This deeply humane autobiographical novel from Sen (author of America in the Year 2048 and Other Stories) chronicles the life of a young man, also called Sen, beginning with his Bengali family’s forced exodus from eastern Pakistan to Calcutta, India, amid the “Hindu-Muslim carnage” of the infamous Partition, and traces his relocation, marriage, and adoption of a daughter in the United States some 25 years later. Along the way he and those he loves face unfathomable loss from sectarian gangs out to kill Hindu families, but Sen also seizes opportunity, securing a visa to the U.S. to continue his study of botany. The Sen depicted here is a bright young man with close ties to the family he reluctantly leaves behind, and his steady, touching introspection drives the book as he matures from a promising student to a successful teacher to a thoughtful husband and father. Still, what he’s left behind is never far from his mind.

The result is an honest portrait of a scientist as a young man—and what it took to survive and thrive when “Blood painted its grotesque marks on streets, communities and lives of many families because of religious differences.” Despite the ups and downs of his personal odyssey, Sen spends a considerable amount of time thinking about the fate of his people in India as well as others who suffered unnecessary and unimaginable cruelties. His time in Europe and his first stateside landlord’s stories of the segregated south, the Great Depression, and World War II, further deepens Sen’s sense of humanity.

Those experiences deepen Sen’s sense of humanity, so much so that he endeavors to write stories of the oppression faced by Black Americans. In the novel’s romantic episodes, narrated by the characters with “with admiration, fascination and amorous lust,” the conversation tends toward the poetic but also the curiously clinical. Still, as he faces atrocity and the loneliness of starting anew, Sen’s empathy and compassion shine through, forged in tragedy.

Takeaway: Touching novel of Partition, immigration, and thriving in a world of violence.

Comparable Titles: Anjali Enjeti’s The Parted Earth, Rakesh Satyal’s No One Can Pronounce My Name.

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

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This inviting one-volume history of the United States, from pre-history to the probable 2024 presidential election matchup, has been crafted to illuminate the nation’s past and present for its newest arrivals. “Many scratch their heads over the lack of universal healthcare, the costs of college tuition, home prices and sales tax,” writes Serocold, also noting the tendency for discussions with Americans about “politics, gun control, abortion, immigration, and race relations” to quickly grow heated. Serocold’s history, written in direct and conversational language, illuminates the roots of these features and flashpoints of American life while touring readers through a brisk, to-the-point, era-by-era summation of its development over centuries.

Accessible but nuanced, Serocold’s history proves admirably thorough as it sweeps from early settlement to colonial life to revolution, expansion, and Americans’ wars against indigenous peoples and each other. Serocold honors the history while often placing emphasis on the practical, offering charts showing American place names derived from the languages of various groups of settlers, and demonstrating connections between key examples of perennial American tensions—between federal and state power; innovation and religious fundamentalism; a founding principle of equality and the reality of prejudice—to readers’ contemporary experience. A discussion of the Populist Party notes, with amusing understatement, “Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have both been labeled populists despite standing for very different things.”

Serocold’s guiding impulse when surveying this complex and often still-contested history is resonance: what do readers need to know to understand the nation’s present? That’s not to say this history is streamlined, as he describes, often with excitement, many individual battles of America’s wars, the ethos and accomplishments of the presidents, romantic myths of the West, the logic behind the electoral college, the roots of “American Exceptionalism” in Puritan preaching, and countless other data points that reveal how life in the United States became what it currently is, right up to Billy Beer, waning religious affiliation, and the January 6 insurrection.

Takeaway: Accessible, illuminating one-volume history of the U.S. for new arrivals.

Comparable Titles: Scholastic's Guide to Civics, Roya Hakakian’s A Beginner's Guide to America.

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

Click here for more about A History of the United States for Newcomers

Treadgold returns for the third visit to her inviting Port Townshend setting and the casually wealthy and very close O’Connell family for a romance filled with soap opera-like drama and themes of breaking down barriers. At Teresa O’Connell’s wedding, there are some gentle sparks between her brother David, returned from a stint as a doctor in Africa, and emerging actress Madeleine Leftwood, the daughter of a family friend. But on hearing that David is engaged to Sylvia, a doctor he met abroad, Maddie goes for a fling with Teresa’s ex, local yoga instructor and surprise theatrical costar Kilo. Though the family is on-board with David and Maddie as a couple once it’s clear Sylvia’s no longer a romantic prospect, it takes a lot for the couple themselves to get over their rough start.

Treadgold manages the complex relationships within the O’Connell family with grace, inviting in new readers while ensuring that veterans of the earlier books in the series will be rewarded with updates on earlier couples beyond just supporting the new pairing, including some warm and connected married sex scenes. Maddie’s characterization is strong, and her conflict about making it as an actress but not wanting to do nudity on screen feels authentic. The basic setup for the couple’s conflict works well, though David is difficult, prickly, and somewhat bland.

Secondary plots proceed unevenly: the brief reappearance of Ali and Liam’s homeless birth mother is emotional but, but it and the soft breakup and resolution between Teresa and Liam draw focus from the primary couple, who at times can feel a little lost in the story. A supernatural plot development is treated as an awkward quirk and a career challenge, and it risks making the story implausible to realist readers, but also underwhelming to those ready to lean into mystical stories. Still, the parade of seasonal celebrations in the household continually brings the family and these couples together in engaging moments of connection.

Takeaway: Big romance with lots of characters and heart, in which the main couple gets a little lost.

Comparable Titles: Nora Roberts’s MacGregors series; A. M. Hargorve’s West Brothers series.

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

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“It’s group performance art, moved to the next level,” explains Jed, a theater director, to the cast he has assembled, in an Episcopal church’s meeting hall, to put together The Sex Show, an exploratory theater piece “About hypocrisy and ecstasy, gender and role-playing. About sexuality and fetishes and power” and “The whole hodgepodge that made them human sexual beings.” This sprawling, surprising novel from Maxwell (Rafael Jerome) lives up to that heady promise, as Jed’s cast sheds inhibitions, reveals their sexual selves, and launches into searching improvised scenes together, all while insisting to the public that these rehearsals are a twelve-step program. But outside of rehearsals that Jed comes to think of as “his utopia, artificial though it was,” the real world of 1997 rages on, upending Jed’s life—and demonstrating why committing to such a bold, impassioned project feels so urgent. At the high school where he teaches drama, a new principal crusades against Jed’s production of Cabaret.

Meanwhile, Jed’s mother moves in with Jed and his partner, Matt, and discovers the pleasures of weed, and a series of tragedies and injustices will see Jed on the road with the most unlikely person. While much of the novel concerns Jed’s vividly drawn nightmares and complex close relationships, Maxwell pens strong, extended scenes of The Sex Show cast exploring, with welcome frankness, sexual desires, taboos, and hypocrisies, a liberating contrast to the situation Jed faces at school: an effort to stage a Cabaret without “sexual overtones.” The prose blends incisive observation, earnest outrage, and bright comic sparkle (on a genial round of group sex: “The trio shifted positions like they were accommodating a fourth for a sociable game of bridge.”)

For all the laughs, though, a spirit of anxiety powers the book, as Jed and company continually face forces of repression. This provocative, hilarious, sometimes wrenching story’s second half gains momentum as America’s policing of sex and drugs inspires desperation, with several characters on the run—and discovering themselves.

Takeaway: Bold, funny novel of theater, sex, taboos, and American hypocrisy.

Comparable Titles: Stephen McCauley, Andrew Sean Greer.

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

Click here for more about The Sex and Dope Show Saga (Revised Edition 2023)

Lacy’s inspiring memoir centers family, growth out of adversity, and beating all the odds to accomplish a long line of impressive "firsts.” Lacy immerses readers into her life from childhood in a predominantly Black neighborhood and in the politically charged city of Washington D.C. during the 1950s and ‘60s, through an adulthood of self-discovery, success, and life-changing academic achievements. Lacy touchingly cites her upbringing as the stepping stones to her tenacity, growth, and lofty educational ambitions that saw her becoming “the first and only African American female to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in her specialized business field of industrial relations."

From the Civil Rights movement to attending HBCU life to romance, family, and education, Lacy chronicles it all in her powerful life story. The tone is upbeat, though Lacy frankly addresses challenges she faced, from “tough times, a broken home, bullying, and the mean streets” to being bullied by her peers who accused her of being smart and thinking she was better than them. A message of resilience powers the book: "I learned that no matter how smart you are or how hard you try to do the right thing, you will get knocked down and life will kick you around,” she writes. “When that happens, you have to pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and keep on walking.” Dealing with not only being marginalized for being Black, but also attempting to excel in a male dominated field, Lacy put that hard-won knowledge into practice, never letting setbacks and letdowns stop her from achieving her goals.

Fans of Black history, stories of Black excellence, and women making strides in male-dominated fields will be enthralled by Lacy's story of success. Full of transparency and nostalgia, with firsthand recollections of historical events such as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Watergate scandal, Madame Ph.D. is the captivating story of a life well lived.

Takeaway: Rousing memoir of a trailblazer who always kept walking forward.

Comparable Titles: Elaine Welteroth's More Than Enough, Cynt Marshall's You've Been Chosen.

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

Click here for more about Madame Ph.D.: Growing Up Black in DC and Beating the Odds

Blending history, adventure, and a hunt for secrets involving a lost mine, Huffman’s time-crossed novel centers on Susan Kingsley, an ambitious assistant acquisitions specialist at the Smithsonian. In 1982, Susan lucks into a series of letters from 1870 detailing a wagon train’s journey down the Old Spanish Trail to the “Deseret Territory,” a stretch of the American southwest that the Mormons once sought to claim as a country of their own. As Susan begins to grasp the promise and significance of this find, and to hope it might lead to her long-deserved promotion, Huffman also dramatizes the experiences of the original letter writer himself, William Mitchell, a natural leader arranging a wagon train headed for “the fertile valleys of Vernal” to “carve out a homestead.”

Like readers will be, Susan is intrigued, eventually embarking on a journey to unravel the tantalizing mysteries in William’s letters, all while her ex-husband, Andrew Harrison, spirals into bitterness, closely monitoring her every move and making nasty cracks about “career women.” Huffman skillfully weaves narratives spanning across a century, between the post-Civil War West, prior to Utah statehood, and the chauvinistic 1980s, of Reagan’s war on drugs and rumors about J. Edgar Hoover’s sexual orientation. Huffman demonstrates throughout how each era’s ethos shape the choices of the characters, while their travels come with vibrant descriptions, enriching the dual quests. The temporal transitions are smooth and clear, and the different perspectives and vocabularies keep the novel feeling varied.

Huffman crafts a thoughtful but well-paced adventure, with Andrew’s inner turmoil and deceptions raising the stakes, right till the end. This novel is as much a journey of self discovery and newfound determination as it is a quest for retracing a historical trail. The welcome character of Kat, turning up deep into the story, represents female solidarity, guiding Susan’s growth, making it a tale of empowerment that will resonate with anyone interested in an exciting quest and convincing explorations of bygone socio-cultural moments.

Takeaway: Thoughtful, well-paced story of a Smithsonian acquisitionist on the Old Spanish Trail.

Comparable Titles: Serena Burdick’s The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey, Lisa Wingate’s The Book of Lost Friends.

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

Click here for more about The Deseret Reckoning

Ambinder’s charming picture book for young children introduces readers to the joys of the natural world. The story centers around a little girl named Maya who loves exploring—walking along the beach with her father, searching a backyard garden for butterflies, enjoying nature-based sensory play with her friends. As the seasons change, Maya and her family go apple picking, play in piles of leaves, and paint pumpkins on the back porch. The singsong, rhyming prose reinforces Maya’s contentment: “See rainbows made by sun and rain, all with bright colors, yet no two the same, a rainbow just for you with your special name.”

This book succeeds in demonstrating the tremendous mental and emotional benefits nature holds for people of all ages. Seeing Maya delight in a variety of activities that don’t involve screens will give kids and parents new ideas to try. Importantly, many suggestions are accessible for everyone —for instance, not all families live near the beach or can take a day off to go hiking in the woods, but most people can find a moment to pause and appreciate autumn’s changing leaves or the tickle of a cat’s whiskers on their leg. Each page also features an inspiring nature-based quote to energize adults, since their participation will be required.

Soderberg’s crisp, colorful illustrations show brown-haired, blue-eyed Maya mostly looking calm and serene as she walks, sprawls, and digs in idyllic locations. Each scene is rich with texture and detail —one picture shows Maya and her friends playing beside a stream, with one child holding binoculars, one sharing apples with a squirrel, and another wearing polka-dot galoshes. There’s no shortage of wildlife, either, including friendly deer, turtles, pigeons, and even dolphins. Maya’s sweet adventures will encourage kids and their families to get outside—even if only in the backyard.

Takeaway: A little girl demonstrates the many ways to enjoy the outdoors.

Comparable Titles: David Covell’s Run Wild, Micha Archer’s Wonder Walkers.

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

Click here for more about As Maya Grows in the Natural World

True to his one self, Paul (author of the epic-length A Philosophical Treatise of Reality) offers commentary upon all 37 of the (extant) plays of Shakespeare, with an eye toward philosophy, psychology, theology, and what wisdom the Bard offers us in an era of “social media, the internet, smartphone applications, endless technology, and virtual reality” where “morality, ethics, and religion have diminished in their standing.” Each chapter offers a brisk summary of the genre, story, and themes of each play, and then considerations of key quotations, presented in the order in which they appear in Shakespeare’s text. Paul then extrapolates thoughts—and much practical life advice—from the playwright’s words, taking the opportunity to explore the sweeping host of concerns that power the dramas, comedies, and tragedies that form the very headwaters of the English language.

Paul’s exegeses are singular and personal, unburdened by the concerns and controversies of contemporary scholarship, interested above all else in timeless lessons and “the nuance and finesse of the human condition.” The Merry Wives of Windsor, for example, finds him contemplating what we each owe in our various relationships, how children’s observations of the world shape their development, the travails that come with wealth, the virtue of patience, the elusive qualities of love, the urgent power of prayer, and the nobility of “Honour, morality, reputation, conscience, character, integrity, steadfastness, righteousness, and trustworthiness.”

His approach is to consider these quotations less as the words of characters—with their own agendas, perspectives, and failings—then as a source of general wisdom, offering nourishment and illumination of all that matters most in life. Hamlet inspires him to celebrate the power of confession (“the opportunity to reflect on our shortcomings and improve our self-awareness”), while King Lear provokes thoughts on the imperative “to secure the ‘right’ balance between [individuals’] never-ending ambitions and their true potential.” The result is an accessible, encouraging, and companionable study.

Takeaway: Inviting analysis of Shakespeare’s play, with practical wisdom.

Comparable Titles: Marjorie Garber’s Shakespeare After All, Norrie Epistein’s The Friendly Shakespeare.

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

Click here for more about A Commentary on Shakespeare's Plays

Cochran’s accomplished novel debut paints a possible future of humanity on the brink of both first-contact discovery and societal collapse. At its heart is Evans Ezra Evans, an author who once poured all my “broken parts and anger” into a book also titled The Pollutant Speaks, “a long, punk epic of discontent.” Evans finds himself on the brink of eviction and being hunted by the “Cannots,” a cult that uses his book as a manifesto to justify their extreme actions. At a time when humanity has spread to “seven miserable, overpopulated systems,” Evans is rescued by the love of his life, Annie Bugatti, who assists him in securing a spot as a candidate at the prestigious Border Institute for Languages, whose mission is to understand Para, the intricate language of the alien world with which humans are desperate to establish contact, and to train ambassadors to communicate with it.

“Was it any wonder that an alien super-culture wasn’t interested in talking to us?” Evans wonders. But the Border still prepares, and the diverse supporting characters that surround Evans not only breathe life into the narrative but also prompt Evans to confront his beliefs and shift his worldviews. Crossley, a self-proclaimed messiah, proves a formidable antagonist, orchestrator of the devastating “Crush” incident that led to financial ruin for Evans and countless others, and now dedicated to sabotage the Border’s efforts. Cochran cleverly uses dark developments to catapult Evans from passive protagonist to determined leader, armed with knowledge and a “Para ring” as he plans a meticulous assault on the formidable g-Russ, a five-headed being who possesses the key to Crossley's downfall.

Telling this surprising story with brisk efficiency despite rich concepts, a sense of poetry, and welcome literary ambition, Cochran deftly portrays the power of human minds to learn, teach, and stand up to the worst of our species. Evans’s journey of self-realization and redemption features fascinating and sometimes head-spinning development of Para language and future technology. This will delight lovers of thoughtful, ambitious science fiction.

Takeaway: Ambitious first-contact novel with humanity on the verge of collapse.

Comparable Titles: Peter Cawdron’s Whatever Seeds May Fall, Nancy Kress’s Tomorrow’s Kin.

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

Click here for more about The Pollutant Speaks

After writing his memoir, The Lottery of Life, Krueger discovered he needed to share more stories, in this case a series of globe-trotting adventures, musings on retirement, and the realities of “the harsh world of doing business.”From indulging in cigars and rum in Cuba, to freight forwarding and establishing new business in Vietnam, to learning how to pilot gliders, he sets a stage as vast and intricate as a kaleidoscope. This collection of tales could easily be called Well Traveled since his work as a freight forwarder covered three continents, with stops in Indonesia, Australia, and Europe with stints in Jakarta, Perth, and Singapore.

As the subtitle suggests, these wide-ranging stories (a weeping woman bangs on Krueger’s door late at night in Jakarta; his general practitioner orders a tour of his urinary tract) aren’t chronological and often have the feeling of pinned-down memories, those moments that it feels nourishing to revisit as life goes on. Krueger’s knowledge of dates, names, and events is remarkably detailed, and, thanks to his powerful memory and meticulous documentarian skills, stories from mid-century are narrated as if they happened yesterday. The most personal chapter, “Expat Kids,” features parents Kurt and Rebecca, whose family is challenged trying to earn a living and raise children in a foreign country. While most of the collection is written in the first-person perspective, here Krueger shifts to third, noting that he’s used fictitious names because at the time of writing it was difficult for him “to associate directly with that emotional time.”

He concludes with his epic adventure of learning to fly. His development of the finesse and skill it takes to achieve this dream is chronicled flight by flight, sometimes excitingly—“A weightless feeling in my stomach told me I was about to fall out of the sky”—and with the precision of detail you would expect from a pilot. Despite the perils, it’s gratifying to share the journey and insights.

Takeaway: Unexpected stories of flying high and a life well traveled.

Comparable Titles: Ken Anderberg’s Indonesia: An Expat's Tale, John and Edna Lewis’s One Adventure After Another.

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

Click here for more about WELL REMEMBERED

In his zany and appealing debut, Starr delivers a fantasy-filled middle grade tale centered on eccentric witch Martha May McKenzie, who conjures up a magic-filled cake to cheer up her grieving grandchildren after their police officer father’s death. One bite is enough to trigger the magic—but Martha’s magic goes awry when she leaves her grandson Lucas in the room with the cake—and he eats an entire slice. Suddenly, Martha, her daughter Jamie, granddaughter Trinity and grandson Lucas are hurled backward in history to the Middle Ages, when Martha’s pet goat was a beautiful witch named Jezebel.

Imaginative world-building transports readers to a playful world and time when kings ruled the land, bows and arrows were the weapons of the day, yet windows have glass and kids still call each other “nerd.” The prevailing sense of fun encourages readers just to go with it, and soon enough the stakes get higher: when an evil duke sees Trinity’s cell phone, he proclaims it to be a black magic box and vows to kill the entire family. Hijinks ensue, with the plucky family eluding the duke’s murderous efforts. Starr takes the opportunity to impart positive lessons to young readers, including the importance of apologizing when appropriate, healthy eating, and following boundaries.

Starr excels in creating descriptive prose (“This old lady had an outrageously wild mountain of untamed hair, the likes of which belonged in a zoo, with never-ending locks of beautiful golden-brown curls that fell to the floor”) and appropriate middle-grade gross-out elements like a goat urinating on Jamie (“she stuffed her wet, smelly, disgusting socks into her shoes. They made a sloshy, squishy-squashing squidgy sound”), burp clouds, and a magical fairy who makes her home in Martha’s nostril. Starr keeps the excitement going until the very last page—although the story ends on a cliffhanger. Still, middle-grade fantasy fans will relish Starr’s well-plotted and hilariously imagined tale.

Takeaway: Funny middle-grade fantasy of magic, witches, goats, and gentle gross-outs.

Comparable Titles: Max Brallier, Jacob Sager Weinstein.

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

Click here for more about Martha May McKenzie

A journalist seeking to enjoy the holiday season becomes embroiled in a jewel heist murder mystery in Bailey’s third installment of her Olivia Penn Mystery series (after Silence Says the Most). Journalist Olivia Penn has returned to her hometown of Apple Station, Virginia, where she writes a newspaper advice column, aided by her widowed father with testing out recipes for the column’s “recipe extravaganza for the Christmas season.” Olivia’s budding friendship/romance with local Detective Preston Hills seems to be going smoothly until his mother Bev is targeted by a blackmailer implicating Preston’s deceased father in the heist of a $15 million necklace with local criminal Stuart Carter. When Stuart is released from prison for another crime and ends up murdered, Preston and FBI Special Agent Paul Allen seek to find the connection between the heist and the murder. Despite Preston’s reluctance at involving her, Olivia volunteers to handle the drop for the blackmail money.

Bailey simultaneously paints the idyllic picture of a small Virginia town decorated for the holidays while contrasting it against crimes of murder and high-end theft, especially as Oliva continues to search for connections between the jewel heist and murder. She uncovers some disturbing evidence, hoping she can connect the dots without putting her own life in danger. The sense of community is strong throughout the fast-paced novel as evidenced by the support of likable figures like Olivia’s neighbor Sam, a gun-wielding former Marine who accompanies Olivia when she meets up with John Mack, a less-than-truthful private investigator.

While mystery is the primary focus which keeps readers guessing amid a plethora of twists and turns, the promise of a sweet Christmas romance between Olivia and Preston adds allure to the holiday setting. Olivia is a memorable protagonist, whose caring nature is equally matched with her intelligence. And while reading the previous installments would help provide backstory, it is a standalone novel sure to please fans of cozy, holiday mysteries.

Takeaway: Cozy Christmas mystery involving blackmail, murder and theft of a $15 million necklace.

Comparable Titles: Joanne Fluke’s Christmas Dessert Murder, Donna Andrews’s Twelve Jays of Christmas.

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

Click here for more about Under the Cocoon Moon

Sweeping, surprising, and alive with wide-ranging empathy and sociocultural insight, this slow-burn thriller—the debut from Flores, Jr.—surveys, from the vantage point of the late 1960s, the complex history of fictional Allen County, a stretch of borderland California transformed, by the “will, sweat and blood … of Okies, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese, Italians, Portuguese, Swiss, southern Blacks, hustlers, cattle thieves” and more “to one of the richest farmlands in the world.” The mystery, when it eventually comes, centers on issues of who actually owns land and water, as the scion of the wealthy Allen family considers bequeathing his expansive estate to charity, much to the chagrin of many interested parties, including a robustly corrupt sheriff who quotes John Wayne while shaking down motorists.

That plot engages, but the novel’s heart is in its inspired portraiture of the characters populating this milieu, chief among them occasional narrator, the youngest son of Allen County’s Mendoza family, and his older brothers, both of whom are serving in Vietnam. As that narrator comes of age in fractious times, playing baseball and feeling rite-of-passage humiliation at a school dance, he bears witness to the ways that war ravages the older men in his life, especially his brother, Curtis, who comes home with an out-of-nowhere wife and terrifying addictions. Flores, Jr., connects those changes to the trauma endured by older veterans, too, illuminating generational cycles of violence and abuse. Here’s a story of men and murder, legacy and secrets, that plumbs the depths of why its characters might be moved to violence.

First-person passages alternate with the perspectives of characters from varied backgrounds, exploring the workings, justice system, and deep-rooted inequities of Allen County, while newspaper clippings and other surprises (prayers, a confessional, letters to and from soldiers) offer crucial context. Lean prose touched with grace keeps the pages turning, even as In the Shadow of the Sun takes more pages laying groundwork than is typical for the genre.

Takeaway: Borderland California 1960s thriller with an incisive eye to history and power.

Comparable Titles: Ruchika Tomar’s A Prayer for Travelers, Attica Locke.

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

Click here for more about IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN

The dark underbelly of tariff policy and international trade sends down-and-out Seattle investigator Lars Severin across the globe in this mystery thriller from Alexander (Blood in the Bluegrass). When two US Department of Commerce agents disappear after inspecting a shady export company in rural China, and the official inquiry proves “unusually thin,” a wealthy relative recruits Severin to find the truth. Accompanied by his old college buddy Wallace Zhang, who’s handily fluent in Mandarin, Severin retraces the steps of the missing agents through China, a trail littered with greed, corporate crime, espionage, and possibly murder.

While the investigation unfolds at a steady pace, Severin and Zhang spend their downtime drinking and exploring Severin’s troubled psyche as Alexander digs deep into his lead’s troubled state. Mired in depression, blacklisted by powerful enemies, and haunted by ghosts from his days as a homicide detective, Severin considers himself a “defrocked alcoholic burnout.” But once he takes the case the dust shakes of his wings: picking locks and pressing witnesses are second nature, even though hardboiled Severin insists on pretending he’s only in it for the money. Zhang’s companionship is also more important than Severin wants to admit, and it’s not until a violent attack leaves Zhang barely alive that Severin’s defenses finally begin to crumble, as he realizes Zhang is his last link “to how things used to be.”

The focus on Severin’s redemption is at times on-the-nose, but readers who love seeing down-and-out investigators bounce back will relish his transformation. Some incidental characters appear and vanish too quickly to register with much power, but the plotting is deep and layered, and fascinating settings are rendered in immersive detail, from a posh enclave in the San Juan Islands to colonial relics in old Shanghai. Alexander is a former federal agent whose knowledge of tariff policy and Washington bureaucracy lends authority to the finer details of “antidumping” investigations, an obscure topic readers will come away feeling expert in.

Takeaway: Slow burn mystery set amid a fascinating corner of international corporate crime.

Comparable Titles: Nelson DeMille, Brian Haig’s Man in the Middle.

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

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Immunologist Breivik’s debut urges a way of understanding cancer and also death and life themselves, and what it means to be human. With an inviting tone, rigorous science, and a distaste for miracle cures, Breivik delves into what cancer actually is, how it develops (it’s “not just about genes that get damaged,” he notes. “It is about genes that replicate and evolve”), and what a potential cure would mean for humanity. "If we want to understand cancer, we need to see beyond the fearful monster," he argues, and he makes the case that we need to study the “elephant” that is cancer from new angles to achieve true comprehension. He breaks down the science—cell biology, gene mutation and regulation, how “Life, in all its forms, is about information.”

Making Sense of Cancer centers on the radical idea that there may never be a cure for cancer and that acceptance of this fact is key to arriving at new solutions to how cancer is viewed, treated, and prevented. Cancer does not always mean a death sentence, Breivik argues, making the case that cancer is an evolutionary occurrence in the cycle of life, human and animal. The result is a gently provocative, highly quotable (“We seem to get cancer from almost everything—especially the things that, for many, make life worth living”) book that urges greater preventative measures and takes many unexpected turns, all while inviting in both lay readers and the science-minded alike with lucid, engaging prose.

Breivik includes comic-strip style illustrations to lighten the tone, and he exhibits refreshing humility throughout this, at one point acknowledging the possibility that "some future cancer researchers will make me the laughingstock of the scientific community." Still, his exploration of questions like “Can we eliminate cancer and still be human?” is eye-opening. Readers who enjoy grounded-yet-bold medical research, contemplation of evolution, and in-depth scientific exploration will engage with Breivik’s searching, unexpected, powerfully argued vision.

Takeaway: Bold, well-argued case for accepting the potential incurability of cancer.

Comparable Titles: David Servan-Schreiber’s Anti-Cancer, Athena Aktipis's The Cheating Cell.

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

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This gripping historical saga, set in China during the Song dynasty, opens with Hasan Arslan, an expert bowyer who aspires to be designated as an officer of the Imperial Court. Despite the unfair reality that no Gelolu has ever earned his ideal rank, he desires to achieve it with his innovative design of the Gaze Mountain Bow and his calculation of the exact date of the Winter Solstice. Failure in his invention and calculation means severe repercussions for him and his family. As the fight against the Xixia nomads ensues, his devotion to the emperor is tested.

Marr weaves an intricate, unpredictable plot and offers striking insights into the culture that thrived during the Song dynasty. Hundred Beam Bridge sheds light on the beliefs and ethos of the era, such as Hasan's conviction that their heirloom Pixius (a lion body with feathered wings and the head of the dragon) is the source of their prosperity and protection, a blessing he fervently desires to preserve for his family's future, while conveying a powerful message about enduring issues of human society, including racial prejudices, gender identities, diverse religious beliefs, and corruption in politics, all as urgent in the lives of Hasan's sons and grandchildren as they are today.

Scenes of sports, training, and battle are exciting, especially the horrors of siege warfare, and Marr’s interest in military technology, like the development of mechanized crossbows, will appeal to the history-minded. Meanwhile, the story spanning 88 years of rivalry, betrayal, love, and life, illustrates the problems of navigating familial pressures living in the Imperial Court, at a time when matters of inheritance and position held paramount importance. That scope means that the elaborate web of names and lineages demands readers put in some work to keep up, though Marr develops tension over who will survive in the fights against Xixia nomads and the Jurchen Jin Empire—and the fate of key characters’ challenges to traditions and norms.

Takeaway: Rich, sweeping story of war and love in ancient China.

Comparable Titles: Anchee Min's Empress Orchid, Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven.

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

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