A young couple's relaxing vacation in the Bahamas descends into a dystopian nightmare when the sun disappears in MJ Wassmer's satirical, high-stakes debut novel, Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend.

Twenty-nine-year-old underachieving marketing drone Dan and his girlfriend, Mara, are several Miller Lites into their beach time when the sun explodes, in a surprisingly understated visual: "It was like someone had pelted Earth with an egg. The yolk dripped down the side of the sky and was gone." Their resort is left with backup generators, no way to contact the rest of the world, and no transportation off the island. Mara worries about her ailing mother. Dan, who often defaults to stereotypical male posturing when unsure of himself, promises to fix the situation and get Mara home, but has no idea how. A neighbor from their resort building tells Dan there's a plane on the island and that he can fly it, if Dan can help him get to it. But the plan is easier said than done after a megastar fitness influencer staying at the resort's VIP building crowns herself de facto dictator and turns the island into a labor camp controlled by the richest guests. Dan must decide whether to prioritize saving Mara or fight back for the good of everyone.

This light sci-fi thriller is a smart-talking and unexpectedly moving look at human nature. Wassmer hilariously pokes fun at lifestyle gurus and the mob mentality while exploring the fallout of an expectation-laden upbringing turning into a mediocre adulthood. As in all great satires, the humor here works because of its foundations in truth. Many stars, would recommend. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Commercial airline pilot Carole Hopson's absorbing debut novel, A Pair of Wings, delves into the life of aviatrix Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to earn a pilot's license. Hopson traces Bessie's journey from picking cotton in the fields near Waxahachie, Tex., to becoming an accomplished flier who trained under noted pilots in France and Germany. Written in the first person, in Bessie's voice, Hopson's narrative also explores Bessie's deep bonds with her family, her years working as a manicurist in Chicago, Ill., and the racism and sexism she faced as she blazed a path through the skies.

The novel begins with an account of a near-fatal accident in 1923, which left Bessie with a broken leg and a determination to fly again. Hopson then flashes back to Bessie's Texas childhood, her migration to Chicago to join her older brothers, and her growing aspiration to build a flying career. Hopson populates her story with well-known Black people from history, including Chicago Defender publisher Robert Abbott and banker Jesse Binga, who supported Bessie's efforts. Hopson draws on her own experiences of flying to bring Bessie's time in the air to vivid life, explaining the principles of aeronautics (both the basics and the flashy tricks) so readers can learn alongside Bessie. As she gains confidence, Bessie dreams of opening a flight school for Black students. Hopson's narrative celebrates Bessie's success both as a woman and a symbol: a bold, resolute trailblazer who sought freedom above the clouds and inspired her fellow Black Americans to do the same. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Regina Porter's spectacular second novel, The Rich People Have Gone Away, deepens and widens the possibilities of storytelling about the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the heart of the multilayered, multiperspective novel are Brooklynites Theodore Harper and Darla Jacobson, a couple in an open marriage who are expecting their first child. One day early in the pandemic, the two decide to leave for a week at Darla's family's summer cottage in upstate New York. On a hike en route, they quarrel and Darla goes missing. The fight, which was ostensibly about Theo revealing that his great-great grandfather was Black and Darla wanting each of them to sell their apartments to buy a Park Slope brownstone together, touches on two of the novel's central themes: identity and real estate. To that end, Theo is a professional aesthetic adviser, and one of his lovers is a real estate broker. Porter (The Travelers) also divides the novel into three parts, and each opens with an epigraph that defines an architectural term: door, doorframe, and threshold.

Although Darla's disappearance propels the plot, much of the novel is concerned with relationships, especially parental ones, which are intricately detailed, including those of Xavier Curtis, a teenage relative of one of Theo's neighbors; Theo himself; and Darla's best friend, Ruby Tabitha Black. Black's is the only first-person narrative, and it's one of the widest ranging, following her from childhood to her college travails to her current 30-something self.

The Rich People Have Gone Away is deeply felt and marvelously heartbreaking. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

The tale of Eros and Psyche gets a queer update in The Palace of Eros, the lush and thoughtful novel by Caro De Robertis (The President and the Frog; Cantoras).

