Tasha Suri follows her debut, the arresting India-inspired epic fantasy Empire of Sand, with another feast of desert magic, palace intrigue, forbidden romance and veiled princesses making all their own hard choices. While enriched by its predecessor, Realm of Ash could work as a standalone, as it concerns the younger sister of the first volume's protagonist, and its empire-shaking events mostly occur half a subcontinent away.

The story picks up with young, traumatized Arwa arriving at a hermitage for noble widows after the slaughter by magical forces of her husband and his entire court. (The mysterious specifics get teased out over several chapters, so new readers need not worry they've missed something.) While Suri excels at depicting the friendships and political maneuverings of women, Realm of Ash comes fully to life once Arwa gets packed off to the Imperial Palace to aid a bastard prince's heretical studies. Arwa's mission: to help Zahir save the teetering empire by taking opium and entering the Realm of Ash, a dreamscape where the thoughts of the dead still live.

The vivid, vital story that follows involves assassinations, secret societies, desperate journeys and the shock of discovering the bloody secrets behind an empire's power. But for all the imaginative scope and fresh worldbuilding, the heart of Suri's series beats in the chests of its indomitable heroines. Their every struggle and sacrifice, triumph and fear, resonate more deeply than the fates of whole worlds in less personal fantasies. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor

The slow-burning The Bishop's Bedroom by the late Italian author Piero Chiara was first published in 1976. Jill Foulston provides the English translation of this popular novel.

Italy, 1946: World War II has just ended. An unnamed soldier in his 30s is decompressing from the battlefield by aimlessly sailing across Lake Maggiore. A wealthy, middle-aged former soldier named Orimbelli spots him at a port, and they strike up a friendship. It is a chance meeting that will ensnare the younger soldier in a heartbreaking, murderous love triangle.

During a dinner at Orimbelli's villa with the older man's rich wife and his sister-in-law, Mathilde, Orimbelli begs the young man to take him sailing. The two set off on an excursion of debauchery--wining, dining and sleeping with various women. Unaware of the gritty details of their adventures, Mathilde joins them on the next outing. An attraction develops between her and the soldier, but Orimbelli pulls the younger man aside and professes love for Mathilde. He implies his feelings are reciprocated.

Then the group receives word that tragedy has struck the Orimbelli household and they must return immediately. Suspicion, doubt and secrets threaten the new friendships, and the young soldier realizes far too late that he is a pawn in Orimbelli's Machiavellian plan of survival.

The misogynistic attitudes of the decade survive Foulston's translation, and the much-lauded prose is almost verbose enough to sink the story. Luckily, Chiara's masterful character development keeps this tense tale from capsizing. The subtlety with which the elder Orimbelli seduces the broken younger soldier to his way of thinking while ruining a potentially healing relationship for two desperate people is almost Shakespearean in nature. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Margaret Mizushima (Burning Ridge, Hunting Hour) has created another compelling mystery in Tracking Game, the fifth entry in her Timber Creek K-9 mystery series. Deputy Mattie Cobb is at a community dance with veterinarian Cole Walker when they hear an explosion. Running to the scene, they find a van on fire and the body of local rancher Nate Fletcher next to it. But Nate didn't die in the fire--he was shot twice in the chest.

Mattie and her K-9 partner, Robo, search the scene. They discover a gun nearby and traces of cocaine in the van door. As the investigation continues, Mattie learns that the victim was leading outfitting trips into the Colorado wild, and she begins to wonder if these trips could be covers for drug-running.

When the sheriff's department receives a 911 call from a man up in the mountains, Mattie and Robo head out, only to hear the growls of an apex predator and find huge paw prints around the mutilated body. Mattie doesn't think it sounded like a cougar, so the sheriff's department teams up with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to find the beast.

Tracking Game's interesting mix of law enforcement investigation and wildlife management will keep readers engaged. Mattie's personal struggles also lend depth to the story, as she seeks to balance her working life and her developing relationship with Cole Walker and his children. The vivid Colorado setting adds the perfect touch, making Tracking Game sure to appeal to fans of Margaret Coel or Nevada Barr. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

"What I have learned from my own experience is that the most important ingredients in a child's education are curiosity, interest, imagination and a sense of the adventure of life." --Eleanor Roosevelt, from You Learn by Living

In her introduction to this collection of Eleanor Roosevelt's sayings, editor Mary Jo Binker notes that the words collected here are from a woman who, like a diamond, was "multifaceted and brilliant," who left her indelible stamp on the office of First Lady, and was instrumental in the creation and passage of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Her careers spanned diplomacy, politics, education and journalism, and her convictions led her to become "an icon of female empowerment." Roosevelt's total writings are vast, and this collection endeavors to condense them into a digestible format (albeit more of a gift book than a volume of essays) while also providing a full bibliography to direct readers to the original sources. Nevertheless, with topics including politics and government, law, democracy, citizenship, voting, race, ethnicity, emotions, rights, ethics, faith and so much more, What Are We For presents a good picture of Roosevelt's values, her mores and why she remains a powerful feminist figure today. The quotes collected here remain inspiring and relevant in the current political, social and cultural context. They allow readers to step beyond their awareness of Roosevelt's most popular sayings, as passed around on the Internet or via greeting cards, and learn about the depth of this remarkable woman's mind. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

"Serious, critical history tends to be hard on the living. It challenges us to see distortions embedded in the heroic national origin myths we have been taught since childhood." These words are how scholar of Native American, Colonial American and American racial history David J. Silverman begins This Land Is Their Land. It sets the stage for exactly what his book endeavors to do: confront the foundational American myth of Thanksgiving in time for the 400th anniversary of the "First Thanksgiving."

This text is an eye-opening account of an often ignored history--the real events that led up to what is taught broadly across the United States as the First Thanksgiving. By focusing on the Wampanoag people rather than Plymouth Colony's members and perspectives, Silverman, professor of history at George Washington University, brings forward the rationale for why some modern Native American people do not celebrate Thanksgiving but rather hold a Day of Mourning. Silverman explores the politics involving colonizers and the people who were there first, and gives an in-depth account of Wampanoag and other Indian histories, from contact and uneasy truces to the breaking of treaties and inflammation of further conflicts.

Thus, Silverman calls for contemporary Americans to revise this myth and to reconsider how the nation can better remember this history without continuing to silence people that still struggle with self-determination. This book serves as a much-needed challenge to the national origin myth of Thanksgiving. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Start wielding rage like the weapon it is, Lindy West argues with her collection of cultural feminist essays, The Witches Are Coming. With her signature wit and snark, West flips on its head the "witch hunt" narrative spread by conservatives in the wake of the #MeToo movement. She picks apart the webs of power and complacency that have led to the crux of the "witch hunt" cries: namely, that those fighting for justice are crafting a baseless "mass hysteria." West, a New York Times columnist and the mind behind the Hulu comedy Shrill, counters with this: "There is power in saying, no, we will not settle down. We will not go back.... So fine, if you insist. This is a witch hunt. We're witches, and we're hunting you."

Some might argue West's book is an echo chamber, a gift for folks who already believe everything she is proclaiming, but West demands action from her readers and her critics alike. This isn't a book for plausible deniability.

Using seemingly unconnected observations from her career as a cultural critic--riffs on Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness empire, Guy Fieri's Guy's Grocery Games and Joan Rivers's self-deprecating comedy all make the cut--West weaves arguments both eviscerating and human. Not all will agree with her words, nor her ferocity when slinging them, but West finds popularity points laughable. As a woman and a self-proclaimed fat person, she's endured enough abuse that she's not here to spread platitudes. She's here to make magic from fury. Her arguments don't always land, but when they do, it's enough to make any reader want to take up spell-casting. --Lauren Puckett, freelance writer

Given its title, it might be tempting for readers under Social Security age to dismiss Old Man Country: My Search for Meaning Among the Elders. That would be a mistake. Anyone who hopes to experience the blessings of longevity while also confronting its burdens will benefit from accompanying gerontologist Thomas R. Cole on his visits to a dozen wise men with hard-earned, firsthand knowledge of exactly what that means.

Cole (The Journey of Life) serves as director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at University of Texas Health Science Center. Between 2011 and 2017, he conducted a series of interviews with men in the "Fourth Age," the stage of life beginning roughly at age 80, and one that's been described as "a Black Hole--a vague, frightening, and shadowy cultural space that evokes denial when it doesn't provoke fear." In approaching his encounters with inhabitants of that territory, Cole, who's now 70, sought to "reclaim and enhance the humanity" of these men, most of whom, he clarifies, are white, Protestant, heterosexual and financially comfortable.

Cognizant of his approaching encounter with the Fourth Age, Cole generously shares pieces of his own story, including his painful divorce, illnesses and injuries, as he explains how his conversations with this group of eminent but deeply human men supplied him with "things to emulate and things to avoid, inspiring examples and cautionary tales." Readers who haven't spent a lifetime in the study of aging, as he has, should come away from these candid conversations with equally valuable lessons. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Growing up on the outskirts of England's Lake District National Park, eight-year-old Lindsay McCrae was enthralled by nature and decided he wanted a career filming wildlife. A letter to a BBC nature program at age 14 resulted in him making a short film on badgers. From there his career took off, and he documented wolves in the Arctic and armadillos at the equator. McCrae's ultimate dream, to film emperor penguins in Antarctica, came true when the BBC Natural History Unit made that once-in-a-lifetime offer. The catch? He would need to prepare for a year, then be gone for 11 months.

Anyone who wonders what such an incredible and dangerous expedition entails will be enchanted by McCrae's chronicle of his time in the harshest climate on earth (reaching -60F degrees). My Penguin Year is a stunning and often gut-churning account of the lifecycle of thousands of emperor penguins from a "behind the lens" perspective. It also reveals the toll such a job takes on the participants--risk, confinement, isolation (from loved ones and medical treatment), and experiencing Mother Nature at her harshest.

McCrae carried a few added burdens: he married just before departing and his wife gave birth during his time away. His account of dedication and sacrifice, from both documentarian and penguin angles, is thoroughly compelling. The written version of McCrae's film (he won a BAFTA as director of photography for BBC's Dynasties) is an unforgettable, intimate story of survival. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

When romantic Tam plays his flute beneath her window, Lan feels "like a princess in the ancient ballads her father love[s]." If only Tam would get over the shyness that brings him to court her solely "in moonlit visits," Lan thinks her life would be perfect. Bao, "an orphan of no family," strives through hard work and relentless study to earn his place as apprentice to Tam's father, Master Huynh. Bao dreams of the person he cares for most, though she doesn't yet "know of his love." Although he has "no hope of winning her," he vows that the time has finally come for him to tell Lan the truth.

Bao confesses his deep feelings to Lan, explaining that he is actually the flute player, not the uninterested Tam; humiliated, Lan cruelly rejects the young "peasant" as unworthy. The deeply hurt Bao flees, hoping to find a legendary river witch who could "clear his mind" of Lan. When he finds the witch, she instead binds him to his flute with a curse that can be broken only if the person he loves declares she loves him in return before the next full moon. A now "desperately sorry" Lan insists on helping him break the curse before the spell becomes permanent and Bao loses his body forever.

Julie C. Dao weaves her Vietnamese-inspired folklore and imagery into a fresh, captivating fantasy that completes the duology begun with Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. Her heroes wrestle with family, class and uncontrolled power while finding ways to muster the strength it takes to do the right thing. At its heart, though, Song of the Crimson Flower is a magical love story. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI