In Anjet Daanje's expansive historical novel The Song of Stork and Dromedary, readers are treated to a rare literary phenomenon, a work that captures the haunting soul of the 19th and early 20th centuries while maintaining a sharp, contemporary metaphysical edge. Expertly translated from the Dutch by David McKay, the novel is a triumph of linguistic versatility. McKay renders Daanje's distinct, rhythmic prose and character tones adroitly, alongside the atmospheric dread and luminous beauty that epitomizes her writing.

The Song of Stork and Dromedary is an intricately structured epic, told through 11 interconnected stories that spiral outward from Eliza May Drayden, a character inspired by Emily Brontë. Eliza May and her sister, Millicent, each pseudonymously write what will become canonical texts of English literature, Millicent's Widow revered initially and Eliza May's Haegar Mass considered offensive and potentially dangerous.

Set largely on the rugged moors of Yorkshire, Daanje's novel follows Eliza May's impact after her death, tracing how her enigmatic poems, difficult novel, and the ghostly aura of her brief life infuse the lives of those who knew her. Her influence further spreads to those who come after, people affected by her work and whose own lives parallel aspects of hers. This is a portrayal of hauntings, not solely the gothic, spectral variety, but of the way art can cast shadows across centuries. Daanje has crafted an unforgettable meditation: the prose is lush, the emotional stakes are visceral, and the intellectual depth is impressive. The Song of Stork and Dromedary is a work that demands to be read slowly and savored over the course of its 736 pages. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Readers can return to the whimsical landscape of Sarah Beth Durst's Spellshop, a cozy fantasy series, in this joyful, world-expanding third entry, Sea of Charms.

Marin enjoys a life of relative freedom as a supply runner with her own enchanted silver sailboat and a companionable sea serpent named Perri who swims alongside it. However, she never lets herself forget how close she came to losing that freedom when her traitorous ex-fiancé embezzled from her family. She will never take the risk of a relationship again, not even for Dax, a handsome musician from the Alyssium conservatory who is "as precisely perfect as the mosaics, and as ethereal as the flute music" of his home. Then Alyssium goes up in a blaze of revolution, and Marin gives Dax shelter on her boat. Marin and Dax traverse the seas with Perri and Ree, a talking wax myrtle shrub who longs to be a real sailor. They travel to islands where they encounter new species, try tasty new cheeses, and make new friends whom series fans will recognize. Marin can't stop herself from falling for kind, musically brilliant Dax, but to find happiness, she will have to learn to put her trust in the toughest place--her own heart.

Durst (The Spellshop; The Enchanted Greenhouse) ups the series' already formidable adorableness factor while leaning into the tender emotional arc of a main character discovering her self-confidence with the support of her comrades. Readers longing for a glimpse of a kinder, gentler reality will find comfort and satisfaction, plus talking plants. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

A young mother fears that her infant may have been replaced by the fairies in Queen Mab, the literary debut novel by Emily McBride that's drenched in folklore and psychological insight.

Madeleine faces a surprise pregnancy at 23, not long married and in the second year of her doctoral studies in 19th-century literature. Her excitement and the thought of what a good father her husband, Tom, will make push aside her doubts about the timing, and after a terrible labor, Maud is born. Although Maud initially seems perfect, Madeleine begins to suspect there is something wrong. Maud has an uncanny quality. How serious was that nurse who mentioned keeping the windows in the hospital closed lest a baby be taken by foxes?

With smooth prose, McBride inhabits the point of view of a woman whose mental health is deteriorating postpartum. Isolated from her community, alone with the baby while Tom positions himself for a possible promotion, Madeleine struggles to make sense of the disconnection she feels from Maud and latches onto the changeling stories she has encountered in her studies of the nonhuman in literature. McBride's polished language engrosses, even as the potential for horror repels; traditionally, the methods to retrieve the original child and banish the changeling involve committing acts on the changeling that are terrible to contemplate. The first-person narration keeps readers firmly inside Madeleine's increasingly hallucinatory perspective. But even amid delusion, folklore has truths to teach about the surrounding world. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

In her fast-paced second novel, Runner, Ashton Lattimore plunges readers into the murky waters of liquor smuggling off Martha's Vineyard, Mass., in the summer of 1923. Reeling from the sudden death of her father, Earl, a fisherman turned rumrunner, Lena Jameson longs to escape the island but must work to keep her family afloat. She gathers a crew of her own--her brother Walter; her boyfriend, Sam; and Dee, an elegant new friend from Boston--to take over Earl's business. But as they navigate treacherous waters, real and metaphorical, Lena and her friends find much more than they bargained for.

Lattimore (All We Were Promised) paints a nuanced portrait of the island's year-round Black community, deeply rooted in the Vineyard soil and its brightly painted gingerbread cottages. She explores the hardships of structural racism, plus internal divisions caused or exacerbated by the temperance movement, rigid religious beliefs, and respectability politics. As Lena and Dee earn their keep by washing dishes while planning their next liquor run, they hear unsettling rumors about Earl's death and his connections to the underworld. Dee, meanwhile, juggles her dreams of a music career in Harlem's jazz clubs with several explosive secrets--one of which could upend Lena's world.

Lena fights to keep her head above water--which includes being taken seriously as a young Black woman in a man's dangerous game--while she and Dee must rely on their wits, their fragile new friendship, and a healthy dose of luck to keep from getting pulled under. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Loosely inspired by the film starring Audrey Hepburn, The Roman Holiday Rule is Andra Loy's charming and cozy debut novel full of Italian romance. Daughter of a world-famous painter who died last year, Lexi must complete their bucket-list trip to Italy alone. When she has a chance encounter with a handsome stranger in the airport, she assumes she will never see him again, until Mark sits next to her on her flight and keeps popping up in her travels around the city of Rome. And when Mark isn't around, Lexi seems to always run into a member of his large, extended family.

Touring various landmarks mentioned in letters her mother left her to open in Rome, Lexi learns more about not only her mother but also herself. As each letter and location is revealed, readers will begin to wonder if some magic isn't perhaps afoot to constantly bring Lexi and Mark together. Loy describes the locations--including the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps--with a level of adoration that shows the beauty of what could otherwise be cliché tourist traps.

With a low spice level, The Roman Holiday Rule nonetheless has plenty of chemistry and romantic tension. Lexi and Mark, whether flirting or fighting, play off one another perfectly. The magic is subtle, so readers usually averse to the genre can still enjoy their story, while readers who adore a little enchantment will be pleased. An inviting debut, The Roman Holiday Rule will leave readers wanting another adventure with Andra Loy. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller

"Without love, attention is only a report. Love with attention, love as attention, a herbarium," writes Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn (A Fish Growing Lungs) in her essay collection I Have This Thing for Flowers. She gives her own relationships the same attention to detail as botanists show to their plants. In doing so, her essays link the flowers and plants she has cultivated to the meaningful connections in her life, as she traces what took her from a broken engagement to a marriage filled with love.

Sawchyn's 21 essays, each titled with the name of a flower that frames the meditation to come, remind readers that gardens and human relationships are not dissimilar in their need for effort and care. The flowers are evocative: Narcissus, Magnolia, Vinca, Echinacea, Jasminum. But these are not just hanging metaphors; they also lead the author to considerations of myth, motherhood, perfumery, and cultivation practices. Sawchyn is just as conscientious in sharing historical and scientific detail as with the personal information integrated into the other reflections. The layering of various topics, stories, personal narratives, and perspectives all provoke a closer look at something taken for granted, be they the flowers themselves or the bonds explored through them.

I Have This Thing for Flowers centers around a single person's experiences but feels accessible and relevant in how it captures the challenges of maintaining and cultivating relationships in the 21st century, not least of which is the relationship readers each might have with themselves. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Longtime members of the Books on Writing Are Useless Club might want to carve out an exception for Unsayable, Michael Cunningham's charming hybrid that is part memoir, part how-to, and exquisitely refined. In an opening moment of self-flagellation, he admits he was so bad with words at age three that he didn't know what to call the green Tupperware container he wanted for his toys. Today, Cunningham (The Snow Queen) identifies "that brief interlude as the moment I first became determined to learn the names of everything." He eventually discovered that "writing is a continuation of that effort to render and recognize everything and everyone by naming its qualities, ideally from an illuminating angle," an effort he has pursued with uncommon elegance.

Short chapters alternate between scenes from Cunningham's life and trinkets of writing advice. Aside from his stint as a rent boy during his senior year at Stanford, the personal chapters cover his California upbringing, his first attempts at composing stories, his never-requited infatuation at 16 with a beautiful male classmate, his two years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his eventual move to New York with Ken Corbett, his partner of 40 years. Writing tips are plentiful and useful, as when he cites the importance of finding details that "are going to most powerfully stand in for the whole" of a character, adding, "A thoroughly envisioned character, who wants something, will always produce a story." Unsayable is one of the best books on writing one will ever read. That it's immensely entertaining doesn't hurt, either. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

In Hiroshima, 8:15, a recently discovered eyewitness account of the atomic devastation in Hiroshima, Japan, survivor Kiyoshi Tanimoto tells the full story of what he witnessed in the days, weeks, and months after the nuclear bombing. Tanimoto was a 36-year-old Methodist pastor on the morning of August 6, 1945, moving church furniture to a safehouse on the outskirts of Hiroshima. At 8:15 a.m., a "sharp flash of light" seared across the horizon. Then hell began.

Tanimoto's story was first told by American journalist John Hersey, who arrived in Hiroshima nine months after the bombing to interview survivors for a piece in the New Yorker. Tanimoto was one of six people Hersey featured, but Tanimoto began writing his own memoir two years after the bombing. Discovered among Hersey's papers in 2022, Tanimoto's account is stark and heartrending, yet infused with his determination to advocate for a peaceful and nonnuclear future for the world. The bombing's gruesome aftermath is harrowing in detail, as is the slow recognition of the invisible injuries of "the atomic disease" that befell Tanimoto and thousands of others. Tanimoto includes the experiences of many other hibakusha (atomic bombing survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) he came across in his ministrations. His decision to bravely rebuild his church in Hiroshima seems inconceivable, but the depth of Tanimoto's Christian faith resonates throughout this brief memoir. An invaluable addition to Hiroshima and nuclear studies, Hiroshima, 8:15 is one individual's testament to loving and caring for one's neighbors and forgiving one's enemies. --Peggy Kurkowski, freelance book reviewer in Denver

The Italian author/illustrator trio Valentina Gottardi, Maciej Michno, and Danio Miserocchi score a hat trick with their third collaboration, Still Water: The Wonders of Ponds, Pools, Wetlands, and More. This second title in the Spectacular STEAM for Curious Readers series, translated by Sylvia Notini (Who Hid the Stars?), is an exploration of the critical ecosystems in and around "still waters." Gottardi's stunning illustrations act as part of the environmental enlightenment in this eye-opening nonfiction picture book for middle-grade readers about misunderstood resources.

Still Water contains a plethora of fascinating facts about puddles, ponds, pools, and swamps, and the various life forms that inhabit them, including microorganisms, plants, insects, birds, and animals. The text goes beyond simple descriptions, also discussing the pivotal role these ecological units play in helping alleviate the effects of climate change, such as how peat bogs act as "carbon sinks" because plants inside them can't decompose and release carbon dioxide. Gottardi's mixed-media art includes realistic images of the lifeforms as well as diagrams that detail vital processes, such as insect development or the way rain gardens aid water absorption. Still Water also contains breathtaking double-page illustrations that illuminate the biodiversity and beauty of these natural locations. A glossary at the book's end supports readers' comprehension.

Middle-grade readers will appreciate much in Still Water, especially facts such as how nymph dragonflies "squeeze out water from their rear ends for a speed boost" while swimming. Budding biologists and naturalists should appreciate the in-depth study and examination of still waters as underappreciated natural gems. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Alyssa Hollingsworth (The Invisible Boy) moves her talents from middle-grade to YA with All the Queen's Curses, an elegant and heartbreaking adaptation of a Scottish folktale that explores sisterhood, forgiveness, and redemption.

Kit and Catherine are stepsisters who share a name and have found true family in each other. Their home in the castle, though, is not a safe place for Kit. The king, Kit's stepfather, is abusive, and his violence has triggered a wasting sickness that Kit's mother says is a curse on their family line. Meanwhile, Catherine's betrothed, Idris, a prince from the Northern Isles, has journeyed to the sisters' kingdom to celebrate his 18th birthday. Kit and Catherine don't know that Idris's family arrives carrying a curse from the finfolk, nor that this meeting will initiate their own introduction to the Hidden Folk: Kit's mother, furious at Catherine's good fortune and desperate to save her daughter, asks a member of the finfolk to swap the sisters' bodies.

Hollingsworth plays with the folktale "Kate Crackernuts" to create a story that centers the realities of disability and family cruelty while highlighting the possibility of giving or accepting grace. The author shifts between the first-person perspectives of Idris and Kit, depicting characters learning to acknowledge the ways they have been traumatized or how their families may have contributed to other peoples' pain. All the Queen's Curses is a fascinating retelling of a folktale that will likely enchant readers who are invested in fantasy, folklore, or family dynamics. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

In author/illustrator Michèle Fischels's profound, nuanced YA graphic novel debut, Outline, translated from the German by Thomas Mauer, three teens navigate friendship, first loves, and approaching the precipice of adulthood.

Once, it was just Ben and Andreas, best friends, confidants, and occasional wingmen. Then Clara joined their trio, and she and Ben started dating. A scribbled line depicts time passing, and the three are seniors. Ben and Andreas have drifted apart--the former now confident and popular, the latter a lone-wolf hipster. Clara and Ben are still together, but Ben feels a distance growing between them. Meanwhile, the teens must deal with impossible questions: "What are you doing after school?" "Where will you apply?"

Outline's brilliance is in its spare text and use of illustration to develop the plot. Fischels's line is messy and broken, and her characters are delightfully expressive; her scribbly art perfectly depicts their gawkiness and kinetic nature. Ponderous cityscapes and open, abstracted panels add to the sense of space in both the characters' lives and their paths ahead.

Fischels doesn't pull any punches when her illustrations linger on Andreas's abusive sexual relationship with another boy, a situation that sharply contrasts with Ben's and Clara's gentler growing pains. Outline contains subtleties that may demand an older reader, but the portrayal of adolescent experiences will likely ring true for teens thinking about their own futures as well as those who've come out the other side. Fischel's debut may resonate with those who enjoyed Tillie Walden's Are You Listening? or Mariko Tamaki's Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. --Mariel Fechik DesLaurier, librarian, freelance writer, and music reviewer

Tilly and Susan Bridges, a queer writing team who wrote for the animated TV series Monster High, insightfully explore teen celebrity life in the rollicking Just Another Summer, illustrated by artists AoiG. and Giulia Rinaldo.

Blonde, blue-eyed Hayley and purple-haired, freckled Becky Huxley are sisters and stars of a major TV hit, The Goodluckerhearts. Although they're adored by fans, they're disdained by their co-star for their higher salaries and neglected by their busy mother. Seeking a bit of adolescent freedom, they slip their security detail, "borrow" the Bentley, get drunk, crash someone's senior prom, and land in jail. The next morning, they're fired from Goodluckerhearts and their mom sends them to taciturn Uncle Moses's farm in Montana for the summer. Blond floppy-haired farmhand Jake warily greets the girls, then wakes them at 4 a.m. to milk cows and fix fences. Despite the grueling schedule--and letting go of reductive assumptions about "fancy L.A.-types" and "Montana farm hicks"--the teens have a fulfilling, fun, and flirty summer, Becky with the sassy, wheelchair-using diner waitress, and Hayley with transgender Jake.

The Bridgeses' comic may initially read as light entertainment--and certainly could be thoroughly enjoyed as such--but they also deftly integrate contemporary comments about kindness, parental neglect, rejection, and transphobia. AoiG. and Rinaldo's thinly lined illustrations suggest animation-ready panels that create dynamic characters and situations. Colorist Valentina Briški uses fully saturated hues for the detailed art, developing moments of tension with darker purples and moments of joy with candy-colored pinks and yellows. These kids (and cows) are undoubtedly ready for their close-ups. --Terry Hong