Keith Stahl's first novel, Dear Future Occupants, relates the poignant, madcap adventures of a dysfunctional but essentially loving family. In March of 1979, Bud Sommer moves his family back to Greenhill, Conn., having inherited his childhood home, a massive, crumbling 17th-century estate. Bud, a sometimes painter and aspiring restaurateur, also used his wife Rebecca's inheritance to purchase a nearby diner. Joining Bud and Rebecca are their middle-school-aged sons, Victor and Wade; their eldest son, Herman, who has spent recent years hitchhiking around the nation; and the family dog, named The Dog. Victor begins running around with the "lav rat" kids, who smoke in the restrooms. Meanwhile, his little brother, Wade, a piano prodigy, experiences one accidental injury too many and chooses to wrap himself in bubble wrap around the clock. Long-haired Herman likes to wear women's clothing, to the great distress of his parents. A literal skeleton is discovered in the basement of their dilapidated home, and a local adjunct professor moves in to study it. One absurdity after another plagues this motley household, until it seems that something will have to give.

Against the backdrop of conservative small-town Connecticut in 1979, the Sommers grapple with concepts of family, sexual identity, counterculture, and drug and alcohol use. With pathos, humor, compassion, and great energy, this novel offers a moving examination of the meaning and acceptability of Herman's cross-dressing and the value of family--in general and in this sweet, troubled individual case. Dear Future Occupants is arguably about the tension between conformity and authenticity in the Sommers' impact on a larger world. The result is preposterous, exuberant, and tender. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Ariel Lawhon's sweeping seventh historical novel, The Pirate Queen, traces the life of Gráinne Ní Mháille (Grace O'Malley), the legendary female Irish chieftain and privateer whose naval exploits and devotion to her clan were unparalleled. Lawhon braids the story of Gráinne's life in three alternating narratives: Maiden, Mother, and Matriarch, delving into each time period to highlight different facets of her fierce, shrewd, complicated protagonist.

Lawhon (The Frozen River) paints an atmospheric portrait of 16th-century Ireland, populated by rival clans living in isolated villages and fortified castles, connected by intricate alliances of marriage and battle. Grace, firstborn daughter of chieftain Eóin O'Malley, longs to go to sea with her father but finds herself hampered by superstitions about female sailors and her culture's expectations for young women. As she grows, Grace learns the feminine arts of household management and social diplomacy, but she also becomes a skilled sailor determined to make her own mark in Irish (and perhaps other) waters. As an adult, she defies her tyrannical husband, sailing her beloved ship Niamh to defend her homeland from English colonizers and other foreign invaders. Her years-long pitched conflict with English governor Richard Bingham eventually brings her to the attention--and the court--of Queen Elizabeth I. Meanwhile, between sailing trips, Grace fights to nurture and protect her children, her kinspeople, and her four stalwart guards, who stand by her until the very end.

With swashbuckling battle scenes and intimate moments of love and loss, The Pirate Queen is an evocative account of a woman who fought relentlessly to live--and sail--as she pleased. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Following her 30 fiction books, which include the four-book Practical Magic series, Alice Hoffman's atmospheric novel The Witches of Cambridge merges magic and history. Hoffman links the narrative of the first witch of Cambridge, Mass., who arrived in Boston from London in 1692, with the stories of two women enrolling in Radcliffe College in 1950.

Raised on an isolated orchard in Maine, Ava has always known she was different, and a Radcliffe scholarship offers a longed-for escape. Lauren, a privileged Cambridge native, seems an unlikely friend. But when both are invited into the Lilith Society, established in 1693 "as a safe haven in the marshes of Cambridge" where women study "the Unnamed Art," they discover their shared legacy. At Harvard, the men's college at which Radcliffe formed in 1879, Jamie Mather, the 10th-great-grandson of "the most heartless man who had influenced the Salem witch trials," is smitten with the beautiful redhaired Ava. But because of the terrifying truth of his heritage, he must shun her.

Although the characters struggle with typical coming-of-age issues, their witchy talents guide their actions. Magic permeates the story--blood runs black, 12 crows follow Ava, the women learn charms and spells. Meanwhile, Hoffman includes details of the Joseph McCarthy-era political witch hunts that "persecuted left-wing intellectuals and artists," which parallel the 17th-century trials in Salem that targeted Ava's and Lauren's ancestors, lending immediacy to this evocative novel, the enticing first in a planned series. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House, Albany, N.Y.

A sinister artist forces a woman into captivity to achieve her "vision" in Pictures of You, an intricate and surprising work of suspense from Josh Malerman (Unbury Carol; A House at the Bottom of a Lake).

Emily awakes the morning after a night out with her boyfriend, Jack, unsure of where she is. Even more disturbingly, she doesn't recognize the dress she's wearing. She can see the silhouette of a woman watching her through an empty frame. The woman warns her not to move and tells her that Jack will come to harm if Emily leaves "her piece." Trapped in a crazed version of a masterpiece with no hint of what will happen to her when it is finished, Emily must figure out how this would-be artist thinks and manipulate her way into a chance at escape.

The novel begins in medias res, disorienting readers in a way that's similar to how Emily feels under the effects of what she soon realizes is more than a hangover. Pictures of You's chapters alternate between Emily after she wakes in the strange room and scenes from the night before, which she spent out on the town with Jack. Hints emerge that the artist's abduction of Emily wasn't an arbitrary choice. The pre-kidnapping chapters provide glimpses of Emily and Jack's relatively new but increasingly serious relationship, intensifying the stakes for both of them to make it through the ordeal safely. Malerman's thriller presents a case of obsession that would do Patricia Highsmith proud. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

In his highly anticipated sophomore work, Scott Hawkins (The Library at Mount Char) expands his eccentric bibliography with a novel told from an animal point of view. The titular character of Blacktail is "half wolf" and experiences compounding traumas early in his life--the death of his family, mate, and puppies, all caused, one way or another, by humans. He attacks those responsible, unknowingly setting off a chain of events that reverberates along a supernatural, bestial grapevine to catch the attention of an ancient feline witch. This revered figure petitions Blacktail to go on a perilous, lengthy journey to the realm of the Forest God on behalf of the animal kingdom, which has mostly lost its veneration for "the hunt" in subjugation to the "two-legs." The long-sleeping god needs to be awakened to save the world's creatures from the scourge of humanity, and Blacktail is the one to carry this burden. He sets off on a quest beset by horrific wonders and mortal wounds, uncertain how he will find the Forest God--and what might happen when he does.

While this tale of a lupine messiah is not for the faint of heart, it's as engrossing and intelligible as it is strange and gruesome. Hawkins depicts animals desperately devoted to survival, their deities, one another, and--infrequently--humans. Underpinned by questions about faith, respect, and obligation, Blacktail sweeps readers along a magical and emotional exploration of the wildness buried within the creatures around them, who may still remember the hunt in their bones. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

In 2022, journalist Lea Korsgaard set out to see all 64 of Denmark's butterfly species within a year. The Butterfly Season, her first book available in English, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg, is an engaging record of that quest and a profound meditation on metamorphosis, extinction, and connection with nature.

Compared to other year-challenge books, The Butterfly Season is heavier on historical research and philosophical reflection than the practicalities of the journey. She delves into the cultural significance of butterflies, often associated with spirits and eternal life. Indeed, Korsgaard's mother attributes glimpses of small tortoiseshells in significant moments to the continued presence of her late mother; the author's first sighting of the season was a small tortoiseshell in March.

For expert advice and in-the-field guidance, she consulted lepidopterist Michael Stoltze and precocious biology student Emil Blicher Bjerregård. Korsgaard is distressed that few are sounding the alarm over how capitalism and consumerism threaten biodiversity. Her realistic yet melancholy tone risks alienating readers who signed up for lighthearted butterfly-watching japes. However, her prose is lush with lyrical descriptions of landscapes and epiphanies experienced in them. Each chapter ends with a list of the species seen, accompanied by color sketches.

