NEW AND UPCOMING RELEASES WITH STARRED REVIEWS:

★ ATOMIC ANNA

By Rachel Barenbaum

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Barenbaum (A Bend in the Stars) burnishes her reputation as an up-and-coming talent with this audacious time travel story. Anna Berkova, a Soviet nuclear scientist who works at Chernobyl, is asleep on the morning of the meltdown in 1986. The catastrophe transports her to 1992 Mount Aragats, Armenia, where she finds a trail of blood leading to her dying daughter, Manya, who’s been shot. Before dying, Manya reveals that the amplifier her mother was working on had pulled her through a ripple in space-time, and that Berkova must travel farther into the future to save a teenage granddaughter, Raisa, she’s never known. Barenbaum then unfolds the three women’s stories, each of which is laced with tragedy and unfulfilled aspirations. Chapter headings counting down to Manya’s death maintain tension, as her efforts to express herself as a comic book author with Atomic Anna, a superhero modeled on what she knows of her mother, play out against her battle with substance abuse. Raisa, a math prodigy, also must overcome challenges, such as being placed in foster care after Manya’s conviction for drug possession, to reach her potential. The threads build toward a deeply satisfying denouement, and the author uses the sci-fi plot device to explore parent-child relationships and questions about the morality of changing the past. Barenbaum dares greatly, and succeeds.

Kirkus - Starred Review

A Soviet scientist responsible for the Chernobyl disaster invents a time machine so she can change not only that fatal accident, but also her own destiny.

Anna Berkova grew up applying her brilliant scientific and mathematical brain to questions of nuclear power. A star of the Soviet Union, she designed the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, taking care to work through numerous safety protocols. Of course, it’s not enough, and when the reactor melts down on April 26, 1986, her life is only saved by an accidental jump through time. She finds herself in 1992, on top of a mountain, holding a bleeding woman who claims to be the daughter she gave away as an infant and who tells Anna she must use her time-traveling power both to stop Chernobyl and save her own granddaughter. From this striking, emotional beginning—which gives rise to a thousand questions—the novel follows three generations of Anna’s family, itself jumping around in time to explore the lives of Anna, her daughter, Molly, and her granddaughter, Raisa. All three struggle to find their places in the world as talented, strong, independent women, and all three will play a pivotal role in Anna’s quest to change the future—or is it the past?—not only to protect those who perish in the nuclear disaster, but to empower, and ultimately save the lives of, her family. In Barenbaum’s skillful hands, a complex concept and structure work beautifully, as the novel is slowly constructed one painstakingly detailed chapter at a time. The book is an incredible achievement with a heartfelt human theme: It’s never too late to let go of psychological baggage and heal past wounds.

As ambitious as a Greek tragedy and just as lyrical and unflinching.

Grand Central Publishing: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9781538734865, Hardcover

★ THE HATED CAGE: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison

By Nicholas Guyatt

Library Journal - Starred Review

Guyatt (North American history, Univ. of Cambridge; Bind Us Apart) has written an engrossing account of a little-known incident from the War of 1812 in which over 6,000 Americans were held as prisoners of
war in England. American sailors previously impressed into the Royal Navy found themselves locked away in the fearsome Dartmoor Prison alongside privateers caught in the act of attacking British ships. Rather than presenting a united front against their common enemy, the Americans were divided by issues of loyalty, national identity, and race. Although high-ranking white officers requested the separation of Black sailors, Guyatt draws upon the contemporary journals of prisoners to show how the segregated block became the vital center of the prison’s economy, culture, and acts of resistance. With great sympathy, Guyatt depicts the daily deprivations and mounting tensions inside the prison as the sailors’ imprisonment stretched beyond the end of the war, thanks to an ineffectual consul in London and a government that turned a blind eye to their suffering. The inevitable result, Guyatt argues, was an explosion of violence that cost nine American POWs their lives. VERDICT A powerful depiction of race relations, international politics, and governmental neglect in the early years of the American republic.

Basic Books: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9781541645660: Hardcover

★ IT WAS VULGAR & IT WAS BEAUTIFUL: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

By Jack Lowery

Booklist - Starred Review

A collected oral history of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s is by no means a small endeavor. Yet Lowery, using countless sources, knits together just such a chronicle. The focus is primarily on the art that moved and sustained a silent population of men and women who suffered the scourge of an unnamed disease and rage over the glacial pace of government response once the HIV virus and AIDS were identified. In 1985, a small group of gay men, later dubbed Gran Fury, who professionally covered art, advertising, and graphic design, created a poster that displayed their pain and anger and plastered it across New York City. The ubiquitous poster, Silence = Death, along with a pride parade float made to represent a concentration camp with then President Reagan at the helm, inspired those living with AIDS to gather in ACT UP meetings and use their collective voice to demand action to stop the spread of AIDS. Lowery lovingly portrays the strength, effort, happy victories, and overwhelming sadness of these historic efforts. Art had a major role in the movement, and as this testimonial lays out, the people behind the art stand as pillars of beautiful humanity. This is a rich and necessary documentation.

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Editor Lowery debuts with a fascinating study of how art galvanized AIDS activism in the 1980s and ’90s. He documents how a small group of activists in New York City developed the symbol of a pink triangle on a black background accompanied by the text “Silence=Death” in 1985 and how the advocacy group ACT UP raised funds by selling T-shirts and buttons emblazoned with the graphic. The image’s “widespread acceptance,” Lowery writes, “also articulated that a community actually existed.” Other early artworks associated with ACT UP included a Pride parade float designed to look like a concentration camp and a 1987 installation at the New Museum of Contemporary Art that was inspired by the Nuremberg trials. The group behind that exhibit became Gran Fury, an affiliate of ACT UP New York focused on art. Lowery thrillingly recounts Gran Fury’s use of advertising-influenced “slick aesthetic” art as protest propaganda, including the insertion of a fake front page into real editions of the New York Times and “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” posters plastered on buses in New York City and San Francisco. Throughout, Lowery provides crucial context about the history of the AIDS epidemic and draws vivid sketches of key players in Gran Fury. The result is a captivating look at the power of art as a political tool.

Bold Type Books: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9781645036586, Hardcover

★ POST-TRAUMATIC

By Chantal V. Johnson

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Johnson explores in her brutally funny and poignant debut a Black Latinx woman’s childhood trauma and daily struggles. Vivian is a 30-something state-appointed attorney in a public psychiatric hospital, advocating for the rights of patients. Among the cases she’s working on is Melissa’s, a teenager recently transferred to the adult unit who pulls a knife on hospital staff. Vivian spends her free time smoking weed with her best friend, Jane, in an effort to cope with the painful elements of her life outside work, such as phone calls with her drunk older brother, Michael, who dances around the sexual abuse inflicted upon them as children by their mother’s boyfriends. She also nurses an eating disorder and goes on many fruitless dates in search of the perfect man. Dark humor is another coping mechanism for Vivian, which Johnson deploys with tremendous skill, as Vivian’s only-between-friends joke about Brown University being a “great place to go if you were abused” leads to she and Jane reflecting on their feelings about the younger generation’s embrace of “lefty-politics stuff,” which they wish had been around when they were coming up. After a tense reunion with Michael and their Puerto Rican mother, Vivian starts to unravel as she considers cutting herself off from her family. The pressures build as she botches Melissa’s case, gets dumped, and has a big fight with Jane. Throughout, Vivian’s confrontational interactions feel achingly true to life. This is revelatory and powerful.

Little, Brown: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9780316264235, Hardcover

★ TORN APART

By Dorothy Roberts

Library Journal - Starred Review

The U.S. child welfare system is so fundamentally flawed that abolishing it is the only way to end its destruction of Black children and Black families, argues Roberts (law and sociology, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare). The system rests on racist myths and operates with a long legacy of oppressive policies originating in slavery to monitor, regulate, and punish Black families, she explains. Her chapters reveal the disproportionately racial dimensions of government agents invading poor and low-income communities, casting children into a fostercare- industrial complex where they are routinely entangled in the carceral state. Punctuated with poignant cases of systemic horrors, the compelling narrative delivers data-rich analysis that reflects decades of research, observation, and advocacy for Black children and mothers. It exposes the ugly demographics and politics of America’s destructive family-policing child welfare system that Roberts conjoins with oppressive policies of mass incarceration and welfare-restructuring that seek to entrench Black subordination. VERDICT Readers at every level, especially policy-makers and - implementers, might well embrace this work as a primer for moving past a harmful system and creating a reimagined ideology and infrastructure to humanely care for families and keep children safe. Roberts’s latest is necessary reading.

Basic Books: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9781541675445, Hardcover

★ THE TRAYVON GENERATION

By Elizabeth Alexander

Booklist - Starred Review

Poet and memoirist Alexander (The Light of the World, 2015) deftly blends family history and cultural criticism in this bittersweet essay collection on race, memory, and memorialization. A Yale professor intimately familiar with the contradictions of a wealthy, world-class university taking but not sharing space in a largely Black and poor town, Alexander is a thoughtful and eloquent chronicler of racial anxiety and pain. She notes the power of monuments as indicators of value, as in the overpowering white supremacist defiance of Stone Mountain, Georgia. Black artists, writers, and musicians push back, striving to affirm Black values by memorializing the lost lives of slaves, while libraries serve “as cemeteries for the illustrious Negro dead.” Alexander longs to lift the burden of racial responsibility from her two young adult sons and see them become “free black men,” carefree and confident, so secure in their identity and self-worth that the idiocy of racism has no power over them. Yet for those growing up in the shadow of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and George Floyd, freedom and a sense of self-worth can be lethal. Illuminated and illustrated with poetry and art by Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, and many more, Alexander’s piercing inquiry merits a place in the ongoing social justice conversation.

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Poet and memoirist Alexander (The Light of the World) expands on her New Yorker essay in this vigorous and inspiring reflection on how Black art reckons with the traumas of racism and racial violence. Contending that the “war against Black people feels as if it is gearing up for another epic round,” Alexander highlights how Black poets, artists, authors, and musicians have “continuously articulated the problem, the hope, and the possibility of America.” She lucidly analyzes poems by Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, and Clint Smith, among others, and describes the political battle over historian John Hope Franklin’s eighth-grade textbook, Land of the Free, written in 1966, as an antecedent to today’s fights over critical race theory. Elsewhere, Alexander discusses how the “worldview” of African Americans who grew up in the past 25 years has been shaped by the killings of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, George Floyd, and others, and spotlights music videos by Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus that “bring together the naturalistic and the visionary” to showcase the “reanimating” power of Black joy and community. By capturing the rich spectrum of Black culture in America, Alexander offers hope and instruction for younger generations. The result is a thought-provoking must-read.

Kirkus - Starred Review

An artful book-length essay on generational trauma in Black youth.

Weaving together prose, poetry, and artwork, prizewinning educator, poet, and cultural advocate Alexander, who recited a poem at Barack Obama’s first inauguration ceremony, depicts in sharp relief the realities of living as a Black youth in today’s America. In this short yet poignant book, the author notes the ways in which Black people have always been marginalized, but she looks specifically at the difficult experiences of those who have come of age in the past 25 years. Citing such problems as depression in youth, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how police brutality has become more apparent in the age of social media, Alexander paints a vivid portrait of a societal landscape that is fundamentally different depending on race, class, and other demographic markers. While recounting her personal story—including her 15 years as a professor at Yale, which, like many older colleges, has a problematic history with the slave trade—the author roots the text in history, looking at the legacies of enslavement and Confederacy movements and touching on key figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Zora Neale Hurston. The text is punctuated with gripping pieces of art that complement the text. Each piece is compelling in its own right as they entwine with the representation of human experience that Alexander demonstrates for readers. In one of the most significant sections, the author references a letter to Du Bois in which a scholar asked him “whether the negro sheds tears,” and “if so, under what general conditions—anger, fear, shame, pain, sorrow, etc.” At its core, this is a powerful treatise on the humanity of Black Americans and how it has been denied, how generations of people have persisted despite that fact, and how it continues to be one of the most pressing issues we face as a nation.

A dynamic critique on the sprawling effects of racism and its effects on today’s youth.

Library Journal - Starred Review

Pulitzer Prize–nominated poet and scholar of African American studies Alexander (The Light of the World) eloquently writes about the importance of bearing witness to the violence directed against Black people in the United States. She addresses parenting and protecting the young people whom she calls the “Trayvon Generation,” who witnessed the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner and many others via videos on their cell phones. Alexander deftly touches on many other important topics related to violence against Black people, by examining how American society normalizes white supremacy—a fundamental problem that Black people have faced since enslaved people were brought to the U.S. Alexander cleverly reminds readers that Confederate flags flew at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, while throughout the country, Americans are constantly surrounded by portraits of slaveholding Founding Fathers and university founders. What is most striking is the way Alexander incorporates the value of public art, poetry, dance, and writing as central to memorializing and commemorating Black history and events. Alexander argues that white supremacy in the United States cannot be fixed by Black people alone; it must be reckoned with by all of society. VERDICT A very moving short book that seeks to challenge readers’ assumptions about American society; highly recommended for all libraries and for reading groups.

Grand Central Publishing: April 5, 2022; ISBN: 9781538737897, Hardcover

★ LEFT ON TENTH

By Delia Ephron

Booklist - Starred Review

Ephron should be called the Queen of Second Chances, and long may she reign. First there was the one-two punch of losing her cherished husband after a prolonged struggle with prostate cancer, and then there was the loss of her beloved-by-billions sister Nora to leukemia. No spring chicken when these events occurred, Ephron learned to adjust to her life as a widow while she accepted the possibility that she, too, might one day receive her own dire medical diagnosis. Which she does. But first, the good news. A caustic op-ed about the indignities of widowhood attracts the attention of a man from her college years, and in typical Sister Nora rom-com fashion, a long-distance relationship ensues. Peter’s love and support is just what the doctor ordered, especially when said doctor is an oncologist who does indeed give Ephron the news that she, like Nora, also has leukemia. Ephron’s harrowing account of coping with multiple, agonizing courses of treatment rivals that of any against-all-odds, true-adventure memoir. Her endurance is nothing short of mind boggling, her survival to tell the tale even more miraculous. Simultaneously spiritually uplifting and emotionally draining, Ephron’s account of triumphing over life’s greatest challenges is itself a tour de force.

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Playwright and novelist Ephron (Siracusa) balances profound sorrow with unconditional love in this radiant account of the “many left turns, some perilous, some wondrous” that her life took following her husband’s death. After a year of grieving the loss of her husband, Jerry—who died of cancer in their West Village apartment in 2015—Ephron reconnected with a long-lost acquaintance, a Jungian analyst named Peter, and was swept up in a whirlwind romance. But their honeymoon phase was unceremoniously ended when she was diagnosed with leukemia, the same cancer that her sister, filmmaker Nora Ephron, died of in 2012 (“‘You are not your sister’,” became a common refrain from the doctor, Ephron writes, “willing me to believe that I can have a different outcome”). Like a scene out of one of Nora’s movies, Ephron (“officially a cancer patient”) and Peter had an intimate hospital wedding. While moments of tenderness like these lend hope to her narrative, Ephron holds nothing back when recounting her harrowing episodes (even sharing a doctor’s note that recorded her “saying she wanted to die”), a rocky road that, after a brief remission, included traumatic stays in the ICU, toxic metabolic syndrome, and an excruciating bone marrow transplant that saved her life. Readers will be swept away by this triumphant story.

Library Journal - Starred Review

In her new memoir, Ephron will make readers feel, and with her short sentences and matter-of-fact voice, she’ll make readers laugh, swoon, cringe, and cry, sometimes all within the same section of writing. The novelist, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter (she wrote the film You’ve Got Mail with sister Nora) begins this memoir with the story of her husband’s death, from his time in hospice, to her grieving afterwards; she also introduces all the people who helped her through mourning. While trying to disconnect her late husband’s phone line, she has a bad experience that she writes about in the New York Times. The essay sparks interest in a man from her past who reaches out to her via email; Ephron includes this correspondence, among many others, in the book. The events kick off a new love story that is the focus of the first part of the memoir; Ephron’s leukemia is the theme of the second half. Through her own recollections and through emails, readers get to see the hope and positivity of Ephron’s friends, as well as the despair she felt during her illness. VERDICT With poetic writing, strong characterization, and a powerful love story, Ephron’s memoir takes readers on a journey of loss, pain, hope, and perseverance.

Little, Brown: April 12, 2022; ISBN: 9780316267656, Hardcover

★ NOBODY BUT US

By Laure Van Rensburg

Booklist - Starred Review

Ellie and her literature-professor boyfriend, Steven, take their first weekend away together in an isolated Chesapeake Bay retreat. Submissive and awestruck by domineering Steven's academic reputation, Ellie hopes their uninterrupted time together will finally crack his veneer. It’s off to a shaky start: their rental’s glass walls expose them to an unexpected winter storm’s onslaught, and Ellie can’t shake the feeling that they’re being watched. But Steven is her focus, and she soldiers on with her plan to bare his soul. First, she drugs him, then duct tapes his unconscious body to a wheelchair and patiently waits to begin their talk. For his part, Steven rages against his obviously love-crazed girlfriend. Ellie is seeking revenge, however, not love, as she confronts Steven with proof of his predation on vulnerable teenage girls, including her childhood friend, Wendy. Ellie believes that Steven murdered Wendy when she refused to be cast aside. Revenge is within reach until Steven escapes his bonds and a tense zero-sum game of wits ensues. Van Rensburg deftly manipulates the narrative, leading readers to root for Ellie’s ruthless and unnervingly clever machinations as Steven’s dangerous nature is slowly unveiled. This story of dueling mind-games and duplicity is a must-read for psychological thriller fans, especially those with a taste for revenge.

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

At the start of Van Rensburg’s exceptional debut, a highly entertaining psychological thriller, Ellie Masterson and Steve Harding are looking forward to celebrating their six months as a couple with a romantic getaway weekend. An unease immediately settles over them on their drive from Manhattan to Chesapeake Bay, where the remote house they’ve rented—all “glass and steel”—butts up against dark woods that lead to the ocean. Arriving at night, they can barely see out the windows, but Ellie is sure she has seen someone among the trees. Each creak in the house unnerves her. They both want their relationship to work despite different backgrounds—Ellie is an NYU grad student 17 years younger than wealthy Steven, who’s a Barnard College professor about to move to Columbia. But each is suspicious of the other, especially Steven, who’s keen to know what Ellie carries in her heavy handbag. When a snowstorm strands them, their wariness about the other intensifies. This deliciously creepy haunted house tale skillfully explores the psyches of two people who carry their own ghosts with them.

Grand Central Publishing: April 12, 2022; ISBN: 9781538720462, Hardcover

★ DREAM TOWN

By David Baldacci

Kirkus - Starred Review

An old-fashioned gumshoe yarn about Hollywood dreams and dead bodies.

Private investigator Aloysius Archer celebrates New Year’s Eve 1952 in LA with his gorgeous lady friend and aspiring actress Liberty Callahan. Screenwriter Eleanor Lamb shows up and offers to hire him because “someone might be trying to kill me.” “I’m fifty a day plus expenses,” he replies, but money’s no obstacle. Later, he sneaks into Lamb’s house and stumbles upon a body, then gets knocked out by an unseen assailant. Archer takes plenty of physical abuse in the story, but at least he doesn’t get a bullet between the eyes like the guy he trips over. A 30-year-old World War II combat veteran, Archer is a righteous and brave hero. Luck and grit keep him alive in both Vegas and the City of Angels, which is rife with gangsters and crooked cops. Not rich at all, his one luxury is the blood-red 1939 Delahaye he likes to drive with the top down. He’d bought it with his gambling winnings in Reno, and only a bullet hole in the windscreen post mars its perfection. Liberty loves Archer, but will she put up with the daily danger of losing him? Why doesn’t he get a safe job, maybe playing one of LA’s finest on the hit TV show Dragnet? Instead, he’s a tough and principled idealist who wants to make the world a better place. Either that or he’s simply a “pavement-pounding PI on a slow dance to maybe nowhere.” And if some goon doesn’t do him in sooner, his Lucky Strikes will probably do him in later. Baldacci paints a vivid picture of the not-so-distant era when everybody smoked, Joe McCarthy hunted commies, and Marilyn Monroe stirred men’s loins. The 1950s weren’t the fabled good old days, but they’re fodder for gritty crime stories of high ideals and lowlifes, of longing and disappointment, and all the trouble a PI can handle.

Well-done crime fiction. Baldacci nails the noir.

Grand Central Publishing: April 19, 2022; ISBN: 9781538719770, Hardcover

★ MUTINOUS WOMEN: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast

By Joan DeJean

Kirkus - Starred Review

A welcome retelling of a forgotten segment of American history.

In her latest work, DeJean, author of How Paris Became Paris and many other works of history, unearths the story of the unlikely women who became the Gulf Coast’s founding mothers. In 1719, a ship called La Mutine set sail from France and docked in New France, what is now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Inside were more than 130 sickly women, ravaged human cargo destined for the Colonies as punishment for alleged crimes. Records show that many of the women were charged with prostitution, but in reality, many could not defend themselves or even understand the accusations against them. Oppressed by a system that detested the impoverished, they became victims of slave ship owner John Law, who saw them as an opportunity to fill a need for 6,000 French settlers to work in the Colonies. Together with a craven warden from the women’s prison, Law sealed the fate of these young, often illiterate women without their input. “French authorities,” writes the author, “set no ground rules; no one considered the exact terms on which female detainees were to be shipped off ‘to the colonies’ or even what the authorities should call the process they were establishing.” Only 62 survived the voyage. What transpired after they landed ashore, however, is a clear demonstration of the beauty and power of the feminine spirit, and DeJean chronicles their experiences in well-written, often gripping prose. During their passage, which included forced dwelling in dangerous cargo holds, some women became lifelong friends. Upon their arrival, many were married off to local soldiers who had returned from war, and they set about making lives for themselves and their new husbands. Over time, many fought to clear their names, and some became wealthy property owners or ran successful businesses. Regardless of the directions of their new lives, together they ensured that their children “enjoyed experiences and opportunities that they themselves had never known.”

Readers will come away fascinated and inspired by this relatively unknown tale of strength and the human spirit.

Basic Books: April 19, 2022; ISBN: 9781541600584, Hardcover

★ PART OF YOUR WORLD

By Abby Jimenez

Booklist - Starred Review

After swerving to avoid a raccoon and ending up in a ditch, Alexis Montgomery is extremely grateful to receive an automotive assist from a passing Good Samaritan in the person of Daniel Grant. Accepting his offer of a late-night grilled-cheese sandwich after the rescue simply seems like a nice thing to do until Alexis wakes up the next morning in Daniel’s bed. Alexis knows just how easy it would be to fall for sweet, sunny Daniel, who is everything Alexis’ ex-boyfriend Neil is not. But Alexis also knows that she and the hot, younger carpenter and B&B owner come from two completely different, seemingly incompatible worlds. Jimenez’s (Life’s Too Short, 2021) latest flawlessly written contemporary romance is another perfectly calibrated synthesis of richly
nuanced characters, blazing sexual chemistry, and sizzling wit deftly infused into an empowering story line that sensitively touches on emotional and physical abuse in romantic relationships while also offering a subtle wink and nod to the enduring charm of Disney fairy tales.

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

The charm and communal spirit of a small town bring an unlikely couple together in this layered, soul-stirring romance from Jimenez (Life’s Too Short). Alexis Montgomery and her twin brother, Derek, have been groomed since birth to follow in their famous father’s footsteps, continuing the family legacy of excellence and philanthropy at Royaume Northwestern Hospital. ER doctor Alexis was content to let Derek bear the mantel, but when he chooses to marry for love instead of station, his parents disown him and put all the pressure on Alexis. Overwhelmed by her father’s expectations—among them that she should reconcile with her emotionally abusive ex—Alexis escapes the city on regular visits to the enchanting small town of Wakan. There she meets laid-back carpenter Daniel Grant, who’s 10 years her junior and everything her parents would hate. Through Daniel, Alexis learns what unwavering love and support feel like, but with both of them entrenched in separate worlds, will they be able to make it work? Jimenez dexterously tackles class difference and shades her endearing side characters with as much care as her lovable leads. The result is an emotional roller coaster centered on love as a source of empowerment.

Kirkus - Starred Review

An ER doctor works to shake her family's expectations and find love with a younger man in this exemplary romance.

Alexis Montgomery comes from a long line of accomplished surgeons who have worked at the Royaume Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis since it was founded in the late 1800s. While she pursued a career in emergency medicine, she assumed that her twin brother, Derek, a plastic surgeon, would carry on the family tradition. When Derek announces he's gotten married while working in Cambodia for Doctors Without Borders and that he's planning to stay there with his new wife, the responsibility of working at the hospital and producing future surgeons falls to Alexis. Her only respite comes in the form of Daniel Grant, a handsome carpenter who's the mayor of small-town Wakan, Minnesota. Despite being almost a decade younger than Alexis, Daniel has been smitten since rescuing her car from a ditch while she was passing through Wakan; the pair shared a memorable one-night stand. Daniel has his own family lineage to uphold in the charming Wakan, which is full of chatty locals and creatively named farm animals. As in many of Jimenez's romances, Alexis' path to love and healing takes center stage as she works to free herself from the demanding, outdated wishes of her parents and set boundaries with a toxic, persistent former partner. Alexis and Daniel are precious together, and Daniel's warm excitement at getting to spend more time with a woman he finds amazing is the perfect embodiment of romantic joy. The romance is further enriched by a full cast of dynamic side characters, manipulative villains, and misguided relatives. This book is an emotional experience that will tick all the boxes for passionate romance fans.

A must-read.

Forever: April 19, 2022; ISBN: 9781538704370, Trade Paperback

★ THE SONG OF OUR SCARS: The Untold Story of Pain

By Haider Warraich

Library Journal - Starred Review

Physician Warraich’s (State of the Heart) very well written book looks at all aspects of acute and chronic pain: its history, its biology, medical treatment and mistreatment, and disparities in pain management and care that stem from racism and other biases. Warraich, who himself has chronic pain, draws from his own experiences in addition to scientific research. His book begins with historical views of pain (how some in earlier eras connected pain to sin; how societies treated and viewed people who were in pain).Warraich also details how paternalistic white medical establishments have often ignored the pain of women and people of color (for instance, the pain of childbirth). He goes on to discuss the biology of pain, including new studies in neurobiology that aim to learn how the environment and the context of pain can change patients’ perception of it; later chapters cover recent studies in alternative ways to treat pain, including hypnosis and exercise. There are also several chapters on the opioid crisis in the United States and the social, commercial, and medical factors that contributed to over prescription of opioids.
VERDICT A must-read for anyone with chronic pain and those in the health professions.

Basic Books: April 19, 2022; ISBN: 9781541675308, Hardcover

★ KAIKEYI

By Vaishnavi Patel

Booklist - Starred Review

In the traditional epic the Ramayana, Kaikeyi is immortalized for using her two boons to banish golden, beloved Rama and ensure that the crown would go first to her own son. Despite Rama’s later forgiveness of her actions, Kaikeyi has gone down in history as a jealous and power-hungry woman; this novel reimagines that narrative. Here, Kaikeyi uses her talent with a chariot and a magical gift of manipulation and intuition to gain power and improve the lot of women within Kosala, all despite being forsaken by the gods. She grows close to Raja Dasharath and keeps their kingdom from plunging into disaster more than once—fighting demons and making subtle moves to maintain peace. But the gods have their own plans: they want war, bloody and black and white, against the asuras. The gods have chosen Rama as their hero—and Ravana, Kaikeyi's friend, will be their villain. The novel is compelling and rich, drawing on the source material while furnishing its characters with new complexity and motivations. Fans of Madeline Miller's Circe (2018) will fall hard for this story about a woman determined to do what’s right for her kingdom and its women, walking the fine line between rebellion and convention.

Redhook: April 26, 2022; ISBN: 9780759557338, Hardcover

★ CHILD ZERO

By Chris Holm

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Could a future pandemic be exponentially worse that Covid-19? Holm (Red Right Hand) answers yes in this alarmingly plausible thriller. Public health officials dismiss a dramatic global increase in bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics, initially unaware the phenomenon results from the release of an ancient virus from the permafrost due to global warming. The virus infects bacteria across the globe in weeks and leaves medicine helpless as the new combinations render antibiotics not only obsolete but dangerous because continued use of them risks creating an even deadlier viral variant. The collapse of the “antibiotic era” means the resurgence of dormant diseases, as well as the end of surgical implants and organ transplants, since the risk of postoperative infections is too great. The crisis leads to the creation of an ultra-powerful American agency, the Department of Biological Security, which mandates citizens to report anyone suspected of having a high fever. Against this Orwellian background, NYPD Det. Jacob Gibson, a widower, must both care for his ill daughter and probe a massacre in Central Park that may have implications for the global health crisis. Holm perfectly balances plot, characterizations, and science. Fans of Lawrence Wright’s The End of October won’t want to miss this one.

Mulholland: May 1, 2022; ISBN: 9780316295123, Hardcover

★ THE CEILING OUTSIDE: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind

By Noga Arikha

Kirkus - Starred Review

A lucid examination of the self in crisis.

For 18 months, Arikha, a philosopher and author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours, attended weekly clinical meetings in the neuropsychiatry unit of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, observing patients who presented difficult, sometimes bizarre, symptoms to their assembled medical team. Like neurologists Oliver Sacks and Antonio Damasio, Arikha, who calls herself a “science humanist,” reflects on these patients in her investigation of overarching questions about consciousness, identity, affliction, and memory. The many cases include a woman in her 30s who could not recall 10 years of her life; a man whose personality split into two identities; an 82-year-old woman, nearly blind, experiencing visual hallucinations; a 50-something married father of five who felt haunted, hearing things and sensing invisible presences. Some symptoms were somatic: One woman’s hand became “the locus for all her anxiety, fear and frustration.” One man lost all feeling on his left side and then could not form new memories. Prominent among these cases was Arikha’s mother, a poet and memoirist who was sinking inexorably into dementia, her memory “shunting her from place to place, as if she were ice skating blindfolded.” Her mother’s mind takes a central place in this wide-ranging, engaging study that encompasses philosophy, history, medicine, memoir, and science. “This book,” she writes, “is about both the self as it studies itself, and the self as it loses itself”; how each of us makes our felt experiences coherent; how memory affirms our identity; and the ease with which our “planned trajectories” can rupture and plummet us into illness. “Our self in time,” writes the author, “is but a thin gauze wrapped around the shifting elements we are made of.” The book is also about the limits of medical and scientific knowledge to treat patients who defy categorization, to empathize with their experience, and to ameliorate their pain.

A luminous, intellectually dense meditation on mind.

Basic Books: May 3, 2022; ISBN: 9781541600874, Hardcover

★ ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD

By Nina Stibbe

Booklist - Starred Review

When English university student Susan first hears of Norma Pavlou, it's as the brilliant daughter of the owner of the Pin Cushion, the sewing shop where Susan works summers and weekends. Though Susan and Norma are close in age, good old Mrs. Pavlou doesn't think they'll be friends, the subtext being that Susan is far too ordinary. This throwaway phrase sets up everything, in a way, in Stibbe's (Reasons to Be Cheerful, 2019) darling fourth novel in which the two women, of course, become lifelong best friends and sometimes best rivals. Susan is a narrator in the Stibbean tradition; upbeat, charming, slightly nervous, funny both intentionally and not, and, most of all, accommodating to life's sharp turns, such as when she becomes pregnant and drops out to get married and have baby Honey. Decades pass. Her husband changes and Honey grows up. Norma shocks Susan, irritates her, and lets her down, but also shows up when it counts. We assume this goes both ways and start to understand that some people in Susan's life tire of her constant chatter, which is a shame, because readers absolutely do not. An anything-but-average tale of a thrillingly ordinary friendship, which is to say one that's strengthening, humiliating, confounding, and cheering, depending on the day.

Little, Brown: May 3, 2022; ISBN: 9780316430340: Hardcover

★ THIS WOMAN'S WORK: Essays on Music

By Sinéad Gleeson and Kim Gordon

Library Journal - Starred Review

In this glorious collection of essays by and about women in music, editors Gleeson (Constellations: Reflections from Life) and former Sonic Youth bassist/vocalist Gordon (author of the memoir Girl in a Band) make clear that women musicians might have some things in common (passion; experience navigating a male-dominated field) but are wildly individual. Heather Leigh sets the stage with the introduction, which expresses how music is an at-once unifying and deeply personal experience (e.g., songs can be individualized by a listener’s misheard lyric). Many of the contributors celebrate other women artists (Anne Enright’s essay on mixed-media artist Laurie Anderson; Gordon’s interview with Boredoms’ drummer Yoshimi; Gleeson’s examination of the enigmatic, innovative composer Wendy Carlos; Margo Jefferson’s tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, in which she mulls the importance of seeing a Black woman performer sweating; Liz Pelly’s fascinating piece on Agnes “Sis” Cunningham’s politics). In some essays, contributors consider their own relationships to music, such as Leslie Jamison’s chronicle of three decades of meaningful mixtapes, Ottessa Moshfegh’s discussion of taking piano lessons, and Zakia Sewell’s musings on her complicated family history. VERDICT Intimate and accessible, the essays will resonate with audiophiles and inspire budding musicians.

Hachette Books: May 3, 2022; ISBN: 9780306829000: Hardcover

★ BECAUSE OUR FATHERS LIED: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today

By Craig McNamara

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Walnut farmer McNamara, founder of the Center for Land-Based Learning, debuts with a stunning, deeply personal look at his life as the son of the prime shaper of America’s Vietnam War policy, secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara. In searing detail, the younger McNamara reveals reams of hitherto unreported details about his controversial father’s family life and how the elder McNamara’s lies and obfuscations about the war led to their estrangement. Craig McNamara recounts hanging Viet Cong flags in his bedroom as a protest against his father; dropping out of Stanford to travel through Central and South America on a motorcycle; and ultimately becoming a dedicated practitioner of, and advocate for, sustainable farming. His unique perspective on the war’s “architect” reveals a man who was a “caretaker, loving dad, hiking buddy” as well as an “obfuscator, neglectful parent, warmonger.” Offering a complex, introspective look at how his relationship with his father turned into “a mixture of love and rage,” the author sheds light on an entire generation’s disillusionment with their forebears and reaches a depth of understanding about Robert S. McNamara that no previous book about his role in the Vietnam War has achieved. This is a must-read.

Little, Brown: May 10, 2022; ISBN: 9780316282239, Hardcover

★ BORN TO BE HANGED: The Epic Story of the Gentleman Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune

By Keith Thomson

Library Journal - Starred Review

Novelist Thomson (Once a Spy) follows a motley crew of English pirates on a voyage of plunder along the Pacific coast of South America in this rollicking historical account drawing on the contemporary journals of seven participants. Accepting a legally dubious “commission” from the chief of a local tribe, the 366 buccaneers—including naturalist William Dampier—trekked through the mountainous jungles of the Isthmus of Panama to rescue the chief’s captured granddaughter and raid the riches of Panama City. Spared the treacherous passage through the Straits of Magellan, the pirates proceeded to wreak havoc on Spanish ships and settlements throughout what were then known as the “South Seas,” scoring one improbable victory after another until stunned Spanish authorities finally fought back. Thomson fleshes out each audacious attack and narrow escape with wit and insight, delving into seafaring terminology and the customs of piracy as he relates the buccaneers’ brushes with mutinies, storms, and deadly flora and fauna. By focusing on the individuals who kept accounts of the adventure, Thomson humanizes the “Brethren of the Coast,” shedding light on their motivations, histories, and relationships. VERDICT Every action-packed page is certain to thrill connoisseurs of piracy and seafaring history.

Little, Brown: May 10, 2022; ISBN: 9780316703611: Hardcover

★ SO HELP ME GOLF: Why We Love the Game

By Rick Reilly

Booklist - Starred Review

How is it that Reilly—hands down, the funniest golf writer alive—started out hating the game? It's not a funny story. As a child, Reilly knew that when his alcoholic father returned from a day at the links, he'd be hammered and looking for something to hit besides a golf ball. It took years for Reilly to overcome that formidable barrier to the links, but when he did, he was hooked, first as a player and then as a writer: "Writing about golf," he learned, "was really just writing about people who happened to play golf. And that meant there were stories everywhere." We read plenty of those stories and meet a wealth of those people in this delightful recap of a life spent on and around golf courses of every stripe, but it's the raunchiest public courses that Reilly treasures most, especially for the denizens who haunt them, like Two-Down O'Connor, the "World's Most Avid Golf Gambler." Reilly keeps coming back to the people, and who can blame him when their stories mix funny and ironic with inspirational in a perfect blend of sweet and sour? Take Ricky Meissner, a "Tour Rabbit" who spent most of his playing career missing cuts and going broke until he decided to rob a bank whenever he missed a cut. It worked until it didn't.

Hachette Books: May 10, 2022; ISBN: 9780306924934: Hardcover

★ THE POWER OF DIGNITY: How Transforming Justice Can Heal Our Communities

By Victoria Pratt

Booklist - Starred Review

Weaving together hope and optimism, Judge Pratt shows the ways that communities and courtrooms are intrinsically connected to each other. Pratt, a professor at Rutgers University, advocates for using procedural justice paired with alternative sentencing. Her approach to the court system is based on the principles of voice, neutrality, respect, and trust. These four pillars bolster reciprocity between individuals being sentenced and judges doling out consequences. Clearly laying out how this method has transformed the judicial system, Pratt goes on to detail its ability to empower those convicted of crimes, especially for those dealing with racism,
generational trauma, mental health, and addiction. Beyond that, outcomes led by this method can instill trust between judge and defendant. Pratt underscores the importance of bridging understanding among court participants and allowing them to share their stories. She shows up for those in court, looks them in the eye when sentencing them, and, in doing so, refuses to dehumanize them. Throughout, Pratt alternates between her own meditation on the judicial system and the stories of those who have passed through her Newark courtroom. Her research, backed up by these experiences, makes her deeply personal, beautifully written debut all the more impactful.

Seal Press: May 10, 2022; ISBN: 9781541674837: Hardcover

★ ALL FIRED UP

By Dylan Newton

Booklist - Starred Review

Imani Lewis is a publicist at Cerulean Books frenetically juggling important authors. To-do lists are her superpower and her kryptonite. She also teaches dance at the Bronx Barre Belles. Stress is causing her panic attacks and insomnia, so she takes an unpaid leave of absence to spend the summer in Wellsville, hopefully learning to relax and help her beloved grandmother recover from double knee-replacement surgeries. Zander Matthews is an ex-marine who now embodies a laid-back, surfer-dude vibe. The title of the book is the name of his ceramics studio, where he hosts all-ages workshops. Newton (How Sweet It Is, 2021) sensitively discusses Zander's eating disorder and Imani's PTSD. A year ago, they had a brief but intense fling that left him broken-hearted. Ever since then, his usually fluid life trajectory has felt off-course, like he is waiting for something. Now that Imani is back in town, Zander is determined that whatever happens between them will be at her pace. But is she a corporate ladder-climber, or is she truly looking to change her life and slow down? Zander woos Imani with his charm, generosity of spirit, and philosophical outlook to life in this utterly delightful romance.

Forever: May 17, 2022; ISBN: 9781538754429: Trade Paperback

★ BLACK BOY SMILE: A Memoir in Moments

By D. Watkins

Booklist - Starred Review

In this memoir, author and prolific essayist Watkins (We Speak for Ourselves, 2019) delves into his boyhood through a series of personal stories that illustrate how Black boys are all too often forced into a facade of manhood as a method of self-preservation and protection. Through his relaying of memories, Watkins critiques the patriarchal structures of violence, abuse, and emotional guardedness that have impacted his coming-of-age, the East Baltimore community he grew up in, and, largely, Black men everywhere. Watkins writes from a place of nuanced vulnerability, sharing, for instance, both the love he has for his father and the traumas of being raised by a man battling addiction during the height of the so-called war on drugs. Watkins' story is not one of villains and heroes, but one of systems and expectations that put individual decision-making on a back burner, especially when those individuals are marginalized. Watkins advocates the destruction of harmful white supremacist norms, as well as a path forward that acknowledges the full humanity of those who may have caused harm while living under the burden of those norms. Black Boy Smile is a must-read exploration of white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and the need to undermine them both.

Kirkus - Starred Review

How a sexually and physically abused Black boy from Baltimore became a violent, wildly successful drug dealer—and then something else entirely.

Watkins has parceled out his life in earlier books, particularly The Cook-Up (2016), but here he shares different vignettes, showing off his homegrown storytelling style, often hilarious characterizations, and dead-on dialogue. From the moment he decided to hide the abuse he suffered at a summer camp for disadvantaged youth, he bought into a life of lying and repression of emotion. Though his success as a drug dealer led to a "a house big enough for two families, two Mercedes, a CL 600 and CLK to run errands in, and money busting out of my sweatpants pocket, my socks, the Nike boxes under my bed, my roof safe, and the closet in the stash house," his accumulated trauma blocked any possibility of happiness. One touching section contains the author’s close observation of the intense relationship between childhood friends Troy and Tweety. Though Watkins also craved "somebody I was willing to go crazy over,” he had convinced himself he didn't need anybody. When a nurse in the hospital loaned him Sister Souljah's The Coldest Winter Ever, Watkins became a reader overnight, beginning to see what he had done to himself by choosing the hardened heart and lies; why, as a Black man, he was compelled to do it; and what he had lost in the process. In response, he started writing, and some years later, he allowed himself to experience true love. Both exploded into his life like a geyser. The literary journey wasn't always easy, but his entrepreneurial obsession with making money drove him through every obstacle. Watkins does magic with brand names—in childhood, every house has "unlimited Crown Royal bags…Red Rooster hot sauce, Newport cigarettes and petroleum jelly”—and every character is nailed down by descriptions of their clothing, even the author himself, who often "surveys his fit.”

A startling and moving celebration of a brutal life transformed by language and love.

Legacy Lit: May 17, 2022; ISBN: 9780306924002, Hardcover

★ A LADY FOR A DUKE

By Alexis Hall

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Hall (Something Fabulous) delivers a delicious Regency romance filled with brooding, longing, and hope. After going MIA at the battle of Waterloo, trans woman Viola Carroll left her previous life behind, along with her (dead) name and noble title, to live authentically as herself. But in doing so, she had to cut all ties with the Duke of Gracewood, her erstwhile best friend and the object of the adoration she could never have fully realized while living inauthentically as a lord. When circumstances return her to Gracewood’s estate, she finds him lost in grief, numbing the loss of his closest friend with laudanum and liquor. As she begins to lift him from the haze of his mourning, bringing him back to a version of himself he’s tried so hard to drown, she must decide whether to reveal the truth and allow him to know her for whom she truly is, or abandon him for the second time. The period banter is unparalleled as Hall pulls his characters out of the drawing room and into far closer quarters. He explores difficult subjects with a sharpness matched only by the tenderness underpinning the relationship between Viola and Gracewood. Fans of Lisa Kleypas and anyone looking for romance centering trans characters owe it to themselves to check this out.

Kirkus - Starred Review

A second chance for a duke and his best friend.

The Battle of Waterloo changed Viola Carroll’s life, because everyone believes she died there. In fact, after recovering from her wounds, she made the bold decision to walk away from her inheritance and her title and into a new life: She was finally free to live as a woman. Unbeknownst to her, however, her best friend’s life was also changed by the loss of the friend he thinks he left on the battlefield. Justin de Vere, Duke of Gracewood, hides in the country, debilitated by symptoms of PTSD, terrible war injuries, and an addiction to laudanum and alcohol. His would be a solitary life except that he still serves as his sister Miranda’s guardian. When Miranda writes to Lady Marleigh, Viola’s sister-in-law, describing her brother’s decline over the past two years, Lady Marleigh decides that she and Viola (who now serves as her paid companion) must go save Miranda. Viola is terrified to travel, not only because Gracewood thinks his best friend is dead, but also because he’s never known her as a woman. When they arrive, Gracewood is depressed, drunk, and doesn’t realize he already knows Viola, so she agrees when Lady Marleigh suggests she try to help him get better. From their respective hiding places, Viola and Gracewood find they share an undeniable connection; eventually Gracewood realizes he’s known Viola his whole life, and the best friends begin to fall in love despite the complications. Author Hall is a consistently beautiful writer, but this story, the first in a new series, may be his best yet. The plot elegantly balances period details and classic tropes to create a queer love story with a pitch-perfect blend of reality and hope. Though the steamy intimate scenes are electric, the story’s momentum comes not from Viola and Gracewood’s slow burn but from the genuine emotional connections among a full cast of charming characters. Despite the centering of Viola and Gracewood’s love story, this is a book that celebrates the many ways people love and are loved. The story is complex and long but never lags, and readers will be glued to the book through the satisfying epilogue. As a bonus, Hall also wrote the funny, insightful discussion questions at the back, allowing readers space to dwell a bit longer on the story.

A groundbreaking and excellent queer historical romance.

Forever: May 24, 2022; ISBN: 9781538753750, Trade Paperback

★ AN OLIVE GROVE IN ENDS

By Moses McKenzie

Kirkus - Starred Review

Drug violence, religious strife, and a star-crossed romance play out in this Shakespearean tale set in a Bristol neighborhood of Caribbean and Somali immigrants called Ends.

Born into a large, "infamous" family of Pentecostal preachers with Jamaican roots, Sayon Hughes, the young narrator of this debut novel, is mostly raised by his grandmother alongside his many cousins. Along with them, he has inherited "generations of trauma passed on by relatives" and intensified by "a system intent on keeping us in place." Drawn into the drug trade by his cousin Cuba, whom he considers his brother, Sayon is arrested for dealing and serves six months in jail. The sentence is one of many setbacks that threaten his relationship with the bright and upstanding Shona Jennings, a Baptist preacher's daughter and aspiring record-label owner whom he and everyone else assumes he'll marry. "If looks could kill she had a knife at my neck," he says. After being pushed into a shocking act of violence, Sayon is so afraid of Shona’s finding out about the misdeed that he strikes a deal with her father, Pastor Lyle, who knows what happened but has his own dark secrets to keep. He won't tell his daughter about the incident if Sayon promises to cut ties with Cuba and the rest of his family, repent, and become born again while living in the Jennings house. There's no way that plan is going to work, but Pastor Lyle's open hatred of Muslim Somalis ultimately has a positive effect in awakening Sayon to Islam, a religion that makes sense to him. One of the many notable achievements of this remarkable debut by the 23-year-old McKenzie is to sustain our affection for Sayon even when he is acting badly. "Childhood and innocence are only synonymous to the privileged," he says. Recalling Zadie Smith's masterpiece White Teeth (2000), published when she was 25, this is the most exciting U.K. debut in years.

A gritty coming-of-age tale for the ages.

Little, Brown: May 31, 2022; ISBN: 9780316420143: Hardcover

★ HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

By David Sedaris

Booklist - Starred Review

Although a best-of collection and the second volume of his diaries have appeared, it has been four years since Sedaris’ last collection of new essays, Calypso (2018)—an eternity to fans who rely on his sardonic observations to help them discern what their own eyes fail to register. Much happened in the interim as the world locked down with COVID-19, communities erupted in protests over police murders, and people recoiled from political machinations. What occurs on the world stage is magnified thousands-fold on the local level, and luckily for readers, Sedaris’ neighborhoods range from coastal North Carolina to Normandy, Manhattan’s Upper East Side to West Sussex, England, and are populated by his comforting cast of recurring characters: his husband, father, and siblings. Death comes for the Sedaris family once more, this time for his 98-year-old father, Lou. In the title essay, the clan is gathered in the nursing home, contemplating the finality of the visit yet “laughing so loudly” they fear they’ll be asked to leave. “Because really, isn’t that what we’re known for?” Yes, they are, thankfully, and though his tone is more poignant than pointed, the essential Sedaris humor reassuringly endures. Amid the barbed quips, there is genuine sorrow, an empathy born of arduous experience and persistent aspiration. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The word is out and Sedaris' many fans will be filling up reserve lists for a fresh infusion of his unique candor and comedy.

Little, Brown: May 31, 2022; ISBN: 9780316392457, Hardcover

★ HOW TO BE EATEN

By Maria Adelmann

Booklist - Starred Review

“You can tell the same story over and over a hundred different ways, and every version is a little right and every version is a little wrong.” Five women begrudgingly meet for five weeks of group therapy in New York City. Bernice dated a mysterious tech billionaire who turned out to be a serial killer. Ruby was saved from a wolf’s stomach as a child and now wears its coat. Ashlee won an eligible bachelor's heart in a reality-TV show. Gretel was once lost and later found deep in the city with her older brother, and now doubts her own experiences. Raina is a beautiful housewife hiding a terrible secret. Group facilitator Will believes he can help these women heal by listening to their stories. In this modern retelling of classic fairy tales, Adelmann (Girls of a Certain Age, 2021) shatters “happily ever after,” showing how the women's lives are haunted in the aftermath of their disturbing experiences, and brilliantly brings to light the historical exploitation and manipulation of female trauma in the media. With the current fascination with true crime and reality television, this powerful first novel holds up a mirror to the reader and challenges our perceptions of truth.

Kirkus - Starred Review

Familiar fairy tales retold through the modern lenses of group-therapy sessions and reality TV.

Bernice has just entered the news cycle, the only survivor of a flamboyant tech billionaire/serial murderer who was known for his eccentric obsession with the color blue, which included dyeing his goatee a signature shade of cyan. Gretel’s iconic photo spread—an image of her and her brother, Hans, reunited with their father in the hospital after having been held captive in a house made of candy—is a part of American true-crime legend; as is the hard-to-fathom assault on Ruby and the shabby wolf-skin coat she's made out of its perpetrator. Raina, the oldest of the group at almost 40, is familiar mostly for her famous husband, though her face is vaguely reminiscent of some decades-old scandal surrounding their romance, while Ashlee, the most recent winner of the reality dating show The One, seems to be living out her happy ending in real time. All five women have received the same spamlike email inviting them to work through the lingering trauma of their “unusual stor[ies]” in group therapy led by the genially handsome Will, who exhorts them to Absolute Honesty, ostensibly in order to heal. As the summer passes, the women transcend their initial rivalries and suspicions and become bonded by their unique suffering. It seems Will’s therapeutic dictates are beginning to work, but as the women move past their public victimization and into the identities they would like to build in the aftermath, it becomes clear that Will has one more surprise up his impeccable sleeve. Adelmann travels the well-worn paths of some of the most famous fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm with stylistic panache and 21st-century verve. However, it's her nuanced consideration of our own culpability that makes this book unique. In the end, Adelmann’s true subject is actually her audience, the great anonymous we who consumes the horrors of violent husbands, ravaging wolves, hungry witches, and made-for-TV love stories with such compulsive demand we never pause to think what might come after the happy ending.

Both a meditation on trauma and a sendup of our society’s obsession with scripted reality, this book sings.

Little, Brown: May 31, 2022; ISBN: 9780316450843: Hardcover

★ DID YE HEAR MAMMY DIED?

By Séamas O'Reilly

Booklist - Starred Review

Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles is often cast into a narrative that doesn’t allow room for joy or delight. O'Reilly, a seasoned writer and columnist for the Observer and Irish Times, turns the era into a touchstone of his youth and, so doing, brings it out of the shadows. This is O’Reilly’s debut book, and it is filled with intention. Much of this collection exposes the realities of losing his mother at age five, paralleled by growing up in Derry during the tail end of the Northern Irish conflict. Although the first few chapters are enough to leave readers teary-eyed as O’Reilly’s family grieves his mother, one can’t help but feel happiness as O’Reilly describes his affection for his ten siblings and father. He confronts his family history with sharp, witty, and honest humor. His personal experiences highlight the realities, fear, and hardship the Troubles imposed upon his family and the community he grew up in while also using a lighter touch to detail the explosions, murder, and abduction that occurred during generations past and present. O’Reilly’s recollection is a splendid paradox, both cheery and heartbreaking.

Little, Brown: June 7, 2022; ISBN: 9780316424257: Hardcover

★ GET ROOTED: Reclaim Your Soul, Serenity, and Sisterhood through the Healing Medicine of the Grandmothers

By Robyn Moreno

Booklist - Starred Review

Emmy-nominated TV host, podcaster, life coach, and author Moreno steps away from the limelight and lifestyle writing to embark on a journey to wrestle with her susto, or scare or fright, a term she uses to signify a kind of deep-seated trauma. As she tells her story of discovery and healing, Moreno generously provides practical steps for any woman’s journey towards self-knowledge and self-love. This blend of memoir and guide is rooted in the traditions of Moreno’s Mexican heritage. Delving into the Indigenous traditions of curanderas, especially those of the Aztec and the Maya, she laments the knowledge lost during the Spanish conquest. Moreno works on recovering this ancient wisdom through research, by connecting to the wise women elders in her family, and by finding others on a similar path. Writing in an intimate, vulnerable voice, she fearlessly confronts such painful topics as addiction and child abuse. Divided into five parts that correspond to Aztec cosmology, with each section ending with activities and exercises that include journal prompts and directions for creating an altar and performing your own limpia (spiritual cleansing) and guided meditations, the book invites readers to modify these activities to honor their own cultural traditions.

Hachette Go: June 7, 2022; ISBN: 9780306926273: Hardcover

★ BITCH: On the Female of the Species

By Lucy Cooke

Booklist - Starred Review

Noted TED speaker and author Cooke dives into sex and gender across the animal kingdom, dispelling all the misogynist notions of females being the weaker sex. From the female mole’s venomous saliva to female spiders that devour the male after sex, Cooke upends the Darwinian notion of female submissiveness with those “that deviated from the passive, coy and monogamous template by being vicious, promiscuous and unquestionably dominant.” With humor and candor, she also discusses the diversity of female genitalia: the opossum's two ovaries, two uteri, two cervices and two vaginas; and the female hyena’s eight-inch clitoris in which she has sex, and through which she gives birth. Other chapters discuss female promiscuity, female sexual aggression, homosexuality, reproduction by cloning, sex-swapping animals, animals that have three or more separate genders, and menopause (experienced only by humans and some whales). Cooke also places much-needed female faces to related studies, citing the work of Jeanne Altmann, Patricia Gowaty, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and others. Their pioneering research shows that sex and gender have always been complex, innovative, and varied throughout the animal kingdom. This book elevates not just the science itself but the scientists that have been marginalized for too long.

Basic Books: June 14, 2022; ISBN: 9781541674899: Hardcover

★ THE LIFE WE ALMOST HAD

By Amelia Henley

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Henley (All for You, as Louise Jensen) makes the jump from thrillers to love stories with a magnificent, sweeping tearjerker about the transformative power of love. After Anna Adlington is dumped by her fiancé, she travels to their planned honeymoon destination, the Spanish island of Alircia, taking her best friend instead. When she almost drowns, fellow vacationer Adam Curtis saves her life, and the pair become inseparable for the rest of their stay. Back home in England, they live four hours apart, and when this distance proves a strain on their whirlwind relationship, Adam asks Anna to marry him. Fast forward five years, and Anna and Adam’s once-happy marriage is fracturing, impacted by Anna’s sorrow about being unable to get pregnant despite repeated surgeries for endometriosis. Adam books a trip to Alircia for their anniversary, hoping to recapture the magic of their early relationship. But their efforts at a new beginning are impacted by a tragedy that forever alters their future together. Henley’s beautifully flawed characters and their all-too-realistic struggles keep the pages of this poignant romance flying. Readers will want to devour it in a single sitting—but are advised to keep a box of tissues handy.

Forever: June 14, 2022; ISBN: 9781538754818, Trade Paperback

★ PROVING GROUND: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer

By Kathy Kleiman

Publishers Weekly - Starred Review

Law professor Kleiman recounts in her fantastic debut the vital but overlooked role six women played in the history of computers. While researching computer programming, Kleiman came across photos of unidentified women working on the ENIAC, “the world’s first all-electronic, programmable, general-purpose computer” built at the University of Pennsylvania during WWII. Unconvinced by a museum director’s suggestion that they were models, she dug deeper and uncovered their role in ENIAC’s development. In 1942, with the US having joined WWII and men in short supply, the Army hired young women with math backgrounds to program ENIAC to calculate missile trajectories. With no manuals to aid them, Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton, Betty Jean Jennings, Kathleen McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman took the job. Despite harassment and discriminatory treatment (they were classified SP, for “subprofessional and subscientific”), they persevered, and with their success opened up an “electronic computing revolution” that some “would soon call... the birth of the Information Age,” Kleiman writes. Kleiman has a novelist’s gift for crafting a page-turning narrative, and the one on offer is both revelatory and inspiring. Fans of Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures are in for a treat.

Grand Central Publishing: July 26, 2022; ISBN: 9781538718285, Hardcover