Imbolo Mbue's immersive Every Story Is a Love Story begins with a letter from Victoria Snow, the white woman who was driving the car that killed Wolo Lifafa's wife, Yoma, who was pregnant with twins.

It has been three years since Wolo lost his entire family, and he is still angry. The chapters alternate between Wolo's present in New York City and the past--from his courtship of Yoma up to the morning of her death. Through these juxtapositions, Mbue makes clear the opportunities available in the U.S. to the Lifafas, but also the trade-offs in leaving their homeland and support system in Cameroon. Wolo's mother Keka's recognition of the freedoms for women especially, and for the education of her two sons, compel her to remain in the U.S. when her husband returns to Cameroon for a position as a professor at the University of Yaoundé. He impregnates a student, Jokeh, whom he marries and with whom he has additional children.

Years later, when Osi, son of Jokeh, sexually assaults Mary Lambi, a young woman from a lower class, Keka and Jokeh ask Wolo, as the eldest son, to help them. Wolo is moved by how Mary's father handles Osi's transgression, and he finds himself thinking of the elder's ability to forgive.

Mbue (How Beautiful We Were; Behold the Dreamers) explores with grace and nuance in the numerous ways people experience loss, anger, and sorrow. She demonstrates that the perpetrators of harm also need to heal. Her tender novel allows readers to see they are not alone in their desire to move through grief and assures them that they will. --Jennifer M. Brown

As road trips go, this one's a doozy: two adult brothers have six days to drive across the U.S. with their cryonically frozen father before his body thaws. That's the premise of Fail Sons, Adam Wilson's gruesomely funny novel.

It's 2022. Forty-year-old Scott Platt lives in Brooklyn with his pregnant wife. He worked at a magazine for 15 years until he got laid off. Now he can't get another job and has a surfeit of ailments, including back pain and pelvic floor problems. San Francisco-based Nick, who's never without his KN95 mask, is "one of those dudes who sprinkles powdered casein on his protein yogurt, works eleven-hour days at a standing desk, snacks on dried seaweed and unsalted almonds, [and] rarely poops." They meet in Arizona to pick up their father, who had himself cryonically frozen 25 years ago after a cancer diagnosis, and bring him east now that the cryo center is closing. The catch: they can't let their father get warmer than -109° Fahrenheit, or "he would need to be placed back into cryonic suspension."

The brothers traverse much of "Red State America," including a stop in an Iowa Walmart that sells "multipurpose firearms" and "sale-priced stars-and-stripes crap." They meet others on the journey, too, including an old flame of Nick's and two young ex-Mormons. What Wilson (Flatscreen; Sensation Machines) really explores is disappointment: white men who feel like underachievers and a country that hasn't lived up to its stated ideals. Fail sons, indeed. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Fabio Morábito's intriguing Mother Tongue features 84 two-page short shorts in a genre-defying collection combining personal musings, polyglot challenges, and literary references. As with his earlier fiction translated from the Spanish, Morábito reunites with poet/professor Curtis Bauer, who provides another seamless translation.

The pieces here are as diverse as Morábito's own background; he was born in Egypt, raised in Italy, and has been Mexico-based since age 15. Morábito opens and ends with betrayal: in "Scrittore Traditore," betraying his "numbskull" first love at age seven leads him to understand his "vocation would be to write books"; in the final, titular "Mother Tongue," becoming that writer comes at the cost of betraying his first language, as "the most foreign foreigner [who] writes in another language." In between, Morábito considers writing schedules, the habit of underlining in books, a "stupid dictionary" that isn't, and the rewards and complications of "monstrous linguistic diversity." He examines mythological Greece's Odysseus, Helen, and Troy while contemplating--often irreverently--esteemed writers and their literary achievements, including Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (he reads it piecemeal as a "trial run" during bad-back heat-pack applications and doctor visits), Gregor Samsa (because "Kafka clings to a name as a castaway to a plank"), and Jack London (who eschews names to keep readers distanced from his characters).

Almost half of the contents previously appeared in various prestigious journals, and the collection was first published in Mexico in 2014. Without a distinct narrative thread here, each piece easily stands alone. As a book, it can be savored in small portions or enjoyed in chunks, even as a single-sitting whole. As delightful as it is erudite, Morábito's Mother Tongue entertains and illuminates. --Terry Hong

What happens when two gifted musicians who are wrong for each other get married? In the first volume of what is being billed as the Nocturne trilogy, Yiyun Li presents one such couple by exploring the formative years of the Irish composer John Field (1782-1837) and the French pianist Adelaide Percheron (1790-1869). These musicians would later marry and have, according to history, a spectacularly unhappy union. This fine work explores their early individual experiences and, one assumes, sets up the tragedy of the marriage to come.

Li's surprising trip into Romantic-era storytelling shifts perspectives throughout. She starts with Field, born in Dublin, a prodigy who heard from everyone that he was destined to become the next Mozart. The story follows Field through his musical and emotional maturation, including his initial successful concerts and eventual passage to London. Percheron, meanwhile, was born in French India and orphaned at age three; her mother died shortly after childbirth, and her father was subsequently killed during the Siege of Pondicherry. Being an ambitious woman of her time is hard enough, but also working against her is her Pondicherry birth. The denizens of Paris look down upon her when she travels there in 1804 to pursue her passion for the pianoforte.

Li--a Pulitzer Prize winner for Things in Nature Merely Grow, her gut-wrenchingly poetic memoir about the suicides of her two teenage sons--relies more heavily on backstory and research in this novel than her other works. Nonetheless, readers fascinated by stories of musicians' early years and the forces that shape them will appreciate the music she makes with this delicate and heartfelt work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

In Pam Houston's ninth book, the warmhearted essay collection Animals Taught Me Everything, the heroes mostly have four legs. Again and again, connections with other species have saved her from despair over health issues and the U.S.'s political direction.

The 15 essays orbit the dogs and horses on Houston's Colorado homestead and the wildlife she encounters on her travels. "A is for Aardwolf: A Sub-Saharan Prose Abecedarian," compiled on safari, crafts miniature hymns for endangered animals. The title piece summarizes lessons absorbed from other creatures: how to rest, how to trust, and ultimately how to die. From her dying wolfhound, Henry, she learned to appreciate daily pleasures such as (in his case) watching bunnies in the barn. An old rescue horse, Raj, devoted his retirement to silliness--a model for the author, who acknowledges she has based her self-worth on working multiple jobs.

Houston (Without Exception) weaves in her own experiences seamlessly. In 2020, keeping a premature ram alive somewhat counterbalanced all she couldn't control, including George Floyd's murder--one example, for her, of how Donald Trump's administration devalues all life. Perversely, she hoped not to see wolves in New Mexico, so they'd evade hunters--perhaps the same men who made her feel like prey as a lone, liberal woman. She started horse trekking in Iceland in defiance of long Covid and got so hooked she bought a cabin and horse there. (The overlong "A Horse Will Not Make a Suicide (Icelandic Suite)" may test the patience of the non-horse-crazy.)

These wry and affectionate pieces will resonate with pet owners and nature lovers. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

On November 23, 2022, 77-year-old retired chemist David Perry died in a hospital bed installed in his bungalow in Norwich, England, nine days after receiving a diagnosis of metastatic esophageal cancer. Death of an Ordinary Man is his daughter-in-law novelist Sarah Perry's frank, compassionate account of those final days, her first work of nonfiction and a moving meditation on death and life.

Perry (The Essex Serpent; Melmoth) describes an afternoon tea date at which she waited with her husband, Robert, David's only child. She observed, as David approached, that "there was death in his gait, in his grim and concentrated stare, in the dense grey pallor on his cheek." David's feeling "in a muddle" and difficulty swallowing led to tests that confirmed advanced cancer, a diagnosis her self-effacing father-in-law accepted with equanimity.

David spent much of his married life caring for a wife disabled by rheumatoid arthritis; she predeceased him by 10 years. He enjoyed stamp collecting, sudoku, and gardening, and was a faithful parishioner at his Baptist church. But it immediately became clear to Perry and Robert that his precipitous decline would rob him irrevocably of those modest pleasures.

Perry's writing has an unassuming lyricism that makes even the hardest moments of this story resonate. Her expertly modulated prose mirrors the compression of David's final days. Perry's opportunity to be intimate with David's dying brings with it not merely a deeper understanding of death but an appreciation of the preciousness of the life that precedes it. Death of an Ordinary Man is not an easy book, but it's an undeniably important one: brave, candid, and above all, painfully beautiful. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

As enjoyable as it may be to chant "RO!" with thousands of helmet-clad Norwegian football supporters at the World Cup, this image is an indication of just how much the term "Viking" has been circumscribed in the public imagination to a monolithic caricature of horned marauders. Neil Price's The Sea-King and the Sorceress, which follows his equally remarkable Children of Ash and Elm, is a formidable corrective, in light of many new discoveries, that reinterprets the "Viking Age" of the mid-eighth century to the mid-11th.

