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Romance

Red carpet romances

Feature by Dolly R. Sickles

Two fun, flirty rom-coms with celebrity characters have hidden depths beneath their glittering surfaces.

Alisha Rai’s Modern Love series comes to a close with First Comes Like. Jia Ahmed is a beauty expert and influencer. She’s well-versed in fashion and camera angles and promoting posts—in short, she knows how to highlight not only the best parts of her look, but also the best parts of her life, the pieces she wants to amplify and share with the world. And when she takes up an epistolary romance with a hot Bollywood soap opera star through her direct messages, Jia is on cloud nine. He’s heir to an influential family, he’s giving her the romance she didn’t know she needed and he’s oh, so dreamy. He’s also oh, so fake.

Dev Dixit doesn’t have time for romance—between moving to America, closing out his brother’s estate and taking on the care of his niece, his schedule is full. But when he realizes someone is catfishing Jia, his sense of honor kicks in and he decides to help. It’s not that she’s beautiful and compelling and interesting—he’s just a great guy. Really. So, of course when they’re photographed in a sultry position, Dev has no option other than to agree to her request that they fake date for a bit, just to get the paparazzi off their backs.

Every page of First Comes Like is bursting with fun, especially for pop-culture junkies, but Rai also addresses deeper questions about fame and access and culture. Online personalities and romances versus real-life relationships; imposter syndrome; microaggressions about heritage and culture and Bollywood cinema. The large cast of characters surrounding both Jia and Dev are lovingly and individually drawn, and it’s hard not to feel swept up into both of their families. All that, and there are helpful tips for selfies courtesy of Jia!

Read an interview with Alisha Rai about the first book in the Modern Love series, The Right Swipe.

Former Hollywood actress River Lane travels to the tiny town of Moose Springs, Alaska, in Sarah Morgenthaler’s Enjoy the View. Determined to keep a stake in the film industry, River has shifted to working behind the screen and plans to direct a documentary about Moose Springs. She grew up in Wyoming, so the rugged landscape isn’t as daunting as the people of Moose Springs, who don’t want publicity about their little slice of heaven. River’s got a lot riding on the success of her directorial debut, which explains her short temper and brashness. She’s bold and she’s brave, and, thanks to local hottie Easton Lockett, she’s got an in for her Moose Springs documentary. The mountaineer agrees to guides River’s team into the Rockies to climb Mount Veil, their local 14er. Perennial peacemaker Easton is a lot nicer and more receptive to outsiders than other men in Morgenthaler’s series, but he’s no less cautious and protective of Moose Springs.

Morgenthaler’s romance is pure escapism and competence porn, full of adventure, beautiful mountain vistas and knowledgeable alpine climbing guides. It’s like “Northern Exposure” meets Cliffhanger; River’s reckless bravery keeps her on the edge of the mountain and readers on the edge of their seats. As a woman in Hollywood, River has walked a fine line between nice and pleasant and not making waves, because too much of the latter meant her career would be over. But now that she doesn’t have to walk that particularly unfair tightrope, she’s unsure of the right balance to strike in her life going forward. River and Easton have an adrenaline-filled journey to their happily ever after, but it’s the boldness and patience, community and independence they learn from each other that makes it the most satisfying.

Two fun, flirty rom-coms with celebrity characters have hidden depths beneath their glittering surfaces.

Mystery

Brutal and brilliant

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Two intense mysteries feature terrifying serial killers—and the cunning detectives who catch them.

Authors Eva García Sáenz and C.S. Harris balance shocking violence with the slow and steady thrill of watching a detective meticulously unravel a case.

Sáenz’s chillingly graphic The Water Rituals follows Spanish inspector Unai López de Ayala—better known by his nickname, Kraken—on the trail of a killer who has been drowning pregnant women in ways that mimic a 1,000-year-old ritual. 

Kraken, a behavioral profiler, is especially taken aback when he learns that the first victim is his former girlfriend, graphic novelist Ana Belén Liaño. Her body is found hanging upside down by her ankles, her head submerged in a Celtic cauldron of water. 

Unable to speak because of a traumatic brain injury (from his first adventure, The Silence of the White City), Kraken can only communicate with his fellow detectives by writing his thoughts on scraps of paper. The trauma of Ana’s death sparks a series of flashbacks as he recalls their relationship, and the memories prompt him to seek clues to her death as he tries to regain the ability to speak. News that Kraken’s boss, Deputy Superintendent Alba Díaz de Salvatierra, may be pregnant with his child ups the tension and the stakes as his pursuit of the killer continues.

Sáenz, who began her career by self-publishing before becoming an award-winning short story writer, maintains a tight point of view from Kraken’s perspective, creating a claustrophobic, psychologically intense experience for readers en route to a dramatic finale.

Harris’ novel What the Devil Knows is equally brutal. The novel opens in 1814 London, three years after the real-life Ratcliffe Highway murders and decades before the more notorious Jack the Ripper slayings. The lead magistrate in the Ratcliffe Highway case, Sir Edwin Pym, has been killed in the same manner as the Ratcliffe killer’s victims.

Lead investigator Sebastian St. Cyr immediately voices his concern to fellow investigators: “You assume this murderer has a logical reason for what he does. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s more likely whoever did this simply enjoys killing.” So begins the methodical, purposeful pursuit of a killer who has no qualms about what he does, whether he is the actual Ratcliffe Highway killer or, as Sebastian muses, a copycat “deliberately modeling his acts on the sensational murders of the past.”

What the Devil Knows is Harris’ 16th novel featuring Sebastian, but it is easily accessible to anyone new to the series. While a subplot deals with Sebastian’s family lineage, the novel mostly follows a procedural course, building suspense and dread as Sebastian questions the victim’s acquaintances and possible enemies. Harris guides us through London’s streets with detail and dialects that firmly establish the novel’s immersive historical setting. In her afterword, Harris recounts which elements of the novel she drew from actual depositions, testimonies and newspaper reports.

Whether your passion lies with a detective’s meticulous pursuit of evidence or you thrill to the hunt for a killer, these books deliver on both accounts.

Two intense mysteries feature terrifying serial killers—and the cunning detectives who catch them.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Nature’s protectors

Feature by Jill Lorenzini

Two picture book biographies introduce environmentalists who dedicated their lives to protecting environments they held dear, from the tops of the trees to a beautiful beach.

The Leaf Detective: How Margaret Lowman Uncovered Secrets in the Rainforest is the story of a leaf-loving little girl who grew up to become “Canopy Meg,” the woman who became a pioneering researcher of rainforests and began the process of educating the world on why and how we should all love them.

Author Heather Lang was inspired by both her subject, with whom she briefly traveled, and her own time spent among the trees. Lang’s text is rich with metaphor and personification as it conveys turning points in Lowman’s life, including her invention of a treetop canopy walkway that made the upper levels of the forest more accessible for close-up study. Sprinkled throughout the narrative are quotations from Canopy Meg herself, as well as valuable contextual asides that float on leaves as though they’re drifting away from the primary text.

Jana Christy’s stunning illustrations of the rainforest foliage are appropriately lush and vibrant, brimming with cool-toned greens and blues. This is artwork you’ll want to fall into face-first, as Christy uses striking close-ups and unusual angles to put the reader right into the forest. Streaming sunlight and deep shadows emphasize life at every layer of the dense canopy, and lifelike birds, bugs, reptiles and mammals offer glimpses into the rainforest’s dynamic ecosystem. On many pages, small sketches fill white space, illustrating specific elements of Lowman’s experiences with the feel of a researcher’s notebook. 

The book’s back matter is as excellent as the primary narrative. It includes a lengthy author’s note, a hefty bibliography and a vertical spread that illustrates the layers of a rainforest, which is worth the cost of admission all by itself. The Leaf Detective is a wonderful introduction to a scientist who discovered her life’s passion by looking up. 

Like Lowman, MaVynee Betsch was also shaped by the natural world—in her case, by the sights and sounds of a very special beach. In Saving American Beach: The Biography of African American Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch, author Heidi Tyline King tells the story of this determined woman and the land that inspired her. 

Betsch’s great-grandfather, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, purchased the land that became American Beach during a time when many beaches were segregated. Black families were welcome to enjoy Lewis’ beach, and it soon became a lively place full of music, community and fun. After Betsch enjoyed a successful career as an opera singer, she returned to Florida and made preserving the land and history of American Beach her life’s work. 

With brushstrokes that conjure the motion of ocean waves, Caldecott Honor illustrator Ekua Holmes evokes the warm nostalgia of summers spent among a loving community. Her collage illustrations incorporate ephemera such as music notes, old maps, opera tickets, flyers and newsprint, subtly and thoughtfully weaving tangible reminders of the past into scenes of brightly dressed people playing on the golden sand.

King’s text is descriptive and detailed, lyrical and full of striking turns of phrase, such as the beach’s “blue sky stretching to forever.” Concluding notes from both the author and the illustrator add historical context to the narrative and expand on the legacy Betsch left behind when she died in 2005. Saving American Beach is an exquisite and moving tribute to Betsch and the land she treasured.

Two picture book biographies introduce environmentalists who dedicated their lives to protecting environments they held dear, from the tops of the trees to a beautiful beach.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Haiku for me and you

Feature by Julie Danielson

Celebrate National Poetry Month with two picture books that serve as engaging, accessible introductions to the world of verse while paying tribute to the Japanese poetic form of haiku.  

In Fran Nuño’s The Dance of the Bees, translated from the Spanish by Jon Brokenbrow and featuring exquisite illustrations from Zuzanna Celej, a woman recalls walking in the woods as a girl with her grandmother. As they walked, her grandmother taught her about bees—how they pollinate flowers, provide honey and are “important for life on our planet.” 

Nuño sets the story in the Japanese countryside, and the book has a classical, almost formal design. Each spread contains an illustration on one side and text on the other, both framed within gently hexagonal borders. On nearly every spread is a haiku, printed vertically next to a small symbol of nature. For instance, an early spread includes this evocative haiku: “Along the way / the buzzing of bees / and our footsteps.” Underneath is a small bee within a crimson-colored border. 

In this lovingly designed book (which is printed on environmentally friendly paper with an appealing heft), Celej’s muted, earth-toned cut-paper illustrations are spare, textured and feature the elegant lines of traditional Japanese art. In one image, she offers a close-up view of a bee in flight. Papery gossamer wings carry the insect, described in the accompanying haiku as a “tiny mystery,” beneath a branch with delicate cherry blossoms. 

Midway through the story, the girl, now a grown woman, visits the same wooded spot with her son. The pair follows a bee, which lands on a pile of stones. Underneath the stones, they find a notebook of 12 haiku written by the grandmother: “I kept them in a secret place where I was sure you would find them one day, thanks to the dance of the bees,” the notebook reads. Now the woman can share her grandmother’s poetry with the next generation. 

Mark Karlins’ Kiyoshi’s Walk, illustrated by Nicole Wong, is also an intergenerational tale. Effortlessly knitting together themes of creativity and family, it’s an exploration of the source of poetic inspiration, as seen through the eyes of Kiyoshi, a young boy spending the day with his grandfather Eto. 

When he sees Eto write a haiku with a brush and ink in traditional Japanese calligraphy, Kiyoshi is intrigued. “Where do poems come from?” he asks. Wisely, Kiyoshi’s grandfather decides to show (not tell) the boy and invites him for a walk. As they stroll through the city, Eto occasionally stops to compose a haiku. 

Kiyoshi is observant as he seeks out what inspires his grandfather. If a heap of oranges outside of a market—and the cat who topples those oranges—inspires a haiku, then Kiyoshi figures poems must come from seeing things. But then Eto writes a haiku after hearing pigeons and their “whir of feathers,” so the boy amends his statement: “Oh, you find poems by listening.” The gears in Kiyoshi’s head spin as he spends the day with his grandfather, eager to solve the mystery. Eventually the boy discovers that everything can contain poems—“the faces of the people, the sound of the river, the moon breaking from the clouds.” 

Karlins grounds Kiyoshi’s Walk in the tangible details that grandfather and grandson experience, ordinary moments that become extraordinary when seen through the eyes of a poet. The way the sun shines from behind a cloud, the flowers that grow out of sidewalk cracks, an abandoned house with a child’s toy left behind, a fleeting feeling of loneliness—observant eyes and open hearts know that any of these things can inspire a poem. Wong brings it all to vivid life with warmly colored, terrifically detailed illustrations of the pair’s walk through the city. 

Celebrate National Poetry Month with two picture books that serve as engaging, accessible introductions to the world of verse while paying tribute to the Japanese poetic form of haiku.

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Lifestyles: April 2021

Feature by Susannah Felts

This month’s selection of the best new lifestyles titles offers gentle reminders to connect to the earth, ask for directions and breathe.

★ The Healing Garden

Two of the first things you’ll see in The Healing Garden are a close-up of a hummingbird cupped in author Deb Soule’s hand and an acknowledgment that her herbal farm occupies Indigenous people’s ancestral lands. Together, these things set a lovely tone for her new guide to herbalism. The founder of Avena Botanicals and author of How to Move Like a Gardener, Soule has cultivated healing plants and worked with them for medicine and wellness for more than four decades. Her wisdom comes with a gentle summons to mindfulness and a plea to embrace a broader awareness of nature’s cycles. She walks us through drying herbs for teas and infusions and guides us in making tinctures, vinegars, honeys, oils and more. Individual profiles of 18 healing plants dig deep into the history and properties of each, along with tips for growing and processing. Both practical and mystical, this is a beautiful, heartfelt guide to an ancient field of study that is experiencing renewed interest.

Directions

I almost let Hallie Bateman’s Directions slip past. What can I say? I’m a Taurus, and I don’t always love being told what to do, so affirmations in large quantities make me queasy. But once I started paging through this colorful, scrappy little book, I couldn’t stop, and I might have even smiled. A few personal faves:

“Dance and encourage dancing but don’t force anyone to dance.” 

“Apply lotion regularly and generously. Get old anyway.”

“Conjure specialness from thin air. Invent holidays, traditions, and surprises. (Duck Day, Ice Cream Tuesday, etc.)”

This would be a fun one to leave by the bed in a guest room or an Airbnb, since almost anyone will find a direction or two that resonates with them. Happily, Bateman’s book has prompted me to explore her larger body of work; her Instagram account is one to follow.

