18-year-old Effy Sayre has read the late Emrys Myrddin’s books “so many times that the logic of his world was layered over hers, like glossy tracing paper on top of the original.” Emrys is the country of Llyr’s most beloved author, and his novel Angharad has long served as a balm for Effy’s troubled soul and a source of support on her darkest days.
As Ava Reid’s darkly dramatic A Study in Drowning opens, readers are swiftly drawn into Effy’s miserable life in her first year at Llyr University. Because its literature college doesn’t admit women, she’s a reluctant architecture student adrift in a sea of snide, unfriendly men. Meanwhile, nightmarish visions of the Fairy King that have plagued her since childhood exacerbate her anxiety.
A ray of hope arrives when Myrddin’s family begins searching for someone to redesign their estate, Hiraeth Manor. This feels like fate to Effy—especially when she wins the competition to secure this daunting project. Grateful for the escape, she sets off for Myrddin’s cliffside hometown, the Bay of Nine Bells.
Thanks to Reid’s knack for atmospheric, immersive writing—as seen in her adult fantasy novels, The Wolf and the Woodsman and Juniper & Thorn—humidity seems to rise from the page as Effy strives to comprehend her strange new reality. Not only is Hiraeth Manor mildew-ridden and on the verge of crumbling into the sea, but another Llyr University student is on-site: the self-important Preston Heloury, who is ostensibly there for an archival task—but asks Effy to join his true mission to debunk Myrddin’s authorship of Angharad.
Readers will delight in the scholars’ slow-burn attraction as they delve into Myrddin’s complicated legacy. Reid uses the characters’ clashing worldviews to prompt readers to consider the ways in which power structures affect what we learn and believe. A Study in Drowning is at once an absorbing gothic mystery and an intriguing social commentary set in a richly detailed world where history and magic collide.
A Study in Drowning is at once an absorbing gothic mystery and an intriguing social commentary set in a richly detailed world where history and magic collide.
October’s Top 10 list includes Alix E. Harrow’s best book yet, plus the long-awaited second novel from Ayana Mathis, a pitch-perfect romance from KJ Charles and a breathtaking debut memoir.
Jacqueline Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball—among quiet, reflective scenes while responding to her protagonist’s weighty fears with reassurance about the permeance of
Weaving history and fiction together, David Bowles fashions a rich story of political intrigue, ferocious battles, beautiful landscapes and the enduring hope of humanity.
C Pam Zhang’s sentences are visceral and heated. She writes about food and bodies with frenzied truthfulness. There is nothing pretty in Zhang’s second novel,
In The Unsettled’s short but perfectly paced chapters, Toussaint, Ava and Dutchess tell of not only their disappointment and despair but also their dreams, crafting
Drawing on Jewish traditions of reconciliation, Rebecca Clarren seeks to find a path for meaningful reconciliation and reparation for the harm done to Native American
In his memoir, award-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen “re members” and “dis remembers,” excavating and reassembling memories as if working on his family’s portrait.
Safiya Sinclair’s memoir should be savored like the final sip of an expensive wine—with deference, realizing that a story of this magnitude comes along all
KJ Charles concludes her Doomsday Books duology with the masterfully crafted, deliciously adventurous and so, so horny Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel.
There is something truly exhilarating about the candor of The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a curated collection of excerpts from novelist Amy Tan’s personal birding journals that sparkles with cleverness and compassion.
In Bluebird Day, Megan Tady delivers a cozy tale with layers as numerous as midseason snowpack, delving into the psyches of mother and daughter competitive skiers Claudine and Wylie.
In Bluebird Day, Megan Tady delivers a cozy tale with layers as numerous as midseason snowpack, delving into the psyches of mother and daughter competitive skiers Claudine and Wylie.
Quippy humor and refreshing honesty abound in CABIN, Patrick Hutchison’s memoir about his journey to restore a filthy, dilapidated cabin in the Cascade Mountains.
October's Top 10 list includes Alix E. Harrow's best book yet, plus the long-awaited second novel from Ayana Mathis, a pitch-perfect romance from KJ Charles and a breathtaking debut memoir.
Gone Wolf begins in 2111 with Inmate Eleven, a 12-year-old girl being kept in a tiny room. Her only company is her dog, Ira, who has been “going wolf” more often—pacing, narrowing his eyes and imagining he is free. Inmate Eleven is a Blue, which refers to her blue skin and hair. As a genetic match for the president’s son, she is designated to serve as his companion in a mysterious and sinister system. And as Inmate Eleven gathers more information about the world outside her room, she begins to feel the calling to go wolf too.
The narrative switches to Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2022, where Imogen—also 12 years old—is often told she feels too much. She used to rely on her brothers to help settle her worries, but now the pandemic has isolated her from everyone other than her mother and therapist. When Imogen connects with a Black college student in the Big Sister program through a mutual love for stories, she begins to open up and heal the sadness—the blueness—in her own heart.
Gone Wolf is divided almost evenly between the future and present timelines. Its first half effectively makes the reader feel as trapped as Inmate Eleven. Each chapter is followed by disturbing “flash cards” that the ruling Clones use to brainwash the society of 2111 into complacency. In parallel, the second half set in the present day uses excerpts from Imogen’s Black History for Kids textbook, which illuminate the resilience of Black Americans without shying away from the atrocities of slavery and racism. Both imagined texts demonstrate the power of choosing which narrative to tell.
Unlike her previous two young adult novels in verse—Me (Moth) and We Are All So Good at Smiling—National Book Award finalist Amber McBride has written her middle grade debut in prose. Her syntax shines with beautiful symbolism, such as, “I know that minds can’t be hurricanes but that is what it feels like.” “But that’s what it feels like” is repeated like a mantra throughout the book—yet another echo of verse. Both of Gone Wolf’s protagonists write poetry, which further allows McBride to slip some of her magic in.
Imogen’s therapist puts it best: “History and the truth are sometimes hard.” Gone Wolf examines the ways in which both the COVID-19 pandemic and slavery’s ongoing legacy impact Black youth while also celebrating storytelling’s ability to heal and bring us together. There is nothing quite like it.
Gone Wolf examines the ways in which both the COVID-19 pandemic and slavery’s ongoing legacy impact Black youth while also celebrating storytelling’s ability to heal and bring us together. There is nothing quite like it.
The crown prince Acolmiztli is determined to see his kingdom of Acolhuacan flourish with art, innovation, architecture and poetry. But the war between Acolhuacan and Mexico grows increasingly fierce. When a brutal attack leaves his father dead and his mother and siblings missing, Acolmiztli escapes into the wilderness and takes on a new name: Nezahualcoyotl, which means “fasting coyote.” Faced with cruel enemies, natural dangers and haunting memories, Acolmiztli must choose to either embrace a new life or find a way to reclaim his kingdom.
The Prince and the Coyote is an intense and moving epic based on the life of Nezahualcoyotl, an influential and artistic Mesoamerican leader. Weaving history and fiction together, David Bowles fashions a rich story of political intrigue, ferocious battles, beautiful landscapes and the enduring hope of humanity.
The novel dares to be detailed and unflinching in its descriptions of violence and grief, while also luxuriating in depictions of natural beauty, man-made wonders and cherished relationships. Fast-paced prose is interspersed with expressive songs written by Acolmiztli that paint vivid pictures of his emotions as he grows from an idealistic child into an experienced, wise leader. Bowles gives Acolmiztli a sharp, honest voice that’s sure to draw readers in—whether by narration or song.
Just as the Temple of Duality stands high above Acolmiztli’s hometown of Teztcoco as a symbol of the coexistence of ideas, this nuanced novel challenges binary thinking. Acolmiztli’s tutor, Izcalloh, is a xochihuah, a queer gender in Nahua culture. Acolmiztli himself comes from two hostile kingdoms: His Acolhua father and Mexica mother risked everything to be together.
As Acolmiztli undergoes different life experiences, his perspectives on leadership, faith, death, sexuality and lifestyle shift. The Prince and the Coyote asks readers to reevaluate their preconceived notions and ultimately put love and respect for all humankind first. The story of Nezahualcoyotl comes to life in this breathtaking retelling that feels both legendary and human.
Weaving history and fiction together, David Bowles fashions a rich story of political intrigue, ferocious battles, beautiful landscapes and the enduring hope of humanity.
Wil Greene has spent months stalking Elwood Clarke’s family and obtaining photographic evidence about their Garden of Adam cult. On one stakeout, she even caught the Clarke patriarch sacrificing a rabbit in the woods. Police say Wil’s mom merely skipped town, but Wil suspects the Clarkes are actually behind her disappearance. It would be easier to find out where they’re keeping her mom if Wil was still talking to her former best friend, but Elwood told her that his family did nothing wrong, and Wil doesn’t have space in her life for liars.
But then, on Elwood’s 18th birthday, Wil finds him dying of hypothermia and with nowhere to go. The self-flagellating Clarke heir is on the run from his own parents, who intend to violently sacrifice him to the woods. Wil agrees to help him, but as they dig up secrets about the Clarke family, the town’s dark history and the fate of Wil’s too-inquisitive mother, Wil discovers that something demonic is growing inside of the boy she still loves.
Skyla Arndt’s debut novel takes second-chance romance in a gruesome, horrific direction as together, feisty outcast Wil and soft, sheltered Elwood fight for agency regarding their own fates. Beautifully written, Together We Rot (Viking, $18.99, 9780593526279) shines best in moments where Wil and Elwood stumble back into their old friendship. Their faith in each other, even in moments of visceral body horror, will set readers’ hearts fluttering—though mileage may vary on whether out of love or terror.
A well-balanced cast of teen friends and adult companions—including Wil’s grief-stricken father and tarot-loving eccentric Cherry—flesh out the small town of Pine Point with realism, while the terrifying Garden of Adam cult acts as a mythical stand-in for parents who dictate their children’s lives. Though the villainous group’s comeuppance happens too swiftly as the plot rushes to its end, it is nonetheless satisfying. Fans of twisted, monstrous romantic horror in the vein of Rory Power’s Wilder Girls and Sarah Hollowell’s A Dark and Starless Forest will love Together We Rot.
Skyla Arndt’s debut novel takes second-chance romance in a gruesome, horrific direction as together, feisty outcast Wil and soft, sheltered Elwood fight a terrifying cult for agency regarding their own fates.
As a child, Sophia Galich starred in her sister Layla’s viral horror film, Vermillion, about a demonic entity supposedly haunting the seaside mansion their parents were renovating. In the years following the film’s release, Sophia has grappled with the scars—both psychological and physical—that it left behind, while Layla has spent her time avoiding press and obsessive fans, known as V-heads. Then, Layla suddenly vanishes without a trace.
Now, five years after the film’s release, Sophia has returned to Cashore House under the guise of starring in a documentary about Layla But Sophia knows that Cashore has something to do with Layla’s continued absence, and she has spent the past two years searching for clues and doggedly monitoring the V-heads’ posts on CrimsonDread.net, an online forum dedicated to Vermillion. Whatever happened five years ago was more than just a movie, and the truth behind Layla’s disappearance lies somewhere within the house’s walls.
Katya de Becerra’s third young adult novel, When Ghosts Call Us Home, is a gothic, spiraling ghost story that draws inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. But unlike many authors who have attempted to adapt the 1959 masterpiece, de Becerra sidesteps typical retelling structures and allows her book’s modern context to be bolstered by the original rather than restrictively tied to it.
As Sophia reenacts key scenes from Vermillion and is pulled deeper into the shrouded lore of Cashore, her memories begin to blur and reform. Sophia’s first-person perspective provides the intimacy of diaristic narration while holding true to the hallmarks of the unreliable narrator. As girl and ghost become more closely intertwined, Sophia becomes less trustworthy—both to herself and to the reader. This is unfortunately where the book suffers: de Becerra’s prose is at times overworked and redundant, which leaves little to the imagination and undercuts moments of fear.
Regardless, When Ghosts Call Us Home is a satisfying and imaginative haunted house story that uses its influences to great effect. Fans of books like Marisha Pessl’s Night Film and horror movies like The Ring will undoubtedly make themselves right at home in Cashore House.
Katya de Becerra’s third young adult novel, When Ghosts Call Us Home, is a gothic, spiraling ghost story that draws inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
The people of Raddith are used to living with magic. The country bustles with business, bureaucracy and other hallmarks of humanity, but around its edges are whispers of curses—dangerous magic spawned from intense negative emotion. Kellen, an unraveller with the rare ability to undo these curses, and Nettle, his stoic companion with a hidden past, make a meager living catching cursers and helping those they’ve cursed. After an old enemy threatens revenge against Kellen for unraveling her curse and leading to her imprisonment, Kellen and Nettle stumble into a mystery that challenges everything they know about Raddith, magic and their friendship.
In Unraveller, acclaimed author Frances Hardinge creates two settings that both feel fantastical and familiar: Raddith, the land of humans, and the Wilds, the marshy woods where magic thrives. The novel features otherworldly creatures such as spell-weaving Little Brothers, which are “not spiders, however much they look like them,” terrifying bog spirits and more, but Hardinge also depicts how humans coexist with such creatures. The humans in Raddith see them as a source of power, while people in the Wilds treat them with respect, even reverence. The novel’s unique magic system reflects this intertwining of the mundane and the marvelous as well: Strange, unpredictable curses that transform people into animals or steal their shadows stem from pent-up human emotions like resentment, anger and hatred.
This emotion-fueled magic system places character development at the forefront of Unraveller. Nettle seems calm and collected, but she actually struggles to express how she feels, while Kellen understands the importance of communication but flees as soon as a curse is lifted, not realizing that true healing takes time. Their personalities clash and complement each other throughout the book, demonstrating how growth and friendship aren’t linear—but are rewarding.
Hardinge isn’t afraid to challenge her readers to rethink their perceptions of hatred and healing, and she does so by venturing into some of the darkest aspects of human guilt, shame and anger. Almost every member of the novel’s large cast must learn to deal with complicated emotions, whether they’re cursers or cursed, from minor villagers to Kellen and Nettle’s most trusted allies. Some characters fall prey to their feelings, while others open up, forgive and change their ways.
Unraveller is a multilayered, challenging and unflinching read, with occasional depictions of gore and body horror that may unsettle some readers. It poses a difficult but deeply necessary question: What does it mean to truly heal and be healed?
This fantasy novel ventures into the darkest aspects of human emotions to pose a difficult but necessary question: What does it mean to truly heal and be healed?
In her second novel in verse, National Book Award finalist Amber McBride blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
Eighteen-year-old Whimsy has been hospitalized for the 11th time in 10 years. Although her grandmother taught the young conjurer that “Fairy Tales are real, / magic is real,” she also offered a warning: “Careful, Whimsy, / sometimes your own mind will unroot you.” When a green-haired boy named Faerry is admitted to the hospital, Whimsy instantly identifies him as Fae.
When the two are released from the hospital, Whimsy discovers that Faerry’s family recently moved to her neighborhood. As Whimsy and Faerry are drawn both to each other and to the forest at the end of their street, they discover that their lives have intertwined before, and they embark on a journey to a haunted garden where the embodiment of Sorrow has trapped a number of fairy tale characters. To free them and return home, Whimsy and Faerry must face a truth they’ve spent years running from.
In a lengthy dedication at the beginning of We Are All So Good at Smiling, McBride explains that the novel “borrows from my personal experiences with clinical/major depression” and that she wrote it to remind herself and readers “that whenever you find yourself in Sorrow’s Garden—you have tools & you can find a way out.” The book’s significant back matter includes mental health resources, as well as a playlist, a glossary and more.
McBride conveys Whimsy’s struggle with depression through unusual and striking language, text alignment and structure. Words and phrases frequently appear in parentheses, mimicking intrusive thoughts. When Whimsy speaks, the text is aligned on the right-hand side of the page, literally separating her speech from the rest of the text and reflecting the way her depression alienates her from herself. McBride often establishes and then changes structural patterns, mirroring the disorientating nature of recovery.
We Are All So Good at Smiling elevates everything that made McBride’s debut novel, Me (Moth), such a success. Readers who loved Ibi Zoboi’s American Street or Anna-Marie McLemore’s Blanca & Roja will especially enjoy its blend of magic and emotion.
Amber McBride elevates everything that made her first book successful in this novel in verse that blends magic and emotion, fantasy and reality.
Teen sleuth Stevie Bell is back! It’s the autumn of her senior year at Ellingham Academy, and she and her friends Nate, Janelle and Vi have been invited by Stevie’s boyfriend, David, to join him in London to solve another cold case. One rain-soaked night 1995, nine inseparable friends played a game of hide-and-seek on the country estate of Merryweather. The next morning revealed the brutally murdered bodies of two of the nine companions. A burglary gone awry was the official explanation, but Izzy, the teenage niece of one of the original nine, recently learned that her aunt saw something unusual that night but never reported it to the police. That information points to a long-hidden secret: One of the nine may be a murderer.
As Stevie and her friends pursue leads and attempt to convince the head of Ellingham that they really are in England to study, they also undertake a whirlwind tour of London’s most famous attractions, learn about some gruesome Tudor history and navigate interpersonal dramas galore. College application season is upon them, and while her friends are each coping with the pressure in their own ways, Stevie is definitely not prepared. She also tries to make space for intimate moments with David but faces new worries that his attention is being drawn away by Izzy’s infectious charm.
In Nine Liars, bestselling author Maureen Johnson employs the hallmarks of classical Agatha Christie-style mysteries, such as frontispiece maps and a (metaphorical) locked room, while cleverly subverting others. Stevie still gathers the suspects together to reveal the solution, but she does so in a fresh and unexpected way, and Johnson replaces Christie’s stock characters with Stevie’s diverse and emotionally nuanced friends.
Flashbacks to 1995, including sometimes conflicting witness statements, alternate with Johnson’s present-day narration, enabling readers to form and then question their own theories of the case. This structure allows parallel models of friendship and romance, trust and lies, to form between the two time periods. Readers who flip frequently between past and present as they read will be richly rewarded, since Johnson’s fair-play mystery provides enough clues for especially observant readers to solve the case before its resolution.
Like Johnson’s previous Stevie Bell mystery, The Box in the Woods, Nine Liars can be enjoyed as a standalone, but readers who know and love Stevie and her classmates will feel like they’re returning to a satisfying jaunt with beloved friends.
In her fifth book starring teen sleuth Stevie Bell, Maureen Johnson both employs and subverts the hallmarks of classical English country house mysteries.
Author Holly Black returns to the world of Faerie with this highly anticipated spinoff from her bestselling Folk of the Air trilogy. The Stolen Heir follows Wren, the exiled queen of the Court of Teeth, and Prince Oak, the heir to Elfhame and Wren’s former betrothed.
Wren grew up a changeling, a faerie left in the care of a mortal family when she was just a toddler. She spent a blissful childhood among humans until her vicious faerie parents, Lord Jarel and Lady Nore, stole her away to the Ice Needle Citadel in the Court of Teeth. There, she endured years of humiliation and abuse before finally making her escape. She’s lived in isolation in the woods ever since, hiding from humans and faeries alike.
A charismatic and beguiling young man, Oak has spent much of his adolescence in the cutthroat Faerie court learning to combat the many assassination attempts on his life. While his sister, Jude, and her husband (the central couple of Black’s previous trilogy) rule Elfhame, Oak has been trying to put a stop to Lady Nore’s growing power and the threat it poses. He has hatched a dangerous plan that involves infiltrating the Court of Teeth. To carry it out successfully, however, he needs Wren’s insider knowledge of the citadel.
Wren crosses paths with Oak when he rescues her from a kidnapping attempt, then conscripts her into joining his plans. The Court of Teeth—her former prison—is the last place Wren wants to return to, but if she’s ever going to stop living on the run, she must confront her past and embrace her power, no matter how monstrous it makes her feel.
Black centers The Stolen Heir, the first book in a planned duology, on the scars of childhood trauma. Wren is the rightful claimant to a throne she is too frightened to command. Although she longs to return to her human family, her pale blue skin and sharply pointed teeth are constant reminders that she can never rejoin the mortal world. Oak’s unworldly allure—his golden curls and amber, foxlike eyes—makes her doubt the sincerity of his affection. As in all of Black’s books about the world of Faerie, beauty and cruelty exist side by side, and neither is ever completely what it seems.
Readers awaiting cameos from Jude and Cardan may feel slightly disappointed that Black keeps them in the background here. The Stolen Heir belongs wholly to Wren and Oak, but their story is just as satisfying as readers could hope for, deliciously wrought with mistrust and longing. Meanwhile, newcomers to Black’s Faerie books will be enticed to gobble up everything she has ever penned.
This highly anticipated spinoff to Holly Black’s bestselling Folk of the Air trilogy offers a tale deliciously wrought with mistrust and longing.
After solving two notorious cold cases, Stevie and her friends from Ellingham Academy are off to jolly old England to uncover the truth about a double murder that took place at a wealthy country estate in 1995. Meanwhile, they’re also dealing with college applications, academic pressures, romantic entanglements and more. In Nine Liars, bestselling author Maureen Johnson offers another satisfying standalone mystery and gives us a chance to spend more time with characters we’ve grown to love.
Nine Liars is your fifth novel about Stevie, but a reader could easily pick it up without having read the previous books. What are the challenges of achieving that effect from your side of the page? When I set out to write Truly Devious, I was making a detective mystery with the intention of having my detective go off in other books to work on other cases. That’s how most detective novels work—you can pick up pretty much any one of them and read it without knowing the characters beforehand. Of course, you get a little extra if you do.
Doing the “previously on” part—compressing it—can be tricky. I really want the experience to stand alone.
All of your books about Stevie balance page-turning mysteries with real emotional stakes for Stevie and her friends. Did you begin Nine Liars by asking, “What crime do I want Stevie to solve this time?” or “What’s happening in Stevie’s life now?” It’s the first one, though I’m always thinking about what happens in the second. Stevie’s life—that’s an organic process. The murder mystery is a machine I build piece by piece and assemble carefully. Stevie’s life grows around it, like a flowering vine, she said, writerly.
The case Stevie investigates in Nine Liars is a country house murder. What was appealing to you about this mystery subgenre? What classic aspects were you excited about including—or even putting your own spin on? The country house murder is a classic puzzle from the golden age of mystery for a reason: You have a set cast of suspects and a contained staging area for the puzzle to play out. Country houses are small enough in the grand scope of things to give the problem limits, but big enough and weird enough to have lots of hidey-holes and passages and things like that.
There’s also an air of unreality to them. They feel like a backdrop, not a place people would really live. That’s part of the appeal of this kind of mystery novel; it’s not meant to feel like a real crime, like people are being hurt. It’s Clue. It’s a revolving cast of professors and butlers and strange relatives who want to know about the will.
In Nine Liars, I wanted to play with that a little. It’s a group of actors, it’s a game, it’s a murder in the woodshed. But then the story continues to the present. The clues are still scattered around. The events in the woodshed had a real impact. And to solve it, Stevie must go back to the stage where this all went down.
“In puzzle mysteries like [Agatha] Christie’s, the world can be made right. There are solutions and often consequences. They serve as a psychological steam valve.”
We’ve seen Stevie solve cases from the 1930s and the 1970s, but in Nine Liars, she investigates a crime from 1995. How did this more recent setting impact the research you did for this novel? I was in London for the summer of 1995. I lived there with my friend Kate (who is now my agent is well—we’re close). I was a waitress during the day and a bartender at night; she worked in the office of a theater. We never had any money and mostly subsisted on Honey Nut Cheerios and whatever was left over from my work.
Kate worked in the theater where the show Riverdance was playing. It was the biggest show of the year. Everyone wanted to see it. We had no money to do anything and sometimes paid our rent in change, but we could go see Riverdance every night if we wanted to.
We lived in a flat that had three doors that were impossible to open, so we usually climbed over the trash cans in front of our room and went in through the window, so it was very secure. It was a hot, trashy summer. It was great.
One of the questions Stevie tells her head of school that she’ll study on her trip to the U.K. is why reading about murder can be a comforting activity. What are your thoughts on that question? It’s a strange one, right? Much is made about the fact that what’s called the golden age of mystery was between and during World War I and II. Books written during that time have a constant background of war. Agatha Christie was doing a lot of writing when England was being bombed. She wrote the final stories for Poirot, a war refugee from Belgium, and Miss Marple in case she didn’t survive. She wanted to be the one to finish her characters. These books, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, respectively, were locked in a bank vault until her death in 1976.
In puzzle mysteries like Christie’s, the world can be made right. There are solutions and often consequences. They serve as a psychological steam valve. Think about the world right now. Nine Liars is coming out into a world of YA readers who have undergone major trauma and confusion. I think there’s a very good reason everyone’s going back to the classic puzzle mystery.
“Stevie has to solve the crime in the context of a real world, full of people, with all the joys and complications they bring.”
Can you talk about the role that Stevie’s friends Nate, Janelle and Vi continue to play in her life and in these books? Many detectives famously have partners. Sherlock has Watson. Poirot has Hastings some of the time, and often a random friend or assistant he’s picked up along the way. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are a duo (both in crime solving and in love).
My entire high school and college world was my friends. Stevie has to solve the crime in the context of a real world, full of people, with all the joys and complications they bring.
What was the most challenging part of writing Nine Liars? What aspect of it are you most proud of? I work quite hard on the puzzle and making sure I’ve checked everything. By the end, I feel like I am doing embroidery and using tweezers, placing each little detail—the necessary clues, the fakeouts. I love watching it work. It’s like I’ve built a monster out of spare body parts and then it gets off the slab!
What do you love about coming back to the character of Stevie after four books? I’ve been writing Stevie for several years now. She’s good company. She never moves my stuff.
Coretta Scott King Honor author Lesa Cline-Ransome has earned a reputation as an excellent chronicler of American history in more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction. In For Lamb, she powerfully captures the events that lead to a fictitious lynching in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1940.
Cline-Ransome was inspired to write For Lamb after visiting the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, where she became interested in the untold stories of Black women who were victims of lynching. Within the novel, Cline-Ransome names a number of characters after these women, including the titular protagonist, whose namesake, Lamb Whittle, was lynched in Louisiana in 1907.
As the novel opens, 16-year-old Lamb Clark (who was “quiet as a lamb” when she was born) is a naive girl, sheltered by her protective mother, Marion, and older brother, Simeon, an enterprising student determined to attend college and leave the South behind. After an encounter between Simeon and a bigoted white optometrist, the doctor’s daughter decides to befriend Lamb. Their friendship sets off a series of developments and leads to a horrifying, expertly plotted climax with unimaginable consequences.
Cline-Ransome skillfully conveys Lamb’s transformation into a young woman determined to chart her own course in life despite the obstacles and horrors of the Jim Crow South, including a sexual assault and the lynching of a member of her family. Lamb comes to a new understanding of Marion’s romantic relationship with a woman and forms a new connection with her father, who has been largely absent for many years.
Cline-Ransome depicts injustice and violence with a perfect balance of brutality and sensitivity. She particularly excels at portraying the nuances of relationships and character motivations, which are often at odds among the members of Lamb’s family. Simeon, for instance, longs to be free from the need to act submissive around white people, while Marion believes this behavior can be key to survival, and readers gain deep understandings of both characters’ perspectives.
For Lamb is a heartbreaking novel that will leave readers with a visceral understanding of history.
Lesa Cline-Ransome powerfully chronicles the events that lead to a fictitious lynching in For Lamb, which expertly balances brutality and sensitivity.
Accepting dares is a way of life for Theo Wright. His close-knit friendships with Jay and Darren revolve around tasking one another with all manner of physical challenges and public humiliations. When Jay dares Theo to ask his crush to prom, Theo knows that his only chance to do so will be at the biggest house party of the year. Unfortunately, Theo’s promposal goes awry, and he exiles himself to an empty bedroom belonging to the host’s little sister.
Gradually, four more teens, each with their own troubles, join Theo in the mermaid-themed room to escape the social pressures of the party below. There’s Luca, whose own promposal disaster has gone viral; River, a nonbinary teen who’s nervous about announcing their identity; Makayla, a cheerleader who has endured years of slut shaming; and Aleah, Theo’s former best friend. Several heartfelt conversations and one fateful Waffle House run later, the five teens become unlikely allies in a plan to confront their respective emotional hurdles.
Although Theo narrates As You Walk on By, each of the five teens could carry their own story, and the web of relationships among the novel’s large cast is realistically complex. Author Julian Winters skillfully uses his characters’ rich interpersonal dynamics to explore the complicated emotions of fractured friendships, the pressures of reputation and family, and the friction between self-image and public identity. Winters also does an excellent job of highlighting how the teens’ diverse and often intersecting racial backgrounds, gender identities and sexualities influence their particular experiences of high school’s social battlefields.
Winters’ dialogue remains as effortlessly funny and charming as fans of his previous books have come to expect. Friends engage in easy banter, gently tease one another and drop plenty of pop culture references. Even the chapter titles are sometimes humorous (“The Same Post Malone Songs on Repeat”). This lightheartedness gives even more impact to the moments when friendships are strained, as characters weaponize their connections to one another with cutting words and painful betrayals.
All five central characters experience complete story arcs that coalesce in a natural, satisfying way to tell a joyful story of friendship, support and standing up for the life you want. As You Walk on By will leave readers feeling a little less invisible—and a little more invincible.
Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
“Family vacation” takes on a new meaning for grown children without kids of their own—like the couple trying their best to keep both sets of in-laws happy in Weike Wang’s Rental House.