Psyche grows up in the shadow of her older sisters, but when she comes of age, her beauty becomes so great that her father's household is overwhelmed by suitors coming to stare at her, but not to offer marriage, because nobody wants to marry "this girl whose face and body had been scraped raw by glances from across the land." Aphrodite becomes jealous that Psyche is drawing so much attention from her. She sends her daughter, Eros, the deity of desire, who is "a woman and also, at the same time... more," to punish Psyche by making her fall in love with an unworthy man. But Eros is overwhelmed when she sees Psyche and devises a plan to make Psyche her wife instead. All Eros has to do is keep her hidden from the other gods, making sure they are never together in the light.

De Robertis adapts the Greek myth into a novel that is sensual and subversive. When Psyche can no longer tolerate the mystery of her husband's identity and she exposes her in the light, she unwittingly reveals their hidden sanctuary to the other gods. Then she doesn't only need to overcome the trials Aphrodite gives her, she and Eros must also heal their broken trust and forge the beginnings of a new world where those who defy expectations can belong. Fans of Circe by Madeline Miller and Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood will be enthralled. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

In his haunting first short story collection, Miles Harvey (The King of Confidence) inventively links 12 tales of life's transient nature through the unexpected reappearances of mementos across multiple stories. The Registry of Forgotten Objects, the title of both the collection and its final story, is a dystopian facility that embodies impermanence. It houses items from many eras, including "the Great Forgetting, that cataclysmic period when certain machines, now extinct, are said to have subsumed all human knowledge."

Although this story is unsettling, others include pathos and humor, and the recurring objects create a treasure-hunt ambiance. In "The Drought," a TV weatherman in a small city has an affair with a barber's wife. Environmental devastation underscores this story, but the ancient barber pole here reappears in ensuing stories. In "Four Faces," a bereaved father discovers it on the Florida beach where his son disappeared six years earlier, and his daughter recalls it resentfully. Later, it becomes a mysterious item at a Michigan estate sale.

Fittingly, "The Complete Miracles of St. Anthony: Definitive Edition with Previously Unpublished Material" marks an appearance by the patron saint of lost things. An archeologist says her impulse is for "crossing the divide of time to search for something lost, something missing, something that will make sense of everything else." Colorful ephemera recurs--a wedding-cake topper, counterfeit coins--and poignant symbols repeat. A German scholar who is eventually murdered in the Holocaust obsesses over a haunting refrain attributed to Sappho: "Remember us, remember us, remember us." Many years later, a mother hums to her colicky baby. She can't name the melody, but readers will know the song. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

In her seventh historical novel, The Paris Gown, Christine Wells (The Royal Windsor Secret) weaves together the stories of three friends--skilled Parisian chef Claire, American journalist Gina, and Australian socialite Margot--with the luster of a glorious Christian Dior gown in 1950s Paris.

The novel begins when Claire receives two startling pieces of news: her widowed father has sold the family's brasserie, and her neighbor, Madame Vaughn, has left the country and asked Claire to care for her apartment--and to take possession of a stunning Dior gown. Flattered but unsure where she'd wear such a creation, Claire hesitates but accepts the gift at the urging of her old friend Gina, who has recently resurfaced in Paris, fleeing a broken engagement and her father's shady financial dealings. Claire offers to lend Gina the gown for an event and the two attend a fitting at Dior's atelier, where they are shocked to find Margot working under an assumed name.

Wells immerses readers in mid-20th-century Paris through lush details such as the hearty meals at Claire's restaurant and the glitter of Dior's couture headquarters. Each of Wells's protagonists falls under the gown's spell, but the dress is secondary to the tough choices they must make. Though all three women harbor ambitions regarding career and love, they must decide which to prioritize, and how to stay true to themselves and one another in a time that favors men at every turn.

With a trio of strong, creative women at its center, The Paris Gown is an engaging tribute to the power of an exquisite dress and enduring female friendship. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Elaine Kraf's The Princess of 72nd Street is a novel that readers will find hard to believe was originally published in 1979. With impeccable vision and a vulnerability seldom seen in representations of mental illness in fiction, Kraf depicts mania so vividly that readers will feel dismayed the novel didn't find widespread fame five decades ago.

The protagonist's mother gave her a name, but she prefers to be called "Princess Esmerelda of West 72nd Street." She experiences euphoric periods of "radiance," which psychiatrists prefer to call "manic-depression." She can't grasp why so many people seem hell-bent on stifling her radiance; they "usually treat this lovely feeling with drugs." However, she's nevertheless determined to outsmart them and remain true to her state of being: "The floor is a beach and I am rolling on the sand and splashing in the water with a white heron. It turns gray and blue. No one can stop this. No one will take away my radiance even when it floods over me completely."

As Esmerelda bounces from one catastrophic relationship to another, the constants in her life are the conviction of her royal status and her devotion to her lovely subjects. It's by turns achingly sad to bear witness to Esmerelda's self-destructive behaviors and yet enthralling to see her thrive in her royalty. The novel is narrated in charmingly disjointed stream of consciousness that compels readers to surrender to the force of nature that is Esmerelda and gape in awe at Kraf's radical storytelling. Woefully unappreciated as a trailblazing feminist novel, this is a cult classic fully deserving a reprint and a second chance at mainstream regard. --Jess M., bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company.

Toby Tucker and Alyssa Wright barely knew each other before they married. But at the start of John Fram's harrowing second novel, No Road Home, they're on their way with Toby's son, Luca, to the Wright family's isolated Texas compound, which is called Ramorah. Toby receives a startling warning about his in-laws when they stop at a Cracker Barrel beforehand; the clerk warns that Toby "is heading into a brook of vipers." But Toby's already wary of Alyssa's grandfather, Jerome Jeremiah Wright, the country's wealthiest televangelist, as well as of the other members of Alyssa's extended family.

The clerk isn't far off: "awful" is the nicest thing one relative calls the Wrights. With minimal physical violence, Fram (The Bright Lands) skillfully captures an evil family intent on destroying one another, especially newcomers. Soon after arriving at Ramorah, Toby witnesses family members cruelly misgender Luca, who has long hair, wears "lots of pink and mauve" and identifies as a boy, but the family devise nonnegotiable plans for Toby and Luca. The next morning, Jerome, who's been spouting end-of-days predictions, is found stabbed on the roof as a powerful storm cuts off all communication beyond the compound. The family closes ranks against Toby, threatening to blame him for Jerome's murder. Someone paints cryptic threats around the compound, Luca claims to constantly see a strange figure he calls Mister Suit, and Toby has visions of his late sister. The Wrights' fortune has been built on religion and donations from viewers, but, as one character remarks, "There's more sins in this house than murder."

Fram nimbly matches terror with suspense as No Road Home depicts a ruthless family whose deteriorating home mirrors their soullessness. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer 

Kailee Pedersen's debut novel, Sacrificial Animals, is a lyrical and unsettling supernatural horror-thriller about the violent legacy of one Midwestern family. Second son Nick doesn't believe a deathbed reconciliation with his brutal father, Carlyle, is possible. But when Carlyle's estranged favorite, firstborn son Joshua, decides to return despite having been disinherited years ago for marrying an Asian woman, Emilia, Nick can't resist the summons. He's surprised to find Emilia is as young and beautiful as ever, and Joshua, whom his father seeks to reestablish as his heir, is still as easily swayed by his father's favor. The longer Nick stays, the more his childhood memories haunt him. And as his attraction to Emilia grows into an affair, he entangles himself further into the family history he wanted to escape. Emilia's ominous beauty simmers beneath it all, her eerie calm hinting that her seduction hides something menacing.

Pedersen's prose is both poetic and raw. Sacrificial Animals is extraordinary for its illumination of unexpected empathy, and it suggests that the catharsis of vindication is never simple. Based in part on the mythos of the American Midwest and in part on Chinese mythology, Sacrificial Animals infuses the fading, sepia-toned image of an American family saga with a more complex understanding. At first glance, Nick, Joshua, and Carlyle form a holy trinity of white male angst, but Emilia's magnetic presence disrupts their cycle of martyrdom. She becomes an agent of destruction, making their downfall less predictable if no less inevitable. This is perhaps the best part of this genre-bending literary novel: the experience of reading it is as variable as it is fated. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

A team of saturation divers enters their hyperbaric chamber for a routine 28-day stay, but not everyone will make it out alive in Will Dean's breathless thriller, The Chamber. From the coast of Scotland, the diving support vessel Deep Topaz sets off for the underwater oil-industry infrastructure of the North Sea, its crew of six divers ready for a lucrative but grueling month of work on the sea floor. Ellen Brooke, the sole female diver in the group, begins documenting life as a "sat rat" in the chamber with her camcorder, hoping to attract more women to enter the field. The chamber, which is the "size of a family bathroom," consists of three sets of bunk beds, a small table for meals, and an atmosphere mixed with helium and oxygen that allows the divers to work at pressure.

When Brooke returns from her first shift in the diving bell--attached to the chamber's "Wet Pot" (bathroom/shower area)--she finds one of the crew has mysteriously died in his bunk. Their job cut short, the divers must wait four days to decompress in the chamber, but before they can leave, another teammate dies. Dean shrinks the traditional locked-room mystery, and delivers both a well-researched primer on saturation diving (readers will never think of "raspberry jam" the same way again) and a chest-contracting novel with well-developed characters and dialogue. The Chamber is a superb thriller that invites readers inside to experience fear in a new way. --Peggy Kurkowski, book reviewer and copywriter in Denver

Catherine Steadman's Look in the Mirror is a riveting puzzle of a thriller. The novel opens as Cambridge University English literature professor Nina Hepworth receives the news that her recently deceased father has left her a house in the British Virgin Islands--a house she never knew about. Nina flies to BVI, with all her travel expenses covered by her academician father's estate (how wealthy was he?), and finds a gorgeous home overlooking a private beach. It has tight security, automated control systems, biometric door-lock panels, and one locked room in the basement that Nina can't access. There's a glitch in the room's electronic lock, and no one can tell Nina what the room holds. When she eventually finds out, the terrifying ordeal makes her question whether she knew her father at all and if she'll emerge from the house alive.

Nina isn't the only person confronting the locked room; some of the novel's chapters are from the point of view of a nanny named Maria, who is staying at the house as part of a two-week contract for a family who eerily never shows up. Nevertheless, she's told she can enjoy all the luxuries the house offers--except for the room in the basement.

Steadman (Mr. Nobody), an actor whose credits include roles on Downton Abbey and The Tudors, effectively keeps readers in the dark about the room and Nina's and Maria's timelines, infusing the novel with dread amid all the beauty and sunshine. The eventual revelations are somewhat far-fetched and don't answer all the questions raised, but Steadman is a clever writer who knows how to hold readers hostage. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, reviewer and freelance editor at The Edit Ninja

Cryptid hunting and snappy repartee abound in Love and Other Conspiracies, Mallory Marlowe's debut romance about an unlikely connection between a supernatural devotee and an avowed skeptic. Hallie, a producer at a BuzzFeed-esque company called Skroll, is up late looking for inspiration for a new web series when she stumbles onto a late-night TV show hosted by Hayden, who also has a successful podcast. Intrigued by his ability to hold her interest despite her disbelief in the paranormal, she suggests that they team up to create the next Internet sensation by turning Hayden's cryptid- and conspiracy-focused podcast, The Out There, into a web show on which Hayden will talk viewers through the weird and fabled worlds of Mothman, Area 51, and Bigfoot--to name a few.

When Hayden's charismatic presence doesn't quite translate to screen on his own, Hallie joins him in front of the camera and on the road. Together, they visit haunted hallmarks such as the Winchester Mystery House and Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel, and face off against a competing show starring a company golden boy who also happens to be Hallie's toxic ex. As their show finds success, Hallie and Hayden's friendship develops into something more. Depicting grief, trauma, and healing with a light touch ("Someone wanting to love me sounds like a conspiracy theory I am not ready to relent to yet," Hallie confesses), Love and Other Conspiracies pairs its charm with depth and humor as Hayden and Hallie discover the joy of being fully known and loved--not in spite of their oddities, but because of them. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

Consider the times and places that have changed the world, and it's unlikely that Prague in 1911 comes to mind. Still, Ken Krimstein (The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt) makes an effective argument for its critical importance with Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up with the Universe, a graphic narrative that blends theoretical physics and experimental fiction, along with references to Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Einstein in Kafkaland is an appealing contribution to conversations about these two undeniably significant figures, with its unexpected wit and its clever narrator--a skeleton adorning Prague's famed astronomical clock. Krimstein rightsizes these giants in their respective fields, reminding readers of their humanity. Despite the unquestioned genius of his findings, Einstein in 1911 is "a financially strapped 32-year-old father of three who's had to drag his family" to Prague, where he's struggling to cement his scientific standing and wrestling with the problem of gravity. Kafka, for his part, is "still living at home with his parents, and unless you count a couple press releases, virtually unpublished."

Einstein in Kafkaland's overall design is highly satisfying, due to its detailed illustrations and use of visual humor. Krimstein's art style works particularly well here, as the limited color palette and sketch-like line work evoke a dream state reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Deep familiarity with theory is not required, though it may increase readers' appreciation. Krimstein's back matter, which includes notes, suggestions for further reading, and a timeline, will sate most readers' curiosities and send them down their own rabbit holes of discovery. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Montana Poet Laureate and bookseller Chris La Tray's third book, the graceful and determined memoir Becoming Little Shell, interweaves his experiences with the history of Indigenous peoples to craft a love letter to family and natural landscapes.

As he grew up just outside Missoula in the 1970s, La Tray (Descended from a Travel-Worn Satchel) was dimly aware of his paternal Chippewa ancestry, but he knew that his father had always rejected Indigenous identity. A series of family funerals prompted the author to delve into his genealogy and the history of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. His quest was also inspired by historian Nicholas Vrooman's book about the Little Shell; Vrooman's presentation at a 2013 book festival, La Tray writes, "altered the course of my life."

Moving between past and present, La Tray enmeshes his own wanderings--rock-star dreams in Seattle, Wash., reservation life in the late 1990s, working in Ohio--with those of the Métis people, the "entire mixed-race culture and ethnicity" of descendants of Indigenous people who intermarried with early European explorers and traders. Métis people created vibrant fashion, food, and musical traditions, but like many Indigenous peoples, they, too, were "buffeted by generations of trauma," including genocide, cultural suppression, deportation, and insultingly paltry government compensation.

La Tray writes beautifully about Montana's vistas and wildlife. For him, nature, as much as a sense of community and belonging, has restored his mental health. Nineteenth-century Chief Little Shell fiercely advocated for his people's rights; La Tray's enrollment in the Little Shell Tribe and the tribe's successful 2019 campaign for federal recognition honor that legacy. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

In her frank memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy, artist Anna Marie Tendler discusses her lifelong struggle with self-harm as well as her "sort of photographic memory for the ways men have asserted their power over me." Centering on Tendler's voluntary hospitalization for psychiatric assessment in early 2021, the memoir alternates between her past and present, which involves treatment and recovery. Tendler expresses a tendency to lose focus on that present due to her worry over the future or her anger about the past, linking every perceived failure--including a meandering career, unsuccessful relationships, and messing up homemade macarons--to "some greater personal deficiency." In deft, self-reflective prose ("I remained silent and still, my cells entombing the implosion of panic"), Tendler writes candidly about patriarchy and misogyny, their social impacts, and her lived experiences and "overwhelming feeling that all men are some version of problematic."

There's a slight dissonance between Tendler's acknowledgement of her own privilege in the quality of care she can access (both for herself and her beloved French bulldog, Petunia) and her expressed distaste for men who are unaware of their own advantages. Nevertheless, it's balanced by her refusal to hold back as she recounts her journey toward being comfortable with physical and emotional solitude and tries to "reach a place where I can face hardship... without trying to destroy myself."

Tendler avoids the "person-becoming-whole-or-new" trappings of the memoir genre, focusing instead on how she reconstructs herself, perpetually bandaging her wounds for an imperfect but ongoing healing--the kind that acknowledges the residual marks as she moves forward. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

Psychologists Diane Ehrensaft (The Gender Creative Child) and Michelle Jurkiewicz team up for this excellent introduction to the concepts of gender creativity and gender-affirming care. Gender Explained dispels myths about younger generations' ease with gender creativity and about approaches taken by physical and mental health professionals in the field, providing a clear picture of the truth, along with anecdotes, exercises, and pointers to help readers understand and act on this information.

In the first part of the book, Ehrensaft and Jurkiewicz focus on "what" and "why." What does gender creativity mean? What is gender-affirming care? Why do so many children and teenagers seem to be exploring their gender identities, and why are so many adults anxious about it? After laying this strong foundation, the authors turn to the misinformation surrounding gender creativity, including the mistaken assertions that it is more prevalent in young people who are designated female at birth because of internalized misogyny, and that transgender and gender-creative youth pose impossible challenges in spaces such as classrooms, school sports, and pediatric medicine. The final chapter, "Gender Evolution to Revolution: What's Next?," eagerly looks ahead to a future when--as the authors do throughout--adults listen to the voices of children and teens to the benefit of all.

The authors acknowledge that adults, whether they have children or not, might open Gender Explained with a sense of wariness. But readers will close it with a sense of excitement about the possibilities that gender creativity opens to everyone. --Dainy Bernstein, freelance reviewer

In Loving Corrections, the 12th installment in the Emergent Strategy series, adrienne maree brown (Emergent Strategy, Holding Change) explores how correcting--and being corrected--relates to social change and justice movements. Her series of reflective and compassionate essays consider "what it looks like to be steady in our offerings of love to each other, even as we learn together and learn from each other."

Loving Corrections is broken into three distinct but interrelated sections. The essays in "Ruminations" center on righting past and present wrongs (patriarchy, racism, ableism, family wounds, to name a few). In "Murmurations," brown offers a selection of essays originally written for her YES! column of the same name, shifting attention from the systemic inequities to the more personal and individual concept of accountability, and how an expanded understanding of it better serves humanity as a whole. The final section, "Solstice and Equinox Spells," weaves brown's reflections into the rhythms of the natural world.

Loving Corrections is placed in a modern context, one drenched in social media and call-out culture, yet deeply rooted in historic and systemic power struggles. Inviting a reframe toward self-reflection and mutual accountability, brown encourages readers to recognize that the personal and interpersonal are inherently political. brown shares her wisdom and curiosity on the page to invite, challenge, and encourage new ways of thinking and being. In an era steeped in division and hateful rhetoric, it's hard to imagine a more important or necessary reminder that learning and accountability are best wielded not as tools of punishment and power but as keys to remembering our shared humanity on an endangered planet. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

If you are a typical person interacting with most technology, your only concern is that it "just works," as Steve Jobs liked to say of Apple products. But that simple metric wasn't enough to satisfy journalist Andrew Smith. The product of his curiosity is Devil in the Stack, a fascinating journey into the world of computer code, its history, the people who create it, some of its current controversies, and its implications for the future of society.

Smith's four-year odyssey in what he calls the microcosmos is so engrossing, in part, because he's not content to be a bystander in the coding process. Instead, with refreshing self-deprecation, he describes his halting steps toward acquiring proficiency in the art, a task that finds him settling on the language known as Python, whose creator, Dutch programmer Guido van Rossum, is one of a roster of key programming figures he interviews. Smith illuminates the beauty of open-source software's collaborative aspects and the frequent challenges to realizing them. He calls out the "staggering homogeneity within the profession," reflected in the fact that a mere 7% of coders are women, while less than 3% are Black, and describes the real-world consequences of this lack of diversity.

In taking readers on an intellectually stimulating guided tour of the sometimes exotic world of programming, Smith (Totally Wired) hopes to "open a broad discussion of what we want code to do for us and what we don't." Anyone who's curious about the why and how of what makes computers do what they do will find Devil in the Stack a fertile introduction. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Award-winning Haudenosaunee poet and multimodal artist Kenzie Allen gives readers an incredible collection of work in Cloud Missives. With these poems, distributed in five sections, Allen questions what it means to structure an identity in the wake of colonialism's cruelty, while also grappling with finding new ways to heal in a bent and broken world.

The book's title is pulled from the opening poem, "Light Pollution," and in 12 lines sets the tone for the rest of the book with its stark imagery and evocative emotional plea: "We tried to obey, though muffled by order,/ though every scenic outlook was already gone./ We tipped our throats to night showers/ and tried to lick back the stars the city had obliterated,/ to resurrect anything at all by taste,/ their glittering signs and warnings."

Allen directly addresses the history and legacies that have helped to obliterate Indigenous identities as happens in the poem "A Date with the Ghost of the British Empire." The section "Manifest" interrogates and remakes stereotypes driven into popular culture, evoking figures such as Pocahontas, Tiger Lily, and Indiana Jones, while the "Love Songs" section considers love--romantic love, but also familial and platonic love, and what it might mean to find healing in and from a place of love.

Allen's probing keenness is further attested to in the endnotes, which address the many references, real and imagined, and crystallize the context for each closely observed poem. Whether savored silently to one's self or recited aloud, shared, and allowed to breathe in the air, these poems will stay with readers long after they have turned the last page. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

In his perceptive collection What Can the Matter Be?, published as part of Wayne State University Press's Made in Michigan Writers series, Canadian-born poet Keith Taylor observes environmental decline and ponders how humans can live harmoniously with other species.

The title refers to the upheaval of the Covid-19 lockdown, but a section called "The Extinction Report" establishes that Taylor views the pandemic as but one symptom of climate crisis. Taylor (All the Time You Want) frets over changes in snowfalls and great horned owls that fail to return to a local nesting spot, and laments "a summer/ without monarchs." Still, unruly nature infiltrates domestic spaces, as when a bat flies around loose indoors or when Taylor impishly allows wildness to overtake his yard, indifferent to his neighbors' disapproval: "They probably won't expect the vines/ we'll plant or the elves and fairies// of rot we'll encourage, spreading/ slowly into their back corner."

In the prose poem "The Sickness That Comes from the Longing for Home" (named for the Greek etymology of the word "nostalgia"), Taylor remembers hitchhiking through Europe a half-century ago. Elsewhere, he also recalls disagreeing about religion and science with his pious father. "Let Them Be Left" relates wildlife sightings during an artist's residency at Isle Royale National Park, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. "On Beauty, Jackboots, and the Rain" contends that appreciating the natural world equates to an act of resistance to political oppression, while "Five Days After the Extinction Report" affirms that, even in the face of widespread catastrophe, rescuing individual animals is heroic.

Taylor's alliterative, allusive verse is scientifically engaged and frank yet tender in its depiction of the state of nature. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

A child yearns to join her family's mariachi band in the colorful, jubilant picture book Adela's Mariachi Band by Denise Vega (If Your Monster Won't Go to Bed) and illustrated by Erika Rodriguez Medina (And J.J. Slept).

Adela, a broad-faced girl with winsome dark eyes, brown skin, and a middle-parted ponytail, "loves everything about her family's mariachi band--except the fact that she isn't in it." Papá's trompeta only makes a "small, fizzly" sound when Adela plays it. Her tío's vihuela only squeaks for her. Her graceful mamá and sisters can make their folklórico skirts "flow like rainbows," but Adela's dance ends in a face-plant: "SPLAT!" Each failure is announced by Adela with a tiny, plaintive "oy," "iiieee," or "ahh," copies of her tía Evelyn's massive, soulful gritos ("shouts"). Adela realizes as she sits mournfully amid crayon-scribble recollections of her attempts that every skill in the band will take a long time to perfect. Her exclusion seems certain until Adela realizes she can do one thing, after all. At the end of the next show, Evelyn stands back, Papá places his hat on Adela's head, and she joyously shouts los gritos.

Culture and tradition take center stage as Adela struggles to find her niche, always surrounded and supported by the warm circle of her family. Vega's punchy voice and Medina's lively digital illustrations combine for an affirming reminder that age and size needn't be a barrier to following a passion. Backmatter includes an author's note on Vega's family history of mariachi music and a shortlist of web resources for the intrigued reader. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager, Allen County Public Library

Just as life's lemons can be turned into lemonade, god-awful messes can make masterpieces. So demonstrates What Can a Mess Make?, Bee Johnson's expertly executed debut picture book in rhyme, in which two kids who appear to be sisters spend an entire day generating marvelous outcomes that more than justify the domestic havoc they wreak along the way.

Young readers probably already know that a topsy-turvy kitchen can lead to a superb meal, like the breakfast put together by these siblings. But what can someone make with "rubber bands/ and cardboard box.// Coffee tin and shiny rocks.// Funnel, hose,/ and tape in hand"? Answer: "A mess can make/ a marching band." On it harmoniously goes, each of several sets of perfectly metered rhymes concluding with the "A mess can make..." refrain, until an argument over an alluring dress-up item earns the kids a time-out administered by a largely off-screen parent. (For adult readers, the relaxed but not lax parenting on display will receive plaudits. After the kids maim a pillow during a pillow fight, they're depicted sweeping up the feathers.) The siblings make peace, and the purposeful untidiness resumes until the inevitable happens: "A mess can make/ a good night's sleep."

For young readers, the guessing-game aspect of this ode to creativity will hold special appeal: What will each fresh episode of disorder produce? All readers of What Can a Mess Make? should appreciate the spirited clean-lined art, for which Johnson softens the book's visual lawlessness with a law-abiding autumnal palette. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

Author/illustrator Remy Lai continues her playfully spooky streak (after Ghost Book) with another comically chilling, middle-grade illustrated novel, Read at Your Own Risk. "Once upon a time," Hannah introduces her ominous notebook, "I skipped assembly, snuck into the attic, awakened an evil, and now I'm h\a/unted." It was peer pressure (Mabel's, then Brian's, then Lisa's) that pushes Hannah upstairs for a game of Spirit of the Coin that goes terribly wrong. Day one ends with horrific nightmares and Hannah awakes on day two with an impossibly "blue, black, purple" ankle. Hannah has never been one to keep a diary, but she's also "never been about to be made to Rest In Pieces." Thus, she chronicles the next eight days of bloody accidents, brain worms, nosebleeds, avulsing teeth, and worse. The evil draws so near, it appears on the page: "I'm going to be TORTURED until I break the curse," Hannah writes. "Or until you meet your untimely end. Whichever comes first," scratchy red writing answers. Can she escape?

Lai cleverly and convincingly presents this account in a lined spiral-bound diary and fills the pages with eerily elongated black-and-white graphics, reminiscent of Tadahiro Uesugi's animated Coraline adaptation. The only added color is bloody red, strewn across pages in drips, drops, and in the threatening missives. Beyond the horror, Lai brilliantly interweaves romance, literary theory, and even can't-argue-with-that philosophy: "without the villain, there would be no OBSTACLES, no OPPORTUNITIES for the hero to become a hero." She delivers scarily good entertainment. --Terry Hong

Sherri L. Smith (American Wings) movingly imagines the complex life of a teen caught between two warring countries in the piercing historical graphic novel Pearl. Illustrator Christine Norrie (Rise) meticulously documents the girl's harrowing separation in pages awash in hues of blues, emphasizing the somber experiences ahead.

In 1941, 13-year-old Amy sails to Japan--where she's never been--to visit her "sick, maybe even dying" sōsobo (great-grandmother). She goes alone from Hawaii to Hiroshima, because her parents can't travel with new baby Henry. Amy meets her "new family... across the sea," spending her first three months on her uncle's farm outside Hiroshima. "But time changes all things" and Japan attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. As war commences, Amy is conscripted as "a monitor girl," translating American radio broadcasts for the Japanese military. Meanwhile, her parents and baby brother are unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. government for being of Japanese descent; Henry dies and Amy won't return home for 11 years.

Smith's dedication cites the "research and stories" of friend Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a Japanese American writer whose titles center the Japanese American experience. Smith excels in capturing Amy's liminal state, caught between conflicting Japanese and American identities. Norrie, who is of Thai and Scottish descent, wordlessly expands Smith's narrative with her insightful illustrations: most affecting perhaps is Norrie's 20 brutally realistic, near-textless pages documenting atomic destruction and its aftermath. Smith and Norrie's collaborative graphic title eloquently humanizes history with names, faces, and families, to create an intimate testimony of formidable challenges and resolute courage. --Terry Hong

Keeper of the Rend by Lisa Maxwell (The Last Magician series) is a marvelously heartfelt ode to nature and self-love that follows a budding ornithologist and his tenacious friend as they protect the world from malicious invaders.

When 10-year-old Xavier T. Fletcher's father loses his job, the boy's family is forced to leave the suburbs and move to his Nana Susan's farm. The valley she lives in is one Xavier has always considered magical, where the land is "unbearably alive" and Xavier dares to explore. While out birdwatching, Xavier discovers the Rend--a rip in the air itself--and stops an intrepid girl named Clem from killing a bird that flies through it. Though the bird survives, Clem warns him that the birds "carry bits of the Nother's world into our world" where the "Crumbs" grow like seeds and banish light and warmth. Xavier, who already accidentally let a Crumb loose in the world, will now need to work with Clem to find the missing Crumb before it takes root.

Maxwell's poignant middle-grade debut reads like an endearing oral history with an enchanting third-person narrator who at times speaks directly to readers. The robust woodsy setting is as wondrous as it is uncanny, and Maxwell includes a great amount of humor through wry excerpts from Xavier's field guide, Notes for the National Society of Natural Things by Milton von Wimple II. The author tactfully depicts frayed family ties while still warming the heart through Xavier's enigmatic friendship with the "prickly-but-lovable" Clem. A charming celebration of naturalism and self-confidence. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer