These up-to-the-moment workplace comics from Turetsky offer a diverse, charmingly rendered cast engaged in relatable office-world comedy, complete with one goof of a character, Teddy, “a regular fountain of bad ideas” who elicits last-panel eyerolls from his colleagues. But despite Teddy’s insistence that a good compromise between in-person and remote work would be to let him show up at the office in his pajamas, Turetsky is after more than laughs. These “HR Data Doodles” both celebrate and gently provoke serious thinking about the role of data, analytics, and clear planning in businesses, especially when it comes to HR, hiring, and implanting new management systems.

The team at the Played Much Gaming Company continually finds itself cheering about the abundant research it’s conducted or exciting new technologies it might implement—and again and again, Turetsky depicts the most clear-headed leaders stepping back to make sure someone actually utilizes that research or dares to ask “Maybe we think about business questions to solve then figure out what kind of Big Data will be useful for us.” Throughout, the characters, usually in meetings, go from proposing big new ideas (build a proprietary tool for data analysis!) to realizing that crucial questions haven’t been asked and vital work hasn’t been done. Amusingly, one team, eager to hire new developers for a new game, decides that rather than do the hard work of writing up job requirements and salary information, maybe they could develop an app to do so instead.

Many of Turetsky’s strips, mostly presented in four panel grids with appropriately jargon-heavy office dialogue, emphasize the need for clear visions, for taking the effort to get on the same page, and for talking about data and analytics after identifying what problems to target. That message shines through despite some tricky-to-follow placement of word balloons—the order in which to read the dialogue is often unintuitive. As office satire, these “doodles” are warm and incisive.

Takeaway: Warm comics celebration of HR and data analytics teams.

Comparable Titles: Doug Savage’s Savage Chickens, Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas’s Humor, Seriously.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: B+
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about Welcome to the World of HR Data Doodles

Freeman’s powerhouse debut features a timeless contemporary second chance romance beautifully paired with a timely playlist to tickle the imagination. Aspen is an actress-turned-pop star on top of the world—mostly. At least, she was until a nasty rumor blew up her life, her friendships, and possibly her career. Now homeless, she wings home from Los Angeles to Fertsville, PA, and the arms of her family. Among said family is Roman, her high school sweetheart. Even though it’s only been seven years since Aspen set out for the bright lights of Hollywood, and their romance ended, the pair have remained friends—even though saying goodbye gets more difficult each time she leaves. As they begin to fall back into old patterns, seamlessly working together to present the perfect traditional Christmas program, Aspen’s real life interferes.

With an impressively mature voice and brisk, assured storytelling, Freeman immediately draws readers into a world where the glitz and glamour are slightly tarnished and the stars are simple, down to earth, and approachable. The narrative unfolds in a dual timeline, but that risk pays off with each section proving a critical building block to demonstrate the architecture of the relationships. At times, some characters’ reactions to difficult situations may come across as a bit too idealized—Roman as the perfect high school boyfriend, for example. He’s the young jock, a member of the popular crowd, and Aspen is the bullied, quiet one who suddenly finds herself the focus of Roman’s attentions, seemingly out of nowhere.

The slight lack of subtlety and nuance carries through into some of the characterization, especially of the secondary characters—Rina, Sierra, and Millie, specifically. But even though these creations have the whiff of stereotypes, they work beautifully as foils for different aspects of Aspen’s personality and experiences. Overall, the novel will speak to a new generation of romance lovers while also delighting veterans of the genre with a fresh, vibrant voice.

Takeaway: A fresh new voice celebrates second chance romance in the harsh lights of celebrity.

Comparable Titles: Christina Lauren’s Twice in a Blue Moon, Jacquelyn Middleton’s A Smile in a Whisper.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about 'Tis the Damn Season

Set in the least glamorous locales of Los Angeles, this sun-kissed noir, Vaughn’s debut, centers on Ellis Dunaway, disgraced screenwriter, reluctant private investigator, and a man who can't move on from his failures in love, business or sobriety. Ellis inherited the private investigation agency from his father, a fortuitous gift as Ellis's brief and slightly shining career as a screenwriter is in the rear view mirror of his 1987 Porsche, likewise inherited. His work in Hollywood is DOA, so when his coke dealer requests that Ellis find out what happened to a man who was living in his rental property, there are no good reasons to refuse.

