In the eerie, dreamlike speculative love story Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw (A History of Wild Places), a woman encounters a fabled floating island and the enigmatic, ageless man who lives there.

Ellie has built herself a stable, predictable adult life after a childhood characterized by upheaval. Her mother sent her to stay with her grandmother in Nova Scotia and never reclaimed her. At age 12, Ellie took her Nana's boat into a storm and found the mythical floating island of Saltwell. When she returned to the mainland, she learned that she had been missing for a week. Now grown, Ellie works as a therapist in Seattle and has just received a marriage proposal from her handsome, reliable boyfriend, James. Everything is falling into place, but "when I close my eyes, I see the ocean." Then Saltwell reappears near the Faroe Islands, and Ellie gives in to the impulse to go there and prove once and for all whether the island exists.

She finds the island just as she remembers it, complete with one lonely house inhabited by the solitary Scotsman Clay Lockhart, who hasn't aged a day since she last saw him. The island drifts back out to sea before Ellie can return to the mainland. Then there's Clay, taciturn yet compelling, who rouses feelings in Ellie that James never could. She will have to make an almost impossible choice between a safe life and truly living. Ernshaw's intimate gothic drama plays out against a dangerous yet beautiful setting. This love story has grit, complexity, and a core of darkness under a patina of wildness and freedom. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

In It Will Come Back to You, Sigrid Nunez's wry, incisive 11th work (and first story collection), aging characters navigate volatile relationships and ponder memory and family legacies. All 13 stories originally appeared in literary magazines such as Harper's and the New Yorker.

Nunez (The Friend; The Vulnerables) has been deservedly lauded for her compassionate autofiction. A passenger is stranded in inhospitable circumstances in "Airport Story." Jury service unearths uncomfortable memories of an affair in "The Naked Juror." And in "Greensleeves," a woman laments her schizophrenic brother's behavior to a therapist, whose daughter is consumed by eco-anxiety.

Interest in other lives fuels epiphanies. Between college and law school, Phoebe lives in a crummy apartment building mostly occupied by immigrants; she wonders if her neighbor could be a sex worker in "Curiosity." Adolescent Elsie's impulsivity catches up with her in "Imagination" when she storms out of the farewell-to-summer party at her parents' country house, breaks her ankle, and startles a fox. The story ends on a delicious note of uncertainty.

Nostalgia and regret vie for position. The title story offers a melancholy end to the book as the narrator accepts hearing loss and interrogates her memories of her mother figure, 89-year-old "Aunt" Gilda. There are flashes of humor, too--chiefly in "It's All Good," in which a brother and sister hire a Brad Pitt impersonator to entertain their mother, who has dementia, at a Chinese restaurant.

Comparable to works by Elizabeth Strout and Deborah Levy, It Will Come Back to You is a captivating collection that resonates with themes of human vulnerability, memory triggers, generational patterns, and facing shame and bitterness. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Lady X by Molly Fader combines the coalition-building spirit of a protest with the adrenaline and can't-look-away shock of a fight, and the result is a defiantly feminist novel celebrating the powerful bonds of sisterhood, found family, and resistance. The narrative alternates between 2024, when Margot's perfect life is unraveling, and the sweltering summer of 1977, when both serial killer Son of Sam and "Lady X, mysterious feminist icon and violent vigilante" are terrorizing New York City. The earlier timeline explains how Lady X came to be, the women who became her family, and the reasons behind her destructive activism. Fader keeps the connection between these two points taut, gradually building the tension as Margot struggles against public disgrace and with newspaper clippings that suggest there's more to her mother than she knew.

Ever since the one-two punch of discovering her movie star husband Jack's wildly inappropriate indiscretions and the possibility of her mother's secret past, Margot has been sad: for herself and her kids, for the young women Jack preyed upon, for her once-unstoppable mom, who's withering in a care facility after the car crash that killed Margot's dad. Her sister, Julia, understands until she doesn't, pushing Margot to feel something more: "I love you, Margot. But when the fuck are you going to get angry?" Lady X depicts what happens when women who have been hurt, belittled, attacked, raped, or betrayed get angry. It invites women everywhere to get mad and to put that anger to work fighting back, reminding them that "any of us can be Lady X." --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Meg Richardson's first novel, Paradise Pawn, tackles a poignant coming-of-age in a colorful community. Jackie and her best friend, Kayla, have grown up side by side, working with their fathers in a pawn shop in Cherry Beach, Fla. They are adept at sales, bargaining, and assessing customer psychology. The challenges of growing up, however, prove more daunting.

The girls have always been inseparable, but now, at 14, their differences begin to make themselves apparent. Kayla is maturing more quickly, physically and otherwise, and Jackie fears being left behind; Kayla embraces or at least accepts change, whereas Jackie wishes she could freeze them both in time. The complications of being a 14-year-old girl are myriad: bodies, periods, shaving, sex, evolving friendships, new schools.

Class differences are becoming increasingly obvious, too. Poised to start high school, the girls plan to attend the exclusive St. Bridget's, for which Jackie's dad will take out a loan against his truck. When Kayla's scholarship doesn't come through, the girls hatch a plan. Paradise Pawn, which has been their home base all their lives, will either prove their salvation or their downfall.

Jackie is pulled in all directions at the cusp of girlhood. For all her naivete, she is compassionate and wise to the ways of humans. Richardson expertly portrays a Florida beach community in which the very rich live alongside the struggling, under stifling heat and a relentless pressure to appear cool and beautiful. Paradise Pawn captures the sweetness of female friendships and familial love, the pain of change and growth, and the absolute yearning of youth. This debut novel is funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

A con artist with no political experience convinces people that he cares about them and is divinely chosen to lead. What could go wrong? For those who don't know the answer, Ben Fountain (Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk) makes it clear in his therapeutically brittle satire Rasputin Swims the Potomac. The Supreme Court has ruled that the president of the United States, "a born-rich brat, a New York City real estate developer"--whose name is redacted throughout the novel--can serve a third term. He's in a chipper mood until, as reported by Clarence Thomas Jr. (no relation), a Black journalist for the Dallas Daily news site, attendees at the president's South Carolina rally start wailing in the country's "latest outbreak of the so-called weeping sickness." This looks bad on TV.

What's an image-conscious president to do? Luckily for him, a pro wrestler named Rasputin is about to win a bout when fans in attendance begin weeping, whereupon he places his hands upon them and cures them. Rasputin claims he really is the Russian monk murdered in 1916. Never mind that he was born Patrick Walsh Strickland in Buffalo, N.Y., and was a Green Beret. The president still chooses him to be his new running mate. Add Faith Spack, a 26-year-old aide who starred on the reality show Nashville Next Gen and whose pious mom had her out of wedlock after an affair with a billionaire, and the result is a delicious picaresque. Nothing can top the venality of its source material, but this is a hilarious and effervescent lampoon. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

The premise of Maiko Seo's first novel published in the U.S., the poignant Someone to Cook For, might initially seem disheartening: for most of her young life, Yuko shuffles through numerous households and parents. And yet Seo, with charming translation from the Japanese by Laurel Taylor, creates a heartwarming story of found and chosen family overflowing with unconditional love.

By 17, Yuko "had three fathers and two mothers." With sweet indulgence and grandparental assistance, Yuko's birth father raised her after losing her mother when Yuko was two. Eight-year-old Yuko welcomes wonderful new mother Rika. Two years later, Yuko chooses the familiarity of staying in Japan with Rika when her father is transferred to Brazil. Yuko's longing for a piano prompts Rika to find her a new father: wealthy, gentle Mr. Izumigahara. But marriage stifles Rika and she leaves Yuko in comfort and safety, then reclaims her when she takes another husband. Devoted Mr. Morimiya becomes Yuko's third and final father. When Yuko becomes engaged, however, Morimiya won't accept her formerly peripatetic fiancé, prompting the couple to reconnect with her previous parents, hoping they will help in securing Morimiya's approval.

Although "the makeup of [Yuko's] family had changed seven times over [her] lifetime," she always believed "all of [her] parents had tried their best--more than they needed to really--to connect with [her] and be the best parents they could be." Seo gifts Yuko with profound strength and kindness, while poignantly, eventually revealing the parents' various well-intentioned reasons for what appears to be abandonment. Seo writes with unguarded, convincing clarity, inspiring considerable empathy for each member of Yuko's unconventionally committed family. --Terry Hong

In World War I-era England, a young woman confronts the horrors of her childhood that others tried to sanitize as children's stories and make-believe games in Cynthia Pelayo's It Came from Neverland, a dark reinterpretation of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.

None of the constables or doctors believed Wendy Darling when she told them what happened to the boys who have gone missing around London, so she was sent to Bedlam, a hospital for the mentally ill, then to Marigold House. Now grown, she works at Marigold teaching children orphaned in the war or whose parents can no longer support them. But Wendy still checks that the windows are locked, haunted by the memory of a being called Peter Pan. Then a student goes missing, and Wendy suspects that Peter has returned. Along with the brothers from whom she has been estranged, Wendy must face the past she was forced to deny.

In her reimagining of Peter Pan, Pelayo (Children of Chicago) fully embraces the sinister potential of the original, exploring the implications of what happens to Lost Boys when they grow up. Battles with pirates that sound like an adventure in a children's book become a waste of young life more pointless than anything in the trenches. This Peter leans hard into Barrie's description of children as "heartless," yet the heart-wrenching struggles of Wendy, both in flashbacks and her present, to reconcile her love of Peter and for the other children in her care, give this horror story profound emotional depth. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

When the sun rises in the Arctic after having been gone for months, the effect is one of time blindness and disorientation. In Rebecca Wright Stevens's gripping legal thriller-memoir, Sisters of the Midnight Sun, this unwavering beauty became the staging ground for a crime as chilling as the permafrost. The bodies of two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, were discovered outside of Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow, Alaska), leading to more than a forensic puzzle for those drawn into the investigation.

The account follows Stevens's time as a tenacious defense attorney assigned to Amos Lane, who already had pending assault and theft charges. What began as a straightforward criminal case spiraled into a complex web of politics and historical trauma. Stevens skillfully sets the scene, detailing the claustrophobia of a town where everyone is a witness and no one is a stranger. Perhaps the most compelling attribute of Sisters of the Midnight Sun is Stevens's transparency regarding her relationship with the Arctic and its community. She mourned her limitations as a legal practitioner, even as her bonds with the people there deepened.

Sisters of the Midnight Sun is for readers who grew up on the razor-sharp courtroom dramas of Scott Turow or the high-stakes atmospheric tension of John Grisham, delivering an extra bite that feels like a bracing breath of sub-zero air. It provides the satisfaction of a legal thriller while serving as an insightful investigation into a territory those in the Lower 48 rarely see clearly. This is a haunting, expertly crafted reminder that the law is only as strong as the people who uphold it. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Another Tongue by Yevgenia Nayberg (A Party for Florine) is a witty and compassionate picture book that explores the disorienting experience of entering a country whose dominant language is unfamiliar. Nayberg, writing in a direct second-person voice, draws readers into the emotional and physical sensations of language acquisition. She opens with a playful literalization of the phrase "mother tongue": "This is your tongue. This is your mother's tongue" accompanies a double-page spread featuring a child and a parent sticking out their tongues.

Fine-lined mixed-media illustrations extend the text's humor. When Nayberg writes that the "new language may taste funny on your tongue," a child stretches outward to catch falling letters like snowflakes. Misheard words become visual jokes, including an unforgettable "Vampire State Building" complete with fangs. Throughout, the use of red energizes the spreads and guides the eye across pages filled with floating letters. Nayberg is empathetic when capturing the exhaustion, confusion, and gradual exhilaration of learning a new language. She shares the empowering realization that understanding two languages means becoming bilingual ("Which means someone with two tongues!") and capable of moving between worlds. Nayberg transforms the frustrations of language learning into a celebration of resilience, connection, and self-discovery. The result is a perceptive, tender articulation of an aspect of many immigrant experiences and a memorable picture book that invites readers to see language not as a barrier but as a bridge. --Julie Danielson

In this high-stakes, adrenaline-inducing thriller by Emily Lloyd-Jones (The Wild Huntress), an 18-year-old hacker in the near future must face off against a group of cyberterrorists.

A 15-year-old's hack goes fatally wrong and she's given a choice: face the consequences or be declared dead and work for the government under a new identity. Three years later, "Augusta Pine" is still working for the Identity Security Division as a wraith, an undercover agent who is able to "ghost through the world" as she helps the agency track down rampant identity fraud. Her only companions are her dry-witted adult handler, Prefect, and Edgar, an illegal sentient AI spybot in the form of a bumblebee. When her next assignment is in her home city, she jumps at the opportunity to stealthily check on her Nonna. However, a group of cyberterrorists takes over Nonna's building, demanding the return of valuable government intelligence--"Project Persephone"--and Augusta's new mission is to protect the asset (and Nonna) from the cyberterrorists at all costs.

Augusta Pine Does Not Exist thrusts readers into a pulse-pounding hostage crisis that is as emotionally gripping as it is action packed. Lloyd-Jones provides glimpses into Augusta's previous jobs by including snippets from a case-study file throughout, as well as transcripts from her current mission. These interstitials not only help with character development but also propel the story forward, acting as suspenseful breaks between moments of intense activity. This electrifying excitement pairs well with Lloyd-Jones's astute explorations of survivor's guilt, PTSD, socioeconomic disparity, and found family. This YA spy thriller is exhilarating and suspenseful. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

High school student and tech founder of CoderBunnyz, CoderMindz, and CoderMarz Samaira Mehta debuts with Sama Crushes the Code, an inspiring and inviting middle-grade graphic novel coauthored by Brin Stevens, with illustrations by Jenny Alvarado (Pencil & Eraser series).

Australia-based author and illustrator duo Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira (Stay for Dinner) reunite for their fourth picture book, Words That Taste Like Home, an encouraging celebration of multilingual backgrounds. Rohan is "born into a language that tickled his toes and kissed his cheeks." He has an especially close bond with Muthassi, his grandmother, with whom he shares stories while they make her irresistible mango pickle.

But one day, Rohan's parents announce the family will move "far away to a country where people [speak] a different language." Through tears, Rohan promises Muthassi he'll call every day, but, eventually, school, a puppy, and a new bike claim his attention. As he strengthens his new language, he begins to forget the exact words he wants to use to describe life to his grandmother, saddened he's "lost the words to tell Muthassi how the wind felt brushing against his cheeks" or what the puppy's "cute little paws" look like. When the family embarks on a visit to Muthassi, Rohan worries they won't be able to share their stories. But memories and love prove to be the perfect ingredients for reconnection.

Pereira's digital, storybook-style illustrations gorgeously capture Parappukkaran's lyrical, heartfelt narrative, which will undoubtedly resonate with diasporic communities. Her fully saturated colors enhance notable details throughout: Rohan's diverse classroom, chaotic airport luggage pickup, and Muthassi's lush gardens. Parappukkaran uses the mango pickle to restore communication as Rohan sprinkles their efforts with "poems and phrases" and seasons "with similes, metaphors, and alliteration." Words That Taste Like Home provides a tasty treat for readers. --Terry Hong