Norah Piehl

“We all have a deep desire, a deep need, to ignore what is happening here,” writes Marcus Sedgwick midway through Saint Death. Sedgwick, who sets his new novel amid the violent borderlands of Juarez, Mexico, might be describing human migration or death itself, embodied in this story by the mystical appearance—both literal and figurative—of Santa Muerte, or Saint Death. Either way, Sedgwick’s latest novel forces readers to look at what’s happening in regions of Mexico, and at the pressures that have created the drug cartels, which are provoked by U.S. demand and, in many cases, armed by the U.S., too.

Caught in the crosshairs of this volatile situation is a lonely young man, Arturo, a cardsharp who is enlisted to help save the life of his old friend Faustino—but who finds himself in a bargain he has no real way to win.

With Saint Death, Sedgwick offers a timely story that often reads like a thriller—or like a fable. Suffused with elements of magical realism and informed by real-world facts and statistics, Sedgwick’s narrative is remarkably immersive, providing both context and a human face for an issue that too often remains abstract but that, as he suggests, cannot be ignored.

This article was originally published in the May 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It was just another late summer day before the start of senior year at Nashville’s Academy for the Arts. Carver was eager to meet up with his best friends Mars, Blake and Eli to celebrate their end-of-summer traditions. So he sent Mars a text: “Where are you guys? Text me back.” And in an instant, his friends’ lives were over—and Carver’s was destroyed.

After all three boys are killed in a car accident caused, in all likelihood, by Mars’ attempt to text Carver a response, Carver is left with little but a series of increasingly scary panic attacks. Eli’s twin sister despises him, Mars’ powerful father threatens to press charges, and even his new friendship with Eli’s girlfriend is far from uncomplicated. When Blake’s grandma suggests that Carver join her in a “goodbye day” to share their memories of Blake, Carver wonders whether this might be an opportunity for healing or just a route to more pain.

Carver is an aspiring author, so storytelling plays a central role in his grief and recovery. Morris Award-winning author Jeff Zentner, a talented musician and songwriter, suffuses his new novel with all kinds of art forms, from Eli’s music to Mars’ illustrations to Blake’s zany but brave form of comedy. Fans of Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places will find much to ponder in Goodbye Days’ sensitive exploration of loss and strong sense of place.

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah has always defined herself as an artist, an avid and talented drawer who prides herself on making keen and detailed observations of the world around her. She may be one of the only people who really sees the homeless man creating his own bizarre form of art near her Philadelphia neighborhood. She sees injustice and unoriginality, things that have made it impossible for her to continue making her own art or even attending school, which she now considers meaningless. Lately she’s been seeing past and future versions of herself. So why does she find it impossible to see her own troubled family clearly?

When she is visited by her 10-year-old self, Sarah is finally forced to confront something that happened on a family trip to Mexico when she was 10, something that prompted her beloved older brother to leave the family and never return. Perhaps, at long last, she can see her family with clear, open eyes—and thereby find her way back to making the art that sustains her.

A.S. King is known for crafting deeply sympathetic portraits of teenagers in crisis, and Still Life with Tornado is no exception. Readers who travel with Sarah through her past, present and future are likely to become—like Sarah herself—disoriented and absorbed by visions that border on the surreal and by questions about the reliability of memory that may prompt readers to see their own worlds just a little differently.

This article was originally published in the October 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Like any unconventional person in a small town, Montgomery has worked hard to find her tribe, those equally quirky people who help keep her strong. Monty has her two moms, of course. And she has her best friends, Thomas and Naoki, who join Monty in forming the Jefferson High Mystery Club. They don’t read whodunits; they explore the mysteries of the universe, from ESP to levitation. So even though the occasional jerks might make fun of Monty for her frumpy clothes, her lesbian moms and her gay best friend, she still feels safe.

That is, until the vehemently homophobic Reverend White moves to town, and his son transfers to Monty’s school. Suddenly, Monty feels like everyone she loves is under attack. As usual, Monty turns to the paranormal to help her solve her problems, but when her quest for supernatural knowledge fails spectacularly, Monty may be forced to acknowledge that there are as many surprising mysteries right at home as there are in the vast universe.

Mariko Tamaki is best known for her graphic novel collaborations with her cousin Jillian, including the award-winning This One Summer. Her first solo effort offers a complex and nuanced (and often very funny) portrait of a young woman in crisis. Monty is a realistically inspiring heroine—one who is flawed but comes to recognize her own faults and limitations. She sees her way toward real solutions, surrounded by people who love and value her despite, and even because of, those flaws.

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In many books, especially fantasy novels, one of the best parts of the reading experience is the chance to pore over detailed maps of real or imagined places, from Middle-earth to Oz. In her debut novel, Heidi Heilig takes things a step further and places maps squarely at the center of her plot.

Nix’s father, Slate, is a Navigator, skilled at traveling through time and space—and even in between historical and mythological versions of the world—by steering his ship, the Temptation, between maps. Nix and her father have traveled from medieval Scandinavia to modern-day New York City, all as part of Slate’s quest to find the ultimate map: the one that will take him back to Hawaii in 1868, the last place and time he saw Nix’s mother alive.

Slate takes more and more risks as he comes closer to his goal, blinded by romanticism and opium until he’s unable to see the truth—that someone else who knows about Navigation may, in fact, be using Slate’s desires for their own ends.

The world Heilig has built is a creative blend of actual history and fantasy elements grounded in ancient and modern myths. Her novel is simultaneously an adventure story, a love triangle and a meditation on big topics like the idea of home and the tension between fate and free will. The good news is that The Girl from Everywhere is just the first part of a duology, so readers will be able to accompany Nix on another journey.