Marisol Aragones, the youngest of three sisters, disappeared during the Cuban Revolution, caught up in the violence between warring factions of soldiers and resistance cells. Half a century later, her spirit--never quite able to rest--begins visiting her nephew, Ramón, a shaggy gentle giant who works at a New Jersey hospital by day and spins records at a local club by night. In The Book of Lost Saints, Daniel José Older (Dactyl Hill Squad; Shadowhouse Fall) unfolds Marisol's story through the memories she shares with Ramón.

At first, readers may find Marisol's memories as confusing as Ramón does: half-remembered encounters with neighbors and friends who, like Marisol, end up joining the revolution in various capacities. Meanwhile, Ramón navigates his tricky relationship with Aliceana, a Filipina medical resident at the hospital where he works. Plus, he's dealing with pressure from a local heavy who may have some connection to Marisol and wants to use Ramón's popular DJ shows for his own ends. Eventually, Ramón and Aliceana, along with Ramón's roommate Adina, book a trip to Cuba in search of answers.

Between the grisly scenes of war, prison and heartbreak, Older's otherworldly narrative gives way to moments of lightness: Adina's dry sense of humor, wisecracks from assorted Cubano relatives, the growing love between Ramón and Aliceana. Infused with the pounding beats of Ramón's nightclub, the colors and sounds of prewar Cuba and the complicated ties of family, The Book of Lost Saints is a gritty, compelling look at love and war and the ways past actions reverberate down through the generations. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Saul Adler's world is made up of car crashes, camera lenses, jaguars, tinned pineapple and the Beatles. His mother, a Holocaust survivor, died when he was a child, and his father, a Communist, was always a cold and heavy hand. What marks Saul Adler is not his Jewishness or even the tragedy of his life, but his almost freakish beauty, one that draws gazes, lenses and surveillance of every kind. A young professor, Saul is researching cultural resistance to Nazism, which brings him to East Germany in 1988, on the eve of the country's dissolution. After a breakup and an accident on Abbey Road days before his trip, Saul arrives, wounded and heartsick, in the country that was the birthplace of his mother and the materialization of his father's ideology.

For Saul, the accident on Abbey Road and his time in the German Democratic Republic become a confluence of events that orient the rest of his life. The Man Who Saw Everything is bifurcated into two time periods: 1988 and 2016, but by Deborah Levy's deft hand and brilliant command of metaphor, the boundaries of space and time collapse. This is an extraordinary novel that captures the zeitgeist and specters of 20th-century Communism in such a way that far exceeds the 200 pages it is bound in. As Saul attempts to free himself from the strictures of history, fatherhood and fatherland, two-time Booker finalist Deborah Levy (Hot Milk; Swimming Home) cements herself as one of the 21st century's most crucial novelists. --Emma Levy, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness

Jack Reacher is on a bus, minding his own business as usual and headed nowhere in particular, when he sees someone who looks as though he needs Reacher's particular brand of help. Reacher follows the elderly man, Aaron Shevick, off the bus and saves him from a mugging. But when it's clear the man and his wife are being preyed upon by a local loan shark, Reacher decides to stick around to help rescue what little is left of their livelihood.

Two gangs--an Albanian and a Ukrainian one--control the town where the Shevicks reside. They're engaged in a turf war, and the elderly couple are only two of the many innocents caught in the middle. When Reacher inserts his 250 lbs., 6'5" self into the skirmish, the gangs quickly realize he's their most dangerous adversary.

Though it's number 24 in the Jack Reacher series, Lee Child's Blue Moon shows that Reacher isn't slowing down. If anything, he's deadlier than ever to bad guys; the body count in Blue Moon might be the highest in the series. Some of the violence is over the top, characters like hapless cartoons who blow themselves up. Some of it is disturbing, more execution than self-defense. The timeliness of the story, however, will provide some satisfaction to those frustrated with certain systemic flaws in the U.S. It's as if Child became fed up after seeing the lack of protection for society's most helpless and decided to send in Reacher to be the great equalizer in a place where so much inequality exists. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

It takes two people to fall in love, but it also "takes two people to ruin a relationship." Such is the case for Gavin Scott--a second baseman for the Nashville Legends baseball team, who suffers from a stuttering problem--and his loyal, devoted wife, Thea, the mother of their young twin girls. The couple married when Thea became pregnant. What started as a happy union settled, over time, into a sexless routine as "the daily necessities of dealing with the kids and the house and his game schedule" wore down their relationship.

When Gavin learns that Thea's been faking it in their marital bed for years, the revelation pits them against each other, resurrecting more truths and slights, until their faltering marriage comes completely undone. Gavin seeks the support of his friends, a group that meets covertly to eat, drink and discuss Regency romance novels. They refer to these books set in 18th- and 19th-century England as "manuals" that coach them in their romantic dealings with their partners and spouses.

The Bromance Book Club is the opening installment of a fun and funny, sports-related romance series. It unspools a dual-threaded narrative that juxtaposes Gavin and Thea's story alongside that of a Regency countess and her knight in shining armor. Through a series of clever, entertaining plot twists and striking parallels in the relationships of both couples, centuries apart, Lyssa Kay Adams (The Prospect) depicts how love--and the complications and ecstasies therein--never really changes or goes out of style. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

For more than three decades, Sharon Wood has been a professional speaker, thanks to one single achievement: in 1986, she became the first North American woman to climb to the top of Mount Everest. While she has had other accomplishments over the years, including being a business owner, an internationally certified alpine guide and the first recipient of the Explorers Club's Tenzing Norgay Award for exceptional mountaineering, she has resisted writing a book about her Everest experience, until now. In Rising: Becoming the First North American Woman on Everest, an older and perhaps wiser Wood uses the mountain as a backdrop for discussing emotional growth and examining the value of relationships--"my relationship with myself, with some remarkable people and with the world around me."

Rising strikes a nice balance between the technical aspects of climbing and the emotional story, giving context and definitions for mountaineering jargon throughout the driving narrative. Wood weaves together her own Everest journey when she was young, focused and driven, with the dramas that can occur in small communities, such as her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend showing up during her Everest attempt as competitors on the opposing team. "Climbing Everest reveals the best and the worst of the human condition," Wood writes in the introduction. "The story I have told... conveys the former: a story of exceptional teamwork and the impact it has had on my life." Written lyrically about the harsh natural environment and with unflinching candor about personal growth, Rising illustrates how social connections and support systems--essentially relationships of all kinds--can have lingering effects and shape the path to success. --BrocheAroe Fabian, owner, River Dog Book Co., Beaver Dam, Wis.

What's left to be said about Harry Houdini? Curiosity about the magician's enduring fame drives sports journalist Joe Posnanski's fascinating account of Houdini and the immortal legacy he left. Houdini was unquestionably the most famous magician ever to live, and his life and character have been documented in every way imaginable. Gathered together, all of the biographies published on Houdini might fill a library.

As a man obsessed with Houdini, Posnanski (The Soul of Baseball; Paterno) investigates many of the most beloved tales associated with the escape artist and master self-promoter. Even better, he travels the country to visit with strange but wonderful individuals who also find themselves unable to stop thinking about Houdini. For example, there's Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brooks, two magicians who run a museum dedicated to Houdini in Scranton, Pa. Popular magician David Copperfield guides Posnanski through his personal museum in Las Vegas--complete with Houdini's original milk can and other priceless ephemera. These are but a few of many engrossing moments that make The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini such a rare treat. By infusing his own passion for the subject into his reporting, Posnanski reveals the extent to which Houdini still captivates audiences. --Zack Ruskin, freelance reviewer

Combining elements of an activity book, journal and philosophical treatise, How to Travel reimagines the inspirational travel guide. It appropriately builds upon series editor Alain de Botton's ideas in books such as The Art of Travel, about daydreaming of holidays and appreciating mementos.

How to Travel first considers the destination, discussing exoticism, to sun or not to sun, and emotional resonance. It also unpacks travel related to families and romantic relationships--the layers of meaning, of memories, of expectations and realities. The volume explores ways to engage, with special attention paid to shyness and crowds, the power of observation, and the benefits of drawing rather than photographing a scene. There is advice about the holiday fling, the healing nature of a change in perspective, and the religious underpinnings of a pilgrimage. Lastly, the book discusses notions of home: whether to stay there, what coming back is like, and how to live in the present while preserving those precious memories.

Across 30 chapters, with 20 essays of advice and inspiration, thoughtful exercises, illustrations and photographs, and blank pages for jotting down notes, travelers are asked to consider where they are going and why, what they will do when they get there and why, and how to get the most out of the experience of traveling itself. -- BrocheAroe Fabian, owner, River Dog Book Co.

"Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead," begins Christopher Fowler's The Book of Forgotten Authors. It is a journey through once-popular literature that has, for one reason or another, disappeared from print, memory or both. Authors can be "ubiquitous, influential and massively successful only to disappear within their own lifetimes," but why?

Pamela Branch, compared favorably with Evelyn Waugh by critics of the time, wrote what Fowler calls "bizarre, deliciously funny" mysteries, but died young. Well-loved children's author Sheila Hodgetts's books, which contained "the full panoply of fairy tale tropes," possibly lacked sticking power because they did not have the merchandising and licensing opportunities of others. Charles Hamilton "was one of the most prolific authors in history, but hardly any of his books can now be found," both because he used so many pen names and because his schoolboy adventure stories, though popular at publication, did not age well.

Mystery author Christopher Fowler (Bryant & May: Strange Tide) has turned his own life-long love of books into a literary monument to forgotten authors. Though his focus is limited mostly to white British and American writers, he addresses minority authors (along with a plea for greater diversity in publishing) and a historical lack of non-English translations in his notes on the choices he made. Fowler's literary guidebook covers 100 individual authors across a broad spectrum of genres and includes 14 additional essays, such as "The Forgotten Rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple," which are delightful dissections of why some authors succeeded while others have vanished. Bibliophiles wishing to discover "new" authors will appreciate the easily digestible sections and conversational tone. --Jennifer Oleinik, freelance writer and editor

Meet Devis the thief, Thromdurr the barbarian, Sorrowshade the gloom elf assassin, Vela the Valiant paladin and Albiorix the apprentice wizard--your typical group of middle school-aged Bríandalörians. They take on campaigns "thwarting evil. Righting wrongs. Closing infernal gates opened by demented cultists"--you know, the usual. As a break from the quests, the crew plays its favorite game, Homerooms & Hall Passes (H&H), the "role-playing game of nonadventure... set in the fictional Realm of Suburbia." Players embody the roles of "middle-school students" and create characters who fit into different categories (Thromdurr plays Douglas the 8th level Nerd; Vela plays Valerie the 8th level Overachiever). When Devis steals from a cursed treasure horde, the tweens are transported to J.A. Dewar Middle School and into the lives of their H&H characters. All five must excel or they'll "blow it" and be "permanently eliminated from the game"--effectively, "academic failure... means death." (Thromdurr laments this fate: "I had hoped to be mauled by wild pigs... the traditional death of a berserker of the Sky Bear clan.")

Tom O'Donnell's middle-grade novel is both exactly what you'd expect from the author of Hamstersaurus Rex and delightfully surprising. Every chapter begins with text from one of the 27 H&H rule books, giving readers a hilarious, uncanny view of middle school from the perspective of game-makers who reside in a Dungeons & Dragons-style world. Role-players, fantasy-lovers, fans of silly books... all should be entertained by O'Donnell's outrageously funny characters, over-the-top villains and solid one-liners. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

In Jacqueline Véissid (Ruby's Sword) and Merrilees Brown's Caspian Finds a Friend, Caspian lives in a lighthouse "surrounded by a cold gray-blue sea." Every night the lonely boy "casts his light out into the darkness, searching... but no one arrives, just the sea and the skies." One day, Caspian decides to take his happiness into his own hands and launches a plea into the ocean by way of the proverbial message in a bottle. "Days sink into weeks, weeks into months. He waits and waits, his hopes bobbing like a bottle on waves." When Caspian receives a response, he sets out on a voyage across the murky waters, the stars splashed against the sky "illuminating the darkness." At the other end of the sea, a furry friend with "warm and gentle" eyes lies in wait.

Véissid's lilting, rhythmic text calls to mind the rocking of waves. Brown's luminous illustrations digitally combine oil paint, relief print and charcoal to bring to life textured landscapes, poignant facial expressions and extraordinary spreads that take readers on a wondrous visual journey. As the narrative grows more hopeful, her art shifts from darker, melancholic shades to lighter, more cheerful tints, her palette of mostly turquoise, white and red giving Caspian's world a hyperreal, otherworldly feel. Kids will likely delight in Brown's illustrative details, such as the rainbow fish that seem to follow Caspian wherever he goes. Véissid's words and Brown's images combine in Caspian Finds a Friend to create a moving picture book that speaks to our need for connection, and encourages us to use our ingenuity to find it. --Shelley Diaz, supervising librarian, BookOps: New York Public Library & Brooklyn Public Library