In Bryan Washington's quietly powerful novel Palaver, a queer Black man who's swapped Houston for Tokyo reconnects with his estranged mother and rebuilds his mental health, thanks to his chosen family.

The central players are only ever "the son" and "the mother." He's found a niche in Japan as a private English tutor and is sleeping with a married man; she came from Jamaica via Canada to raise a family in Texas. They have been out of touch for years when he phones her. Concerned about the son's safety, given his previous suicide attempt, she takes a break from her dental tech job and flies over unannounced. They circle each other uneasily, irritable and quick to take offense. Much remains latent between them, particularly the physical abuse and homophobia that led to their estrangement.

The low-key plot builds through memories and interactions. The close third-person narration expands the view by slipping from present to past and back, drifting to Jamaica and Houston. As in Washington's first novel, Memorial, the characters' cool affect conceals deep emotions. And as in Family Meal, the protagonist gets by with a little help from his diverse friends--here, those who orbit the gay bar Friendly. Trans bartender Alan and the son's kitten, Taro, are additional highlights of the lively secondary cast.

Palaver's broken parent-child bond starts off as defining but melts into part of a whole network of connections. As one character remarks, others "help us see ourselves clearer." Alan adds that simply "showing up" for oneself and others is a vital act of courage. This is Washington's best and most moving work yet. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

For anyone who's followed John Irving's nearly six-decades-long literary career, settling into another of his novels feels like stepping into a beloved pair of slippers. But, as he demonstrates in Queen Esther, that sense of homecoming shouldn't distract readers from the insight and empathy that have consistently characterized his work, including this tenderhearted bildungsroman about a writer whose life, not surprisingly, bears some similarity to Irving's own.

Queen Esther tells the story of Jimmy Winslow, whose story is intertwined with that of Esther Nacht, who is Jewish and was born in Vienna in 1905. She emigrates with her parents at age three, and as a teenager, Esther is brought into Jimmy's grandparent's household to serve as an au pair. Irving (Avenue of Mysteries), who has tackled the issue of bigotry against sexual minorities in previous novels, subtly but persistently raises awareness here about the pervasiveness of antisemitism. It manifests in the townspeople's genteel-seeming bigotry, and surfaces in Esther's native Austria, where Jimmy spends his junior year of college, feeling the first stirrings of his dream to become a writer.

With its New England and Vienna settings, presence of a handful of wrestlers, prominent role of an animal, and lots of talk about sexual subjects, many of Irving's familiar tropes are here to delight his longtime readers. At its heart, Queen Esther is a gentle story about identity and family, the one we're born into and the one that, if we're fortunate, grows organically out a lifetime of loving relationships. It clearly reflects John Irving's compassion and generosity of spirit, recognizing our flaws while still focusing on what's best in us. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Anna North (Outlawed) crafts a narrative of contemporary climate change and ancient druidic history in Bog Queen. This wise and compelling novel grounds the human experience in the long arc of time and poses questions of preservation and legacy through the stories of two women who lived centuries apart and the moss that connects them.

When a woman's body is dug up in a bog in Ludlow, in northwest England, the medical examiner calls on Agnes, a forensic anthropologist. Agnes has "this gift, everyone said it, an instinct for the body and its forms," and her instinct tells her the woman is centuries old, held in the bog "safe under the surface, in [a] bath of earth, for many times her lifespan." As Agnes works to discover who the woman was, she is caught up in conflicting forces surrounding the Ludlow bog: climate activists determined to reflood the bog, companies set on extracting as much peat as possible from it, and developers determined to build new housing atop it.

North moves between Agnes's timeline and the life of the bog queen, a young druid in early Roman Britain. The two women live different lives, in different eras, yet both strive to expand their worlds and move beyond the expectations placed on them by men. Interludes from the bog itself, a living organism and ecosystem, provide the knowledge and perspective of millennia. With layers as dense and interconnected as the bog moss itself, The Bog Queen pays tribute to the persistent forces of nature, the stories humans tell, the stories they live, and the legacies they leave behind. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

An abandoned lighthouse with a gory history attracts a group of ghost hunters in Widow's Point by father-son writing team Richard and W.H. Chizmar. The locals of Harper's Cove, Nova Scotia, consider the Widow's Point lighthouse, built in 1838, to be haunted and cursed. It has been locked up tight since 1988, after decades of bizarre incidents and deaths within and around the premises. But in 2017, author Thomas Livingston gains access for a three-day stay to investigate rumors of its haunting--only to never be seen again, his camera and audio recordings the only chilling remnant of his experience.

In October 2025 a ghost-hunting team arrives to stay for a week within the cold, creaking confines. Joining them is Harper's Cove native and professor Catherine Durand, an author specializing in haunted places, who returns after 33 years to confront the one haunt she has avoided her entire life. The experiment devolves quickly from a spooky lark to a hypnotic descent into horrifying chaos as the lighthouse begins to wake up. The events are revealed through a combination of handheld and stationary camera footage, sound recordings, and Durand's written journal, providing multiple eerie points of view from characters, stairways, and living quarters. These slick narrative devices crank up the freak factor as readers get a 360-degree panorama of nightmarish images. Widow's Point is the ultimate written found footage story that taps into contemporary cinematic and social media trends for peak sinister impact. --Peggy Kurkowski, book reviewer in Denver

In her seventh historical novel, Sonora, Jenni L. Walsh arrestingly captures the trials and triumphs of horse diver Sonora Webster. Walsh's first-person narrative traces Sonora's journey from scrappy small-town girl to poised, accomplished performer as she overcomes hardships she never anticipated.

Prodded by her mother to answer a newspaper ad seeking a horse diver, in 1923 Sonora joins Dr. W.F. "Doc" Carver and his traveling act, and she learns to mount a running horse and dive 40 feet into a water tank. While the riding and especially the diving prove a challenge, Sonora must also navigate the tricky dynamics between Doc and his adult children, particularly his son, Al. Sonora quickly falls in love with her new career, even urging her sister, Arnette, to come visit and try horse diving herself. But the road ahead is full of obstacles--including the Great Depression and Doc's declining health.

Walsh expertly conveys Sonora's love for her profession, capturing quiet moments with the horses and the thrill of high diving in a scarlet swimsuit. More subtly, she shows Sonora's growing confidence and the ways a performing career offered power and agency to women at a time when they had only recently gained the right to vote. When an accident threatens Sonora's beloved career, she must dig deep to find the courage to dive again--not only from the tower but also into a whole new life.

With pulse-pounding drama, dry humor, and lots of heart, Sonora is a fitting tribute to a woman who captured audiences with her glamour, guts, and courage. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

The Dinner Party, Viola van de Sandt's propulsive debut, is structured around one fraught dinner party and the far-reaching ramifications it has on Franca's life after a somewhat unwilling stint as its hostess. Franca's account of the doomed evening begins as a collection of facts in an unsent letter she is writing at the behest of her therapist. Her report of the meal is carefully organized, starting with prep and mise en place and continuing right up to the sickly sweet spill of chocolate frosting at dessert. But amid that careful organization is lurking "that business with the knife," the alluded-to denouement of the evening that launches Franca out of her constructed life and into something for which she has no menu, no plan, no recipe--something that, if she can only get there, might feel begin to feel like freedom.

Van de Sandt moves expertly through time in The Dinner Party, weaving together past and present to great effect. The intimate dinner party, thrown at the insistence of Franca's partner, is meant to celebrate a successful investment in his portfolio--and represent the role Franca plays as a dutiful housewife-to-be. With her therapist's support, Franca fills in some of the blanks of her memory around the event and the ways those lost memories and forgotten traumas hide within a person: her father's early death and her mother's year-long silence afterward.

With sharp prose and emotional clarity, The Dinner Party is the tale of one woman coming to know about herself and about life, a breathtaking, fast-paced tale of a woman's hurt and rage and anger and despair and becoming. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

A young woman's escape from a troubling family legacy hangs in the balance in Cursed Daughters by Nigerian British writer Oyinkan Braithwaite. With scenes set in the present and forays into the past capturing the generational scope of her story, Braithwaite (My Sister, the Serial Killer) blends satire and high drama to deliver a spectacular saga glowing with romance and otherworldly intrigue.

The women of the Falodun family of Lagos, Nigeria, have struggled under a curse for five generations. The malediction was originally placed on their beguiling ancestress Feranmi by her husband's scorned first wife, who warned that Feranmi's female descendants would never find lasting love. The curse seems to be working. The Falodun ancestral home is a refuge for those heartbroken by absconding husbands and weak-willed lovers.

Braithwaite's stellar storytelling is boosted by her skillfully crafted characters. For charismatic Monife, the pivotal center of Cursed Daughters, her failed relationship with Kalu has as much to do with the curse as her fear of it. Heartbroken over Kalu's betrayal, Monife drowns and then is buried on the very day her cousin gives birth to Eniiyi. Eniiyi's startling resemblance to Monife leads to superstitious chatter about reincarnation, and her childhood is weighed down by the haunting shadow of her dead aunty. As a college graduate, Eniiyi pursues a career as a genetic counselor.

Curse or not, when love comes for Eniiyi, it does so with a force that leaves her smitten and leads to a long overdue collision course with mysteries from Monife's past. The fallout is devastating yet Braithwaite's masterful conclusion finds hope in the enduring power of love. --Shahina Piyarali

The Cracks We Bear, a raw, spare novel sparked by new motherhood, marks a joint English-language debut for Chilean author/publisher Catalina Infante Beovic and translator Michelle Mirabella, who previously translated Infante Beovic's short stories.

Laura birthed Antonia with "animalistic screams." What Laura wanted most to have during the delivery was her mother Esther's Santa Teresa medal, which Esther would "always put on when she was afraid to face things." But the medal is lost, and Esther long dead. "You don't just miss a mother who dies; it's another emotion, difficult to name," Laura muses. Without her own mother, Laura's journey into parenthood feels like a dark enigma. Antonia overwhelms Laura: "I can't do this... I don't want to be a mom." Laura was just 18 when Esther died, their relationship complicated and painful in life.

As Laura embraces Antonia, she realizes, about Esther, that "trying to understand who you were, what we were" will always be intertwined with her own experience of motherhood. Laura's "therapist says relationships are full of cracks, that they're... these ordinary earthen jugs that have been pieced back together over and over again." Infante Beovic illuminates these cracks with longing and loneliness, exhaustion and first smiles. Her sharp insights are revelatory, reframing an "irrefutable," joyful photograph as evidence that mother and daughter face a coming rift.

Mirabella's translator's note adds her own transformative experience with The Cracks We Bear, which she first read in 2022 "as a daughter" and finished translating as a mother, having since had her own daughter. With empathic perception, author and translator present a nuanced, haunting journey of new (and old) motherhood. --Terry Hong

The question of whether an artist should tell another person's story animates Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor (Real Life), a literary provocation that probes notions of grace, morality, free will, and the role of artists in the debate over society's most pressing issues. Wyeth is a gay, Black artist who shares a Manhattan studio with several other creatives. He has made a series of paintings inspired by films from European cinema, most notably Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light and the works of French New Wave director Éric Rohmer. Wyeth replicated stills from Rohmer's work, but with Black people instead of white characters. When he sold one such painting, "people thought [he] was talking about Floyd and Kaepernick," a misunderstanding that led to disappointment in his future work.

Anyone who makes art will feel the tug of Wyeth's dilemma, rendered in heartfelt scenes infused with philosophical brooding, as he searches for a new subject. He's soldiering through a job at a gallery and another one with an Upper West Side restorer, and he seethes over a collective called MangoWave, artists who "were geniuses at turning the game of social capital into paintings. They were simply doing it with brown people and calling it radical." When Wyeth begins a relationship with Keating, a white man "on a break" from his time as a Jesuit priest, Wyeth thinks he may have found that elusive theme. Nothing is that simple, however, as readers discover in this fine novel, a complex work unafraid to raise profound moral questions. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Donna Freitas's Her One Regret explores what one of her characters calls "the last taboo of motherhood." At once a rocket-paced crime tale of suspense and a thoughtful examination of cultural dictates about motherhood, this novel of women's lives and relationships excels as both entertainment and a call to difficult but necessary conversations.

On a gorgeous, early fall afternoon, Lucy loads groceries alongside her nine-month-old daughter, Emma. Then begins Part I: Lucy has vanished; Emma is found, alone, crying, but perfectly fine, in the parking lot. The small Rhode Island community is horrified, united in a search for the missing mother. But then it is revealed that Lucy had recently confided in her best friend, Michelle, that she regretted having Emma. She had fantasized about staging her own disappearance. The community and the nation erupt in harsh judgment.

The rest of Freitas's narrative jumps between the lives of four local women. Michelle is devastated by her best friend's disappearance, in love with her own role as mother, but galvanized to defend her friend. Diana, a retired detective, is drawn to Lucy's case and its similarities to other vanished women. And then there is Julia, whose baby is the same age as Emma. Julia sees herself in Lucy, shares the fantasy of escape, and now watches as the world condemns her parallel self. Her desperation feels like an emergency no one around her will acknowledge.

Freitas (Consent) relates these lives, and quiet--or in Lucy's case, suddenly very public--struggles with nuance and compassion. Her One Regret is purposefully thought-provoking and a riveting mystery--a masterpiece of duality, not soon forgotten. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

A young hacker is pulled from the quiet life she has built for herself to solve the mystery of a missing dream artist in All That We See or Seem, the first in a gripping science-fiction thriller series from Ken Liu (The Hidden Girl; The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories).

Julia Z gained notoriety in her past as the "orphan hacker." Now, she maintains a minimal digital footprint and struggles to pay the bills. But when lawyer Piers Neri comes to her for help to determine whether a ransom video for his missing wife is legitimate and, if so, where she might be, Julia winds up in the alleged kidnapper's crosshairs.

Piers's wife, Elli Krantz, is an oneirofex, an artist who weaves together the dreams of an audience for a "vivid dreaming" experience. The video came from someone she had been dreaming with one-on-one, and to free her, he demands that Piers send him something he claims Elli took.

Liu has created an inventive vision of an AI future, full of thrilling near escapes by engaging and clever characters. Julia's inclination toward anonymity means she has never participated in vivid dreaming; discovering what the ransomer wants will require her to find new ways to use her hacking skills, manipulating the remnants of files from vivid dreams that were never intended to be recoverable. All That We See or Seem does not contain much moral ambiguity, but Liu's thoroughly despicable villains here are nonetheless fun foils for Julia's heroism. Readers will be eager for the next installment of Julia's adventures. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

In Jim C. Hines's sassy and adventurous contemporary paranormal fantasy Slayers of Old, a middle-aged slayer, a demon working at becoming a more involved grandmother, and an elderly wizard who share a magical house-cum-bookstore must team up against the arcane, the evil, and the dangers of overindulging in dairy.

Jenny was fated to life as a monster-slaying Hunter of Artemis by a millennia-old council of elders who "bound young girls to a life of power and violence, never realizing just how creepy and messed-up that was." Now 56 years old and estranged from the council and her goddess, she heals the less-harmful creatures she once hunted and runs a bookstore with her housemates Annette, a retired half-human, half-succubus private eye whose career left her with strained family ties, and Temple, a once-mighty wizard who at 99 is showing signs of flagging strength. Their fragile peace shatters when a shadowy figure tries to raise an ancient, malevolent force. They must band together to save their town and the world, and maybe, finally, defeat their personal demons.

Hines (the Magic Ex Libris series) riffs on tropes and characters from the paranormal urban fantasy trends of the 1990s and early 2000s in this wisecracking, endearing speculation on how versions of a few favorite characters might have approached navigating their later years. The butt-kicking action scenes, dark atmosphere, and world-building and lore that made the subgenre a hit are very much in evidence in this story of found family and fighting for what matters. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Akwaeke Emezi (Freshwater; The Death of Vivek Oji) builds twists and turns into the plot of Son of the Morning, a propulsive story that brims with sexy scenes and sensual details as it literally straddles Heaven and Hell--and the mortal Earth between them.

Galilee knows she is not like her "sisters." She feels loved in her all-woman community, but she senses unease from some of the others. Bees swarm around her protectively, and she has a gift for healing. Once she turns 25, Galilee sets out for the nearby U.S. city of Salvation to live on her own.

She meets wealthy Oriakụ and horror writer Bonbon. Oriakụ invites the two to her father's palatial house to view an ancient artifact, but the guards that protect it bar their entry and call in their boss, Helel. Galilee sees him, and the effect is instant and electric. What follows is some of the hottest sex put to page, and their union leads to the collision of Heaven and Hell. The artifact serves as a gate holding back the demons of Hell, and those demons' escape could mean "holy obliteration" for Lucifer (Helel's true identity) and his princes.

Emezi, with whiffs of William Blake, brilliantly reframes questions around Lucifer's fall and its role in the birth of imagination. This breathtaking novel will have readers questioning the definitions of angel and devil, good and evil, right alongside Galilee. The angels and devils make their cases to win her; her choice could save the world--or destroy it. Only Galilee can free herself and, in so doing, experience her own limitless powers to heal. --Jennifer M. Brown

A people pleaser falls for the Christmas ghost assigned to haunt her in Good Spirits, an incandescent holiday romance by B.K. Borison (First-Time Caller; Business Casual). Irish fisherman Nolan Callahan has spent the last century as a Ghost of Christmas Past, helping people change their ways before it's too late. When he appears before Harriet York, however, what should be a simple task--revisiting some of Harriet's memories and forcing her to reckon with her bad behavior--proves difficult. Reindeer-pajama-wearing Harriet has no idea what she's done; she's not only full of Christmas spirit but she's also a good person who does her best to make others happy.

As they spend time in Harriet's memories and grow closer, Nolan's magic starts behaving in unusual ways. He wonders whether he'll be able to complete his assignment by Christmas Eve and what will happen to his and Harriet's deepening relationship when he must leave.

Borison balances Nolan's vocational and existential woes with a full narrative arc for Harriet. Ever since she quit her legal career and took over her aunt's antiques shop, Harriet has worked to brighten the days of everyone around her, including her status-obsessed parents. Processing her past with a sexy ghost may be just the boost she needs to finally prioritize the things and people that make her happy in the present.

Good Spirits is everything reader could want from a holiday romance: plenty of cozy and toe-curling scenes, Christmas magic, and two good people falling in love. Fans of Christina Lauren's In a Holidaze and the Hallmark movie The Spirit of Christmas should put this on their wishlist. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian

Sister Helen Prejean's bestselling memoir, Dead Man Walking, becomes a graphic masterpiece with a script by Rose Vines, who's worked closely with Prejean since 2002, and superb illustrations by award-winning Swedish Kenyan artist Catherine Anyango Grünewald. In the appended timeline that highlights relevant events since the memoir's 1993 publication, the penultimate entry marks Donald Trump's November 2024 promise of "dramatically expanding the use of the death penalty." That threat underscores the gravity of introducing Prejean's classic to new generations.

As a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of New Orleans, Prejean initially reluctantly "assented" to the 1980s "reform movement sweeping the Catholic Church that harnessed religious faith to social justice." When asked, she agreed to write to a death-row inmate as part of her newfound commitment to act against systemic injustice. The resulting transformative relationship with convicted rapist/murderer Elmo Patrick Sonnier ignited her lifelong activism against the death penalty. Without ever minimizing heinous crimes, Prejean recognizes and respects individual humanity, exposing the inhumanity of legalized execution.

Grünewald's remarkable visual adaptation incorporates complicated layers of morality, race, socioeconomics, and legal failures faced by prisoners, staff, victims' survivors, supporters, detractors. She brilliantly captures Prejean's complex internal struggles. Grünewald line draws in grayscale, with colorful splashes and shading for highlights and emphasis; rare but glorious are the full-color panels and pages. A dual chorus comprised of a challenging ant ("Is this an evisceration of the Eighth Amendment?") and knowing owl ("So it would seem") adds pithy commentary. In its artfully potent incarnation, this profound accomplishment deserves significant readership. --Terry Hong

Sleepless Planet, Maureen Burdock's second graphic narrative (after Queen of Snails), combines memoir, cultural critique, and medical research in a lively and enlightening exploration of insomnia as a global problem and a symptom of societal and ecological imbalance.

Having struggled with insomnia for most of her life, Burdock embarked upon a journey to root out the causes and get some sleep. She details that journey in four parts, corresponding to the elements: "Air," "Fire," "Earth," and "Water." In "Air," Burdock looks at methods of alleviating sleep apnea, more common now due to soft-food diets, and learns to play the didgeridoo. In "Fire," she examines the effects of menopause and stress on sleep and discusses how overmedication with hormones and statins increases metabolic issues. "Earth" considers circadian rhythms and how exposure to screens disrupts sleep, and "Water" appraises meditation as a helpful tool with which to fight insomnia. Burdock shares well-documented research dispelling myths about nutrition and the dangers of mass-produced seed oils and ultraprocessed foods, and offers some useful cognitive behavioral therapy exercises to break the insomnia cycle.

Through her intricate and often whimsical illustrations, Burdock uses humor to great effect, complementing her discerning analysis. A helpful koala named Kiki backs up Burdock's narrative with relevant facts, for example, and drawings of beds transformed into monsters with teeth perfectly convey the anxiety of sleeplessness. Although insomniacs may not have access to all the resources Burdock employs in her ultimately successful quest for sleep, every reader will find useful information in this intelligent, heartfelt, and beautifully illustrated work. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor

British food journalist Bee Wilson turns her keen eye on kitchenware--and the deep emotions it engenders--in her engaging, insightful ninth book, The Heart-Shaped Tin. Wilson (First Bite) delves into the varied roles of cherished kitchen objects. She draws together meticulous research; interviews with chefs, immigrants, and others who hold dear their often-used kitchenware; and her own experience with her kitchen paraphernalia as she navigated her divorce, her mother's dementia and death, and her two older children leaving home.

Wilson recounts the incident that sparked the book: the titular heart-shaped tin, an enduring symbol of her marriage, fell out of its cupboard just months after her husband left her. Wilson kept the tin, but knew she wasn't yet ready to use it for any new, post-divorce occasions. Instead, she began searching for other people who harbored "intense and even magical feelings" about their kitchen items.

As she describes the objects and examines the meaning they hold for their owners, Wilson broadens her exploration to well-known cooking artifacts, such as the "poetry jars" made by enslaved American potter David Drake in the mid-19th century. She muses on cultural associations with cooking and serving food, but also with owning prestige objects, like her mother's cream-colored Aga stove.

Wilson's heart-shaped tin gets its redemptive turn when Wilson bakes her milestone birthday cake in it. She shares the cake with her children, and honors her mother by pulling out her mother's cherished set of platters.

Poignant, thought-provoking, and lavishly detailed, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a moving tribute to the objects that shape our lives in (and out of) the kitchen. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Most people's first glimpse of Tim Curry was probably as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the "sweet transvestite from Transylvania," in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But as Curry's delightful memoir, Vagabond, shows, the British actor's prolific career began with his 1968 debut in the London stage production of Hair.

With a strong, affable voice, Curry warns readers not to expect a gossipy tell-all, an assertion he sticks with as he frankly recounts his life but never gives hints about his loves. Actors, he notes, were "considered rogues and vagabonds" during William Shakespeare's time. That could easily describe Curry's childhood and profession, careening from project to project. He was born in Cheshire in 1946, and his family's frequent moves due to his father's work as a Royal Navy chaplain taught him "the scope and powers of my own imagination." His father died from pneumonia following a stroke at age 45, when Curry was 11. His often-distant mother didn't allow him or his 15-year-old sister, Judy, to attend the funeral. He later discovered theater at boarding school.

Curry enthusiastically reminisces about his stage, screen, and voice acting career (13 pages of credits shows just how active), offering insight on iconic roles (Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Pennywise, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) without preciousness, and approaching the smallest or most villainous roles with equal aplomb. He also discusses bouts with alcohol and drugs, as well as the 2012 stroke that caused him to use a wheelchair. When he does mention other figures in show business, it is with respect and gratitude, a recurring theme of this highly entertaining memoir. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

Historian Joseph J. Ellis (Founding Brothers; The Cause) takes on the creation of the United States and the Constitutional Convention in The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding. He discusses the contemporary tendency to place Washington, Jefferson, and other founders on pedestals and focuses on their two enormous failures: the violent displacement of Native Americans and the continued brutal enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Africans.

Ellis argues that a significant reason why the founders avoided the questions of slavery and land seizures is that "moral blindness made eminent economic sense." Thus from the beginning, the U.S. ignored the advice of Benjamin Franklin to put slavery on the national agenda, resulting in the Civil War and centuries of racism and injustice. Similarly, for the Native American populations of the new United States, victory in the American Revolution "proved an unmitigated calamity," setting the republic on a path that ultimately culminated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

Leaning on new research about the Atlantic Slave Trade and primary documentation from the previous books he has written, Ellis covers these contested historical origin stories in fresh and intriguing ways. The Great Contradiction pulls no punches about the flaws of the founding fathers: "Next to the failure to end slavery, or at least put it on the road to extinction, the inability to reach a just accommodation with the Native Americans was the greatest failure of the revolutionary generation. And they knew it." Fans of U.S. history--or those who recognize "the presumption of white supremacy that had its origins and first chapter in the American founding"--are sure to appreciate The Great Contradiction. --Jessica Howard, former bookseller, freelance book reviewer

Johnny Carson (1925-2005) hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years, racking up 23,000 guests. Not quite as impressive but an accomplishment just the same: comedian Mark Malkoff hosted The Carson Podcast for eight years, notching 400 guests. Many of them--largely Tonight Show couch sitters and insiders--shared invaluable and record-correcting insights that Malkoff includes in his beguiling valentine, Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan's Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend.

The book probably contains just enough of Carson's backstory to meet the legal definition of a biography. While Malkoff touches on his subject's middle-class Midwestern upbringing, his focus is the show that Carson began hosting in 1962, when he took over for Jack Paar. Malkoff submits that Carson's Tonight Show worked because of his "cordiality, calmness, cool, warmth, wit, and love"--qualities that the book demonstrates coexisted with some offscreen character flaws (philandering, emotionally distant parenting). The careers of Carson's guests had a way of exploding following their Tonight Show appearances (see Jay Leno and Joan Rivers). Meanwhile, Carson had a retaliative streak that was out in full force when a guest crossed him (see Jay Leno and Joan Rivers).

Love Johnny Carson can read like an oral history as Malkoff's podcast interviewees assess Carson's talents and dissect his monologues and skits to determine how the comedy sausage was made. Like a golden-age talk show, Malkoff's book is a breezy entertainment with an easygoing style that conceals all the grueling work that surely went into making it. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

In the hilarious, outrageous, and heartwarming novel Busted by Dan Gemeinhart, a 12-year-old rule follower unwillingly teams up with an ex-mobster and a snarky girl to get cash for his grandfather's skyrocketing rent.

Oscar Aberdeen has lived his entire life with his grandfather, Pops, at the Sunny Days Retirement Community, and it shows. His language ("humdinger," "malarkey," "hogwash") and cultural references (Frank Sinatra, PBS NewsHour) skew 80-something. His strict sense of responsibility, which at Sunny Days includes planning anniversary parties, playing bridge, and giving eulogies, makes him an honorary grandson for most of the residents. Life is "a-okay," until the rent is raised impossibly high and Oscar and Pops face eviction. So, when new resident Jimmy "I wasn't no mobster" Deluca approaches Oscar with a "business proposition," Oscar is intrigued despite his tummy telling him no.

What follows is madcap entertainment on a cinematic scale. Oscar (who becomes "Kid Ravioli"), Jimmy ("the Wrench"), Jimmy's hairless cat, Mr. Buttercup, and 12-year-old tagalong Natasha ("No Nuts") embark on an over-the-top adventure that includes hot-wiring and stealing a car, visiting a prisoner ("Thumbs") in the state penitentiary, and joining a decades-old "illegal secret poker game." Jimmy is comically stereotypical as a mafia "fixer," and the dynamic among caustic Jimmy, uptight Oscar, and smart-aleck Natasha provides a droll tension throughout, especially since all three have (sometimes) hidden hearts of gold. In Busted, storyteller extraordinaire Gemeinhart (The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise; Some Kind of Courage) gives readers another thoroughly absorbing novel with nonstop action and lovable characters. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

Author Kristina Forest is known for writing warm, resonant romance for teens and adults. In Heartsick, a rapidly paced, YA romantic mystery, Black teens Margot and Isaac discover a pharmaceutical company is lying about the dangerous side effects of their extremely popular drug.

Senior Margot Whitman's college plans don't align with those of her controlling parents: Margot is serious about being a journalist, but her parents believe "jobs in print media aren't reliable anymore." They insist she intern at Healing Hearts Inc., the pharmaceutical company "responsible for the ingestible pill that can cure a person's heartbreak." Margot has even considered taking the $500 pill herself after her recent breakup with artistic Isaac Fisher. Nonetheless, she is shocked when Isaac shows up at Healing Hearts. Isaac, whose focus has been failing after the breakup, immediately regrets his decision when he sees Margot. He bolts, and Margot retreats to a back room where she overhears a one-sided conversation in which the COO mentions "patient complaints," "migraines," hospitalization for vomiting, and assures someone that these individuals "won't talk anymore." When Margot is discovered eavesdropping, Isaac helps her escape the center, but the teens are now on the run from a powerful corporation. Isaac, Margot, and all their complicated feelings must team up to tell people the truth about Healthy Hearts.

Forest (Zyla and Kai) provides a rapidly moving chase and sentimental love story with both mystery and thriller elements. Through the protagonists' first-person points of view, readers are invited to consider the morality and ethics around the idea of erasing heartbreak. Heartsick is a heart-healthy read for fans of Nicola Yoon and Jenny Han. --Natasha Harris, freelance writer

Author/artist Bee Johnson's second picture book, While We Wait, following 2024's What Can a Mess Make?, combines jaunty verse with inviting full-color spreads that capture a spirited day of errands for a parent and two young children. The handwritten "to do" list on the refrigerator, appended with a "BE BACK SOON"-Post-it from Dad, provides a clever preview of what's ahead even before the title page.

Leaving home is rather chaotic: an unfinished cereal bowl on the table, a frantic search for "phone and wallet./ Missing bag." The waiting siblings energetically pass the time with "chase and tag" before the trio finally heads out the door. While the parent shops at the summer market, a drummer and playful dog provide welcome distractions. As adults chat outside the vintage shop, a friendly Dalmatian invites attention; inside, the hats, glasses, and fancy dress prove too irresistible to not "make a mess." Hunger, alas, causes the kids to "fall apart," but an after-lunch rainstorm provides an opportunity for a joyful "stomp and splash" to end a day of "miles walked and/ errands run." After "soup for supper./ Bellies fed," it's finally time to go "off to bed."

Johnson's illustrations build a visual story that enhances her staccato rhyming text. Every page brims with revealing details--a fondness for dinosaurs, a friend's fabulous personal style, the end-of-day exhaustion. The morning's to-do list, visibly completed in the evening's darkness, poignantly reveals still-missing Dad, albeit a "LOVE YOU" note in child-like letters will welcome him home. The trio's joyful togetherness provides the perfect antidote to waiting. --Terry Hong

Sibert Medal-winning author Kevin Maillard (Fry Bread, with Juana Martinez-Neal) tenderly explores the ache of loss in And They Walk On, with luminous art by Pura Belpré-winning illustrator Rafael López (The Day You Begin, with Jacqueline Woodson). Speaking in the intimate, first-person voice of an Indigenous child, the story opens with a question: "When someone walks on, where do they go?"

In a note at book's end, Maillard (Seminole Nation) explains that "walked on" is a term used by many Native people in place of "passed" or "died." Hints woven through his poetic text and López's radiant illustrations reveal the person who has "walked on" was a beloved elder. Readers glimpse their world through small, cherished details: their scarf alive with vivid, geometric designs (into which López, of Mexican descent, weaves his own cultural influences); warm grape dumplings; and their flower-print apron for cooking. "Because of the magic of food," the narrator says, "I travel through time," recalling moments of joy spent cooking together. (The author even includes his grape dumpling recipe in the back of the book.) These memories, presented in gentle flashes, honor not only the bond they shared but the rhythms and passions of a life lived well.

López's illustrations imbue each scene with warmth and presence, even in moments of sorrow. Through glowing yellows and soft pinks, López evokes both the sense of presence and the ache of absence. And They Walk On provides a compassionate space for children to contemplate loss through its affectionate narration, sensory details, and effervescent illustrations. Maillard and López remind readers that mourning can coexist with joy and that, even in that absence, presence lingers. --Julie Danielson

A queer, rural midwestern girl makes it big in this delicious deep dive into the career of the fierce, hardworking pop star Chappell Roan. The book is as sparkly, quirky, and authentic as the artist herself, jam-packed with photos and enticing page-high pull quotes like, "I want to see if I can get away with being as ridiculous as I possibly can."

Chappell's story is inspirational for anyone who doesn't fit in or have the connections and resources to follow their dreams. Harbert Day captures the topsy-turvy progression of the star from her awkward, uncomfortable childhood as Kayleigh Rose Amstutz to her "campy," magical life as a musical phenomenon, especially in the LGBTQ+ community. Day writes in a warm, intimate, and informal style, as when she describes some of the upsides to stardom for Chappell: "Perhaps the weirdest thing about becoming famous... was receiving a call from Elton John." Day pays particular attention to the artist's cherished collaborators and inspirations, describing how Chappell discovered drag and burlesque and the way she constantly seeks out the best people to work with, even if they have different styles and approaches. Day doesn't shy away from the star's challenges, including professional setbacks; mental health issues; her fear of judgment from a conservative family, school, and community; and coming to terms with her sexuality.

Chappell Roan: A Vibrant Journey Through the Career and Influence of the Indie-Pop Superstar is pure, empowering indulgence for fans who want far more than tabloid tales of the Gen Z pop star. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor