Jessica Winter's The Fourth Child is an accomplished follow-up to her debut, Break in Case of an Emergency. It follows a mother and daughter through the difficult adoption of the family's fourth child. Jane Brennan's aspirations to earn a degree in child development are cut short when she becomes pregnant in high school. Years later, Jane has married her quick-to-anger high school boyfriend and is raising three children: Lauren (the oldest) and two sons. Still searching for meaning, Jane adopts Mirela, a traumatized Romanian toddler. While Jane becomes more involved in pro-life protests and in finding the correct care for Mirela, Lauren falls under the influence of her controlling drama teacher, Ted Smith. As Lauren's relationship with Ted escalates, Jane soon cannot ignore what is happening to her oldest daughter while her youngest daughter remains in crisis. 

Distinct but equally insightful, both Jane's and Lauren's perspectives shine in this story of adolescent yearnings, motherly devotion and what it means to be beholden to others. In confronting topical controversies such as international adoption, Catholic conservatism, abortion and underaged consent, The Fourth Child develops its nuanced characters in a way that offers more questions than answers. Where Jane's narrative is deliberately paced, exacting and filled with longing, Lauren's is intense, compulsive and sometimes haunting. Together, they present a mother-daughter relationship that is both troubled and loving, enduring yet vulnerable. Rather than becoming caricatures of mother-daughter stereotypes, both women emerge as individuals caught in a net of complex relations who understand, perhaps too well, the roles they are meant to perform. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

New York University student Matt Pine thought he had a terrible night when his girlfriend dumped him, until FBI agents show up to give him even worse news: his family has been found dead in Tulum, Mexico. His dad, mom, kid sister and six-year-old brother--all gone. With no signs of struggles, the scene appears to show the family perished in an accidental gas leak, but is it too neatly staged? And what were the Pines doing in Mexico anyway? These are the questions posed at the start of Alex Finlay's riveting Every Last Fear.

The only other surviving member of Matt's immediate family is his older brother, Danny, who's in prison for a murder made famous by a Netflix documentary. Matt is now the only Pine left who can uncover the truth about his family's demise, which may be linked to the killing Danny was convicted of seven years earlier. Before long, Matt learns someone is trying to terminate him, too.

The pseudonymous Finlay propels his plot forward with tight prose and well-timed revelations, from both after and before the Pines' deaths in Mexico. The Before chapters are told from the viewpoints of Evan, Matt's father; his mother, Liv; and his sister, Maggie, allowing readers to get to know Matt's family and feel the weight of his loss. The identity of the villain will likely not surprise crime fiction fans, and a subplot about a mob syndicate is unnecessary, but Every Last Fear provides satisfying character development while maintaining a breakneck pace. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

For gay men in New York City, the 1990s were an era complicated by greater visibility in liberation, higher mortality from AIDS and anti-queer violent crime that still benefited from the insidious "gay panic" defense. Amid this milieu, another, more lurid threat flirted with the denizens of Midtown piano bars: a serial killer. Journalist Elon Green stumbled upon the story in a search engine misfire and followed the grisly trail to assemble the haunting true-crime account Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York.

The dismembered bodies began surfacing by accident in 1991--in a trash bag in Pennsylvania, another in New Jersey, another in New York's Rockland County. Had the discoveries not been so similarly gruesome, Green observes, the detectives might not have connected the crimes outside their respective jurisdictions.

Green is a considerate chronicler of the times and does due diligence to place these shocking deaths within the context of more commonplace violence against queer people. He also crafts moving portraits of the murder victims while underscoring the arc of the AIDS epidemic, the numerous lives lost to it and the tragedy of those whose stories are left untold. The criminal investigation, though, ends with rather unsatisfying omissions, a conclusion perhaps to be expected after a decade of policing fumbles and the killer's refusal of Green's interview requests. A mountain of evidence landed a conviction in 2005, but the perpetrator's motive and crime scene remain foggy. Nonetheless, Last Call is a poignant memorial for the victims, who sought companionship in spite of everything, and a generation whose world turned upside down. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness

Professors of communication Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner offer a map to understanding the toxicity of the media environment today; how it got that way; how it is part of the United States' overarching history; and what, if anything, might be done about it. You Are Here cleverly uses pollution as a metaphor throughout to describe what the authors term a media environment crisis. They draw on concrete examples of pollution, human interventions in ecological environments and climate change to illustrate and make explicit the ways society and Internet culture spread bad or toxic information.

Importantly, Phillips and Milner show that the problems of today are tied to media constructions of the 1980s, as well as parallel post-Civil War journalism practices. They highlight conspiracy theories, the history of trolling and how even those with the best intentions can inadvertently serve to amplify problematic media and voices. These historical contexts add depth to an analysis of the current moment that argues against the idea that the present day is a purely unprecedented time, divorced from any other points in U.S. history. Novel to the authors' approach is their focus on how whiteness has shaped Internet culture, naming something outright that has been identified by BIPOC in Internet spaces for years. Both of these components bolster the call for a network ethics that shifts the focus from users as individuals to how people are connected, in order to reshape media literacy itself and address the problems of the current media landscape and where it is headed. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Jess Zimmerman (Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven with Jaya Saxena) brings a fresh perspective to 11 monstrous female figures in this expansive essay collection.

Harpies, Furies, Medusa, Lamia, the Sirens, the Chimera, Charybdis, the Sphinx: these creatures and others have for centuries held iconic status beyond their original roles in Greek mythology. From the start, Zimmerman makes it clear that what she presents is not a classicist's perspective on their meaning in literature. She offers instead a survey of how these figures have entered modern consciousness and how they relate to traits that are feared in women. Using Homeric versions of the legends, the retellings by Ovid and more, Zimmerman launches into explorations of ambition, hunger, sexuality and ugliness. Traits that cultural constraints would paint as monstrous can bring women suffering, but she also illustrates how, when wielded properly, they can be a source of power. In the right hands, the characteristics that make them monstrous might also make a hero. Intimate reflections on how these traits have influenced Zimmerman's own life offer a personal touch that balances the larger cultural considerations of insults used against women in politics, or how teenage sexuality is depicted in a music video.

Fans of Circe by Madeline Miller and Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly alike will be engrossed by this insightful collection. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

Patrick Dean's first book, A Window to Heaven: The Daring First Ascent of Denali: America's Wildest Peak, is both a compelling biography and a first-class adventure story. Showcasing Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, the unusual leader of the first expedition successfully to ascend Denali in 1913, A Window to Heaven is fascinating reading.

Stuck was born in England, spent time as a rancher in Texas, attended an Episcopal seminary in Tennessee and ultimately found his true calling in Alaska. The state's wild nature called out to Stuck, who loved outdoor pursuits, and who was "an outspoken and controversial advocate for indigenous rights." Stuck decided to climb Denali with a team that included several native Alaskans, hoping to stop the renaming of the peak, and bring worldwide attention to the decline of the Indigenous population in the wake of the Klondike gold rush. It would take more than a century for Stuck's wish to come true--Mount McKinley officially reverted to Denali in 2015--but this fiery clergyman was an early influence on the gradual process of change.

The first half of A Window to Heaven follows Stuck's amazing life, and the second half is devoted to the climb itself. Modern climbers who wish to ascend Denali are usually dropped on its lower slopes by plane. In 1913, Stuck and his team had to endure a six-week dogsled and boat journey just to reach the base of the mountain and begin their ascent. Their full journey to the summit and back took more than three months, and is an astounding tale of courage and determination. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

Youthful romance has made Mary H.K. Choi (Permanent Record; Emergency Contact) a bestselling #OwnVoices author. In Yolk, she pivots effectively toward the familial, focusing the most significant of the book's relationships on two Seoul-born, San Antonio-raised sisters. Devoted audiences need not worry here about missing a love story--what lingers longest is the resonating, multifaceted story of Jayne and June Baek.

Once upon a time, the sisters were so close as to be mistaken for twins; as adolescents, their relationship devolved into relentless antagonism and occasional violence. In high school, June turned inward and studious while Jayne was more desperate for social acceptance and approval. As young women, the pair have become estranged New Yorkers. At 20, Jayne is a distressed design school student, living an hour away from her classes in a grim Brooklyn sublet. Just a block and a half from Jayne's school is June's shiny Manhattan doorman high-rise where Jayne has never been welcome--until the night June summons her. June has kept a distance from Jayne's seemingly endless dramas. Until now. June is sick. Really sick.

Like the Baek sisters, Choi is Korean-born, partially raised in Texas and then lived in New York as a young adult. While her author's note assures "This is a work of fiction," she also lays bare her "own history with disordered eating, dysmorphia, and bulimia." Her openness gives her narrative a seamless, insider fluency; her writing is consistently assured, her dialogue nimbly tuned, even her pain potently channeled through Jayne's struggles. As Choi moves the wary sisters toward reconciliation, the most difficult lesson they'll need to learn is embracing vulnerability--to discard harshness, admit need, accept help and draw strength from renewed connections. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

The Thieving Collectors of Fine Children's Books is a genre-bending, heart-pounding middle-grade romp into a potential future.

Ten-year old Oliver Nelson loves books so much, he has often wished he could live inside of some of his favorites. One of his best-loved books is an extremely rare copy of The Timekeeper's Children. Unfortunately, when he returns it to the library, it gets thrown out with the garbage. Ardent book collector Mr. Pribble loved The Timekeeper's Children as a child and is determined to add it to his collection. When Pribble learns the last remaining copy of the book has gone missing from the library--and Oliver was the last to check it out--he and his wife devise a scheme to get the book back. They decide to use Alternate Reality Goggles to transport themselves and Oliver into the boy's imagination--now the only place where the book still exists--and take it for themselves.

Adam Perry (The Magicians of Elephant County) turns children's literature inside out--almost literally--in The Thieving Collectors of Fine Children's Books. Blending fantasy, sci-fi, classic adventure and a touch of metafiction, Perry's inspired work manages to meet and simultaneously subvert reader expectations. The villainous Pribbles are delightfully reminiscent of Roald Dahl antagonists, while Oliver's real world--a high-tech future where kids spend more time in alternate reality goggles than in books--has entertaining notes of the Alex Award winner Ready Player One. Additionally, the narration is full of hints, nudges and fourth wall-breaking, reminiscent of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Perry's layered approach makes for a masterpiece that feels both familiar yet wholly new. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

The Two Fridas is an intriguing picture book. Gianluca Foli (Wild in the City) uses a small selection of Frida Kahlo's diary entries as his text and illustrates in a manner that channels Kahlo but does not reproduce her artistic style.

Kahlo kept an illustrated journal for many years as an adult; a "fragment of her diary" included childhood memories of an imaginary friend. The Two Fridas starts with an irresistible line from this journal: "I must have been six years old when I formed an intense imaginary friendship with a girl... who was more or less my age." Frida draws an imaginary door and crosses the street to a creamery called PINZÓN. "I would dive in through the Ó in PINZÓN and TUMBLE down to the inside of the earth, where 'my imaginary friend' was always waiting for me." Some will surely think of Narnia, Alice and her adventures or other magical journeys where a child is whisked into a different world.

The text of the journal, translated from the Spanish, is straightforward, with many descriptive passages. Foli, an Italian illustrator and graphic artist, uses his knowledge of Kahlo's paintings, her love of animals and some symbols from Mexican folk culture (calaveras, or decorated skull images, are in evidence on several pages) to create haunting illustrations incorporating black and white sketches that expand to include intensely colored sections as Frida's imaginary world grows. While Foli's art is entirely original, he includes nods to Kahlo's imagery throughout. An author's note at book's end provides information about Kahlo's life, giving more information to culturally and artistically curious kids. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer