This week, many of the titles we've reviewed showcase the human spirit of redemption. Willy Vlautin's novel The Horse is a "testament to hope amid a lifetime of adversity"; Anamely Salgado Reyes's "charming" debut, My Mother Cursed My Name, documents one family's "second chances to fix what what's been broken too long"; and even popular podcaster Paul Cooper's Fall of Civilizations "attests to humanity's resilience" throughout its historical survey of devastation. Plus, editor Alex Brown compiles a "compellingly horrifying" collection of stories about teens facing down nightmares, demons, and strange manifestations of mortality in the spooky YA anthology The House Where Death Lives.
In The Writer's Life, Alex Temblador, author of Writing an Identity Not Your Own, shares advice and maps out a creative process for writers who want to improve their ability to write convincingly and sensitively about people from dissimilar backgrounds.