Bianco's debut collection takes readers through the lives of ten individuals who, at first glance, hold in common a string of resolve. Bianco takes readers into the lives of brothers, friends, and loners with a ghostly yet fulfilling narration of each life. Upon entry into the tense world of the first short story, in which a man scarfing tarts while driving gets caught up in a potential altercation with a truck driver, readers may expect that the worst will befall these characters. But in stories like “The Monroes”—a coming-of-age beauty about a friendship between two families of different classes in the 1970s—Bianco demonstrates how closely related we are, how our individual experiences reveal greater species-wide truths. In each humane piece, as Bianco’s characters process loss, time, loneliness, and memory, readers will find more comfort than heartache.

Bianco's approach is, in each crisply told story, to focus first on incidents rather than the protagonist experiencing them, and then building up to an affecting climatic summation. From “Dot,” a sweeping examination of an Ohio woman’s life from 4H to computer programming to divorce from a man who wanted a less ambitious wife: "She somehow survived without anger or regret, and without once considering herself remarkable or entitled to more than the cards of life dealt her." Often, in stories like “That Hoffman Girl,” Bianco guides the reader to inferring the characters’ feelings, a part of solving the riddle of emotions and memory. Since the people and situations feel so real, and since the storytelling is so skillful, this is a pleasure.

Throughout, Bianco’s people seem to be presenting themselves without qualms, asking us to take them as they are. Yet each story also offers reason to doubt this, to pick at the questions that the narrators seem to prefer to leave un-asked. Bianco writes invitingly of experience, survival, and what we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Takeaway: Resonant stories of life as it’s lived, told with welcome empathy.

Comparable Titles: Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver.

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

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Published tête-bêche style in a single volume, Bigelow’s debut poetry collections,Science & Mysticism and The Veil’s Cipher comprise a twin set that reaches with impressive depth into the scientific, spiritual, and physical mysteries of the universe. Offering what Bigelow calls “ruminations on the infinite from a finite being,” the collections draw heavily from particle physics and quantum mechanics, finding in these theories tools to conduct a spiritual inquiry. In other words, Bigelow creates a union between the scientific and the divine, consciously disrupting the binary between the two to illuminate the universe and humanity’s relationship to it.

While the poems are galactic in scope, they aren’t out of reach, nor do they lack playfulness. Most are lyrical and abound with wordplay, as in “Dream Data”: “Light is the measure of all matter / and it’s all just a matter of Time.” Bigelow also plays with form and structure, publishing distinct yet aligned collections of poetry that focus so acutely on polarities. Science & Mysticism is, in general, concerned with the melding of just what its title promises, while The Veil’s Cipher focuses on the enigma of time and the struggle of humanity to cope with its own temporality (“I don’t see / a start / or end / to time”).

Still, Bigelow’s heady ideas flow freely across the physical divide between the volumes, the verses within penned in clear, engaging, surprising language. The collections create a oneness that reflects Bigelow’s ideas about the oneness of the universe (“All inhabits / every moment”) that has split itself into varied, seemingly self-contained forms. According to the speaker in “Heirlooms,” as the “rare metals” of existence collide and connect in “intense chaotic energetic refinement,” “we are making jewelry.” Readers searching for a home in the intersection of poetry, science, and spirituality will find one in Bigelow’s debut.

Takeaway: Electric poetry concerning spirituality, quantum physics, and other mysteries.

Comparable Titles: Pattiann Rogers’s Holy Heathen Rhapsody, Sarah Howe’s Relativity.

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

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Gerbils are front row center in Zapped, telling the charming story—with occasional human interruptions—of their quest to elevate their status in the rodent hierarchy. Sent on a rescue mission by the Elders, Sophie (the gerbil) is tasked with rescuing a gerbil appearing to send S.O.S. signals from a top-floor apartment window. While on the case with her partner, Ben, they learn that the apartment's human inhabitants have invented a shrinking machine called the Nanozap. Informed of this, the Elders of gerbils conclude they can finally become like mice, who in this universe enjoy clothes and furniture originally made by humans for dolls. Gerbils are too big for those, one of many injustices they note throughout this sprightly comic adventure: “There have been no gerbils in human literature—no gerbil Despereaux. No gerbil Stuart Little. No Gerbil Nutkin.”

Zapped is a fast paced and highly imaginative story shining a spotlight on the secret life of pets. From hostile rodent takeovers to the gerbil’s fascinating hierarchy—“We have a sort of rule that says no gerbil is more important than any other gerbil”—Breitrose creates a surprising, funny world, while touching on classic middle grade themes about being accepted for who you are and finding your place in the world.

For all the hilarity, including a wind-up mouse and a gerbil named Einstein, passages from the perspective of Joe, a human boy who thinks of himself not as an “alpha dog” but a “kappa,” are touching. He faces relatable real-world concerns like his lack of confidence at Little League, even as he conceives of surprising plans for the Nanozap, a device whose use comes with clever onomatopoeia. This blend of adventure, science-fiction, and talking-animal comedy (gerbils love polkas!) that will appeal to young readers.

Takeaway: The funny, inventive story of gerbil society’s big plans for a shrinking machine.

Comparable Titles: Meghan Marentette’s The Stowaways, Ross Welford’s Time Traveling with a Hamster.

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

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This chilling novel-in-stories from Benacre, the first of two volumes, charts the life of Michael McCann, the “cleanskin”—that is, not clearly connected—Irish Republican Army operative who, in Benacre’s novel Easter, Smoke and Mirrors attempts to stage a bombing in London in 2016. McCann digs deep into the question of how Michael came to this, covering nearly fifty years of recent history, starting before Michael himself is conceived. Early stories focus on his doomed mother in Dublin in the tumultuous late 1960s, her miserable marriage to an alcoholic, and her dalliance with the charming Frank O’Neill, a criminal with IRA connections who’s eager to see the “the North burning” and the Troubles to follow.

It's no spoiler to say that Ireland is so wracked with explosive violence or that Frank will be a guiding, paternal figure in Michael’s life—in fact, as McCann makes clear, it will be Frank who eventually impresses Michael into undertaking the 2016 attack. Young Michael faces horrors and loss that will rattle readers, but the tension threading through the collection concerns why his 41-year-old self will eventually attempt a bombing, especially when, early on, an attack tears his family apart.

That story illuminates Michael’s mother’s own secrets and hardiness, her drive to do what needs to be done, no matter how distasteful. Much of McCann unfolds from Michael’s perspective, as he comes of age, grows strong under Frank’s eye, and fights the Russians in Afghanistan with the Mujahadeen. But Benacre’s keenly interested in the context of that life, offering a clutch of stories that read as sharp colloquies between characters facing the news of a changing world—and how they must change with it. Readers see Frank’s response to many epochal events, with the most harrowing on September 11, 2001: “these are the lengths we’re going to have to go to. You get it?”

Takeaway: A novel in stories tracing the life of a “cleanskin” IRA bomber and a half century of fractious history.

Comparable Titles: Eoin McNamee’s Resurrection Man, Wendy Erskine’s Sweet Home.

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

Click here for more about McCann

“Our actions over the next ten years can change the course of history on the planet,” Sam Arroyo, the son of the genius owners of a private aerospace company, declares early in Martin’s fiction debut. If anything, Sam’s downplaying the leap his family’s ushering humanity towards: a propulsion drive that manipulates gravitational fields, allowing space flight without rockets—and potentially eliminating our need for fossil fuels. The Arroyos understand how much the powers that be will want to control or eliminate this technology (and a cloaking device another son’s developing). That’s especially true of a greedy American president who fancies himself a king. But that won’t stop the Arroyos from building spacecraft and plotting a mission to Mars and possibly beyond, all of which Martin games out in vivid, conversational detail.

This is upbeat, big-picture science-fiction, alert to the technical complexities of Arroyo Aerospace’s ambitions but not bogged down in them. Martin, a documentarian and author of many nonfiction books, prizes convincing scenes of decision-making and problem-solving. That’s not to say the novel lacks tension—it starts in a 2017 rocked by right-wing militias, with the intelligence agencies sniffing around the Arroyos’ progress. As they prepare the Galaxy Two for launch over the next few years, the family faces the fraught politics of the real world in that era, from the pandemic to election denialism.

Crisp dialogue carries the story, though tense shifts and an expository tone mean the storytelling’s not as polished as it could be. The blunt emphasis on contemporary politics, including a conservative Arroyo sister who initially is kept out of the loop because of her affiliations, will put some readers off, but Martin’s ultimately empathetic with her—and he’s invested in how great things might be accomplished within our current Earthly systems. As their new space age dawns, complete with a space station, the Arroyos explore PR campaigns, private-public partnerships, deals with corporations, and other practical approaches.

Takeaway: This upbeat novel imagines a family-owned aerospace company’s new space age.

Comparable Titles: Daniel Suarez’s Delta-v, Kim Stanley Robinson.

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

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Linden’s ambitious collage of a novel of stories-within-stories and plays-within-lives celebrates and interrogates questions of truth, fiction, and storytelling. It opens with a woman, also named Nicolette, who has gained possession of her “bequest” from her mother, a pair of manuscripts, the first being The Walrus, a personally revealing play that her mother forbade her from reading until she turned 30. The Walrus follows William and Jilian—the name of the mother of the novel’s Nicolette—as they navigate the waters of a relationship, with William often rejecting Jilian sexually until she can prove that she is in touch with her true feelings. The Bequest also includes scenes of Nicolette speaking to Morton Seiden, who championed her mother’s work, and his lecture notes for his teaching of The Walrus. Along the way, these characters discuss literature, love, legacy, and how we “metabolize” them all.

The novel is clever and complex—another manuscript, Jillian’s Confession, figures in as well—but easy to follow. It will appeal to readers who love literary puzzles, interlocking portraits of relationships, and playful but dead-serious inquiry into the complexities of love, sex, and family. While the characters all offer their own incisive commentary about the central relationships, Linden leaves it to readers to reach their own conclusions: the William of the play seems intended as enlightened and sensitive yet comes off as controlling and manipulative—if that’s intentional, which author intends it? (Late in the book, Linden smartly upends some assumptions about authorship and perspective, casting a new light on what’s come before–and stirring more questions.)

Dr. Seiden’s lecture notes, meanwhile, gush with comic overstatement about the very works we’re reading (“the most beautiful, tender and erotic in all of literature”) yet also reveal striking insights that enrich the whole. Readers who find such play rewarding will find this novel a fest of ideas, surprises, and consistent sharp, engaging, prose.

Takeaway: A playful meta-novel whose stories within stories examine love.

Comparable Titles: Nicole Krauss, John Barth.

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

Click here for more about The Bequest: The Enhanced Edition

Cunningham (Reflections of a Southern Boy) adds an inspirational religious element to a story of intense horse racing rivalry in pre-Civil War Alabama in his latest offering. In 1852 Alabama, Gideon Deshler rejects his Christian faith after his wife Harriet dies during childbirth along with his newborn son. Gideon seeks comfort in the bottle and directs his anger at his friend Luke who tries to curtail Gideon’s excessive drinking. Though Gideon almost kills Sam Quarles in a duel over an insult against Harriet, Sam becomes a changed man after attending Luke’s church. But Gideon continues his disdain for religion as he courts Elvira Sturgis, an avowed atheist, whose mistreatment of her slaves is almost unparalleled. When Gideon’s butler Thaddeus, a free man, dies saving him, Gideon has his own reformation back to religion. But Sam fears his brother Joe may commit suicide if he can’t restore the family name with his horse’s victory.

Cunningham laces the novel with a multitude of biblical references, beginning with the first name of the main protagonist, Gideon, and story elements that will appeal to readers of faith, such as the subplot regarding Gideon’s friends and neighbors trying to get him back into the fold of church. The intense thematic references to religion and good versus evil work well with the plotline, and Cunningham faces the era’s true darkness: while Elvira is portrayed as being very beautiful, her beauty includes a dark side, embodied by her brutality towards the family slaves.

The heart of the storyline, though, focuses on the intense horse racing competition between the turfmen and the landed gentry’s devotion to horse racing, especially as Gideon and Sam search for the killer of the Quarles’ former champion racehorse. Alive with vivid historical detail surrounding jockey club dinners and balls during the racing season, Cunningham’s novel also highlights the dangers inherent in the Underground Railroad for both slaves and abolitionists.

Takeaway: An inspirational historical novel of faith, freedom, and horse racing in old Alabama.

Comparable Titles: Geraldine Brooks’s Horse, Katherine C. Mooney’s Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack.

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

Click here for more about Turfmen and the Prodigal

A little girl who’s more than she seems is the heart of this surprising novel of grief, adolescence, and mysteries both supernatural and practical, all set in a marvelously evoked small Ontario town. Justin Lambert’s mother went missing in 1996, when he was two. A decade later, long after the authorities have given up on the case, Justin makes an unexpected new friend in tiny Ferguston: a little girl named Billie who seems much smarter than her age, doesn’t go to school, and in conversation speaks to Justin like “anthropologist would interview an elder from some remote culture.” She asks fascinating questions like “Are these the only colours you have?” and, when adults take too much interest in her, somehow manages to vanish. Meanwhile, the residents of Ferguston report strange lights in the sky and strange fish in Lake LeClair, and local ne’er-do-well David Raymond, a suspect in Justin’s mother’s disappearance, is cruising Justin’s neighborhood in his great neon green truck, apparently on the hunt.

Especially in the opening and closing chapters, Bourgault, making his debut, deftly balances the novel’s mix of coming-of-age literary fiction with its exciting supernatural and suspense elements. Scenes with Billie are both charming and unsettling, as Justin at first refuses to ask hard questions about this strange little girl who knows so much about him. The answers to just who and what she is, when they come, are inspired, not settling into any genre convention. She’s an original, like the book itself.

The novel’s middle passages can feel protracted, such as chapters covering the aftermath of a strange accident or a trip to the American Southwest. The Perpetual Now is long, and at times feels like it, though its central mystery and relationships are compelling, and the prose is touched with unfussy observational poetry. “Ferguston sometimes felt like a war-torn city where all the buildings were left standing,” Bourgault writes, capturing a rich sense of place in a line.

Takeaway: A smart, heartfelt novel blending speculative and coming-of-age fiction.

Comparable Titles: Graham Joyce’s The Tooth Fairy, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun.

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

Click here for more about The Perpetual Now

David (Party Girl) makes it look easy to become an authority on any subject and then publish a book on it to serve as a calling card, open doors to publicity, and increase your business profits. Rather than offering guidance about writing a book, David concentrates on seven steps to accomplish before, during, and after the writing process to cultivate an audience. She writes, “it’s about first having the right book topic and then consistently working to build your authority.” David asserts that having published a book, including ghostwritten or self-published, makes you a quintessential authority, a status that can lead to recognition and opportunity. She capably weaves in anecdotes and quotations from successful business leaders and founders.

David’s seven steps prepare the potential author for nurturing, promoting, and profiting from a book. For example, before starting a book, authors should think of a lucrative, niche topic that will cater to a specific audience—and study one-star reviews on Amazon to understand what readers want. During the writing process, keep your potential audience engaged by building followers on social media, writing a newsletter, and gathering subscribers. Then she lays out steps for exploiting social media platforms like Mastodon and BeReal, writing press releases, and securing media appearances. Finally, profit from your book, which has by now built you up as an authority, by securing paid speaker gigs, keynote speeches, and directing clients to hire your business or buy your products.

In an age when traditional book publishing with agents and editors are increasingly passe, self-publishing and promotion are more accessible than ever, yet it’s ever more incumbent upon authors to put in the work beyond just writing. David’s how-to is frank—even unromantic—in its breakdown of what it takes to sell your own how-to. Despite some repetition of basic ideas, David delivers practical advice on navigating modern methods of self-promotion that can enhance your publicity and profits.

Takeaway: This hands-on guide urges authors to promote, profit, and become authorities.

Comparable Titles: Brooke Warner’s Green-Light Your Book, Barb Drozdowich’s The Author's Guide to Book Promotions.

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

Click here for more about On Good Authority

“Double talk has become second nature,” Brian Bradford declares in Breen’s third novel chronicling Bradford’s clashes with the wicked insurance company ZeiiMed. Bradford’s gift for the legal arts is put to the test in this climactic volume, which picks up from the cliffhanger ending of 2016’s The Device Trial. Bradford’s both victorious and defeated: a suit against ZeiiMed ended in triumph, but Bradford himself was charged with manslaughter after a bloody confrontation with ZeiiMed CEO John Edison and his goons. Now, a wounded Edison is out for revenge, and Bradford—betrayed by his wife—declares himself uncharacteristically unwilling to poke the ZeiiMed bear.

But neither Breen nor Bradford can let an injustice lie, as Breen concocts another story of clever suspense and high-stakes corporate malfeasance that displays a persuasive understanding of law, health industry scams, and a lawyer’s drift of mind. Four years later, in 2016, an unexpected person from Bradford’s past offers a tip that might bring ZeiiMed down—and save lives. ZeiiMed is possibly importing poppies from Afghanistan to peddle illegally in the states as opiates. Soon, Bradford’s back in the game, as a ZeiiMed assassin, in dark and tense scenes, again targets him for death with no regard for civilian casualties.

New readers should understand that this is very much a concluding chapter, one whose first third is dedicated to the aftermath of the previous book, though the new case, once it starts, proves exciting. Bradford’s heroic but also proudly his own man, joking about sexual harassment and pausing the setup chapters to endorse the candidacy of Donald Trump. That’s interesting; less so is the 8 pages in which Bradford’s colleague airs theories about the intelligence community targeting Trump, a passage even MAGA diehards might skim. That action, fortunately, is satisfying, unpredictable, and in the end explosive, as Breen blends high-level legal maneuvering with terror in the streets and waterways of New York.

Takeaway: An attorney’s fight against a diabolical insurance company builds to an explosive climax.

Comparable Titles: Brad Meltzer, David Baldacci.

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

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Emma Murry has lived all 13 years of her life in Black Mountain, North Carolina, a vibrant multi-ethnic community with strong Cherokee roots, ample green space, and an internationally acclaimed monarch butterfly garden. (That’s not to mention the local werewolf.) But now all that is in danger, because movie star Chester Scott is looking to build a ski resort. Emma’s crush on Chester’s son, skateboarding social-media star Jeb, threatens to tear her away from helping her best friend Sophie protect the butterflies, but when Emma’s father is suspected of sending Chester death threats, it’s up to Emma to find a way to save her town, her father, the butterflies, her friendship, her crush... and solve that pesky werewolf mystery.

Writing teenagers who sound like teenagers is hard, but Laxton, drawing on her teaching experience, achieves this with aplomb. It’s easy to cringe along with Emma when she gets tongue-tied in front of her crush, worries if she’s a good enough friend, or faces her nerves over public speaking. She’s alive on the page, as is Black Mountain itself, painted in vivid detail like local soda names and a raucous town hall meeting. Less compelling is the local werewolf, who, despite some moments of convincing suspense, never proves as engaging as the depiction of a battle involving zoning laws, bite-sized celebrity environmentalism, and the real plight facing those butterflies.

As the title suggests, themes of change form the heart of the book, and any metamorphosis is going to be a bit messy. But the supernatural mystery, which involves elements of Aztec culture, and the vibrant coming-of-age drama seem at odds, with everyday passages about friendships, skateboarding, and Emma’s art journal proving the novel’s most urgent. While the narrative may at times be muddied, the richness of Black Mountain is more than worth stopping and taking a closer look.

Takeaway: An engaging novel of youthful activism, friendship, and a small town’s werewolf.

Comparable Titles: Celia C. Perez’s Strange Birds, David A. Adler’s Cam Jansen mysteries.

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

Click here for more about THE METAMORPHOSIS OF EMMA MURRY

Arguing that “women are relational creatures who need confidence to succeed and crave connection and collaboration,” Backstrom debuts with a corporate leadership guide that encourages women leaders and entrepreneurs to build confidence, increase self-awareness, and amplify their voices by uniting with other talented women to effect positive systemic changes in corporate leadership and to smash glass ceilings. Drawing upon experience as a corporate leadership coach, Backstrom introduces the concept of Collaborative Confidence, its three main pillars, and practical strategies that work in conjunction to showcase the extraordinary power and necessity of women leaders.

The bulk of the guide walks readers through Collaborative Confidence and its main foundational pillars—Activate, Amplify, and Accelerate, which correspond to the guide’s three main sections. The “Activate” pages provide strategies and exercises for women leaders to increase self-awareness, uncover and leverage strengths, establish core values, and awaken their inner champions. Using lessons from the Obama administration and the concept of Shine Theory, the second section presents the strategy of amplification and encourages readers to build strong connections with other professional women, while developing an “abundance mindset.” The “Accelerate” section, meanwhile, addresses how women leaders can speed up the pace of change within the workplace through sponsorship, inclusivity, and creating more flexible work environments.

Backstrom’s purpose is clear: to inspire women to “weave together a happy and fulfilling life and career.” Backstrom writes with persuasive power, an inviting tone, and clear depth of experience, so that declarations like this ring out: “When women discover and tap into their own unique talents and powers as well as those of other women, it awakens an unstoppable transformational force,” Sharing compelling examples and inspirational stories from Malala Yousafzai, Girl Scouts of America, and the Obama administration, Backstrom showcases the importance of women’s leadership and how it works to drive significant change in both the workplace and society as a whole.

Takeaway: An impassioned guide challenging women leaders to build confidence and unite.

Comparable Titles: Katty Kay and Claire Shipman’s The Confidence Code, Grace Bonney’s In the Company of Women.

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

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The plot of Allensworth’s ambitious debut novel about history, romance and ranching in New Mexico alternates between eras and lives, with storylines set in the 1860s and 2012. On one hand is Morgan, who is a Confederate soldier who falls in love with the nurse Sophia as she tends to his wounds after the Battle of Glorieta Pass. On the other hand is Caroline, a young woman in the 21st century whose husband is cheating on her, and who now longs to return to her old love, Travis, whose wife has died. Beyond the suspense of these characters’ lives, Allensworth guides readers to wonder how these narratives will intersect, and what impact the past will have on Caroline’s present. The answers prove familiar in genre—this ultimately is a time travel story, with elements of romance—but unique in execution.

Right off the bat, Allensworth grips with compelling characters that jump off the page and stir significant empathy. Readers will be invested in the trials of both protagonists, and feel what they are feeling every step of the way. It’s also clear that Allensworth has a firm grasp over the setting that she has chosen for much of the book: a ranch. Her descriptions of ranching, riding, colt-breaking—“the dun crow-hopped and then reared, pawing the air”—feel so richly authentic that readers will not be surprised to discover that Allensworth draws upon many years of personal experience in the ranching business

The alternating between timelines takes some chapters to get used to, and Allensworth risks reader impatience in the buildup to the moment when the stories at last connect. But her vivid prose and sure hand with character will hold readers’ attention from one century to another. The revelations and climax, when they come, do not disappoint. Lovers of ranching and time travel novels will enjoy this book which is as engrossing as it is heartfelt.

Takeaway: A book for lovers of ranching and time travel, distinguished by rich detail.

Comparable Titles: Amy Harmon’s What the Wind Knows, Jeannette Walls’s Half Broke Horses.

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

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From its opening lines this historical novel from Grindle (Villa Triste) grips with its rare blend of a powerfully evoked past, resonant characters, smart suspense, and prose touched with shivery poetry: “Nothing will lead you to guess what sweet familiars we were, thirty years ago in Massachusetts, where they called me Witch,” narrator Resolve Hammond declares early on, and the story that follows lives up to that line’s promise. In Eastward, Massachusetts, in 1688, young Resolve and her mother offer natural healing to both settlers and Natives, whose coexistence is uneasy at best. Trained by a Native sachem, Resolve lives somewhat apart from the Christians, but Resolve knows enough to say this of their fear: “like a fever or a pox, it is contagious.”

But, set a half decade before nearby Salem’s infamous trials, Grindle’s richly told tale doesn’t hold to the familiar beats of witch-hunt panic. Even as her mother explains to the town that a mysterious death was caused by natural poison rather than witchery, Resolve herself suspects a ten-year-old girl, Abigail, of being a changeling or demon. The suspense is multi-layered and provocative as Grindle deftly details the settlers’ fraught interactions with multiple tribes, their concerns that reports of potential deviltry might draw the attention of Boston’s brimstone-preaching Mathers, the question of how to interrogate a young girl, and the thrill and terror of civilization taking root among wild woods and coast.

Adding to the pervasive uncertainty is readers’ awareness of the superstitious injustice looming in the region’s near future, and the teasing possibility that, in spite of our rational understanding of history, something beyond our mortal realm just might actually be preying on Abigail—and others, too—all as Resolve and her mother themselves face the suspicions of the settlers. Powered by telling historical detail, vivid visions, and an urgent sense of empathy for its characters, The Devil’s Glove will dazzle readers who appreciate immersive, lyric historical fiction open to possibilities.

Takeaway: Gripping historical novel in the years before Salem’s witch trials.

Comparable Titles: Stacey Halls’s The Familiars, Alexis Henderson’s The Year of the Witching.

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

Click here for more about The Devil's Glove

With careful research and elegant prose, Saltoon pays moving homage to her family in this memoir of Sephardic Jews in the colonial Old Singapore. Saltoon tells the story in evocative scenes (“she promised him the best satay in Singapore, if not the world, served by a humble Malay vendor called Jalak out in an open-air site off the road”) and occasional poetry, tracing the family’s origins and capturing the texture of daily life in a Short Street townhouse in a neighborhood “of Chinese, Malays, Eurasians, as well as other Mahalla Jews.”

The inevitability of World War II, though, looms over the island colony, and Saltoon offers illuminating background about international politics of the era as well as eye-opening accounts of life in internment camps during the Japanese occupation. Saltoon’s story opens with the origins of her parents, with mother Girjee, renamed later as Grace, born in Baghdad, and sent to far-off Singapore to marry. Little was expected of Nassim, her father, who was afflicted with a stammer and uncontrollable trembling, as he entered adulthood in a Jewish home in Singapore. Their union, the result of a matchmaker, produced not only several healthy children but a confident couple of high standing within their community. Saltoon beautifully lays out her parents' lives, and Grace stands as an example of strength as she persists in her sewing, catering, and envisioning of a grand future despite her worsening vision.

Saltoon’s sister, the beloved Meda of the title, eventually pulls the family from conflict zones and camps with the help of her American husband. Readers follow alongside each of the adult children as they find love and purpose in their lives. Detail into the family’s transition as they fled the East and transitioned into Western life comes through insightful correspondence, revealing their feelings about these changes in real time. This memoir is an act of history and of love.

Takeaway: The fascinating history of a Jewish family’s life in Old Singapore.

Comparable Titles: Joan Bieder’s The Jews of Singapore, Marvin Tokayer and Ellen Rodman’s Pepper, Silk and Ivory.

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

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In her Young Adult debut, Messina (-author of the picture book If You Could Ask Your Dog One Question) shines at building a vivid futuristic world with complex characters. As a contemporary teenage girl who practices and believes in Wiccan magic, Resa Stone is no stranger to feeling out of place, but five years after aliens contact the Earth, she’s also one of the first humans to be sent to live on the planet Wandelsta as part of a “Worlds Meeting Worlds” program. Now she’s experiencing disturbing visions of a young girl named Nitika, who repeatedly tells her "You are the one.” When Resa discovers a gem—“a translucent, pale-amber crystal” that continually glows—she sets out on a journey to uncover its secrets, as well as others that will change her life and worlds forever.

With Nataliia Pavliuk’s stunning black-and-white illustrations and an intricately woven plot, Gemja offers a rousing introduction to a promising new series. Centered on a relatable young hero who packs a sketchbook, fights off migraines, and finds strength in her family’s history of Wicca, Gemja explores human-alien relations, magic, and space travel, along with pressing concerns of growing up and finding one’s place. Secondary characters such as Resa's brother, Dakota; her best friend, Sarah, and the mysterious stranger she meets on the crimson dunes of Wandelsta form a well-developed group of teens, all combating and navigating the changes brought on by Earth’s entrance into the larger universe.

As Resa digs deeper and meets a mysterious stranger, the revelations both honor and upend reader expectations, as the fast-paced novel sweeps to a cliffhanger climax that, while leaving many mysteries unsolved, finds Resa deeply changed. Messina has crafted an edge-of-your-seat adventure that blends genre elements and commits to themes of family, acceptance, and friendship. This is the beginning of a series that features a protagonist that readers will root for.

Takeaway: This winning first-contact adventure follows a teen witch’s interstellar destiny.

Comparable Titles: Lauren James’s The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, Alechia Dow’s The Sound of Stars.

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

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