Simplicity at Home

I’ve been daydreaming about travel; haven’t we all? I yearn to wander a new city, to chance upon an exquisite shop where the artfully arranged goods and decor and lighting and background music all work in tandem to create an immersive experience. Yumiko Sekine’s shop in Tokyo, Fog Linen Work, would surely fit the bill, but for now we have Simplicity at Home, which presents Sekine’s “joyful minimalist” way of living and thoughtful devotion to reusing, repairing and creating harmony with the seasons. The pages are filled with neutrals, spare arrangements of housewares like small ceramic bowls and wooden spoons, neatly folded cloths, bright bunches of vegetables, tiny seeds on white plates, a clutch of flowering branches in a clear glass jar—and of course, delicately rumpled linen for days. If home is a bit suffocating lately, take a trip through this book, make some cold noodles for lunch, fold your socks and breathe.

This month’s selection of the best new lifestyles titles offers gentle reminders to connect to the earth, ask for directions and breathe.
NonfictionNatureAnimals

Take a bird’s-eye view of Earth Day

Feature by Anna Christensen

This period of cloistering at home has made bird lovers everywhere more attentive to their backyards. Millions of us have hung bird feeders, ordered bird identification cards and glued ourselves to the windowpane to watch these tiny emissaries of the sky. Yet for all the joy that birds bring us, they face grim and unprecedented dangers as their numbers dwindle. To better appreciate the beauty, delicacy and tenacity of our aerial friends, these books will put you on the right crosswind.

★ A World on the Wing

Scott Weidensaul, a Pulitzer finalist for his book Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds, returns to the topic in A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, though much has changed in the intervening 20 years. For one thing, tracking technology has improved, with devices shrunk to a size that even the smallest songbirds can wear. Weidensaul describes a minuscule transmitter fitted to the small of a bird’s back by two small loops around its legs, and this is charming to think about—first, of birds having a small of the back, and second, of their wearing transmitters like tiny underpants.

In 2016 the Anthropocene Working Group proposed that humanity had left the Holocene and entered the Anthropocene, an era defined by the ways humans have destabilized the natural world. Weidensaul addresses migratory birds’ changing reality and the scientists who work tirelessly to learn more about them and advocate on their behalf to the powers responsible for decimating these birds’ lives and rhythms. The plight and toughness of both birds and their human defenders will move you in lasting ways.

★ A Most Remarkable Creature

According to Jonathan Meiburg, a South American falcon called the caracara is both the most and least likely animal to survive the world to come. Personable and wickedly clever, the caracara’s greatest strengths are its adaptability, intelligence and ability to forge connections, even with humans. In his debut book, A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey, Meiburg travels across South America in pursuit of this little-known falcon that seems to either enchant or chagrin anyone who crosses its path.

So intimately does Meiburg acquaint his readers with this inquisitive, curious, sometimes playful thief of a bird that it’s startling when he adds “doomed” to that list of adjectives. Meiburg’s fondness for the caracara is plain, and he can’t help but dream up a plan to rescue this odd winged creature from its steadily shrinking habitat, encroached upon by forces both natural and human-made. What’s more, Meiburg lodges the caracara so deeply in readers’ hearts that by the end of the book, they will feel ready to participate in whatever scheme he proposes to save this peculiar dinosaur-descendant.

The Glitter in the Green

At the other end of the avian spectrum lies the hummingbird, that glamorous, sugar-high pugilist of the garden. Natural history writer, photographer and hummingbird obsessive (within the first hundred pages he crosses both a bear and a puma in pursuit of this tiny, glimmering bird) Jon Dunn has written a book that is both an ode to hummingbirds and a remarkable piece of travel literature. In The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds, we travel with Dunn to Alaska, Mexico and across South America as he follows in the hummingbird’s wake.

Dunn gives us the facts about hummingbirds—for example, their long tongues coil inside their skulls when not in use and split at the end to allow for rapid-fire nectar gathering—but he also explores the places where hummingbirds intersect with the world they inhabit and the people they affect. The story of hummingbirds intertwines intriguingly with Mexican witchcraft, James Bond, plane crashes, economies around the world and the lingering legacy of Aztec power. We come to realize that these familiar visitors are astonishingly mysterious: They perform impressive migrations to arctic climes for breeding, their feathers have been valued as currency, and some cultures believe they bring love and guard travelers. From the narrative of Dunn’s excursion, we learn that a backyard hummingbird sighting is actually an exotic visit from the wide, strange world.

To better appreciate the beauty, delicacy and tenacity of our aerial friends, these books will put you on the right crosswind.
Mystery

Cozies: April 2021

Feature by Heather Seggel

Cute canine sleuths, the glamour of Gilded Age Broadway and a prickly, private librarian—this month's column has something for every kind of cozy reader.

★The Unkindness of Ravens

Greer Hogan left her life in New York City behind after her husband’s murder. Starting over as a librarian in the village of Raven Hill has offered some distance from that trauma—until she finds her best friend dead in the library. Greer is still considered an outsider in the tightknit village, so she leans on her own research skills to find her friend’s killer while coming to grips with uncomfortable truths about her husband’s death. The Unkindness of Ravens pushes the boundaries of cozy mysteries: It’s moody and tense, literary and urbane, and an edgy delight to read. Author M.E. Hilliard is herself a librarian, and she gets the job’s balance of fun and drudgery note-perfect. Yes, there are bake sales and charming patrons, but there are also a lot of repetitive tasks and the occasional creep. Analytical and not overly social, Greer keeps to herself, even shying away from the reader at times, which only serves to heighten the suspense. Nods to Trixie Belden, Kinsey Millhone and Edgar Allan Poe tempt the reader to relax into the novel’s bookish atmosphere, until a fast-paced conclusion that’s truly surprising whips things to a close. The Unkindness of Ravens is an exciting debut, and I’m already eager for another installment.

Animal Instinct

When private investigator Corey Douglas was still a police officer, he responded to a domestic violence call in which he could do nothing to help the victim, Lisa Yates. Now, years later, Lisa has died in an unsolved shooting, and Corey decides to try and right a past wrong by solving her murder. Animal Instinct, David Rosenfelt’s second K Team novel, builds suspense by shifting points of view between Corey’s team and their extremely dangerous enemies, who are always a step ahead. Lisa’s job at a medical records company makes for a very data-centric thriller, but plenty of muscle is exerted as well, by dogs as well as humans. Rosenfelt has artfully spun off Corey and his K-9 partner, Simon Garfunkel, from his hit Andy Carpenter series, and Andy appears here in more than a mere cameo, which adds to the fun.

Death of a Showman

Death of a Showman finds lady’s maid Jane Prescott on Broadway, chaperoning her rich employer, Louise Tyler, to rehearsals of a show Louise has been persuaded to invest in. Jane’s not thrilled to be there; her passionate dalliance with composer Leo Hirschfeld abruptly ended when he married a chorus girl, but that doesn’t stop him from flirting with every woman he sees. It’s almost a welcome distraction when the show’s tough-guy producer, Sidney Warburton, is murdered. Author Mariah Fredericks has clearly done her research on Gilded Age New York and its colossal theaters, because she creates a real sense of being behind the scenes and behind the curtain. The murder is nearly upstaged by the drama, backbiting and infighting among the cast and crew, but it’s all told with understated elegance.

Cute canine sleuths, the glamour of Gilded Age Broadway and a prickly, private librarian—this month's column has something for every kind of cozy reader.

Romance

Romance: April 2021

Feature by Christie Ridgway

What do a mysterious painting, a quirky retirement village and a forensic photographer have in common? They're all in this month's romance column!

★ The Duke Undone

Opposites attract is a beloved romance trope, and it’s hard to imagine two people less likely to fall in love than a handsome aristocrat and an orphaned art student. When Lucy Coover encounters Anthony Philby, Duke of Weston, unconscious and naked in a London alley, she covers him up and gets help but later paints him from memory as a mythic (and nude) figure. Anthony discovers the piece before his disgrace becomes public, but he must find the artist to prevent further renderings. The Duke Undone is no rom-com, however. Author Joanna Lowell’s novel includes glimpses of life at the Royal Academy of Arts, political chicanery, kidnapping and the plight of people in unsavory asylums. It’s a lush, sensual and outstanding romance that makes the heart ache in the very best way. 

★ Second First Impressions

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne is a tender love story about a woman who learns to put herself first. Ruthie Midona both lives and works at the Providence Retirement Villa, and the 25-year-old wonders if she’ll still be living there in 70 years. She’s a cautious sort, so it will take a big bang to shake up her world. This explosion comes in the guise of ne’er-do-well tattoo artist Teddy Prescott, who’s hired as an assistant to a pair of residents (who make adorable supporting characters). Who wouldn’t fall for confident, beautiful Teddy, even though he’s got bigger plans that will soon take him far away? There’s so much to love in this book. Many readers will see a little of themselves in Ruthie’s relatable perspective, and all of them will lose their hearts to Teddy. His self-deprecating charm is irresistible, but he’s more than a pretty face—just as beneath Thorne’s fresh and breezy writing style is a story with real depth. Second First Impressions is an unforgettable charmer.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Sally Thorne on the balance between "give" and "take" in a romantic relationship.

Flight

A former forensic photographer and a detective team up to stop a serial killer in Flight by Laura Griffin. In the small coastal town of Lost Beach, Texas, Miranda Moore tries to de-stress from a particularly gruesome case by photographing birds, but the discovery of a pair of dead bodies soon draws her into a new investigation. Detective Joel Breda recognizes Miranda’s gift with her camera and is also struck by a level of attraction he hasn’t experienced before. Miranda is likewise smitten, but she’s more wary. When it looks like the killer is getting close to her, however, she turns to Joel for more than just protection. Griffin evokes a fabulous sense of place; the reader can feel the humidity and smell the salt air. An appealing cast combined with just the right amount of tingling suspense create a balanced blend of sexy romance and intriguing mystery.

What do a mysterious painting, a quirky retirement village and a forensic photographer have in common? They're all in this month's romance column!

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Short and sweet

Feature by Autumn Allen

Chapter books offer engaging opportunities for children to become confident, independent young readers. Two new chapter books, each the first in a series, combine all the heart and narrative complexity of middle grade novels with the brevity and supportive illustrations that are the hallmarks of great chapter books. 

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s first chapter book, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey, introduces an endearing heroine that readers will root for from the very first page. 

Marisol longs to climb the big magnolia tree in her backyard, which she has named Peppina. (Marisol believes in the importance of naming objects, from Buster Keaton the refrigerator to Charlie the family car.) Though Peppina seems like a perfect climbing tree, Marisol wouldn’t know because she’s afraid of heights. Marisol’s best friend, Jada, loves to climb Peppina, and so does Oz, Marisol’s big brother. But all Marisol can do is gaze at Peppina, imagine what it would be like to see the world from on high and wonder why she feels so scared. 

As Peppina looms in her thoughts, Marisol plays with Jada, tolerates the dual annoyances of Oz and a nemesis at school and thrives under the care of her loving mother, a Filipina immigrant, and her father, who works far away but visits via the computer screen. 

Kelly’s third-person narration is simple and clear as it captures Marisol’s perspective, allowing readers to see the world through her eyes. Black-and-white illustrations on nearly every page bring Marisol’s imagined scenarios to life while also breaking up the linear text for young readers. Yet Kelly cleverly incorporates speech bubbles and labels within the illustrations for additional textual engagement. Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey will encourage readers who fear the possibility of failure to look forward to a brighter future.  

In Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-Be Best Friend, author Dawn Quigley creates a sparkling portrait of an Ojibwe girl and her life on a fictional reservation. Full of personality, Jo Jo is frank about her strengths (math and drawing) and her weaknesses (language arts), but her biggest challenge is feeling secure in her friendships. Her first best friend is her cat, Mimi, whom she hopes to protect from the veterinarian. Her second best friend is her classmate Fern, but since Fern hasn’t been sitting with her at lunch lately, Jo Jo is afraid that Fern doesn’t want to be best friends anymore. 

Over the course of an adventurous day, readers come to know Jo Jo’s quirky perspective, her insecurities and her cultural identity, which informs how she sees the world. Jo Jo has a sense of humor and a playful attitude, and she also misinterprets dialogue and body language, all of which is sure to lead to plenty of giggles. Jo Jo’s family, teachers and friends keep her on her toes, learning and growing. 

Quigley’s first-person narration is fast paced, witty and engaging, while illustrator Tara Audibert’s black-and-white cartoon-style illustrations assist with character development and deepen the story’s setting. An author’s note and glossary provide context about the Ojibwe people and the Ojibwe and Michif words used in the text, which will be familiar to readers once they’ve finished reading this delightful book. 

Two new chapter books, each the first in a series, combine all the heart and narrative complexity of middle grade novels with the brevity and supportive illustrations that are the hallmarks of great chapter books. 

Oh, baby!

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

In these two thrillers, one group of women is committed to remaining childfree, while the other focuses on impending motherhood. But when support and camaraderie transform into sabotage and cruelty, who can the women trust with their lives?

Ah, to be young, carefree and self-righteous, like Sheila Heller and her college friends Dina, Naama and Ronit in Sarah Blau’s The Others, translated from the Hebrew by Daniella Zamir. 

The four women became fast and fierce friends after meeting in a freshman year Bible course at Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University, dubbing themselves the Others and making an earnest vow: “We’re not like the rest . . . like all the students eager to get married during senior year, start having babies and settle down; we’re going to steer our own destinies.” 

Twenty years on, the women’s lives have taken disparate paths. Narrator Sheila is an instructor at the Bible Museum; Ronit is an actor; sweet Naama has been dead for many years; and acid-tongued Dina, a famous feminist scholar, has been murdered, found with the word “mother” carved into her forehead and a baby doll glued to her hands. It’s horrifying by any measure, but even more so, Sheila muses, because in death Dina was forced to become what she railed against for so long. 

Squirrelly police detective Micha Yarden presses Sheila to delve into the past to figure out who’d hate Dina enough to kill her, and Blau smoothly moves the story back and forth in time as Sheila slowly and tantalizingly reveals the friction and pain that led to the group’s separation. Mental illness and the big and small ways humans change over the years are explored via multiple characters, and fascinating parallels between the Others and childless women in the Bible abound, adding yet another layer of social commentary to a compelling and often disturbing narrative.

Is Sheila the culprit, the next victim or some combination thereof? The Others will keep readers guessing as it considers the damaging effects of societal pressure, unresolved resentment and lingering guilt. 

There’s pregnancy brain, and then there’s what Dr. Jillian Marsh experiences in R.H. Herron’s Hush Little Baby. Jillian is an OB-GYN, so she knows all about the intense hormonal changes and frustrating forgetfulness that pregnancy can bring, but this feels different. There’s a threatening, ominous charge to the air, a feeling of unease she can’t shake, when her securely locked and alarm-protected home in Venice Beach, California, is suddenly besieged by a host of strange noises, disturbing smells and items mysteriously missing or moved. 

Even the titular lullaby curdles from sweet to menacing as Jillian turns to her moms’ group, the Ripleys, for help figuring out if she’s being gaslit, and if so by whom and why. She formed the Ripleys with three other women she met through Alcoholics Anonymous, naming the group after “the protagonist of the Alien movies. . . . Ripley was the baddest of all mothers. She’d fiercely saved the universe twice. We wanted to emulate her, not mommy bloggers.” 

Jillian, uber-wealthy Bree, single mom-to-be Maggie and true crime TV producer Camille work together to figure out who might be behind the strange goings-on. Could it be Jillian’s unfaithful estranged wife, Rochelle, deviously angling for full custody? A weird neighbor? Or even Jillian herself, suffering from the aftereffects of her traumatic teen years? 

Skepticism from her friends and the police increases Jillian’s self-doubt and leads to conflicts among the Ripleys. The group seems to be fracturing more every day due to closely guarded secrets, differing views on the so-called “right way” to get pregnant and the stress of juggling busy lives and families.

A wild series of twists takes center stage as Herron’s carefully crafted slow-burn psychological suspense turns into something else altogether, spinning the story in a terrifying new direction. Readers who are drawn to creepily stressful tension as well as shocking, edge-of-your-seat sequences will revel in Hush Little Baby, even as they join the characters in taking a harder look at what pregnancy and motherhood offer to and demand from women.

In these two thrillers, one group of women is committed to remaining childfree, while the other focuses on impending motherhood.

NonfictionPhotographyFood & DrinkCookbooks

Lifestyles: May 2021

Feature by Susannah Felts

Take a journey around the globe via the bookstores, recipes and fruits featured in this month’s lifestyles roundup.

★ Bookstores

For a bibliophile, it doesn’t get any better than Bookstores: A Celebration of Independent Booksellers, a coffee-table stunner featuring images by London-based photographer Horst A. Friedrichs. With every turn of the page, you’ll take a journey around the globe and through the stacks—from Spoonbill & Sugartown in Brooklyn, New York, to the curious Baldwin’s Book Barn in Pennsylvania, to idiosyncratic shops in the U.K., Germany, Austria and more. Along the way you’ll meet the owners who have made bookselling their lives’ work and art. They share how they came to the trade, what makes their shops unique and why the work—and the books themselves, of course—continues to matter so darn much in an age of, well, you know. I want to visit every single one of these bookstores, but that’s probably a tall order. Just knowing they exist, and holding this gorgeous artifact in my hands, feels like enough.

The Kitchen Without Borders

The other night my husband fixed a delicious Syrian meal: ma’areena soup, a bit like pasta Bolognese but decidedly different thanks to a seven-spice blend common to Middle Eastern cooking. We found this dish in The Kitchen Without Borders, a cookbook from Eat Offbeat, a New York City-based catering company that works with immigrant and refugee chefs. Eat Offbeat honors and shares the “special food memories our chefs have brought with them,” write Wissam Kahi and Manal Kahi, Lebanese siblings who began their careers with the simple wish to share their Syrian grandmother’s hummus. The book features dishes from Iran, Iraq, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and more. Profiles of the chefs appear between recipes for dishes such as fattoush, musabbaha (chickpea salad) and chicken shawarma. It feels like a true global community endeavor.

The Book of Difficult Fruit

Twenty-six fruits, A to Z, form the basis for poet and pie-maker Kate Lebo’s lovely, meandering essays in The Book of Difficult Fruit. Beginning with aronia, or chokeberry, Lebo weaves personal stories with facts from nature and science, resulting in a difficult-to-classify literary and culinary exploration—the best kind, in my opinion. Ever wondered what exactly a maraschino cherry is? Lebo will tell you, and then she’ll tell you about the almond flavor of stone-fruit pits, and then about cherry trees in her backyard, and about a strange brush with new neighbors, and about how to make real maraschino cherries. And on you go, through durian and elderberry, through Norton grape and Osage orange, all the way to zucchini—a curious, lyrical, alphabetical adventure.

Take a journey around the globe via the bookstores, recipes and fruits featured in this month’s lifestyles roundup.
Romance

With friends like these

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

Complex and delightful friend groups ground two new romances in warts-and-all reality.

Trying to find love can mean putting your best foot forward: being the hottest, smartest, coolest version of yourself whenever the object of your affection is around. But as guarded as we are with romantic prospects, we open ourselves wholeheartedly to the friends who love us exactly as we are. By showcasing strong friend groups, two romances offer a glimpse into their characters’ truest, facade-down, flaws-exposed selves.

In Kris Ripper’s The Hate Project, Oscar Nelson and his friends have been fixtures in each other’s lives since college, providing encouragement, nagging, advice, excessive emojis and unconditional love. These are all things that Oscar needs badly, given the powerful and pervasive anxiety that threatens to crush him when he loses his miserable customer service job and must put himself out there to find another gig. 

A temporary reprieve comes when Jack hires Oscar to clean out his grandmother’s house. Jack’s late grandfather was a hoarder, so this is no easy task. It’s potentially awkward as well, as Jack and Oscar have never really gotten along. And since Jack and Oscar slept together that one time, well . . .

This story, if you’ll pardon the pun, has a lot of unpacking to do. Ripper digs deep into Oscar’s issues, depicting them with such uncompromising starkness that readers may have trouble envisioning how he will come out on the other side and step into healthy choices and happy endings. Ripper also devotes time to Jack’s issues, since he’s got his own burdens to carry. 

By the end, Ripper methodically reveals that nearly every character has had to work hard to get where they are—even the sunniest character, Jack’s hilariously irrepressible grandmother, Evelyn. While The Hate Project depicts a lot of struggle, including a fair and realistic amount of backsliding, it also showcases lovely moments of hope, steadfastly suggesting that troubles can be overcome with loyal friends.

The friendship group in Just Last Night faces a challenge that’s far more abrupt—painfully so. Three 30-somethings who’ve been tightly wound into each other’s lives since they were teenagers are forced to grapple with a shocking and sudden death among their ranks. 

Eve, Ed and Justin are wrecked at the loss of their fourth, Suzie. But their bond is further undermined when Eve discovers that, 10 years ago, Suzie had a one-night stand with Ed. Ed, who is now engaged. Ed, whom Eve has been hopelessly, silently in love with for years. This revelation shakes Eve down to her foundations, causing her to reevaluate the relationships that define her and those she'd written off, including her relationship with Suzie’s gorgeous, estranged brother, Finlay. He and Eve grow closer as she sorts through the impact of the past on her present and the ways the people around her have influenced the person she chose to become.

With complex subjects and complicated characters, Mhairi McFarlane's unflinchingly honest romances often go where other authors fear to tread. The turmoil and heartache in Just Last Night feel visceral and real, as do the scars from the past. A scene that describes a character's experience of childhood abuse carries a lot of weight and is particularly difficult to read. 

But McFarlane’s romances are always worth the journey. With incredible warmth, humor and humanity, they stir such deep empathy and engagement that you won’t just watch the characters’ cathartic experiences; you’ll feel them. Likewise, you won't just admire this group friendship; you'll feel like you're a part of it, and that you’re all the better for it.

Complex and delightful friend groups ground two new romances in warts-and-all reality.

Romance

Romance: May 2021

Feature by Christie Ridgway

These three love stories combine beloved tropes (marriage of convenience! fake engagement!) with pitch-perfect pacing.

★ The Secret Bridesmaid

The Secret Bridesmaid by Katy Birchall provides charming entertainment, British rom-com style. In a breezy first-person voice, the narrator (Sophie Breeze, ha!) relates her adventures as a professional bridesmaid—or rather, an incognito wedding planner for brides who want to claim they organized their own nuptials. As Sophie embarks on her most high-profile gig yet, emails, voicemails and texts offer hilarious snapshots of the problems she tackles and the solutions she devises. The bride is horrid, her brother is an attractive and good-natured modern Mr. Darcy, and their aristocratic circle is way out of Sophie’s league, but it’s impossible not to root for her to win the day—and the guy. This kisses-only romance is a pure delight that will leave a smile on readers’ faces and in their hearts. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Katy Birchall on the joys of weddings and why she's anti-canapé.

A Wicked Bargain for the Duke

An aristocrat seeking a particular kind of duchess discovers the perfect woman for him instead in A Wicked Bargain for the Duke by Megan Frampton. In this third installment of the Hazards of Dukes series, the new Duke of Hasford, Thaddeus, has decided to do his duty by finding a wife and conceiving an heir. Lady Jane Capel appears perfect for him—beautiful and biddable—but he can’t look away from her fiery sister, Lavinia. When circumstances force them to marry (a popular trope), the two strike a bargain that is undermined by their growing feelings for each other and Lavinia’s scandalous secret occupation as a novelist. Readers will fall for the likable, laudable Thaddeus and Lavinia as they fall for each other, discovering the joys of the marriage bed through several scorching love scenes. There are compelling secondary characters and a lot of romantic satisfaction in this sweet happily ever after.

The Lady Has a Past

Travel to 1930s Southern California in Amanda Quick’s The Lady Has a Past. The latest Burning Cove romance begins with newbie investigator Lyra Brazier on the hunt for her boss, Raina, who has mysteriously left town. Lyra teams up with private eye Simon Cage, and by posing as newlyweds, the pair infiltrates the exclusive hotel and spa where Raina was last seen. Simon is a good man for Lyra to have at her side as the mystery and danger grows. Not only is he wildly attractive, but he also possesses a paranormal gift for uncovering secrets. But for all his expertise, Simon is new to the ways of the heart, and his transformation from man above the emotional fray to dedicated lover is delicious. Stylish and sophisticated, The Lady Has a Past is pure fun spiced with spine-tingling suspense. Vile villains, clever characters and a glamorous desert resort setting all come together to provide a great escape. This romantic mystery is a first-rate example of Quick’s expertise at spinning an enthralling tale.

These three love stories combine beloved tropes (marriage of convenience! fake engagement!) with pitch-perfect pacing.

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