Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, trans. from the French by Bill Johnston. Archipelago, $22 (250p) ISBN 978-1-953861-82-5
Nature’s terrifying power is on display in a new translation of this breathtaking 1926 novel from Swiss writer Ramuz (1878–1947). The people of an impoverished mountain village decide, after fierce debate, to make up for their dwindling resources by using a high-up pasture where, according to lore, ... Continue reading »
Kate Quinn. Morrow, $28.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-06-324474-0
Bestseller Quinn follows The Diamond Eye with a stellar historical mystery centered on a group of women living together in a Washington, D.C., boardinghouse. The action opens on Thanksgiving 1956 at Briarwood House, where a corpse lies bleeding in one of the attic apartments, the police hav... Continue reading »
Mary McMyne. Redhook, $19.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-316-39351-5
McMyne (The Book of Gothel) brings rich creativity, feminist sensibility, and a meticulous grounding in history to her captivating imagining of the life of the Dark Lady, the illusive inspiration for Shakespeare’s later sonnets. Hedonist Rose Rushe is more interested in becoming a court mus... Continue reading »
Ingrid Pierce. Alcove, $18.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-63910-813-8
Pierce’s top-notch debut puts a dishy spin on the second-chance romance and forced proximity tropes. Wedding dress designer Andie Dresser is on the precipice of a career breakthrough when a client cancels an important order. She’d been banking on using that money to fund her debut show at Atlanta Fa... Continue reading »
Maria Sweeney. Street Noise, $20.99 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-951491-26-0
Cartoonist Sweeney debuts with a candid portrait of life with a disability, drawn in delicate brushstrokes and natural colors. Born in Moldova in 1994, Sweeney showed early signs of Bruck syndrome, which causes fragile bones and joint contractures. After her birth parents placed her in an orphanage,... Continue reading »
Philip Metres. Copper Canyon, $22 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-1-55659-669-8
The powerful sixth book from Metres (Shrapnel Maps), who is of Lebanese descent, confronts the trials of the present moment—including forced migration, climate change, and nationalism—through his family’s migration story. Metres wields poetic forms (among them odes, sonnets, and prayers) to... Continue reading »
Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee. Revell, $26.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8007-4275-1
In this tour de force from Brotherton (A Bright and Blinding Sun) and Lee (A Single Light), four friends’ lives change irrevocably when America becomes embroiled in WWII. In 1930s Mobile, Ala., preacher’s son Jimmy Propfield shares an idyllic upbringing with childhood sweetheart Cl... Continue reading »
Noliwe Rooks. Penguin Press, $28 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-49242-0
Rooks (Cutting School), chair of Africana Studies at Brown University, meditates in this probing study on the “talismanic” significance civil rights trailblazer Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) holds in the annals of African American political struggle. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Beth... Continue reading »
Fadi Kattan. Hardie Grant, $40 (240p) ISBN 978-1-958417-28-7
“A desire to show the real Bethlehem, and to celebrate it, is what led me to food and hospitality so many years ago,” writes Kattan, the owner and chef behind London’s Akub and Bethlehem’s Fawda restaurants, in his sincere and beautiful debut. Inviting readers to “share in the memories and flavours ... Continue reading »
Eliza Griswold. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-374-60168-3
Pulitzer winner Griswold (Amity and Prosperity) delivers a riveting chronicle of the fracturing of a progressive Christian church during a period of social and political turmoil. In 1996, “hippie church planters” Rod and Gwen White founded the Circle of Hope church in Philadelphia as an alt... Continue reading »
Drew Beckmeyer. Atheneum, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-6659-4042-9
A classroom’s first week launches a dynamic change in this inventive picture book. Monday reveals a clique of sports buffs (“They call themselves the SPORT KINGS, but nobody else does”), an artist worried about showing their work, an inventor frustrated with a malfunctioning satellite, a teacher buz... Continue reading »