and be there.” Indeed, readers of Tara Menon’s stunning debut novel, Under Water, will feel exactly that—as though they’re

In nonfiction writer Kate Schatz’s fiction debut, Where the Girls Were (11.5 hours), she takes listeners to 1968 San Francisco, in the time before Roe v. Wade when “free love” was freer for some than for others. High school valedictorian Baker Phillips is an only child eager to please her conventional, suburban parents—until her cousin

The fantastical meets the personal in Sunyi Dean’s highly anticipated second novel, The Girl With a Thousand Faces. Dean’s worldbuilding remains as rich and vivid as in her debut, The Book Eaters, but this time she takes readers to 20th-century Hong Kong, and into an alternate reality where ghosts walk among the living. In the

As summer vacation draws near, keep learning alive with these three insightful and engaging novels. Originally published here.

“A blank page is a very daunting thing. If you give me an 80,000-word manuscript, I can make it a good book,” says British author KJ Charles, whose favorite part of writing is revision. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Charles worked as an editor for Mills & Boon, a British publisher of