Courtney Ellis's gritty third novel, Flyweight, follows two women in early 20th-century London who enter the boxing ring, battling outer and inner prejudices to participate in the sport they love.

Lucy Cotter, raised as a gentleman's daughter, is proud of her husband Robin's legacy as a boxer, though his experience in the Great War has left him blind and unable to fight or work most jobs. With her family facing eviction, Lucy secretly takes a cleaning position at Robin's former boxing club, where the new owner, Siobhan McCarthy, urges Lucy to begin training with her. Torn between her interest in boxing and society's disdain for women engaging in a "blood sport," Lucy reluctantly agrees to learn the basics. But when the women attempt to stage an all-female exhibition, they come up against naysayers from all sides, possibly including themselves.

Ellis (The Forgotten Cottage) sensitively explores Lucy's inner conflicts: her need to provide for Robin and their daughter, Ellie, and her concern about Robin's reaction to her work at the gym. In addition, Ellis probes Lucy's inner bias against women who box and the sport's contrast to the accepted societal perception of women as delicate creatures. As Lucy gains physical strength and mental toughness, she also develops a fierce determination to show her daughter what women are capable of, even if most people still believe women shouldn't box. Flyweight is a fascinating glimpse into the rise of women's sports and an account of two women fighting hard to prove that change--both social and personal--is possible. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

A dark holiday novel twists its way to hopefulness when a newcomer joins a Christmas Eve dinner. Bonnie Jo Campbell (Once Upon a River) invokes shades of Charles Dickens at a rural Michigan family gathering haunted by the memory of their brutal patriarch's death exactly nine years before; as the folks in Paw Paw told it, "The meanest man in town had been struck by lightning."

This year, Ma and the two youngest Whitbys, Beth and Trevor, welcome their brother, Doug, home from college with his girlfriend, friendly and positive Mary, who uses crutches. Beth wonders, "Could it really be that the woman's skin shone with light coming from inside her?" and young Trevor exudes Yuletide excitement. But the eldest daughter, Sister (called "Sissy"), is gruff, quaffing wine from her jelly jar and hoping to "make it through this meal without doing, saying, or hearing anything upsetting." Sissy is certain the guilt she harbors for her father's death has summoned him; she senses the "ghostly pounding" of the floorboards, a "foggy swirl of smoke" envelops the poinsettia, and "something or someone in the room [sighs] loudly" when Ma speaks of Daddy's death. Doug worries that Mary is a "pot stirrer" asking about the family's past, but her sincerity leads each Whitby to face truths of their violent history. "The whole family had been together that night nine years ago, but they had also each been alone in their fear." Tension in The Spirits heightens as the family recalls those horrors, but a credible storybook ending brings joy to them all, peaceful at last. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House, Albany, N.Y.

Colleen Cambridge (Mastering the Art of French Murder; Murder at Mallowan Hall) has created another diverting cozy historical mystery starring Phyllida Bright, Agatha Christie's fiercely capable housekeeper. In Death Down the Aisle, the sixth volume in the series, the beautiful but intimidating Phyllida is helping organize a new friend's wedding at a neighboring estate while "Mrs. Christie" is out of town. Although she doesn't appear on the page herself, Mrs. Christie's iconic detectives provide inspiration for Phyllida all too soon: Coatesworth Manor is unfortunately full of cantankerous cousins of the bride, and shortly after the bride and groom depart on their honeymoon, one of the guests is found dead in the chapel.

With unpleasant actors, horse-obsessed aristocrats, and truculent relatives, Phyllida has a houseful of suspects to rapidly investigate before the incompetent local inspector can mess things up. Aided by her own loyal staff of housemaids and footmen, Phyllida is determined to catch the killer. As she questions the guests, however, her interactions with the suave journalist Abernathy Vane end up straining her burgeoning relationship with Joshua Bradford, Mrs. Christie's charming chauffeur.

Witty and intelligent, Death Down the Aisle will have readers rooting for Phyllida to crack the case and renew her flirtation with Bradford. Death Down the Aisle contains no spoilers for earlier entries in the series and can be read on its own; it's a perfect historical mystery for devotees of the Queen of Crime. --Jessica Howard, former bookseller, freelance book reviewer

A young woman from Revolutionary-era France enters a dangerous magical game in the mysterious, romantic dark fantasy Château Reverie by Natasha Siegel (As Many Souls as Stars).

In 1790, noblewoman Genevieve de Vienne and her maid and lover, Claire Marchand, flee the Revolution, but unidentified attackers stop their carriage. The narrator pronounces, "Claire Marchand died that night. And Genevieve de Vienne died, too." Five years later, Genevieve now lives in Devon, England, but memories of her tragedy in France and Claire's loss still haunt her dreams. An invitation arrives for her to attend the Auction of Secrets at Château Reverie. Genevieve need only write her heart's desire on the reverse of the invitation and burn it to accept. She is not sure what to make of the offer, but she knows her heart's desire: "To forget Claire Marchand."

Leander Sterne is a prisoner of the Château Reverie with no memory of his life before he came there. He receives an invitation to the Auction of Secrets as well, and his wish is simply for "liberty." He knows all too well the auction and its games and penalties, but his genuine connection with Genevieve catches him off guard. As the five other auction contestants begin to disappear, Leander and Genevieve will have to decide what matters more: winning or each other.

Siegel builds an opulent atmosphere with lavish clothing. The resulting air of dissolute wonder enchants and disturbs. Readers who love Caitlin Breeze's The Fox Hunt or Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde adventures will sink into Siegel's graceful fever dream of a novel like they're slipping into a bath of delicious chaos. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Two sisters, one of whom happens to be a porcelain doll, face off against a magical crime family in The Porcelain Sisters, a hilarious, action-packed thriller from Daryl Gregory (When We Were Real; Spoonbenders).

For as long as Ruth can remember, she has always been with the doll Isabel, her sister. Now 26, Ruth is a college dropout and lives with Isabel in a motel where nobody asks many questions. Isabel is cranky and sarcastic, throwing telekinetic tantrums and driving people away before Ruth can get too close to them or even have so much as a one-night stand. When the two argue and Isabel is badly damaged in a fall, Ruth's only hope to repair her is to seek out the manufacturer from whom her late mother bought the doll in France. But Isabel's origins lie with a dangerous family of sorceresses, and one of them, La Fabricante, already has the sisters in her sights. As Ruth and Isabel search for a way to repair Isabel's porcelain body while attempting to evade capture, they uncover revelations about the secret life Ruth's mother hid and its link to their own pasts and possible future.

With punchy dialogue and a truly menacing cast of villains, including an immortal assassin and demons in crow and cat form, on Ruth and Isabel's tails, The Porcelain Sisters has a cinematic tone and the pace of a summer blockbuster with a Halloween backdrop. This zany, inventive adventure offers a thrill a minute. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

A heartwarming Christmas romance set in a dreamy Utah ski town, Court Behr's A Very Merry Detour follows Alaina's unplanned journey that's filled with joyful laughter and love. Unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend days before Christmas, Alaina has the perfect plan to win him back in time to celebrate the holidays together: demonstrate she can be the spontaneous person he wants her to be and surprise him in New York, where he's taken a "last-minute gig" to pursue work as an influencer.

But on her drive from San Francisco, Alaina's car ends up in a snowbank in Brooks, Utah. She's rescued by a helpful yet aloof stranger, but Alaina's luck doesn't get much better. Her car repairs will take days and the local inn is fully booked. Her rescuer, Priscilla, the small town's sullen bookstore owner, begrudgingly agrees to take Alaina in. Still committed to changing her ex-boyfriend's mind, Alaina decides to complete an adventurous holiday bucket list while stuck in Brooks to prove herself to him.

Priscilla assists Alaina in chopping down a Christmas tree, learning to ice skate, and camping underneath the breathtaking Utah night sky. But as Pricilla's icy exterior melts, Alaina wonders if their growing connection could be more than friendship and explores the possibility that the love she should be chasing might be right in front of her. Delightful holiday spirit and a charismatic cast of small-town characters decorate the pages of A Very Merry Detour. Behr creates a luminous portrayal of true love driven by acceptance, self-discovery, and chemistry hot enough to keep Alaina and Priscilla warm on a cold winter night. --Clara Newton, freelance reviewer

Akane Torikai, notable for producing reality-grounded feminist manga including Sensei's Pious Lie, presents her first speculative fiction: Wandering Cat's Cage, which poses an ominous dystopian future for human reproduction. The prolific Jocelyne Allen provides a gratifying English-language translation of the graphic novel, which was originally published in Japan in 2018.

Despite the order and privilege available in Town, inhabitants still flee across the water to where petty crime and controlled chaos prevail. Sanada, who escaped traffickers and was raised and trained by an acupuncturist in the Slum, is now a "queen" practitioner. She lives with Reiho who, as "a grown young man," is an extreme rarity amid a society in which women are the majority and the shrinking birthrate is decimating humanity. Sanada and Reiho's found family unexpectedly grows with the addition of lost, runaway thieves--Ejima from Town; her "strays," Kiri and Kanan; and finally Jun, who just wants "to know about men." Reiho belongs in "a facility," but so far, he's managed to live freely (enough), earning money from Town's wealthy night visitors. When he's kidnapped for his breeding potential, Sanada initiates a daring, dangerous rescue.

Torikai creates expressive black-and-white panels in markedly thin lines, proving particularly adept at depicting expressions, attitudes, and hair. Sanada's coveted tresses and Reiho's androgynous bob are caught in impressively minimal strokes that never seem to still. The delicacy of Torikai's art underscores the fragility of bodily autonomy as once-common human functions--sex, pregnancy, parenthood--are strictly regulated under suffocating threat. With chilling intimacy, Torikai offers a disturbing new world already too convincingly familiar. --Terry Hong

Blake J. Harris's funny, insightful Emperor of Nothing is as much a history of stand-up comedy as it is of television producer Larry David's life. David's inner circle opened up to the biographer for some wonderfully intimate moments on the path to his hard-won success.

In 1972, David found his "calling" at the Improv club in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, and some of the book's greatest moments arrive because of who was around David at that time. Jeff Goldblum was in David's acting class. Jerry Seinfeld was honing material at the Comic Strip on the Upper East Side. Chris Albrecht was a manager at the Improv; he became president of HBO and greenlit an hourlong special of David's "making of" a stand-up act (titled Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm). Harris (The History of the Future) portrays the small world of stand-up comedy as a supportive, creative breeding ground. The seeds of David's observational comedy were planted among comic buddies in postshow diners and bars.

Harris's magic touch lies in how he allows everyone involved to tell their version. Readers will feel as if they're sitting alongside Seinfeld writers and actors, hearing them recount the birth of such golden nuggets as the "Soup Nazi" character and "The Contest" (an episode on an exercise in "self-restraint," in which the word "masturbation" is never uttered). Harris juxtaposes dialogue from Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm with conversations between the writers and actors as they formed the shows.

Harris takes readers into the heart of the creative process, as well as into what makes David tick. --Jennifer M. Brown

Determined narrator Bear searches here, there, and everywhere for the rare, red-breasted goose in Aline Portman's charming English-language debut, This Is How to Spot Animals!, translated from the Dutch by the Mildred L. Batchelder Award-winning Laura Watkinson (Mikis and the Donkey).

Clad in orange shorts and equipped with binoculars and a thermos, Bear settles in for a day of animal spotting, hoping to get a glimpse of a red-breasted goose. "Spotting animals isn't easy," Bear says. "But I'm very, very good at it." Bear stares intently at the sky as a snail, a fox, a tortoise, and other wildlife frolic and play on the ground. When Bear falls asleep--"Never lose focus!"--animals run by. Later, Bear stretches precariously across a pond to investigate, suggesting readers "make sure [they're] in a comfortable position," and a squirrel crosses Bear's back as though it were a bridge, followed by five geese. Although Bear offers many excellent tips for animal spotting ("Explore the area!"), they don't see any animals themselves. "We're out of luck. There's nothing to see here." (Except, of course, for "a bear in orange pants" and the red-breasted goose standing on its back.)

Portman uses a limited color palette in her pencil, pastel, and marker drawings. This minimalist format focuses readers on the menagerie traipsing through the pages, eluding Bear's sight. Broken outlines, saturated colors, and realistic yet whimsical depictions enhance the characters' rollicking movement. Watkinson's translation features lively text and matches the illustration's frisky spirit. This Is How to Spot Animals! will likely tickle animal-loving funny bones and make storytime an absolute delight. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

A teenager volunteering at a radio station in 1980s Texas finds community and young love in this "righteous" rock 'n' roll novel from Michael L. Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray (Under the Same Stars).

Bowie (pronounced "Boo-eee" after "Jim Bowie, the Texas historical dude who died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett") feels adrift as he starts his senior year at Crockett High School. Bowie's only certainty is that he's "hopelessly in love with Holly 'Comet' Jensen. Emphasis on hopelessly." Comet, who has "a shaggy, dirty blond haircut," moved to Crockett two years ago and gained "a reputation as a 'rabble-rouser.' " On the first day of school, Comet sets off a firecracker and Bowie takes the blame; he is assigned community service at struggling local radio station KYEW-FM as punishment. The station's owner introduces Bowie to the wide world of music and encourages him to "challenge the establishment." When predatory real estate developers try to buy the station, Bowie rallies a group of fellow teenage misfits--best friends Omar, a nerdy Egyptian American, and "volleyball champ" Maria Elena Hernandez, along with Comet--to save it.

Radio Free Texas is a rousing work of fiction that affectingly conveys the fiery excitement of youthful rebellion and first love. Bowie's journey of self-discovery, narrated in charming, self-deprecating first person with rock 'n' roll chapter titles (such as Boston's "More Than a Feeling"), should resonate with teen readers facing the "long road of the future." --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer

Alexandria Scott-Christensen peels back the layers of cacao in her multifaceted debut picture book, focusing on chocolate, the "almost universally loved food." She takes young readers into the forests where cacao trees thrive, the factories where the fruit is processed, and across continents, through history, and into "the future of chocolate."

Chocolate Unwrapped is divided into several sections, each displayed on an illustrated double-page spread. Central text gives readers an overview of the topic--"Anatomy of the Fruit," "Cacao's Home"--while sidebars add delightful tidbits of information. Scott-Christensen describes chocolate's Mesoamerican origins and uses in medicine, currency, religious rituals, and more. She explains how chocolate was colonized by Europeans and how, during the Industrial Revolution, an improved process for developing chocolate made it cheaper and easier to produce. Scott-Christensen also discusses scientific elements of the beloved confection, describing how a chemical in chocolate makes "your brain release dopamine, which can make you feel happy" and how "cacao waste can be turned into biochar" (a substance "like charcoal, but better for the environment").

Yoko Baum (A Very Asian Guide to Japanese Food illustrator) uses an earth-toned palette for the book's digital art, which work to encapsulate the topics addressed on each page through inset bubbles, diagrams, and spot illustrations. To emphasize the layers of elements necessary for cacao trees to thrive, Baum even changes the illustrative format mid-book, requiring readers to turn their books--or heads--90 degrees. Young dessert aficionados will likely leave the pages of Chocolate Unwrapped with an appreciation for chocolate, its long history, and its potential future uses. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

In the soothing, compassionate Igloo by Ann Kim Ha (A Friend for Eddy), a band of increasingly large animals wraps around one another to keep winter's chill at bay.

The first big snow is coming and "all the woodland creatures" are settling into their "cozy winter homes." Chickadee, however, has no lodging. As she curls her wings around her tiny body, a gaggle of geese offers to keep her toasty. But soon the huddle around the chickadee begins to shiver. "You look so cold," says a fox as he wraps himself around the geese. When the "flurries" turn into "heavy snow," the fox, too, starts shivering. Luckily, a passing bear decides to hug the whole bundle of animals close to her chest. A strong wind sends the animals rolling down a hill, picking up snow with every rotation. The mighty snowball hits flat ground and stops, becoming a pear-shaped mound. The bear makes an exit, and the fox and geese follow her out. Left behind is a perfect igloo, more than spacious enough for Chickadee and some new friends to inhabit for the winter.

Ha uses watercolor and digital collage to depict the barren cold of a frozen winter. Her chickadee protagonist is the kind of cute that can subdue a fox in winter, her giant eyes those of a Disney princess. All the animals have gentle facial expressions and thin white lines describing their soft fur and rounded bodies. Simple text and a neutral palette make this picture book a comforting story for a blustery day. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness