by Kenneth Oppel
In Best of All Worlds, Printz Honor-winning author Kenneth Oppel (Airborn; The Nest) delivers an inventive, dramatic work of speculative fiction about accepting uncertainty and surviving change.
Thirteen-year-old Xavier Oak reluctantly joins his father, Caleb, and pregnant stepmother, Nia, on a weekend trip to the family cottage, leaving behind his mother and older brother. The next morning, Zay wakes to discover that the cottage is no longer lakeside, but situated on rolling pastures with crops, livestock,
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by Anelise Chen
Anelise Chen's second book, Clam Down: A Metamorphosis, defies categorization in the most stimulating, hilarious, and heartfelt ways. There's a section narrated by collective of Asian clams. Other sections are narrated by a retired Taiwanese father who's exasperated by his adult daughters and wife. Then there's the 30-something woman writer at the center of the story who calls herself "the clam," a formulation that emerges in the aftermath of a marriage ending: "Hadn't this clamming down method worked well
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by Jennifer Safrey
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella take on the patriarchy, midlife, and the eternal question of "What happened after she married her prince?" in the shrewd feminist fairy tale deconstruction After Happily Ever After: An Epic Novel of Midlife Rebellion by Jennifer Safrey.
The death of the king of Foreverness shakes up the lives of his middle-aged daughters-in-law, Princesses Neve, Bry, and Della, whose "only daily task [is] to be the living embodiment of the dreams of every woman who lived in the kingdom."
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by Kim Ho-yeon, trans. by Janet Hong
Joining K-pop, K-dramas, and K-beauty is K-healing fiction, a growing literary genre centering contemporary characters facing timely challenges with (realistically) happier endings: The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-yeon checks all the boxes, enhanced with additional charm and empathy, and smoothly translated by Janet Hong.
Mrs. Yeom is on the Seoul-to-Busan fast train when she realizes her wallet is missing. A lucky phone call leads to its return, sparking a startling relationship between the
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by H.G. Parry
What if Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities look so alike because one was a fairy changeling? That is the question that led to A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry (The Magician's Daughter; The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door), which steps into not only a classic of English literature but also into a moment in the French Revolution, bringing it to life in a new way. Parry's intervention takes the perspective of Sydney, who was stolen from the cradle as a child and raised
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