By summer's end, with several species unseen, Korsgaard feared her project was doomed. Yet it had become more than checking butterflies off a list. Instead, she was recapturing the holistic relationship with nature modeled by her family members. This allowed her to genuinely affirm, "This was not the end; this had only just begun." By turns pessimistic and mystical, The Butterfly Season is a nature book for the age of extinctions. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Since 1971, Eric Idle (The Spamalot Diaries) of Monty Python, a "semilegendary comedy troupe," has owned a vacation home in southeastern France. Idle in Provence, "a love letter to Provence, a thank-you, and a valentine to my favorite place," is a charming memoir that is equal parts cheeky and surprisingly melancholy. Idle and his first wife wanted a getaway from showbiz. She found the perfect spot, a forested property on a terraced hillside. It was idyllic, except for one small problem. The dwelling "was a total disaster," with rotted exterior doors and "no bedroom, no kitchen, no bathroom, no drains, no toilet, no plumbing, no floors, no windows, no fireplace, no chimney, no ceilings, no heating, no road, no electricity, no gas, and--ah, yes--no water." So, of course, they bought it.

What follows is a lovingly detailed account of the transformation of this "dream wreck" into a habitable home for himself and his second wife. Idle amusingly describes the challenges they faced, such as having to drill through 75 meters of limestone to find water and fishing an "ex-squirrel" out of the septic tank. He also dealt with personal trials, including the collapse of his first marriage, his pancreatic cancer scare in 2019, and his daughter's institutionalization for bipolar disorder. He handles all of this with a light touch and his customary wit. Idle calls this work "a travel book for people who like to stay home." Indeed, it is: a pleasant holiday with an affable guide. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

"Writing has defined me.... It's the lens through which I examine my presence in the world," opens Story Telling: A Writing Life. Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits; My Name Is Emilia del Valle) has written roughly 30 books in her career and is read in more than 40 languages, but Story Telling is a singular addition to her oeuvre. Both a memoir and meditation on her writing life, this 11-part work outlines how she approaches her novels, her techniques, and the lessons she has learned about writing.

Story Telling, importantly, is neither a how-to guide nor lessons on how to create a bestselling novel. Rather, Allende is considering the power of words in society and as connections between people. Every chapter reads like a master class on studying one aspect of her writing process, demonstrating again and again the intimate care that goes into crafting a story. Wisdom on learning, on editing, and even on being willing to discard precious words abounds.

Story Telling is an impassioned defense of the labor and the art of writing, of recording the world as it could be as well as the horrors with it. Allende discusses how research underpins fiction and how writing has called her to scrutinize the world closely from many angles. Allende says: "Stories play a fundamental role in our lives and in society. They shape our reality, they define us as individuals: who we are, what we do, how we relate to each other, the ideas we have of ourselves and that others have of us." --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Stonewall Book Award Honor winner Rex Ogle (Road Home) continues his fearless run of emotionally layered storytelling showcasing the complicated lives of teens in the nuanced and gripping Absent, a stirring mixed-format story of three middle school boys who can't seem to make it to school.

Manny Fueyo, Calvin Johnson Jr., and Liam Miller don't know each other. They all, however, keep journals of sorts tracking their days in--but mostly out--of Lincoln Heights Middle School. Manny, who spends his school hours at the skate park, is a lyricist who mourns his incarcerated father and expresses his anger by writing in his "BOOK O'RHYME$!!" Calvin is an artist whose comics show his efforts to get to school on time, only to be thwarted by the responsibilities laid upon him by his single dad. Liam uses a graph-ruled notebook for his meticulous accounts of being bullied and experiencing increasingly sharp panic attacks: "It's this... bad, awful, terrifying feeling." When all three are sent to detention for their absenteeism, they form a bond that helps make each day in school a little bit easier.

Ogle was inspired by his visits to schools where educators told him students missing class was their number one problem. This, combined with his own experience as a teen who had to skip school, forms the bedrock of Ogle's genuine and at times gut-wrenching novel. Illustrator LJ-Baptiste's grayscale art is expressive, entertaining, and exciting, making Calvin's comics shine bright in a book that delves into some dark places. Absent never condescends to its readership; it's an impeccably paced novel loaded with pathos, humor, and grace. --Luis Rendon

Adam, Mine., the sixth young adult novel by National Book Award longlisted author K. Ancrum (The Corruption of Hollis Brown), is a stunning love letter to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that highlights its central characters' capacities for humanity and monstrosity.

In 1890, 17-year-old Victor Frankenstein toils away as an alchemy student, sneered at by peers who deem his medical interests a grotesque perversion. Victor is insistent that by the time he graduates, he will have found a way to bring the dead back to life. But after repeated failures, his desperation reaches a fever pitch. When Victor meets soft-eyed Elias Hilfiker, an 18-year-old barkeep with "sugar sickness" (diabetes), Victor justifies violence against the bartender by calling him "a man with nothing to lose and everything to gain." Victor abducts Elias and uses an untested alchemical spell to feign Elias's resurrection. But Victor is unprepared for one of the invocation's results: the young men become irrevocably bound.

Frankenstein has been reinvented countless times, many of the iterations constructed through the lens of scientific ethics and philosophy. But Ancrum, less interested in a faithful retelling than in the emotion behind Shelley's novel, creates instead a warped mirror: her characters make magic instead of science and cheat in place of performing miracles as she plucks at the thread of connection between people who have wronged each other. Ancrum honors the Romantic movement to which Shelley belonged with prose that slices and soothes--but her greatest trick is the subtle sleight of hand that blurs the line between human and monster, demanding that readers reconsider which is which. --Mariel Fechik DesLaurier, librarian, freelance reviewer, music journalist

A neighborhood races to bring four dumped domesticated bunnies to safety in the keen and courageous middle-grade nonfiction work The Wild Season by Stonewall Book Award winner Dashka Slater (The 57 Bus), in which the heroes are those who pay careful attention.

"One night in June 2023, someone approached a small park in San Francisco carrying bunnies." This person, "the Bunny Dumper," abandoned all four rabbits in Golden Gate Heights Park, a space that serves as a "communal backyard" for the houses along its border. The animals, accustomed to being fed by humans and nowhere near as afraid as "a wild rabbit needs to be," were unsuited for park life. The community--including children and adults--assembled a team to find and trap the bunnies before they could be eaten by predators or overrun the park. The "bunny search party" fought thorn bushes and public misconceptions (including the notion that the bunnies would be happier in the park) as they learned "to think like rabbits."

Slater uses a congenial, friendly tone and gives multilayered, textured context. She focuses one chapter on the domestication of dogs and includes passages addressing the evolution of hunting. She also describes the history of the park, depicting it as a little magical, a place that blurs the urban and wild, the mysterious and known. Realistic black-and-white illustrations by Jamey Christoph (Bones in the White House) root readers in the concrete world of the park and add an ethereal touch. The Wild Season is as inspiring as it is sincere. --Ari Mackoff, bookseller

Tell the Ghosts I'm Gone by Kalynn Bayron (Sleep Like Death) is a tense and energizing YA paranormal horror mystery that follows four teens who use their superpowers to uncover dangerous secrets.

Sixteen-year-old Moll's misfit friends are all fostered by Moll's magic-working mother, Hannigan, in Portland, Ore. The Black teens are "not related by blood," but "something much stronger": each, like Hannigan, has a supernatural ability. Moll can read and manipulate people's emotions; Redd, 17, can influence thoughts; Agnes, 18, is psychic; and Ossie, 13, can command rats. The four teens want to use their powers to investigate hauntings and help people with paranormal problems, hoping that one day they "won't have to harbor [their] abilities like some terrible secret." They develop a website, The Oculus, to find cases. While their first mission is successful, their next is unnerving. The owner of Alister's, a coffee shop run out of a Victorian mansion, claims that customers often get lost inside the home and a young woman recently disappeared. The teens' investigation reveals deadly mysteries, occult legacies, and more about their own mysterious powers.

Bayron develops a compellingly eerie mystery about Black teens, some of whom are queer, as they explore their identities, superpowers, and painful pasts while developing a deep sense of belonging. Through Moll's first-person perspective, Bayron builds a powerful friendship and complex family dynamic while also referencing spiritualism and paranormal history. Tell the Ghosts I'm Gone highlights how being "gifted" can feel both empowering and isolating and creates emotional moments that are just as captivating as the scary ones. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer