Berry, a professional sword-swallower, juggler, and yoga instructor, shares surprising anecdotes from his life, ranging from harrowing accounts of being bullied in his childhood to bold endeavors as an adult, like surfing 21-foot waves and intervening to stop a rape. The stories absolutely move, as the title suggests, each carrying a message or meaning that he took from them, from lessons about how to cope with being abused, to coping with grief after the loss of the beloved cat Whiskey (introduced as “just a dark-furred little girl alone in the world”), to knowing when it's time to take decisive action in order to help others. A number of the stories focus on his difficult childhood, as his brothers frequently terrorized him despite his wanting to love them. His father, despite being loving in many ways (as shown in helping him build a go-kart), was also depicted as physically violent. One story where Berry fought back is especially disturbing.

Berry’s philosophical, instructive, and humanistic messages leaven the themes of death and violence, as he recounts learning from a young age that it's not always possible to save the ones you love. He also learns that bullies look for easy prey—and the urgency of protecting yourself, a skill he quickly developed. As an adult, he writes about subjects ranging from unique forms of revenge on kids pestering him to a near-death but exhilarating experience as a surfer. Brushes with death and violence persist, like in a terrifying story of a bloody fight with his girlfriend's drunken, murderous father, told with polish, power, and welcome insight.

He concludes with a story about helping out at the scene of a car accident, discussing the other helpers, and finally revealing that everyone there was of a different race and background. For a moment, everyone there was "humans and nothing more." That’s Berry's message: when we treat each other with compassion, as humans, we're capable of great kindness. When we treat each other as things to be used, violence usually follows.

Takeaway: Humane, harrowing stories of a life facing violence and danger.

Comparable Titles: R. Layla Salek’s Chaos in Color, Lee Smith’s Dimestore.

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

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Wesslen’s debut novel offers a charming, nostalgic coming-of-age story that transcends its time and place. When his father tells eleven-year-old Jayson “Jay” Zimmerman that the family is moving from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, he’s upset that his life will be upended—again. After moving five times in his ten years, Jay worries that he will not be able to “plant new roots” like his parents suggest—particularly when it comes to making friends. But things begin looking up when his new neighbors Paul, Kenny, and Matt invite him to play a game of sandlot baseball.

Though Jay has quite an arm, he’s got a lot to learn off the baseball field. Some of his challenges are unique, like his struggle to decipher his teacher’s Boston accent, but others are tried and true benchmarks of growing up: adjusting to a new school, making friends, dealing with bullies, surviving a first crush. While occasionally putting his foot in his mouth, Jay faces all his ups and downs with resilience and humor, including his sometimes-fraught relationship with his parents: Jay’s father wants him to pursue a military career, but Jay isn’t sure he shares his father’s vision of his future.

The story follows Jay from middle school to high school graduation, moving quickly and smoothly from one episode to the next, albeit occasionally at the expense of deeper reflection. However, Jay’s world has impressive depth thanks to Wesslen’s authentic depiction of the complexities beneath the calm surface of suburban middle-class life in the 1970s. Wesslen celebrates the era but does not sugar coat it: alongside references to the Carpenters, Happy Days, and Strat-O-Matic, he also includes glimpses of its racism and homophobia. Though younger readers may not recognize these historical and cultural references, they will be able to relate to Wesslen’s well-drawn, multifaceted characters that stumble as much as they succeed.

Takeaway: An honest, heartfelt story about growing up that will especially appeal to baseball fans.

Comparable Titles: Jordan Sonnenblick’s Curveball, Mike Lupica.

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

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Stanley (author of The Treasure of Cedar Creek) weaves this classic whodunit into a web of family secrets. The day she turns 18, Madison Moore packs up her car and leaves her family and her hometown of Orem, Utah, behind, fleeing the conventional path that her conservative Mormon parents and community expect her to follow. While she creates a happy life for herself in Nevada, graduating college and becoming a journalist, she remains nearly totally estranged from her family: her parents and brothers do not even attend her wedding. However, she reluctantly returns to Utah when her dying father wants to see her one last time.

Madison’s raw emotions ripple across the page as she reluctantly returns to her beautiful but stifling hometown and struggles to navigate her rocky relationships: her interactions with her mother are strained and painful, and her stilted conversations with her brothers devolve into angry fights . Initially, readers will share Madison’s frustration with her father’s vague, cryptic appeals that seem like distractions from her compelling emotional journey. But as Madison searches for answers, she discovers that her father’s anguish has more to do with her than she realized As she sits at her father’s bedside, Madison hopes that during his moments of lucidity they will be able to mend the ugly rift in their relationship.

But Stanley builds smoothly to revelations, like Madison’s father’s deeper purpose for their reunion: to ask for Madison’s help in freeing a woman wrongfully convicted for a murder he knows she didn’t commit. As Madison struggles to understand her father’s role in the injustice, she discovers that her family harbors more secrets than even she realized. Stanley unravels this mystery carefully and deliberately, often using Madison’s dialogue and internal monologue to recap her progress. An unexpected twist in the final chapters is surprising but well-earned, offering a satisfying synthesis of Madison’s past and her father’s last request.

Takeaway: Well-constructed mystery of family angst, redemption, and satisfying twists.

Comparable Titles: Charlie Donlea’s Twenty Years Later, Ashley Flowers’s All Good People Here.

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

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“Collaboration is about leveraging the power of the hive mind, not relying on groupthink,” McKinney writes in this rousing guide to the power and art of working together in business to achieve greater impacts than anyone can alone. Calling for readers to “reframe how we seek and offer service to others” and “break out of your limited perspective,” McKinney shares inspiring anecdotes and practical advice on ways to create networking opportunities and successful collaborations, emphasizing what it actually takes to become a productive and resourceful collaborator. Challenging common conceptions of the idea of "groupthink" and group projects—and addressing how to ensure an equitable division of work within them— McKinney offers clear guidance to ensure that all involved in the collaboration understand that they’re striving to win together, focused on the overall goals of the team.

McKinney writes with clarity and persuasive power, offering examples and action steps to approaching potential collaborations and gauging whether partnerships will work out in everyone's best interest. Her experience shines throughout, in clarifying case studies of building successful partnerships, often drawn from her own career, plus fresh tools crafted through hard-won knowledge, such as her seven "anchors" to use as a reference point when attempting to find potential collaborators. McKinney convincingly argues that, once a reader has “honed your ability to seek out collaboration,” it can take just “five minutes” to evaluate whether a potential relationship ”is worth your time, if you have mutual interests, or if there’s something you can help each other with."

With ways on how to use the ever-shifting world of social media to find potential collaborators and cultivate beneficial partnerships, this is a strong resource for business leaders looking to network and branch out with like minded business partners. Anyone eager to update their thinking about the art of working together in business or on digital platforms will garner useful tips and educational information from this book.

Takeaway: Fresh, practical self-help guide focused on networking and collaboration.

Comparable Titles: Karen Wickre's Taking the Work Out of Networking, Joe Polish's What's in it for Them?

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

Click here for more about Collaboration is the New Competition

Newly single Charlie Goode returns to her small Oregon hometown, where her father is the police chief, to start off Comer’s Harvest Falls mystery series. Her old friend Addie has been found murdered, and the ensuing investigation upends the tourist town, bringing rivalries and jealousies to the surface. Charlie sets herself up as an amateur sleuth, despite some hesitations—“as if I knew anything more than Vera Stanhope or Stephanie Plum had taught me,” she muses, relatably. Still, she soon comes across all kinds of surprise connections, such as a long-ago suicide and local economic problems. The possibility of a new romance threatens to sidetrack Charlie, but at the end, with the assistance of her cousin Case, she cuts through all the small town rumors to find a killer—and learn some lessons.

Comer has a wonderful sense of small town rhythms and how the insular world breeds both deep connection but also deep resentments. He shows, through Charlie's eyes, how the same inter-family problems play across the generations and how deeply petty class differences can matter. Comer populates the town with a large, colorful cast, built to anchor a series, including an overeager baker and a delightfully loopy mayor, though at times it takes some work to keep track of all the interactions and connections. However, Charlie moves through the story at a nice clip, and readers will be pulling for her to reach the finish line.

In fact, aside from the story, readers will find themselves charmed by Charlie and her self-deprecating narration. One of the great pleasures of the book is seeing how Charlie grows emotionally: she's forced to take a fresh look at her hometown’s past and discovers things were not always as she had thought, a truth that possibly extends to a budding relationship, too. Also coming across as real is Charlie's connection with her father, as she helps and defends him, and their bonding at the end is moving. Readers will look forward to Charlie's next case.

Takeaway: Promising start to a small-town mystery series, in the classic mode.

Comparable Titles: Caroline Graham, Kate Atkinson.

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

Click here for more about A Dagger Among Friends (Harvest Falls Mysteries Book 1)

Loftus’s fourth poetry collection, following 2021’s Autumn is an intimate yet timeless remark on time’s weathering of the body, the mind, memory, spirituality, and art. “Laurels grow moldy // and rot just like me // faces grow old // on cinema screens,” Loftus writes in “Flimflam Man." Such is the grief of having lived and still living, but Loftus uses this sorrow as a starting point, as a foundation to explore what mysteries and surprises erupt from the experience of aging, like beauty, even in death, which Loftus describes in “The End of the World” as “a flutter in her chest, like a butterfly having trouble lifting from a flower.”

In Loftus’s poems, memories transcend beyond the intangible and enter the physical world; they attain a state of being and change like people, like the seasons. In “Naming the Animals” the poet compares memories to “animals [calling] us in the dark,” and in “Enamel,” a clawfoot tub “in the old house, a dozen miles and a decade off,” houses in its void what is left of “his preening, waning youth.” Loftus uses figments from his past as clay to sculpt poems that relate grand insights about what it is to experience the gift and curse of time, which come forth with particular clarity in “Craquelure.”

The poem begins with the speaker flipping through a book of Renior paintings with “such brittle, fragile pages,” and then imagining the painter and his muse’s “moments in the atelier [...] bound to linen, then and later, time no friend to canvas and paper.” The term “craquelure” refers to an imperfection, a mark of wear on the painting, on the flesh, but it lends a magnificence that can only exist after the ripening touch of time. The cracked canvas is a singular wonder, and so too is Loftus’s exquisitely frayed collection.

Takeaway: Autumnal collection of intimate poems that capture beauty in humanity and art.

Comparable Titles: Margaret Atwood’s Dearly, Donald Hall’s Affirmation.

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

Click here for more about Canvas

Promising that good music will live forever, Anthony’s debut tells the story of a band named Raw (Ready and Willing) and a club called Club Bamboo in a funky late 1970s of flirting and grinding to Kool & the Gang and Freddie Jackson, with disco inferno still burning but hip hop on the horizon. Among the members of this competitive cover band are siblings Vincent, Charles, Sam, Cheryl, Sue Ann, and Janet. Kate, their mother, leaves home in anger and sadness after discovering that her husband Cebo, the siblings’ father, has a large secret family, though she returns once she decides her children are more important to her. (She favors malt liquor and cigarettes “because living was a struggle.”) Later the focus of the story shifts to Marvel, the youngest sibling and a talented dancer who, encouraged by his parents, is all set to achieve his dreams.

Anthony’s story is a slice-of-life blending nostalgia—dance competitions, Soul Train, the Holy Ghost dance at church, couples-only songs, the thrill of hearing Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick at the club—with unflinching accounts of “living in a world full of hatred and racism.” Though mostly narrated in the third person, the narrative often slips into the first person, presumably from Marvel’s perspective. The author succeeds in capturing a vivid milieu and portraying the bonhomie and camaraderie of a large family and club scene, though many individual characters aren’t developed much, with some coming or going from the story with little introduction. The introduction of Lee David and Victor, Cebo’s brothers, seems contrived to demonstrate the importance of family. Their back stories are strikingly similar and they do not move the story forward.

The dialogue, frank and earthy, captures the nuances of the spoken word of the era, while bursts of sex and violence live up to the band’s name: raw. At times over-the-top and discursive, with storytelling that lacks narrative momentum, Club Bamboo nevertheless captures a time, place, and culture.

Takeaway: Vividly evoked story of a late 1970s R&B band, bursting with music.

Comparable Titles: Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush, Rashod Ollison’s Soul Serenade.

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

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Cox offers a powerful saga that plunges into the complexity of family, love, forgiveness, and the cyclical nature of three-generational family dynamics. Gerda Gufftason, at seventeen, dreams of an adventurous and carefree life away from her Iowa hometown, Keystone, which "wasn't even a real town, just a ramshackle collection of buildings surrounding a dirty hole in the ground." Her rash decision to marry a carnival barker, Norman De Lorenzo, throws her into a tumultuous life riddled with a loveless marriage, eventually separating her from her two kids, Nora and Patsy, nine years later. Gerda's neglectful life choices ricochet down through the ages, impacting not only her but the two generations who follow.

Cox brilliantly crafts a non-linear story, shifting third-person viewpoints between Nora and Gerda, allowing readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the characters' inner worlds. Its appeal rises from its capacity to make readers consider the consequences of critical actions and speculate on alternative paths not taken. Cox depicts the continuous struggle of an illiterate woman caught between tragic relationships and the need for atonement in Gerda. The Fallen Woman’s Daughter also explores the enduring dynamics of sisterhood familial obligations, and the emotional ramifications of parental neglect through Nora, whose hopeful and longing letters for her mother while in Park Ridge turn into indifferent dutiful reports as she loses faith in their reunion.The novel's characterization establishes a superb, life-like web of nuanced relationships and personalities that feel remarkably authentic. There is an underlying thread of love and resilience that flows through the generations, and Cox emphasizes the importance of literacy albeit indirectly.

Although at times the transitions between decades and perspectives could be more smooth, this multi-generational narrative emphasizes how choices and attributes are often handed down across generations, demonstrating the fundamental bonds between parents and children. This feels like an urgent message to women to know and choose what they deserve.

Takeaway: Multi-generational family saga of love, tragedy, and redemption.

Comparable Titles: Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours, Stacey Hall's The Foundling.

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

Click here for more about The Fallen Woman's Daughter

Braun concludes her Guest Book trilogy (after The Girls in Cabin Number Three) with a picturesque look at Lake Arrowhead, California, as a woman makes some unusual discoveries about the cabins she owns. In 1980, Annie Parker purchases cabins in the California mountains as a fresh start following her divorce from David. While there, Annie meets Noah and eventually moves in with him. Though Annie’s older sister Loni died recently, Annie feels somewhat guilty that she isn’t particularly sad about the loss, blaming her lack of emotion on their broken relationship. But Annie is pleasantly surprised when her childhood friend Sarah Jones comes for a visit and ends up staying on, becoming romantically involved with Noah’s friend Josh.

Annie discovers the fascinating history behind the cabins, a key component of the series, when Hudson Fisher and his wife Constance visit Annie’s recently acquired flooring store, and Hudson reveals that his mother, Celeste Williams, a now-deceased movie star, once stayed in the nearby cabins. Braun alternates between these characters’ richly drawn perspectives, revealing, in fast-paced and surprising passages, how Annie reinvented herself following her divorce and how Sarah survived a traumatic childhood amid her mother’s episodic religious fervor and volatile relationship with Sarah’s alcoholic father.

Braun also journeys back in time to Depression-era Chicago, which Celeste leaves to go to Los Angeles, later meeting and marrying Joseph Keller, a film producer with whom she has Hudson, and later divorces when he is arrested as an alleged pro-Nazi sympathizer. The glamor of Celeste’s life as a popular Hollywood actress is imbued with realism through Braun’s inclusion of real-life actors and directors, including the famed Cecil B. DeMille. As the 1920s and 1980s collide, Noah makes a startling discovery while remodeling one of the cabins, leading Annie eager to learn more—and readers turning the pages.

Takeaway: Richly-drawn story of the secrets harbored in rustic California cabins.

Comparable Titles: Elizabeth Bromke’s House on the Harbor, Kimberly Thomas’s The Willberry Inn.

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

Click here for more about The Starlet in Cabin Number Seven

Merrill ties her “Summer of Hush” M/M romance series to the Carnival of Mysteries shared world with this novel that offers the healing-centered bonding of rock-and-roll hearts with a touch of magical realism. Strong and silent Kal emerges from a preternaturally long year as the calliopist of a traveling carnival, with scars, amnesia and a mystical promise that he will have what he needs, directly into a roadie gig on Warped Tour, where he discovers that his instrument wrangling skills work well in the modern world. Backdrop Silhouette’s lead singer Ryan Wells is quickly smitten after finding Kal playing keyboard in their trailer, and they soon develop a mutually protective love and trust that allows them each to engage their past trauma and follow their dreams.

Merrill deftly uses the standard format of romance—alternating perspectives of the two mains—to reflect the difference between Kal’s inner and outer expression, allowing her to share Kal’s perspective on modern life from his place outside of normal time and his slowly returning memories of childhood trauma well before he’s ready to speak, while also leaning into the mystical strangeness he presents to the outside.

Playful tour-bus camaraderie, casual acceptance of gay relationships, and a general aesthetic of goodwill among the members of Hush, with whom Kal and Ryan end up spending most of the book, set an overall light tone that balances the trauma work that Merrill sets as the primary challenge for the characters. Secondary characters are thoughtfully developed, even for readers who have not met them in earlier volumes: music lovers will see a lot of their joy reflected here, and plot arcs around band drama, record-label rules, and creative expression create an enjoyable ensemble story separate from the romance arc. The relationship between Ryan, his dead best friend’s witchy aunts, and the carnival feels emotionally convincing compared to the rest of the characterization, but otherwise the whole novel pulls together organically.

Takeaway: Sweet gay romance with a focus on growth after trauma and a mystic, musical touch.

Comparable Titles: Cecilia Tan’s Taking the Lead, Ella Frank and Brooke Blaine’s Halo.

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

Click here for more about You Can Do Magic: Carnival of Mysteries

Rachlin’s debut novel combines his legal expertise with the thriller suspense of a nightmare-plagued lawyer in over his head in a world of betrayal, murder, and the drug trade. With a family facing health crises and store clerks threatening to cut up his credit cards, Jake Dalton feels he must go against his wife’s wishes to fulfill his duty as a provider—and to not only salvage his legal career but “rocket” it. Even though selling a jury on this prospective client’s innocence would be like “climbing Mt. Everest in the dead of winter,” Dalton takes on a high-paying cocaine-trafficking case that, inevitably, becomes much more dramatic—even deadly—than he was expecting. Dalton finds himself deep in trouble, not just with drug mules he represents, whose employers have a propensity for throat-slitting, but with the feds as well.

Readers can expect a thriller that charts over two criminal cases with big money and lives on the line as Conspiracy of Lies grapples with questions that Rachlin examines with compelling detail and persuasive authority. How can justice be best served? Who is innocent and how can they be protected? To those legal dilemmas, Rachlin adds an evergreen: How far will Dalton go to protect his family—and will his wife Elenea countenance his choice to defend drug runners? Driven through the eyes of Dalton, a character without extensive expertise in criminal law, the story offers readers the chance to see potential pitfalls that the protagonist himself does not.

The novel particularly shines in courtroom passages offering full accounts of the lawyers, judges, and juries and their complex procedural drama. Also engaging, but pained, is the romantic drama between Dalton and Elena, who is traumatized by childhood experiences with cartel violence in Colombia, and tells Dalton “Protecting the dregs of Miami isn’t why I helped you through Yale.” His constant choices to choose his career over his commitment to her give the book a raw tension.

Takeaway: Thriller about a lawyer defending drug traffickers—over his family’s wishes.

Comparable Titles: Peter O’Mahoney’s The Southern Lawyer, Robert Whitlow’s Relative Justice.

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

Click here for more about Conspiracy of Lies

Koubourlis (author of A Concordance to the Poems of Osip Mandelstam) offers a thought-provoking collection of auto-fiction stories drawn from a childhood that found him bearing witness to violence both intimate and epochal. The opening pages contemplate a father whipping his son—it’s the narrator’s father wielding the belt, and the narrator’s brother on the receiving end—and also the “60,000 Greek Jews” who “were herded cattle-like for shipment to forced labor or extermination camps.” At times it can be difficult to tell if these accounts are memory-based essays or works of fiction fortified by memory. But it’s their urgency and spirit of restless moral inquiry that matters, as Koubourlis contemplates complex questions of culture, parentage, violence and more.

Growing up in World War II and the Greek Civil War, and crediting his “life's first horrific memory to Mussolini,” Koubourlis was raised by strict parents who did their best to keep him and his brother out of the kind of mischief that might end up in a book of short stories. Often the boys felt the sting of their father’s belt as a result of their horseplay or innocent ineptitude. Readers will feel the terror of a young boy as his first memory is the Italian bombing of his hometown in Greece, but humor is never far away. (Readers sensitive to material should take note.)

In the book’s second half, the stories build in intensity, exploring individuals’ connectedness to the world and our closest environs, with a pained yet tender story of the adult narrator, in Chile with his wife, tending to a wayward kitten, Grits. Sometimes Cruel concludes with an essay on a song heard in a dream and Koubourlis’s searching thoughts about its meaning. A YouTube link offers readers a chance to hear the melody that Koubourlis describes as “powerful but calm, as if to emphasize that everything is alright, as it should be.” This is an enigmatic book that, for readers of a contemplative bent, will linger in the mind.

Takeaway: Searching, enigmatic memory stories of growing up and living in a violent world.

Comparable Titles: Caitlin Forst’s NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, the Tome Stone’s Summer of My Greek Taverna.

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

Click here for more about Sometimes Cruel

Set in a distant future in the year 2998, Ward’s debut is the story of Colonel Thomas “Dead-Smoke” Cade, a hunter of golems—stone beasts that are “intelligent, ferociously strong, and too tough to be dealt with using conventional means"—and once decorated soldier of the 51st Quick Reaction Force, now retired and leading a seemingly normal life on the planet Ophir Prime with his friend, Sullivan Rosewood. Cade’s brought back into the action when an unknown man pays a surprise visit and makes him an offer he literally cannot refuse: he must come out of retirement to hunt down an incredibly dangerous “parent” golem. He, alongside 39 other masons, including his ex-fiancée, Kat, are recruited to go to a planet on the Outer Arm of the Milky Way and lead the hunt.

Cade is reunited with his friends from his hunting days as they drink the bar away, slay evil forces (including “a treasonous bunch of racists”) and golems alike, and even manage to create an earthquake. The journey comes with trials and tribulations, plus a devastating body count, as Ward conjures intense, inventive action that moves quickly. Unknown to the others is Thomas’s pivotal battle with the most dangerous demon—an entity in his head that takes over his mind at the slightest hint of Phantom, the planet that changed Cade forever. The only way towards redemption is accepting and coming clean about the reality of what happened on Phantom.

Narrated in brisk, hard-edged first-person, the story immerses readers in its action and the complex psyche of its protagonist, complete with moments of horror. Ward's skillful storytelling is evident in his ability to craft distinctive backstories for each of his vast range of characters, while treating seriously issues of racism, PTSD, wealth, and power. With thoughtful world-building, Ward will inspire military SF readers to turn the pages frantically to get to the truth of what went down on Phantom. The gut-wrenching climax raises enough questions unanswered to whet appetites for a sequel.

Takeaway: Gripping SF monster-hunt with tantalizing mysteries.

Comparable Titles: Ross Buzzell’s Legacy Earth, J.N. Chaney and Scott Moon’s Galactic Shield.

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

Click here for more about PHANTOM ULTRA

This incisive, compelling collection from Jackson (Marty's Diner) collects strips from his vinyl-toasting slice-of-life webcomic Blackwax Boulevard, which features a vivid record store milieu and a memorable cast with a diverse range of personalities, interests, and conflicts. The central character is Marsalis, the store’s cashier and aspiring music critic, whose boss, Hardy, inherited the store from his uncle but is seeing the business facing hard times. The story follows Marsalis's crush on activist Salimah and his desperate attempt to become the intern of legendary bad boy music critic Chester Vick (a let-it-blurt Lester Bangs-style character). There's also eight-year-old Seung-Jin, skipping school because she loves music and is afraid of a potential school shooting, along with several other side characters, like Veronika, a recovering addict who's working through a lot of baggage.

Jackson's examination of misogyny, white privilege, rape culture, police violence, and homophobia is potent, even profound, rooted in a cast that's fully formed and convincingly drawn, in every sense of the word. The storylines feel urgent and relatable, pulsing with the anxieties of their moment: Marsalis weakly tries to defend his idol Vick to his skeptical friends against many charges of sexual assault, while Veronika's unresolved issues regarding her own assaults trigger a relapse, and Salimah has an explosive argument with both Veronika and her egotistical activist boyfriend, Brother Rage. It all comes to a climax when Vick himself visits the store with his new intern, a young woman who will no doubt be his next victim.

For all the thorny issues Jackson takes on, readers new first and foremost are invited, here, to enjoy the company of this winning cast, with the compelling story developments building naturally from their sharply observed desires, fears, and flaws. The fact that Jackson manages to make this funny, primarily through his highly expressive cartooning, ensures this stands tall as satire, trenchant social commentary, and a love letter to music and those who live for it.

Takeaway: Trenchant, funny, and wise slice-of-life comics set in a record store.

Comparable Titles: Ezra Claytan Daniels, Lawrence Lindell.

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

Click here for more about Blackwax Boulevard Is Listening

Person debuts with a captivating journey that melds ancient mysticism and modern adventure with a profound quest for self-discovery. Seventeen-year-old Dante Rivera lives with his grandmother in Chicago, but he’s no run-of-the-mill teen: he’s plagued by hazy, disturbing memories of his mother’s death when he was a young child, and he often has “pictures” appear to him—vivid scenes and images that always come true. Dante’s grandmother insists his mother died in a car accident, and his younger sister shrugs off his visions, but when Dante’s teacher offers to take him on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise to explore the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, those visions become vitally important.

What starts as an educational voyage quickly turns perilous when Dante’s blog about his experiences on the trip draws the wrong kind of attention, particularly when he starts looking into a secret organization known as Ibis—a shadowy group notorious for their ruthless dedication to collecting legendary antiquities. The mystery deepens when a series of hieroglyphs appear to Dante; he’s convinced the ancient Egyptian god Thoth has sent them as a key to uncover hidden truths—truths about himself and his mother’s death. Dante sets out to decipher the visions, in the process discovering the dangerous secrets of Ibis as well as a potential link to his estranged father.

The narrative intertwines Dante's soul-searching exploration of his own supernatural abilities with the enigmatic and threatening world of Ibis. As Dante is guided by his teacher through the twists and turns of their trip, he’s finally able to relinquish certain elements of his past and pursue self-acceptance. Person deftly weaves myth, memory, and archeology into the narrative, creating a compelling mystery-adventure, rife with metaphor, that serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring power of ancient wisdom and the timeless quest for self-discovery.

Takeaway: Ancient intrigue, archeology, and mysticism make this a compelling mystery-adventure.

Comparable Titles: G. Edward Marks’s Return of Bastet, Rande Goodwin’s The Witchfinder’s Serpent.

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

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This fun-filled rhyming fantasy from Baum and Markus focuses on friendship, magic, love, trauma and facing your fears. Isabella “Izzy” Castaspella, a kindhearted little witch, loves helping others, including her best friend Messy Tessy find her missing crystal ball in her messy house. Along the way, Izzy, Tessy, Myron the frog, Maxine the cat, and her other friends must fight off the nasty old witch Lavinia LaMeanie’s repeated attacks. After Lavinia tries to ruin Halloween by terrorizing trick or treaters, Izzy stops her with a spell, making her the furious Lavinia’s new target. Lavinia kidnaps Maxine and gives Tessy’s beloved bulldog Bruno a cursed doggy biscuit, making him obsessively steal people’s food. Izzy and her friends, guided by both Myron and by Izzy’s former teacher, the grandmotherly Witchie the Wise, must fight to save Bruno and defeat Lavinia’s cruelty once and for all.

Telling the story in sturdy couplets that invite readers to anticipate the next rhyme, Baum and Markus deftly mix real childhood problems, including being disorganized, experiencing bad moods, and being afraid to ask for help, with witchy misadventures and welcome warmth and understanding. Izzy’s spells are cute and practical. Perhaps the most enchanting passages concern kids facing their fears and Witchie giving Izzy advice but always letting her figure things out for herself, in heartwarming contrast to Lavinia’s meanness. Inbar’s expressive, character-rich artwork, including the cover, is eye catching, with each member of the cast rendered in engaging detail worth poring over.

This fast-paced chapter book includes short stories, some darker than others. Lavinia kidnapping and abusing Maxine—including starving her—is spooky in a fairy-tale way, as is Bruno’s changed behavior, which the characters don’t seem to notice other than to repeatedly call him a “bad doggy!” Maxine’s continued trauma, meanwhile, may prompt some discussions. The ending is a little abrupt but still sweet and upbeat.

Takeaway: Fun witchy tales in which friendship and kindness prevail.

Comparable Titles: Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch, Patricia Coombs’s Dorrie the Little Witch Series.

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

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