by Paul Yoon
Paul Yoon (Run Me to Earth) follows the lead of authors such as Paul Auster and André Alexis by using a dog as his narrator in the novel Etna. It's a smart choice, given that themes of loyalty, perceptiveness, and home are integral to this excellent work on the suffering brought about by the ravages of war.
In an unknown country, a 12-month-old mixed-breed shepherd lives on a farm. His is a happy life, until a woman in uniform arrives and says she is "hoping to find dogs to join up with and assist the
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by Andrea Uptmor
In Andrea Uptmor's The New People, newlyweds Emma and Rachel have relocated from Chicago to small-town Riverbend, Ind., pursuing a tenure-track professorship for Rachel while Emma recovers, emotionally and physically, from a recent miscarriage. Between the emotional angst of a stalled writing career and the physical challenges of IVF, it's easy enough for Emma to chalk up the odd and inexplicable occurrences in their small picturesque Cape Cod--a leaky washing machine, a flipped breaker, a splash of orange
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by Lauren Collins
In her sprawling and essential examination of a violent upheaval in 1898 Wilmington, N.C., Lauren Collins (When in French) establishes the thesis of They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacy Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy by explaining that "our understanding of history depends on where we place the parameters of an event." She argues that the events of November 10, 1898, were not singular but one moment on a continuum of race and power in the South, "a centuries-long day that isn't over
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by Julian Randall, illus. by Nathan Walker
In Shook, an insightful and rhythmic free-verse novel by Julian Randall (The Chainbreakers) with art by illustrator and designer Nathan Walker, a 12-year-old boy discovers that he needs to give and receive assists on and off the basketball court.
Malik has plans: varsity basketball in eighth grade, college ball, then "first pick in the NBA Draft." He idolizes his father, a once-legendary player, who gave Malik the nickname "Shake": "Don't nothing shake/ my son,/ not a thing." Shake is confident, his parents
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by Melinda Salisbury
Local Gods by Melinda Salisbury (Her Dark Wings) is a twisty, mystical, supernatural folk-horror novel about a teen whose town's fate drops into her hands when she meets its dying god.
"White, slim, conventionally pretty" 17-year-old Sylvie fled her privileged life in Pine Ridge Hollow when the FBI raided her home seeking her missing father on fraud and embezzlement charges. Six months later, Sylvie returns to her hometown, which has fallen into disrepair as the debts of those who were victimized by her dad's
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