After discovering that the missing man was involved with the Black Fist, a powerful cartel, Ellis meets a foreboding cast who bring danger and violence to the investigation. The case turns personal, as Ellis discovers a surprising family connection, but the storytelling always is, as Ellis narrates in crisp, wry, fleet-moving prose—and faces friends and loved ones who are beginning to distance themselves from the spiral Ellis has chosen to ride out. His secretary, Reshma, is especially compelling, a character readers will hope secures a happier ending than her beginning would suggest.

Before an ending that offers welcome promise, Ellis’s own future doesn’t look much brighter than his present, as for most of the book he seems to have made his decision to wallow in the memory of all the big breaks and moments that haven't gone his way, despite the pain this brings to those he cares about. The title suggests Dorothy B. Hughes’s marvelous In a Lonely Place, but Vaughn’s Los Angeles is less dreamy, its sunsets shining on dog waste. Vaughn’s especially good at conjuring made-up cultural product, the junk that Hollywood would rather make than anything Ellis ever pitched, and frequent mentions of real shows and songs, including a disquisition on 1991 hits by Bryan Adams and Swing Out Sister, find Ellis drowning in pop. Here’s hoping this promising series soon finds him in a better place.

Takeaway: Promising series starter of a reluctant detective embroiled in L.A. noir.

Comparable Titles: Phoef Sutton’s Heart Attack and Vine, Timothy Hallinan’s Nighttown.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about The Loneliest Places

A group of teenagers takes on an ancient myth in the third of Cameron’s Young Explorers Adventure series (after Phantom Express). C.J., Scotty, Sadie, and Laura—members of the Young Explorers on an adventure to Scotland’s MacGregor Castle in 1919—are ecstatic to be part of a new expedition to renovate a historical castle, despite the rumors that the castle’s haunted. Upon their arrival, they meet the MacGregor family, including Lord MacGregor’s two children, Mollie and Keir, and a strange red-haired girl named Greer, granddaughter to a village woman, Morag, who warns the group that evil’s lurking near the MacGregor home. That warning foreshadows a deadly battle for the kids and their parents, as a long-dead curse is awakened and set loose, bent on destroying the MacGregor family once and for all.

Steeped in myth and adventure like the series’ earlier entries, the Scottish Knight boasts plenty of action and historical lore. The Young Explorers are quickly ensnared in the curses plaguing the MacGregors, as the renovation unearths an eerie suit of armor that turns up missing shortly after it’s discovered. When the armor later goes on the hunt—taking down Lord MacGregor in the process—it seems that ancient curse has some truth to it, especially when Morag foretells that it’s the Scottish Knight, returned to enact death on the MacGregors because “evil runs in [their] veins.” The curse—traced back to one of the early MacGregor lords who murdered a local woman accused of witchcraft—soon poses a threat to the entire group, when the ghostly knight turns on them all.

Cameron evokes the steadfast loyalty of young friends throughout the story’s deadly chases and chilling attacks—and that camaraderie eventually saves the day, of course, in a savvy and unpredictable plan hatched by the Young Explorers. The ending, though suspenseful, becomes cumbersome in its plotting, but middle grade readers will still relish this spirited escapade.

Takeaway: Ancient curses and intense action keep this adventure’s pages turning.

Comparable Titles: Shannon L. Brown’s The Crime-Solving Cousins Mysteries series, Jonathan W. Stokes’s Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about Scottish Knight

An adorable but troubled cheetah learns the value of self-approval in King’s warmhearted debut. Charlie, a young cheetah living on the African savannah, has a problem: his father is a renowned champion at the local races, and Charlie wants nothing more than to be just like him—but his legs aren’t strong enough, and he has no self-confidence. To top it off, Charlie’s classmates spend their spare time making fun of him, nicknaming him “Charlie the Chubby Cheetah”—a moniker that he quickly internalizes, adding to his insecurity.

Brimming with heart and boasting deeply-hued, energetic animations, this sprint through the African landscape will charm younger readers. Charlie is every bit the relatable, down-on-his-luck hero, an eager young cheetah thirsty for his first win but quickly let down when it doesn’t come easily. The cruel words of his peers eventually transform into his own inner voice, and, just as his physical shortcomings affect his racing prowess, seriously impede his self-assurance. When he’s finally had enough of the pain, Charlie resolves not “to spend [his] whole life hiding from bullies” and slips on some new self-confidence, renaming himself “Charlie the Champion.” While he learns to ignore his inner critic, King highlights the need for hard work to achieve goals, as Charlie leaves behind his beloved video games and makes a commitment to regular training—a racing routine that’s sure to get him in shape for the Savannah Sprint, the “biggest race of the year.”

Charlie eventually earns his happy ending, squeaking into first place at the race and beating his biggest rival by a split second. But that prize is hard-won, particularly when Charlie’s inner heckler rises to the surface again, after he starts the race in last place. But once he remembers the power of positive thinking, Charlie is unbeatable—and his victory over the vicious thoughts in his head will wow readers.

Takeaway: A troubled cheetah transforms into a champion with hard work and a new attitude.

Comparable Titles: Rachel Bright’s The Lion Inside, Bonnie Clark’s Catching Thoughts.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: B+

Click here for more about Charlie the Champion

Roberts’s debut pulsates with warmth as she examines women’s roles in their later years, characterizing her writing as “a radical reconsideration of what it means to grow old.” She’s as direct as she is compassionate, balancing her criticism of the West’s treatment of aging populations—“ in contemporary America… older members are often forgotten or placed in retirement homes,” she decries—with tender encouragement for female readers to treat “aging [as] so much more than the gradual decline toward death.” Roberts urges women to consider transforming into an “elder” rather than just becoming “older”: elders, she contends, use the crises of aging as catalysts for new beginnings, whereas those who choose to simply grow older count the years but miss the magic along the way.

The guide functions as a self-help/workbook fusion, with moments for guided reflection at the end of each chapter. Those introspective prompts are invaluable, as Roberts asks readers to contemplate a host of topics, ranging from the fear of losing youthful attractiveness to cultivating their small, inner voice as a life guide. In seeking new paths, Roberts contends that old identities must fall by the wayside to allow maturing women to experience a fresh way of being—essentially becoming “pilgrims without a home.” Roberts contends that the start of women’s blossoming comes when they learn to ask less of themselves in favor of discovering more about their true nature.

Though the book is aimed primarily at women, Roberts offers all readers indispensable advice on aging. Elders possess a distinct, priceless gift, she writes: they’re the storytellers, awash with wisdom and “the memories of what happened before.” She shares interviews of different women to illustrate the lessons they learned along the way and leaves readers with her own sage advice, both stating directly and demonstrating through her life and work that “becoming an elder is a dynamic process that both redefines one’s sense of self and requires an open acceptance of change.”

Takeaway: An inspiring celebration of aging, discovery, and acceptance of change for women.

Comparable Titles: Carla Marie Manly’s Aging Joyfully, Rosanne M. Leipzig’s Honest Aging.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about The Blossoming of Women

Aging trucker Noah Sowles finds himself caught up in a frightening conspiracy that keeps getting more horrific as he drives through the darkest heart of the American West, contemplating a hard life that too often has found him facing intense racism. As he tries to come to terms with his past, a pair of racist robbers kidnap and bring him to a bizarre community where he's subject to mental and physical torture. He meets with the leader, charming psychopath Scully, who needs Sowles' trucker skills, and tortures him into compliance. Sowles has to call on all his reserves and develop self-discipline to finish his journey and save both his body and mind.

A proud splicer of genres, Amos is not telling a conventional story here. He offers a thorough background on Sowles' history and thoughts in the opening pages and does a stellar job revealing not only the technical aspects of a trucker's life but the emotional toll it can take. This material compels, even though the thriller plot doesn’t truly get going until a quarter-way through the book. Amos demonstrates impressive descriptive skills throughout, but his prose is not for the faint-hearted. The torture scenes are graphic, and the dialogue is raw and wrenching, with continual use of hard-spat racial slurs.

The author beautifully limns Sowles' character as a follower of Dr. Martin Luther King and a dangerously stubborn man. His troubled past has changed his political outlook and left him cynical. Still, we see his chance to grow, as he's forcibly partnered in a crime scheme with an unapologetic racist. Their exchanges are appallingly offensive and starkly truthful, and Amos does make the effective point that the pawns in this life, no matter the race, must become allies. Still, at the end, it's Sowles on his own, coming to terms not only with his aging body, but his eternal soul in a battle against evil.

Takeaway: Hard-edged truck-driving thriller faces American racism with killer prose.

Comparable Titles: S.A. Crosby, Victor LaValle.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about California Roll

This character-driven slice-of-life drama from Horn (author of The Glass Birds) explores love, friendship, self-esteem, heartbreak, trust, and healing as its hero rebuilds her life and rediscovers the power of friendship. At its heart is Wendy Murray, a recently separated woman with low self-esteem who searches for love and acceptance during the turbulent 1970s in Los Angeles, all while haunted by the memories of her critical and emotionally distant father and her equally critical estranged husband Scott. Wendy drastically changes her life by losing weight, starting a nursery, and embracing the hedonistic bar scene, filling her life with men, alcohol, and drugs. She quickly becomes obsessed with Brad, a womanizing singer who ignores her just like her father did. Meanwhile, Scott strives to regain Wendy’s love and trust, trying to show that he’s becoming a better man. Best friend Cindy at first encourages Wendy’s wildness but becomes alarmed when her behavior spins increasingly out of control.

Wendy’s striving for independence and confidence is uplifting as she pours her love of gardening into her nursery, a place she feels truly happy, and new work as a garden designer. However, much of the story and Wendy’s confidence hinges on her wanting to be seen as desirable to men, and her drive to change herself for this goal—and her pride in achieving it—may fit the ‘70s milieu but also may put off contemporary readers who favor a more thorough examination of self actualization. Wendy also has the relatable bad habit of avoiding her problems, including whether to take Scott back, and ignoring good advice, such as focusing on her nursery, and masking her insecurities in the libertine indulgences of the decade.

Wendy and Cindy’s strong friendship as they support each other through romantic crises and emotional turmoil is heartening, and readers invested in the friendship will miss Cindy during her absences from the narrative. Horn’s attentive to the textures of life, culture, and thinking in the 1970s, and the novel builds to a warm conclusion in which Wendy accepts herself—and looks toward a better future.

Takeaway: A woman's touching reinvention in love and friendship in the swinging 1970s.

Comparable Titles: Jennifer Weiner, Judith Rossner’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about A Woman in Search of ...

Comprehensive and inviting, this guide to conceiving, testing, writing, and publishing recipes more than measures up to its title, offering a wealth of practical advice tailored for creating a host of recipe types (including specialized plant-based, gluten-free, and health and allergy conscious options) for any of today’s methods of sharing recipes with the world. That means that Sarazen—a dietician, chef, and food writer possessed of extraordinary communicative precision and power—lays out how to take an idea for a new recipe or an adaptation for an old one from soup to nuts, in a way that ensures a recipe is accurate, readable, and reproducible—a set of instructions that translates the act of cooking into words.” The Complete Recipe Writing Guide also demonstrates the process of testing a recipe, modifying its ingredients to meet a host of health and dietary specifications, and even—in thorough, illuminating chapters—how to present the finished product in photographs and video.

Like any good recipe writer, Sarazen understands her audience might not have access to top-of-the-line equipment, so she includes advice for how to showcase food on a smartphone. That spirit of approachability powers the book, which in many ways offers a recipe for the creation of recipes. To achieve this, Sarazen throughout explicates the practicalities of this highly technical form of writing, with style guides and guidance about organization, crafting ingredient lists, and anticipating readers’ understanding, expectations, and points of possible confusion.

But the writing’s only part of it. Setting this guide apart is Sarazen’s ambitious efforts to introduce, in its information-packed first six chapters, a baseline knowledge of the techniques, ingredients, equipment, and possibilities of recipes. From mastering yield conversions to knowing the difference between cornmeal, corn flour, polenta, and grits, the book abounds in practical tips, charts, lists, sidebars, worksheets, and above all else inspirational knowledge about the science and art of crafting and writing recipes for all audiences.

Takeaway: Thorough, marvelous guide to crafting and writing recipes for all diets.

Comparable Titles: Dianne Jacob’s Will Write for Food, Beata Lubas’s How to Photograph Food.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about The Complete Recipe Writing Guide

A quick-talking college student gets swept up in a local scandal as he navigates school, romance, race, and life in this character-focused work from the prolific Brookhouse (author of Messing with Men). Set at the dawn of the Reagan era, How It Was centers on Leonard “Lenny” Gray, a student at North Carolina’s small Prester College who finds himself assigned to help tutor star basketball player Wallace Wallace, a Black student in a mostly white town. A Lenny and Wallace discussion Hemingway, Lenny finds himself caught up in college bureaucratic espionage, small-town racism that’s not at all left behind in yesteryear, and a missing girl whose mysterious circumstances are subtly tied together with both. All throughout Lenny enjoys a playboy lifestyle, as different women fall for him and his silver tongue.

As the title suggests, Brookhouse is fascinated by the textures of everyday life in the past, as Lenny faces each day in a small town in the era of Camaros and the triumph of Billie Jean King. Dialogue is witty and often discursive, with talk of “rocks for jocks” remedial geology courses, and one character describing a class in the history of sports as “You trace how kicking some poor devil’s skull around an ancient town in Italy became soccer.” Brookhouse adores local color, stirring immediate feelings of camaraderie or contempt for each new character Lenny encounters, scenes rendered in crisp, engaging prose.

Lenny’s relationship with Wallace proves the novel’s most fascinating, despite the hero’s occasional (non-explicit) dalliances. The athlete quite literally doesn’t fit in—chairs at school are too small for him—and Brookhouse handles the complexities of inter-racial attraction connection (and, between these two young men and some female characters, potential romance) with a light touch, while never shying away from the reality of Wallace’s experience. The novel glances against these serious issues, plus true-to-life complications involving tutoring and academic honesty, without losing its sure footing, genial warmth, and commitment to the feeling of how it was there and then.

Takeaway: Warm slice-of-life drama of race, love, and tutoring in a 1980s North Carolina college.

Comparable Titles: Jane Smiley’s Moo, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about How It Was

Mattson (Interception City) offers another gritty Florida pulp fiction with this crime story that catches fire on a dangerous Miami street, where two police detectives, John Adriani and Billy Burgoyne, and Lieutenant Marty Winston, engage in a drug raid inside a bodega that leads to a suspenseful ride through the corrupt underbelly of Miami's police force, especially after a major shock: the murder of a sergeant in the interrogation room. Complicating all this is the arrival of Internal Affairs Officer Christine Parks, tasked with straightening out this department and emitting an air of intimidation with her bullheadedness and distracting beauty—in Mattson’s noir-ish narration, she’s “the kind of woman you’d crawl naked across broken glass for, just to see her from a distance.” As the tension builds, Winston sees a risky chance to escape to a better life.

Mattson mines unpredictable mystery and intrigue from this cast's uncertain motives and morality, while layering in a touch of whodunnit tension, all with the added urgency of an impending storm about to deal an "all-out assault on the entire southern Florida coast." True to Mattson’s genre, the dialogue is clipped, crisp, and realistic as these sharply developed characters face a variety of tense situations. Mattson’s fascinated by the nuts-and-bolts of corruption, convincingly detailed gunplay, bursts of jolting action, and the question of just how far these desperate people will go.

With a strong sense of Miami’s dark streets and flooding boulevards, its cop card games and diverse populations, Mattson keeps the surprises coming but also underscores the far-reaching repercussions of these characters' decisions and ethical dilemmas. This serves as a cautionary tale about remaining loyal to one's principles and the destructive power of greed and corruption. Readers of thrillers involving murder, drugs, and moral murkiness will find this well-crafted plunge into a world of vice engagingly seedy.

Takeaway: Spirited Miami noir of cops, corruption, a big score, and a killer cast.

Comparable Titles: Dennis Lehane's The Drop, Carl Hiaasen.

Production grades
Cover: B-
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about Tropic Heat

Willis has lived many lives through the years, as pastor, jazz musician, teacher and writer. In Cosmo and Me, he shares the quest he has been on the whole time—for the Holy Grail, to “experience God,” and what he found. As he is chronologically one of the first Baby Boomers, Willis’s story parallels much of contemporary America’s story, from his time as a youth helping build an early shopping mall to his avoidance of Vietnam through a teaching job to entering the 1980s and a midlife crisis even as the country seems to be going through its own crisis. In his retirement, Willis moved to the wilderness of South Carolina and found what he was looking for—God—in nature.

Willis has faced a lot of pain and beauty in his life, from beloved teachers lost to suicide to the beauty of nature experienced with close friends to a very full career in and out of religious institutions. In Cosmo and Me, he shares the “flowers” of these experiences, including some bold conclusions. While the level of personal disclosure is often high, Willis doesn’t dig too deeply here into some practicalities of his search for God, such as its impact on his children and wives, though he does include several photos which help put faces to the stories that he tells.

Willis closes the stories of his life with a deeply thought out “theory” of just who God is, what the universe is and who people are —even though he warns that these passages may seem to be “a sudden turn to religion or philosophy,” they cohere well with the rest of the text by fleshing out what has been made implicit earlier. However a reader may feel about the specifics of Willis’s spiritual theory, it is well worth considering as hard-won the wisdom of a true seeker. Readers willing to appreciate the experiences of the past will learn much from Willis’s story and spiritual insight.

Takeaway: A seeker’s engaging quest for God over the course of an American life.

Comparable Titles: Ervin Laszlo’s Science and the Akashic Field, Itzhak Beery’s Shamanic Healing.

Production grades
Cover: B-
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: B+

Click here for more about Cosmo and Me

Seventh-grader Jett Jeffries is about to have his world tossed upside down. After an unsettling encounter with a spooky talking scarecrow on the eve of Halloween, he discovers a secret door that passes through a quantum barrier into a new world named Pararealm, an industrialized dystopia. This is a place where the citizens possess supernatural powers, teleportation is the preferred mode of transportation, and monsters lie in wait to attack. Jett discovers that his encounter with the scarecrow connects to an old legend rooted in Pararealm’s history. With the help of his new friends, Jett must bravely unravel a mystery and unveil corruption if he is ever going to make it back home.

Duvall creates a fun, imaginative reality. From woolly mammoth burgers to an encounter with a baku, a supernatural creature that feeds off dreams and turns them into nightmares, the creative fantasy elements sewn into the fabric of this middle-grade adventure continually surprise. At times, they maybe do so too much—some elements, like the heliokinetic energy as the method of providing power for the Pararealm citizen’s mystical abilities, are introduced without much background, which can cause readers to miss an opportunity to fully anchor themselves within the scene or the greater reality of the Pararealm. Still, the premise more than lives up to its promise of thrilling battles and harrowing tribulations, with the dangers and villains, like the memorable General Zoon, being just scary enough to grip readers but never harrowing.

In Darkness it Waits delivers lovely themes of friendship, perseverance, and bravery. Duvall is also mindful of the large cast of characters and tangled plot points and inserts helpful quick recaps into the dialogue ensuring readers the chance to stay engaged in the fast-paced action. Fantasy fans looking for a middle-grade quest filled with magic and supernatural elements will enjoy this adventure.

Takeaway: Inventive portal fantasy of a dystopia, weird monsters, and friendship.

Comparable Titles: A.G. Howard's Shades of Rust and Ruin, Ann Fraistat's What We Harvest.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about In Darkness It Waits

This welcome guide to the forgotten, obscure, and sometimes mysterious places and happenings on Cape Cod will prove inviting and easy-to-follow even for new arrivals at the storied Massachusetts summer getaway, and even year-round residents will discover something new. Descy’s love of Cape Cod is rivaled only by his knowledge of its long history and the often neglected local lore that encompasses it. From the most haunted jail in America to Jenny Lind Tower and hearty tales of shipwrecks and pirate booty, the locales explored and celebrated here reveal a vibrant Cape of fascinating and still-tangible history.

The stories Descy shares come in three categories: the lost, the forgotten, and the paranormal. Each chapter starts with a region’s background and history before diving into particular sites worth hunting down, “Secret Space”s and “Mysterious Place”s like the remains of the Highland Life-Saving Station. The breadth and depth of Descy’s knowledge is matched by his skills as a prose stylist—he writes concise, comprehensive and readable history in an easy-going style, relating complex history in just a few pages. Many of the stories are tragic, with illness and loss of life abounding.

Economy of language helps makes this guidebook inviting and effective, whether Descy’s celebrating the poet Mary Oliver’s walking path, an old jail, or a ghostly apparition purported to have appeared on a beach in the dead of night. The final part of each entry is practical, offering clear directions to the site. It is worth noting that not all of the locations are easily accessible. The directions to the Great Hidden Brickworks warn of “...poison ivy, ticks, mud and tripping hazards”—finding any area’s most fascinating spots can demand muddying up one’s shoes. Descy’s book is a highly interesting and accessible entry into not just the odd and obscure features of Cape Cod, but also an excellent history of the island itself.

Takeaway: Enticingly written guide to Cape Cod’s most fascinating secrets.

Comparable Titles: Barbara Sillery’s Haunted Cape Cod’s Sea Captains, Shipwrecks, and Spirits, Erin Briggs’s Massachusetts Bucket List.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about Cape Cod's Secret Spaces & Mysterious Places

The Hindu holiday of Diwali can seem a magical occasion. Alive with prayer, feasts, and fireworks, it offers opportunity for believers to revel in the triumph of good over evil. Penamakuru’s imaginative book for middle-grade readers takes an otherworldly approach to a fictionalized celebration of this late fall festival. Set in a distant solar system similar to ours on a planet much like Earth, the story follows five pasumans, or anthropomorphic animals—in this case, tigers, elephants, and bears. The creatures gather at the home of the tigers, Adhvika and Aadi, for a Diwali party, with each guest bringing traditional dishes, drinks, and costumes.

The only problem: this year Adhvika and Aadi chose to take their dream vacation right before Diwali, so they are unprepared. When their friends arrive, the tigers ask for their help in the rush to create the perfect scene. This is when things start to go off the rails, with the friends getting so caught up in their plans that they neglect their values. The book’s not crafted as an introduction to Diwali, so readers first exploring the holiday will find minor specifics of the narrative a challenge to keep up with, particularly since the characters are prone to amusing off-topic chatter. But the pressure to make each holiday the best ever will resonate with young people and parents regardless of faith or geographic location, as will the pasumans’ eventual realization that the true meaning of Diwali is what really matters.

Throughout the story, Kuba’s occasional illustrations show the expressive pasumans preparing for the occasion by going shopping, hanging garlands, and drawing festive patterns around their home. At the end of the book, a letter from Jambu the bear explains the history and traditions of Diwali, and a glossary offers helpful definitions of terms. This inventive story invites readers to suspend their disbelief while offering an intriguing introduction to an ancient and beloved celebration.

Takeaway: Charming animal adventure celebrating Diwali.

Comparable Titles: Jatinder Verma’s Prince of Fire, Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Sha and the End of Time.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-

Click here for more about Let There Be Light - A Diwali Story

High schooler Jain is a young author with promise who has created a plot-driven fantasy adventure about sibling rivalry, mistaken identity, magical hubris, and class warfare. Sixteen-year-old orphan and thief Lyra is still mourning the murder of her older brother Lucas three years ago. When she meets his doppelganger, 19-year-old Lord Jaxon Trist Richmond of Walbreck, she’s overcome with emotion. Jaxon is on a mission from Nyssa, the Queen of Time, one of four siblings who are the world’s last magic wielders of Life, Nature, Mind, and Time, who survived the last magic war 500 years ago. Jaxon is the Xalaber, the freer of magic, charged with unlocking the siblings’ Prisons. Coincidentally, Lyra has a keyhole shaped birthmark on her cheek that may be useful. But Jaxon fails, he is not the Xalaber — that distinction belonged to Lucas, after the Queen of Life switched Lucas with Jaxon in the crib. Nyssa, Jaxon, and Lyra search for a seven-year-old girl named Cailyn, who absorbed the powers of the Queen of Life, to resurrect Lucas.

After catching up with Cailyn, the rapid-fire plot progresses as the group encounters Will, the King of Nature, who has already escaped his Prison. He convinces Jaxon that the Queen of Time’s mission is doomed to bring death and chaos back into the world, not the least by rendering the nobility powerless. In a compelling scene, Will asks, “If your people get [magical] powers, how long do you think you’ll keep your title?” Meanwhile, Lyra will do anything to keep magic in the world. The two sides’ conflicting but equally reasonable goals come to a head in a disastrous (and highly imaginative) war driven by betrayal and secrets.

Jain navigates the story at a steady, straight-forward pace, keeping the pages turning while sacrificing fantasy tales’ traditional detours into descriptions of their worlds and the workings of their magic. The characters have charm, and Lyra’s courage and commitment are inspiring, but the brisk pace and complex storyline leave little room for their quirks and traits to shine through, and the prose at times lacks polish. Still, Jain deftly employs schemes and disguises to surprise while demonstrating a strong sense of when to lean into readers’ expectations and when to upend them. A talent to watch.

Takeaway: Magical adventure of resurrection, betrayal, and war by a young author with promise.

Comparable Titles: A.J. Massey’s Where Dragonwoofs Sleep and the Fading Creeps, I.L. Cruz’s A Smuggler’s Path.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about The Prisons of Magic