With the precision of an archeologist and the narrative dexterity of a novelist, Price invites readers into a nuanced and rigorous world. Price balances the grand sweep of history with intimate, granular details that make the past feel close. The Sea-King and the Sorceress integrates findings from recent excavations and linguistic analysis, and incorporates Icelandic sagas. Price uses the "sorceress" (völva) and the "sea-king" (sækonungr) as dual lenses to explore the power dynamics--including the holding of enslaved people--gender fluidities, and spiritual anxieties that defined the era. He investigates a people who were outward looking and intellectually restless in a culture that was as concerned with the afterlife and the metaphysical as it was with territorial expansion and profit.

The Sea-King and the Sorceress is a rare achievement, a work that serves as both a primary resource for students of history and a gripping read for the general audience. This is not just a book about Viking raiders and their contemporaries but an essential consideration of how human beings live, die, and are remembered across the vast, icy stretches of time. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

E.B. Goodale (Good Night, Little Bookstore) continues the world of Robin and the Stick in the charming, unpretentious picture book Robin and the Moon, in which a child worries that the full moon has gotten "stuck" in a tree.

During an evening walk with Mama, Robin frames their hands so they appear to be "holding the moon." Robin releases the moon "with a skip and a toss" and bounds over to Mama. At bedtime Robin notices that the moon is "tangled up in the branches of a tree." Despite Mama's reassurances, the child is concerned. Robin falls asleep and, in their dream, they float "up, up, up" to the tree. But as Robin reaches the top of the branches, the moon gets "bigger and bigger." The moon lifts both child and tree into the sky until "POP!"--it deflates like a balloon. Robin falls gently into bed, where they wake to see an unobstructed view of the moon. Cozily, contentedly, the child drifts back to sleep.

Goodale highlights the child's imaginative perspective by making Robin's cerulean, hooded footie pajamas the only splash of color in the book. She uses scale to blur the line between reality and fantasy; the tiny moon appears distant through Robin's bedroom window but dwarfs Robin up close. The clean, uncluttered visual field and simple text create a comforting tone that encourages expansive thinking. Robin and the Moon is an ideal bedtime story: a quiet nighttime adventure that offers just enough excitement, with a soothing ending perfect for tired eyes. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher

In The House of Gardenias, an intoxicatingly macabre YA historical fantasy from The Hacienda author Isabel Cañas, a teen girl employed by an infighting political family collaborates with the ghost of a boy they wronged to dismantle their legacy.

Presidente Valbuena has ruled the Capital ever since his democratic regime overthrew the del Valle Viceroyalty. Sixteen-year-old Minerva, with "black hair and skin that turns deep in the sun," fled the Capital's slums to work for Señora Encarnación del Valle; one of her brothers went to work for el Presidente. When el Presidente is assassinated, the Capital plunges into war, and Minerva's brother is killed. Minerva accompanies Encarnación as she escapes to la Casa de las Gardenias, the del Valle stronghold. But misgivings seethe amid the family of "traitors" and "turncoats" and Encarnación is poisoned. Minerva watches as "shadows" that "[writhe] like beheaded snakes" steal the life from her employer. This feeding strengthens Ygnacio, a ghost trapped in the house due to the del Valles's lazy malevolence. Ygnacio reveals himself to Minerva, expressing his desire for revenge, and Minerva seeks every method to ensure his success.

The vengeful ghost and the ferociously courageous girl narrate this taut firestorm of a novel. Minerva's anger is fueled by the political undertow of the two similarly vile groups seeking to rule--she suffered under el Presidente but despises the murderous del Valles. Cañas builds arresting rapport between Minerva and Ygnacio via tense scenes in which Minerva must trust the ghost; he, in turn, softens toward her in a beautiful burgeoning camaraderie. Minerva's sibling storyline, which culminates in an unpredictably impossible choice, adds another deeply moving layer. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

A long car ride to Nana's house becomes an opportunity for adventure in the fabulously fanciful Mia's Cheetah by author/illustrator Amelia Bothe (Ellie Has a Secret).

Mia, her dad, and their dog, George, climb into the car and head to Nana's. The ride is "very long" and Mia, a Black girl wearing pink hair beads in her puffs and a matching pink shirt, is quickly bored. "Looks like someone hasn't met her cheetah yet," Dad says. The cheetah runs "right outside your window, when you're going just as fast as they are." Mia's not convinced, until "something about the wind whistling through her fingers" feels like "breezy, spotted fur." She looks outside her window and sees a spectacular pink cheetah with butterfly wings "taking flight." All manner of magical creatures (a purple anteater, a capybara mermaid) race beside the car, and Mia understands that a "cheetah" doesn't have to be "a cheetah at all." Nothing bothers the cheetahs and "the ride no longer bother[s] Mia." As the family nears Nana's house, Mia doesn't want to say good-bye to her new friends--until she realizes she'll get to see her cheetah again on the ride home.

Bothe's inventive text sets up Dad's clever prompt as a catalyst to engage Mia, forestall her boredom and turn a mundane car ride into a fantastical odyssey. Glorious magentas, golds, and blues shine in Bothe's exuberant digital illustrations of "cheetahs" running, flying, and fluttering through suburban, rural, and urban settings. Playful endpapers add to the whimsy. Mia's Cheetah transforms an endless, all-too-relatable road trip into a glorious, magical parade of inspired animal chaperones. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Many readers may be unaware that, in 1903, paleontologists declared Brontosaurus to be the same genus as Apatosaurus, and the name Brontosaurus went out of use by scientists. Author Sarah Albee again collaborates with illustrator Chris Hsu (Zero! The Number That Almost Wasn't) to celebrate the return of Brontosaurus in the delightfully informative nonfiction picture book Brontosaurus Is Back! Albee guides her audience through the discoveries of both Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus and the scientific processes involved in their classifications; Hsu provides realistic, detailed illustrations that give form to these magnificent creatures.

In the late 1800s, scientists rushed to find fossils, meaning paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh had little more to work with than "a few loose vertebrae and a fragment of a pelvis." This did not stop him from announcing a new genus: Apatosaurus. When Marsh hurriedly looked at the fossils of a different specimen, he "announced that he'd discovered another new dinosaur": Brontosaurus. In his haste to outdo other paleontologists, Marsh "rushed to claim discoveries based on scant evidence and got a lot wrong." It is no surprise, then, that scientists have been perplexed by Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus for more than 100 years.

Albee and Hsu's book is instructive and full of amusing commentary delivered by a tiny bird who appears on every page. Hsu's digital art depicts the dinosaurs' skeletal forms and aptly shows what it was like to work with massive fossils in Marsh's time. Humor, naturalistic illustrations, scientific content in art and text, and helpful back matter combine to create an illuminating picture book. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Even the dead must abide by exacting rules in The Lost Three, the first entry in a charming, bittersweet supernatural middle-grade series by Annie Barrows (Ivy and Bean series).

In early 20th-century Philadelphia, the Maconochie siblings, 14-year-old Genie, 11-year-old Fenella, and nine-year-old Tillotson, are killed in a tragic car crash. Despite being dead, they are still bound to Earth in ghostly forms. At first, they spend their time trying to figure out their own existence in the church where they awakened. But after a prank by Tillotson goes wrong, the siblings smartly move into the cozy-enough Fenstermacher's Fine Home Furnishings. Meanwhile, 10-year-old Aggie is growing up in the municipal orphanage. When Serena Aster, a "beautiful lady" who "looks rich," offers Aggie a home, Aggie is thrilled--until she realizes Serena only adopted her to use her for labor. Serena, who somehow knows an awful lot about ghosts, also suggests that the Maconochies come live in her "elegant mansion." Once the siblings step over Serena's threshold, Serena gleefully explains to them that they are trapped by ghost rules, and she won't release them unless they work for her. The siblings team up with Aggie to escape Serena's clutches.

The Lost Three, with its smirking narrator, depiction of three sweet siblings who repeatedly overcome insurmountable odds, and world where ghosts must follow proper rules and procedures, gives nods to Beetlejuice and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Chloe Bristol (Nonsense!) adds a sense of time and place with black-and-white spot illustrations of Depression-era children, ghosts, and scam seances. The Lost Three is perfect for readers who like their ghosts playful, helpful, and not at all spooky. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer