Joining K-pop, K-dramas, and K-beauty is K-healing fiction, a growing literary genre centering contemporary characters facing timely challenges with (realistically) happier endings: The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-yeon checks all the boxes, enhanced with additional charm and empathy, and smoothly translated by Janet Hong.

Mrs. Yeom is on the Seoul-to-Busan fast train when she realizes her wallet is missing. A lucky phone call leads to its return, sparking a startling relationship between the septuagenarian and Dokgo, an unhoused stranger whose alcohol-induced dementia has not affected his gentle, caring heart. Mrs. Yeom, a retired history teacher, runs a neighborhood convenience store. She's comfortable enough with just her pension, but she knows she's providing much-needed jobs. Despite complaints, she adds Dokgo to her roster of part-timers that includes employees Sihyeon and Mrs. Oh after he saves her again, this time subduing a quartet of violent teens--although Mrs. Yeom's own son might prove to be the store's greatest threat. Sihyeon reluctantly trains him, but Dokgo shows her how to handle bullies. Mrs. Oh belittles him, but he teaches her how to listen. Regular customers discover understanding and insight while picking up snacks and drinks. With warmth and stability, Dokgo begins to remember his troubled past.

In what might initially seem to be a light, breezy novel, Kim seamlessly inserts sharp commentary about society's failures concerning people late in life, people experiencing homelessness, corporate greed, compromised ethics. At one convenience store, Kim creates an inviting microcosm in which simple acts of unexpected kindness build new paths toward change and connection. --Terry Hong

Confessions of a Grammar Queen by Eliza Knight (Can't We Be Friends; The Mayfair Bookshop) is the delightful, Mad Men-esque story of perky copy editor Bernadette Swift. Bernadette is always slightly worried because her brother, Benjamin, is currently fighting in Vietnam. Although she generally likes Lenox & Park Publishing, where she works, her appalling boss, Mr. Wall, treats her like a secretary instead of a copy editor. But Bernadette tries to look on the bright side and is encouraged by the feminist book club she's recently joined. She has also set herself a goal of becoming "the first female CEO of a major publishing house," something no woman has yet achieved in 1960s New York.

Chapters told from the point of view of Frank, Bernadette's Great Dane, offer a glimpse into her personal life; she lives alone in a tiny apartment with Frank. Graham Reynolds, the only co-worker who doesn't treat Bernadette differently because she's a woman, slowly starts appearing in Frank's chapters as Graham and Bernadette become friends. Graham encourages Bernadette to apply for the available senior copy editor position. Even though Mr. Wall sexually harasses Bernadette and takes credit for her skillful edits on a terrible celebrity memoir, Bernadette decides to stand up for herself and her fellow women in the workplace, leading to dramatic changes at Lenox & Park.

Clever, logophilic, and appealingly feminist, Confessions of a Grammar Queen is the story of a young woman finding herself and finding her way in the midst of her misogynistic milieu. Readers will root for Bernadette's success. --Jessica Howard, former bookseller, freelance book reviewer

In Pirkko Saisio's Backlight, the second volume in what is known as her Helsinki Trilogy, she continues her works of autofiction depicting her tumultuous emergence into adulthood as a queer woman artist in the latter half of the 20th century.

Backlight finds teenage Pirkko leaving her native Finland to work in an orphanage in Switzerland, grappling with both her sexuality and her aspiration to find her voice as a writer. Her travels mirror her internal landscape, as she longs for independence and struggles to make herself understood in German throughout her messy journey of self-discovery.

Saisio is a much beloved writer of literature and dramatic works in Finland, and her prose, translated in all three volumes with sensitivity and skill by Mia Spangenberg, is lyrical and unflinching, creating an intimate intensity that expresses Saisio's talent as a dramaturge. Backlight's narration alternates between describing the protagonist as "she" and "I," which nods toward the nature of memory and how, as time passes, people become characters to themselves in their own recollections. The fragmented, episodic structure reflects the often-disjointed nature of memory itself, forming an engaging and immersive narrative.

Readers who have accompanied Saisio (The Red Book of Farewells; Lowest Common Denominator) through her previous translated works will find Backlight an essential piece of her extraordinary literary mosaic. For first-time readers, it's a captivating entry point into the world of a someone who, like Nordic writers Karl Ove Knausgaard and Tove Ditlevsen, captivatingly blurs the boundaries between lived experience and art. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

It's been said that friends are the family we choose. The difficulties sometimes posed by those choices are the subject of Hal Ebbott's debut novel, Among Friends, a sensitive, intelligent psychological drama that tests the ties of longtime friendships and plunges two families into crisis.

The novel begins in an idyllic setting, as Amos, a therapist, his physician wife, Claire, and their 16-year-old daughter, Anna, arrive at an upstate New York vacation home. The home belongs to Amos's college roommate and best friend of more than 30 years, Emerson, a lawyer, his wife, Retsy, and their daughter, Sophie, who is Anna's age. They've gathered on a gorgeous October weekend to celebrate Emerson's 52nd birthday. The perfection of this serene outer world is undermined that weekend by an incident that's known only to two members of the collective at the time. How that incident becomes known to others and the implications of that knowledge propel the novel's second half.

As Ebbott patiently but determinedly reveals, the glittering surface of the "smooth, edgeless life" of privilege these characters inhabit conceals a set of relationships that are far more fragile than any of their participants can imagine. Their choices may imperil not only the ties of long and deep friendships, but the very existence of their "dense, dependable" family lives. Ebbott's prose is both elegant and seemingly effortless. The novel shifts perspective smoothly among its sextet of characters while maintaining its acuity in examining the desires and motivations of each. Among Friends is a sophisticated exploration of some fraught and challenging subjects that exerts an insistent pull on both the mind and heart. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo's The Tiny Things Are Heavier is an expansive first novel about a woman searching for home, love, and belonging. Sommy is a Nigerian immigrant to the United States, a graduate student in literature, a sister, a daughter, a lover, a friend--but all of this leaves her still seeking a sense of identity.

Sommy left for graduate school in Iowa just weeks after her beloved brother Mezie's suicide attempt. She feels isolated in the cold Midwest and tormented by guilt. Eventually Sommy makes a few friends, and then she meets Bryan, a biracial American with a Nigerian father he never knew.

In their second year together, they travel to Nigeria. It's Sommy's first time home, and the first time she's seen or spoken with her brother since his suicide attempt. It's Bryan's first time in Nigeria. They search for his father, and Sommy shows Bryan her family, her neighborhood, her home. But a series of events culminating in a shocking tragedy causes Sommy to call her core values into question.

Okonkwo makes a wise choice to tell this story through Sommy's compelling close third-person point of view, which portrays her as anxious and exasperated, strong-willed and intelligent, cynical and devoted. In returning, Sommy feels "the loss of a place for which to pine. She had gone home, and home did not feel like home." Through Sommy's experiences, Okonkwo asks her readers to reflect upon class, privilege, race, gender, and their interlocking power structures, as well as the importance of place to one's sense of self. The Tiny Things Are Heavier is thought-provoking and unforgettable. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Megan Hunter's third novel, Days of Light, is an elegant exploration of love and loss in the life of an Englishwoman from the 1930s to the 1990s.

Ivy grows up among bohemian artists in Cressingdon House, Sussex, which Hunter modeled after the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of upper-class painters and writers. Her mother, Marina, and Marina's lover, Angus, are painters; other relatives and hangers-on are writers. On Easter Sunday in 1938, 19-year-old Ivy is wooed by a 44-year-old author, Bear--yet fascinated with Frances, her older brother Joseph's girlfriend.

The novel's six chapters each capture a pivotal April day, revealing wider cultural shifts and temporary states for Ivy--for instance, in 1944, her mindset is "babies and bombs." Hunter evokes wartime and postwar London and the countryside effectively, whether the specific setting is a jazz club, convent, or deathbed. That the chronology twice coincides with Easter allows for a sensitive tracing of Ivy's spiritual journey. Hers is a numinous world where a river might offer baptism or danger, and a light in the sky could be a divine sign or a fatal distraction.

Days of Light is something of a departure for Hunter after an environmental dystopia (The End We Start From) and a mythology-infused contemporary-set tale of betrayal and revenge (The Harpy). But Hunter's three novels are linked by keen insight into marriage and motherhood. Here, again, the language is the star: it's lyrical, precise, and reminiscent of Tessa Hadley's. Imagery of light counterbalances the somber message that grief never diminishes. This is ideal for readers who enjoyed Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep, and a leap forward for Hunter. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

Kate Myers (Excavations) brings her signature wit and wild rumpus of characters to Salty, her sophomore novel featuring estranged sisters who love each other dearly, and luxury yacht owners who will go to absurd lengths to remain luxury yacht owners.

Captain Denise has spent 20 years working her way up through the ranks of Ahoy, a yacht management company catering to the "low end of the very rich." Unfortunately, her work dictates that she never question the owners--even when the owners are the loathsome Falcon family, the wealthy and unfeeling jerks who tore down her childhood home to build a new condo. Things only get worse for Denise when her world-traveling younger sister comes home looking for work, the condo building collapses, and an elderly neighbor turns up dead--and that's all before the Falcons' ridiculous yacht sinks under suspicious circumstances.

Myers has a way of building multi-layered and nuanced drama that could rival the best (and worst) of Bravo's Housewives. Salty is filled with family dysfunction, illicit affairs, shady business dealings, upstairs-downstairs clashes, star-crossed lovers, extravagant meals, and truly over-the-top décor choices.

The what-exactly-happened/whodunit tension keeps the plot ticking along, but that's not to suggest that Salty is a thriller; it's more a perfectly plotted and well-paced beach read, as the sisters reluctantly put aside their differences to take on the Falcon family. It's the very definition of fun, packed with quirky humor. Readers will laugh, root for the most unexpected group of underdog sleuths, and raise a glass to the overdue demise of the filthy rich as Salty anchors itself amid the best of vacation reading. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Widow Odelia Babel thrives on perfection, whether from Circ, the billion-dollar sustainable fashion brand where she's CEO, or from her seemingly close relationship with her three adult children. Even their favorite vacation spot, Leopard Sands estate in South Africa, has an elegance to its name. But her search for excellence is as ruthless as the predators they spot on "game drives" in the wild in The Safari, a tense thriller by Jaclyn Goldis (The Main Character). 

Sixty-four-year-old Odelia cajoled her family and best friend into traveling to Leopard Sands to celebrate her marriage to Asher Bach, who is 25 years younger than Odelia and a designer at Circ. The illusion of the impeccable barely masks the family's discontent with Odelia's controlling nature over even the smallest details. Odelia feuds with her oldest son, Joshua, who wants more control of the business. She stonewalls her younger son Sam's loud demands for more money, since she believes he will squander it as he has in the past. Only Sam's twin sister, Bailey, seems sensible. All three think the marriage is a ridiculous idea and worry about its effect on their future inheritance. Odelia distrusts her longtime staff, and they resent her endless demands. When Odelia is found dead on her wedding day, her body ravaged by animals, Leopard Sands is filled with suspects.

Goldis's effective storytelling in The Safari switches between each character's point of view, delving deep into why they are unhappy. The beauty of the African setting juxtaposed against its predators' unsparing brutality echoes the mix of polish and cruelty that define Goldis's characters. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

Haven't heard of a Pablo Picasso masterwork called Woman Laughing? That's because it doesn't exist, as Lily Summers, assistant keeper of the Modern Collections at London's Tate Gallery, discovers in The English Masterpiece, a rewardingly escapist art-centered thriller from Katherine Reay (Lizzy & Jane; The Austen Escape; Of Literature and Lattes).

It's 1973, Picasso has just died, and Lily's boss at the Tate has decided to create a small commemorative exhibition for the artist. Lily, a painter herself who has studied Picasso, is delighted with the exhibition until, at its opening, she pauses before Woman Laughing: the painting is "a perfect execution of Picasso's surrealist period. But something feels off." In front of all in attendance, she blurts, "That's a forgery." This causes a scandal, infuriates the Tate's director, and makes the wealthy industrialist who loaned out the painting look shady. To save her job, Lily vows to learn the painting's provenance; meanwhile, a theory mounts that Lily herself is the forger.

Artistic provenance, the inner workings of a museum, Tate Gallery history, a plot point revolving around Piet Mondrian's signature grids--the art stuff is all nimbly worked into the story. But The English Masterpiece isn't just for art lovers; it's a woman-swimming-against-the-tide novel marked by two Reay mainstays: romance and emotional growth. Some readers will find a thread involving Lily's family overwrought, but everyone should appreciate having their expectations dashed by one of the novel's surprises, which include a cameo from a young Pierce Brosnan (an author's note explains all). --Nell Beram, author and freelance write

Tessa Nilsson's fascination with the disappearance of four women steered her to a career as a popular true-crime podcaster--until her job publicly exploded. These events lay the foundation for Camilla Sten's smartly plotted The Bachelorette Party, which explores obsession, jealousy, and mythologizing.

Tessa was 19 years old when she became deeply invested in the case of the women who vanished from Isle Blind, a small island in the Baltic Sea. The Nacka Four, named after their Swedish hometown, became fodder for Internet sleuths, though it was widely accepted that the foursome died in a drunken boating accident. Their case inspired Tessa's podcast, which built a following over the next decade until Tessa was blamed for a tragedy, causing her to become a recluse. Tessa is pulled out of her solitude when she's invited to a friend's bachelorette party--six women, four days--at Baltic Vinyasa, a new "ultraluxe" yoga retreat, a package touting vegan catering in lieu of wi-fi service, on Isle Blind. The retreat's owner, Irene, is the sister of one of the Nacka Four, so Tessa hopes to reinvigorate her career by sleuthing around the island. Tessa's friends begin to vanish as more clues to the old case surface.

Sten (The Lost Village) gives voice to each of the bachelorette party members and, through well-placed flashbacks, to the Nacka Four. Tessa's obsession fuels The Bachelorette Party, but her single-mindedness can also feel excessive at times. Despite using some clichés, such as the lack of cell phone service, Sten makes the island function as a setting for a shrewd locked-room mystery. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella take on the patriarchy, midlife, and the eternal question of "What happened after she married her prince?" in the shrewd feminist fairy tale deconstruction After Happily Ever After: An Epic Novel of Midlife Rebellion by Jennifer Safrey.

The death of the king of Foreverness shakes up the lives of his middle-aged daughters-in-law, Princesses Neve, Bry, and Della, whose "only daily task [is] to be the living embodiment of the dreams of every woman who lived in the kingdom." Neve, whose murder by poisoned apple has left her eternally on guard, becomes queen consort of Foreverness but can't ignore her birthright as heir to her own kingdom. Bry, who slept for 100 years due to a fairy's curse, forms connections outside the palace walls and learns to her horror that happily ever after is out of reach for women of the common class. Della, who worked as a scullery maid until her fairy godmother intervened, quietly starts a business training household servants. The princesses' journeys of growth cause conflict with their husbands, the established order, and the law, but each woman must fight for her people and herself.

Safrey (Tooth and Nail) has crafted the story of empowerment and agency desperately needed by anyone who has ever watched a classic Disney princess movie and thought that the ending rang hollow. This fast-paced fairy tale for the older and wiser is a perfect read for those who like to see women seizing their own happily ever afters. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

What if Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities look so alike because one was a fairy changeling? That is the question that led to A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry (The Magician's Daughter; The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door), which steps into not only a classic of English literature but also into a moment in the French Revolution, bringing it to life in a new way. Parry's intervention takes the perspective of Sydney, who was stolen from the cradle as a child and raised in the fairy realm, while a changeling was left behind in his place. Children who grow up in the fairy realm have two choices when they turn 13: to become fairy servants in the mortal realm, or to become fairies themselves. What they are never meant to do, however, should they return to Earth, is to meet their changelings, to learn their original names and who they would have been had they never been taken. But when Sydney sees his double on trial, his life changes in more ways than he could have ever anticipated.

Parry's prose is captivating and evocative, illuminating Sydney's world as he works in the shadows for forces and powers far above him, both human and not. This imaginative work has fascinating characters that will grab at readers' minds and hearts while dealing with themes of love, revenge, and even redemption. A Far Better Thing is a historical fantasy novel not to be missed. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Three young women from different centuries wrestle with hunger and carve out lives for themselves in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, a haunting tale of immortality, death, and lesbian vampires by V.E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue; A Darker Shade of Magic).

In the early 16th century, Maria decides that if she must marry, she will marry someone who will take her away from Santo Domingo, Spain. She succeeds as far as becoming the wife of a viscount, only to find herself in a new kind of cage, until a mysterious widow offers her a choice. In 2019, Alice is determined to make leaving Scotland for Harvard into a new start. An attempt at spontaneity leads to a one-night stand, which in turn leads to a desperate quest for answers. Lottie, who left Alice while she was sleeping, made her own bid for freedom years ago. Now, she has taken to feeding her tender heart on memories in an attempt to avoid a terrible price.

Schwab has created a vampire mythos at once beautiful and dark. Occasional encounters between these women and others of their kind suggest a larger world with more approaches to living as an immortal predator, but most of the time the lens stays tightly focused on these three. The result is both expansive, as their combined story stretches almost 500 years, and claustrophobically close, as the women and readers are trapped in their hunger: for blood, for love, for freedom, for their waning humanity. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a brilliant, emotional fantasy. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

A scrappy dragon-egg thief is kidnapped by the attractive son of her employer's enemy in Realm of Thieves, the adventurous, bighearted romantasy by Karina Halle (The Royals Upstairs).

Orphan Brynla Aihr lives in a world where hostile dragons are contained inside a limited territory by magical wards. Brynla grew up in and escaped from a convent where the cruel nuns worship the dragons. Now she makes a living sneaking into the warded lands to raid nests. Dragon eggs contain a magical compound called suen, which gives special powers to people who eat the eggs. Families called syndikats control the suen black market and employ egg thieves like Brynla. A routine raid brings Brynla into contact with Andor, a son from one of her employer's rival syndikats whom she would consider "handsome, if only he hadn't kidnapped me" to work for his family. She initially wants to escape but quickly becomes fascinated by Andor, whose suen-granted healing powers may hold the key to curing her debilitating menstrual pain. The pair must navigate Andor's father's anger, attacks from unknown enemies, and a death-defying heist, or else find their love story cut short--along with their throats.

Halle's draconic realm includes varied species of the mythical monsters. Details such as Brynla's naturally lavender-colored hair and magical teleporting dog bring a touch of whimsy to balance the gritty setting of cults and underworld bosses. Readers interested in the concept of Jurassic Park meeting Fourth Wing will find plenty to fascinate, and romance fans will enjoy the leads' supportive, affirming relationship. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Anelise Chen's second book, Clam Down: A Metamorphosis, defies categorization in the most stimulating, hilarious, and heartfelt ways. There's a section narrated by collective of Asian clams. Other sections are narrated by a retired Taiwanese father who's exasperated by his adult daughters and wife. Then there's the 30-something woman writer at the center of the story who calls herself "the clam," a formulation that emerges in the aftermath of a marriage ending: "Hadn't this clamming down method worked well enough in her marriage? Instead of opening her mouth to spew seawater or sand, she swallowed whatever was bothering her and worried it under her tongue until it gleamed." The clam, an avatar for Chen (who, in her author's note, writes that Clam Down "could be" considered memoir), travels to California to borrow her reluctant father's car, then road trips to New Mexico with her mother for a writing residency.

Throughout, Chen shares fascinating information about other people who found inspiration and solace in mollusks, such as Charles Darwin and Georgia O'Keeffe. This is a narrative of journeys: the author's physical journey through time and space, including a stint on the Camino de Santiago (the pilgrimage's symbol is a scallop shell, Chen notes with glee); from fearing solitude to reveling in it; and Chen's emotional journey of trying to understand her father's withdrawal from family life during childhood. Clam Down is a künstlerroman mixed with an interrogation of the author's family's legacy of trauma and immigrant struggle, and even includes a strong dash of romance. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

When readers think of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's books, they think of her novels: Beloved, Song of Solomon, and other towering achievements. "Toni Morrison's books" has a different meaning in Dana A. Williams's Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship, a remarkable exploration of Morrison's work on the other side of the writer's desk.

Morrison (1931-2019) began working for Random House in the late 1960s and left in the 1980s to pursue writing full-time. Along the way, Morrison became the publisher's first Black female senior editor. During her tenure at Random House, Morrison was determined, as Williams puts it, "to use her editorship to move Black culture from the margin to the center." This is reflected in Morrison's work with writers like Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones and with consequential public figures like Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis, whose autobiographies Morrison shepherded into existence; Williams dedicates individual chapters to Morrison's dealings with each of these authors, among others.

For the long-gestating Toni at Random, Williams (In the Light of Likeness) had Morrison's cooperation, as well as access to her Random House correspondence, allowing readers to peer through a previously unopened window onto her intellect and temperament. ("No author tells me what to do in that area" Morrison fumes at writer Barbara Chase-Riboud at one point.) Scenes of Morrison scrambling to secure book blurbs from big-name writers are almost poignant when read with the knowledge that one day her literary stature would match theirs. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Kathryn Harkup's V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemical of Death is a delightful read--and an illuminating exploration of the subject close to the heart (and demise) of many a Christie character: poison. Harkup (Death by Shakespeare; A Is for Arsenic) is a chemist and science writer whose expert perspective enhances the world of the "Queen of Crime," plumbing the ingenious ways in which toxic substances feature in Christie's plots with zest for both the subject matter and the source material.

Harkup blends her scientific expertise with deep knowledge of Christie's extensive body of work. She illustrates, for example, how arsenic functions on its own as a substance and within the narrative intricacies of Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Harkup explains the effects of cyanide and its role in the plot of Sparkling Cyanide, and delves into the complexities of nitroglycerin in the context of The Chocolate Box, one of Christie protagonist Hercule Poirot's early cases.

Readers gain a genuine appreciation for the meticulous research that Christie herself undertook and her knowledge gleaned from her studies in pharmacology. There's also valuable historical context to be had here, as Harkup explores the use of these substances in real-life crimes and medical treatments. In one case, she describes why "arrow poison" completely captured the British imagination.

V Is for Venom is a celebration of Agatha Christie's enduring relevance as a crime writer and a fascinating read for anyone curious about the deadly details lurking within the pages of a classic Christie mystery. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Elias Weiss Friedman, creator of the popular social media account the Dogist, firmly believes that dogs can change lives. He discusses this belief in his highly entertaining memoir, This Dog Will Change Your Life, which begins with an anecdote about how a yellow lab's sheer presence positively impacted the life of a friend of Friedman's who had anxiety issues.

Friedman illustrates the bond between dogs and people, showing why the Dogist, which presents photographs of dogs from New York and other city streets that capture their personalities, has developed such a strong following. This Dog Will Change Your Life isn't a scientific, psychological, or academic examination. Instead, it's more like a long chat with a friend about "a celebration of the joy that dogs bring into our lives, and... the way that they can help us to have a better approach to our identity, our relationships, and our purpose." That's a heavy responsibility to put on four little legs, but Friedman compassionately relates how dogs help veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, bring a sense of purpose to prisoners through training programs, and offered therapeutic services to the 2024 U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team.

Friedman also offers up personal tidbits, writing about his family of physicians, who are all dog lovers (his grandmother's black lab rescued him as a toddler); his 2013 creation of the Dogist after being downsized from his job at a marketing agency; his own dog, and his engagement (he's now married).

As Friedman so warmly writes, dogs "get into your soul and they don't disappear." --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

As Damon Young, editor of That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor, sees it, what makes humor "Black is exclusivity. If it only works because we're involved, and if the presence of Blackness grants it a freedom to go places no one else would. Or could." All the funny-thorny places that contributors go in That's How They Get You are very much worth visiting.

Straight-up comedy anchors the anthology. Mateo Askaripour's "The Karen Rights Act" finds a white woman who considers herself a victim of "nameism" filing a class-action lawsuit that goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wyatt Cenac's "The Jackie Robinson Society" is a faux speech ostensibly given to new inductees into "the Jackie Robinson Society for Negroes Foolish Enough to Be the First to Do Anything Around White People." Scattered among the book's spoofy pieces are wry personal essays--e.g., in "Dancing in the Dark," Clover Hope recounts "a life of chronically self-aware public dancing-while-Black"--but the wit is often laced with something darker. In "Baby Wipes," D Watkins describes changing his toddler's egregiously fouled diaper when "all my dad had to do, literally, was show up."

Young, author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor, has built a sturdy and eclectic 25-piece collection, and there's cause to hope for a follow-up. As Young puts it, "Don't matter if you from Birmingham or Baltimore or Bel-Air. Existing while Black in America provides enough material." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

In Best of All Worlds, Printz Honor-winning author Kenneth Oppel (Airborn; The Nest) delivers an inventive, dramatic work of speculative fiction about accepting uncertainty and surviving change.

Thirteen-year-old Xavier Oak reluctantly joins his father, Caleb, and pregnant stepmother, Nia, on a weekend trip to the family cottage, leaving behind his mother and older brother. The next morning, Zay wakes to discover that the cottage is no longer lakeside, but situated on rolling pastures with crops, livestock, and a "cheery red" barn. Trial and error suggest the Oaks are trapped in a "little snow globe" dome with advanced technology that can replicate Earth. The family is entirely alone, apart from omniscient, invisible observers who miraculously intervene during the difficult birth of Zay's half-brother, Noah. The Oaks slowly learn to homestead and provide for themselves as they accept their situation--until three years later, when the Jackson family arrives.

Oppel grounds the novel's surreal elements in its well-wrought characters. The Jacksons are perfect foils to the Oaks: the former are white, Christian gun-owners and climate change deniers from Tennessee while the latter are an eco-conscious mixed-race Canadian family (Xavier and his father are both white; Nia is of Haitian descent). Zay's first-person narration is immensely relatable as he mourns the loss of life as he knew it, bears life as it is, and eventually falls in love with Mackenzie, the Jacksons' eldest daughter. Oppel brilliantly withholds confirming the truth of the Oaks's and Jacksons' circumstances until the novel's crucial climax, ensuring readers will race through the chapters to Oppel's expert landing of a close. An excellent read-alike for fans of Neal Shusterman and Gary Paulsen. --Cristina Iannarino, children's book buyer, Books on the Square, Providence, R.I.

K. Ibura's Tempest is a fresh, clever, coming-of-age fantasy in which a Black teen must learn to control her wind-wielding powers while dodging an evil organization.

During the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Veronique's parents "built a float and attached it to the bars on the attic window." They placed their "tiny baby" on the float and hoped she would survive. Sixteen years later, V lives on a quiet farm outside Natchitoches with her grandmother. V is free to practice her elemental magic--controlling the wind--under MawMaw's watchful eye but always receives a stern warning to never reveal her ability. When V saves a local boy using her powers, MawMaw sends her to live with her Auntie Eve in New Orleans. Leaving is "a nightmare and a fairy tale all at once"--it's devastating to lose her "anchor" even as she finds family and friends in the city. But, of course, there is also risk; an environmentalist rebel group that believes "anyone with powers should be with them" is looking for V and if they find her, they "will try to force [her] to join their mission--and they will not give [her] a choice."

Ibura's first work for young adult readers delivers depth and danger in the shape of a coming-of-age novel. V grapples with massive issues (who should be taking care of the Earth?) and keeps a huge secret while adjusting to a brand-new life. While the novel's close feels a bit rushed, Ibura (When the World Turned Upside Down) uses V's first-person perspective to detail intriguing lore and describe the robust New Orleans setting. Tempest is equal parts suspense and self-discovery. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer

Claudia Guadalupe Martínez and Laura González (Not a Bean; Not a Monster) continue their clever "Not a..." children's picture book series with a look at the perrito llanero, or the Mexican prairie dog. Martínez's informative story pairs with González's realistic illustrations to enlighten young readers about an endangered rodent that is vital to its environment.

Martínez writes an English text that includes Spanish words and phrases to describe prairie dogs, their growth and development, and their habitat. The author continues by explaining that prairie dog colonies historically "fed and sheltered many animals, including chorlos, tecolotes, and zorros" (plovers, owls, and foxes). But farmers and ranchers "destroyed the colonies, thinking the perritos were a threat to their crops and pastures." When the perritos were gone, "the prairie withered, and the desert closed in."

The Spanish Martínez inserts is focused on shape words and simple vocabulary and González's mixed-media illustrations provide visual explanations of the words. The images are outlined in red and examples include the "arrow" form of a wooden sign "in the shape of a flecha" and the "heart" created by two prairie dog pups hugging ("their bodies form a corazón"). The illustrator beautifully illuminates the underground communities and uses texture, perspective, and detail to juxtapose life in the tunnels with life above ground. A complete list of Spanish words and their English translations appear in the book's backmatter along with an author's note providing additional information on the prairie dog.

Not a Dog is a sweet introduction to an endangered rodent and to the value of environmental consciousness. Animal lovers should dig it. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

In the inviting Never Thought I'd End Up Here, Ann Liang (This Time It's Real) gives the classic enemies-to-lovers trope a fun, fish-out-of-water twist by forcing her Los Angeles-born heroine to take a trip to China with her (now handsome) childhood nemesis.

Seventeen-year-old Leah Zhang generally communicates with her Chinese relatives "via elaborate gestures" rather than the language she barely knows. This is a huge problem when she has to offer a toast in Mandarin at her superstitious cousin's wedding. Leah, stressed and nervous, accidentally wishes the happy couple a "depressing marriage." Leah's horrified mother signs Leah up for a two-week trip to China to immerse her in the language and culture. Unfortunately, "evil" Cyrus Sui, the boy responsible for a deeply humiliating betrayal that "permanently stained" Leah's school records, is also attending. The pair are repeatedly thrown together, and Leah decides she will humiliate Cyrus by grabbing hold of his heart and breaking it. But first, Leah will need to make Cyrus want her, and she's not immune to his "solemn, dark gaze." To her dismay, Leah becomes increasingly more affected by Cyrus's unexpected tenderness--and his "enviably long" eyelashes.

Liang spins her story with plenty of verve, as Leah develops from being somewhat lost and self-absorbed to a thoughtful young adult. While Never Thought I'd End Up Here is first and foremost a romance, Liang uses humor to explore cross-cultural disconnect and investigate the development of self-worth: as Leah's China trip proves an opportunity for an awkward, "uncultured" girl to learn she is actually worthwhile and "interesting" enough to make her own life choices. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

In Jamar J. Perry's beguiling YA romance, Finding Prince Charming, one young Black man accidentally becomes the fake boyfriend of a crown prince.

Eighteen-year-old Tyriq Howell spent the entire morning arguing with his cheating ex-boyfriend and missed his scholarship interview for the University of Maryland. Since that scholarship was the only way he could afford college, Tyriq considers forgetting about love and dating for a while. That is, until 19-year-old Desmond, the cute guy at the scholarship office (who "has a British accent on top of being fine as hell"), offers him a deal: Desmond will get Tyriq an interview redo if Tyriq agrees to be his date for an event. One fake date won't hurt if it means Tyriq can reclaim his chance at college, right? Turns out, Desmond is crown prince of the island nation of Catalina and the pair are swarmed by paparazzi. Now the entire world is investigating Tyriq. Desmond believes the only media-safe option is to keep fake dating until they can (publicly) amicably break up. Life becomes increasingly complicated, though, as the two young men fall for each other and Desmond's royal traditionalist father puts pressure on his son. How can the boys figure out what they mean to each other under so many watchful eyes?

Perry (Cameron Battle series) delivers a dynamic, swoon-worthy romance. The omniscient, third-person point of view allows the reader to sympathize with both Tyriq's and Desmond's approaches to finding love and acceptance as they grapple with understanding their own identities, sexualities, and families. Finding Prince Charming creates a safe space for queer Black boys to see themselves as deserving of receiving love. --Natasha Harris, freelance writer