by Anthony Marra
Mercury Pictures Presents is the outstanding third work of fiction from Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena; The Tsar of Love & Techno). Although Marra may have panned away from the distressed Chechen settings of his first two books, instead choosing to focus on grandiose Hollywood backdrops for this novel, the treacheries of war and propaganda continue to emerge as a profound theme in his work.
Maria Lagana is an Italian émigré who works for Mercury Pictures, a B-grade
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by Mohsin Hamid
It happens to a lot of authors: sooner or later, they try Kafka on for size, as Mohsin Hamid has done (sort of) in The Last White Man. The opening is--it's impossible to avoid the word--Kafkaesque: "One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown." Yet Anders, a trainer at an essentially all-white gym, isn't the only person in the unnamed town whose skin suddenly darkens. His transformation affects not only himself but also other white people in his life, including
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by Christina Soontornvat, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell
"One person seems small, quiet, and insignificant," but two-time Newbery Honoree Christina Soontornvat (The Last Mapmaker; All Thirteen) gracefully illuminates how "when one person, and one person... become many" they "can change a planet." Soontornvat's sparse text packs a powerful punch and allows Rahele Jomepour Bell (Our Favorite Day of the Year) the space to construct sublime illustrations that deliver an equally effective blow. Author and illustrator tag team on their collaboration--in much the same
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by Ruyan Meng
Through the first half of her spare, intricate novella Only the Cat Knows--recipient of the 2020 Red Hen Press Novella Award--Ruyan Meng brilliantly builds a mounting sense of claustrophobia. A factory worker labors hard every day but is unable to sustain his family. His wife can't work because their two younger children are seriously ill; meanwhile, their older daughter seethes with resentment. He already owes his younger sister more than he can repay, a fact she uses to berate him even as she relies on him
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by S. Isabelle
The Witchery is a delightfully dark take on magic and boarding school tropes, wherein a coven of student witches feels compelled to end a bloody, annually recurring curse that's destroying their adopted hometown.
Sixteen-year-old blonde and "pale"-skinned Logan Wyatt is still new to Mesmortes Coven Academy in the "fiendish little witchtown" of Haelsford, Fla., when the Red Three invite her to join their circle. "Sociable and ambitious" Jailah Simmons, greenwitch Thalia Blackwood and deathwitch Iris Keaton-Foster
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