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Science Fiction & Fantasy

Choose your own reality

Feature by Laura Hubbard

Readers and gamers alike will be well served by two refreshing science fiction novels that are both exciting and thought provoking.

Whether you’re looking for a trippy walk through the American Pacific Northwest or a Modern Warfare-esque tromp through a dystopian hellscape is up to you. The only question is this: Are you playing?

Woodpeckers photographed decades after they are thought to have gone extinct. A game in an arcade that suddenly has a level that no one has ever seen before. Videos of violent crimes that never actually happened. These are the hallmarks of the alternate reality game Rabbits, known by its players as just “the game.” Some think the game was created by spy agencies as a way to find new recruits. Others think the game is far older and that it has been going on for centuries. But there are two things that all who know about Rabbits can agree on. First: You don’t talk about the details of Rabbits, ever. Especially with outsiders. If you do, things will go poorly for you. Second: Playing the game, nevermind winning, will change your life.

K (yes, it’s short for something, but don’t ask what) learns this firsthand on an otherwise normal Seattle night. After giving his regular presentation about the history of the game at a local arcade, he is approached by eccentric billionaire (and rumored Rabbits champion) Alan Scarpio. Over rhubarb pie and coffee, Scarpio tells K that there’s something wrong with the game—something that Scarpio needs K’s help to fix before the next iteration of the game begins. K is skeptical at first, but when Scarpio disappears soon after their late-night meeting, K is pulled into a warren of intrigue and danger that will change not just K’s life, but reality itself.

Set in the same world as his pseudo-documentary podcast of the same name, Terry Miles’ debut novel, Rabbits, is all about reality: discrepancies, changes and patterns. Or, more precisely, it’s about the moments of unreality that we tend to shake off, like a store we swore closed a year ago that’s actually still open or a movie we remember watching as children that never actually existed. Miles masterfully evokes this sense of unreality by thoroughly grounding his novel in a sense of place. His depictions of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest are spot on, so tangible that you can nearly feel the constant drizzle and smell the roasting coffee. From his description of the Capitol Hill neighborhood to his exploration of the outer neighborhoods of the cloudy city, reading Rabbits feels like you are walking in step with K for every page of the novel.

That is, until the changes start. Miles slowly chips away the steady ground he’s built for you until it feels as if you are about to step into a sinkhole or a well where gravity has been reversed. The effect is so unsettling that it will leave you looking for those discrepancies—in a sense, playing your own game of Rabbits—long after Rabbits is over.

Where Rabbits deals with the breakdown of reality, Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak is about the opposite: a game meant to shape our perceptions of reality. The novel's heroine, Mal, lives in a world where the implants she uses to stream virtual reality games are free, but water is a tightly rationed commodity you have to pay for ounce by precious ounce. It’s a world where refugees from a never-ending war live eight or more people to a room, each working three jobs merely to scrape by on instant noodles and soda.

So when a mysterious benefactor offers to sponsor Mal's VR stream of the war game SecOps for five gallons of water a week, it’s hard to say no. But the sponsor has a strange request: She wants Mal to prioritize capturing in-game close-ups of SecOps’ superstar nonplayer characters (NPCs). Modeled on real supersoldiers grown in vats by Stellaxis, the corporation that runs both Mal’s city and SecOps, the NPCs are cultural icons. But the sponsor claims that the story everyone has been fed about the super soldiers is a lie: The soldiers weren’t grown in vats at all. They were orphaned children, just like Mal, who were turned into soldiers when it was clear that they wouldn’t be missed. As the evidence for the strange theory piles up, Mal realizes her sponsor's claim wasn’t so far-fetched after all, and she will have to risk everything in order to make things right.

On the surface, Firebreak may seem familiar. A book about virtual reality in a war-torn corporate dystopia? It’s been done. But after just a few pages in, it’s clear that Kornher-Stace’s novel breaks the mold. Part Snow Crash, part spy novel, part Twitch stream, Firebreak raises serious questions about the power of corporations and the potential to shape public sentiment through virtual reality. Where corporations rule, necessities are commoditized to control the public. Stellaxis, for example, controls the water supply so tightly that even trying to purify rainwater for personal consumption can get you fined or worse.

The level of worker and consumer regulation portrayed is chilling, but it comes nowhere near Kornher-Stace’s terrifying, imaginative depiction of the intersection between war propaganda and VR gaming. In this world, virtual reality games are used to maintain and grow support for a war that has decimated entire cities and left untold thousands of children orphaned. The result is both exhilarating and deeply disturbing, as it shines a light on how easy it can be to manipulate people through the media they consume.

Readers and gamers alike will be well served by two refreshing science fiction novels that are both exciting and thought provoking.

Mystery

Unflappable amateur sleuths

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Two mysteries explore the glamour and ugliness of the 1920s.

Ah, the eternal allure of the citizen sleuth, with their uncanny ability to suss out lies and turn mystery into clarity—all without a badge or uniform. In these two 1920s-set mysteries, brave, intelligent women solve murder cases despite societal strictures, the people (mostly men) rooting for them to fail and the slippery piles of red herrings that do not look good with a cloche hat or beaded gown.

Australian author Kerry Greenwood’s witty and creative Death in Daylesford stars the particularly fabulous Phryne Fisher, with her exquisite and exquisitely expensive clothes, malachite bathtub and Hispano-Suiza luxury car. She has a hearty sexual appetite and a penchant for wearing trousers, and she delights in ignoring the scandalized gasps she leaves in her wake.

Miss Fisher’s 21st adventure has been eagerly awaited by fans, who most likely passed the time since 2014’s Murder and Mendelssohn by rewatching episodes of the TV adaptation of the series, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,” and its companion film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. 

This time around, the crimes find Phryne. She has left her opulent Melbourne home for a trip to the countryside with her faithful assistant, Dot. In Daylesford, Phryne meets Captain Spencer and tours his spa, which serves as a retreat for shellshocked World War I veterans. He’s hoping for her financial support, and she’s hoping to enjoy a relaxing week away from the city. 

Alas, it’s not long before a murder happens right before her and Dot’s very eyes. And then they learn that three women have recently gone missing. Lovely, rural Daylesford is rife with secrets and liars, and Phryne and Dot resolve to figure out why evil is swirling around the local Temperance Hotel and two of its employees. 

Back in Melbourne, Dot’s police-sergeant fiancé, Hugh, is keeping an eye on Phryne’s three teenage wards, who become embroiled in a murder mystery of their own when a pregnant classmate is found floating in the Yarra River. Hugh enlists the teens’ help, and the trio strive to make Phryne proud as they search for clues and question schoolmates with savvy aplomb.

Death in Daylesford’s parallel storylines offer up a bounty of increasingly inventive crimes bolstered by delectable descriptions of captivating scenery and decadent meals. Additional delights come in the forms of nicely developed queer relationships and a wicked range of snarky insults. (Hugh’s boss “could lose a three-round bout with a revolving door,” while another character is “as plastered as a Giotto fresco.”) This is a vivid and never-boring visit to 1920s Australia, led by the beloved and unconventional Miss Fisher.

Debut author Nekesa Afia’s Dead Dead Girls introduces Louise Lovie Lloyd, who, like Phryne Fisher, is an intelligent and beautiful woman in her 20s with an eye for fashion and a facility for solving crimes. But as a Black woman living in 1926 Harlem, Louise is brand-new to the investigatory game, and not by choice. While leaving the Zodiac speakeasy, where she and her girlfriend, Rosa Maria, go to drink, dance and revel in their “easy, effortless connection that she never needed to think about,” Louise gets into an altercation with a racist white police officer that ends with her punching him in the face. 

After Louise is arrested, Detective Theodore Gilbert tells her that if she helps him figure out who’s killing Black teenage girls in Harlem, he’ll clear her record. She’s loath to do so, not only because it means ceding part of her life to this imperious stranger, but also because it would thrust her into the public eye—something she’s been avoiding since becoming “Harlem’s Hero” 10 years ago, when she escaped a kidnapper and freed three other girls trapped with her.  

Self-preservation and a desire to protect Harlem’s vulnerable girls, including her teenage twin sisters, compel Louise to accept Gilbert’s ruthless bargain. She employs her smarts and empathy in equal measure, adeptly navigating Harlem’s criminal underworld even as the killer strikes anew and the very air is permeated with dread and terror.

Afia’s Jazz Age setting, with its surges of artistic creativity, infuses the story with a crackling feeling of possibility that stands in sharp contrast to the frustrating and often devastating realities of Louise’s life. While she has love and friendship, she also must contend with virulent racism and sexism; she feels constrained by those who seek to control her and hindered by her nagging self-doubt.

While Louise is just 5 feet, 2 inches tall, she is anything but diminutive in personality, bravery or determination. Afia has created a character that readers will root for—to solve the crimes, to prevail over injustice, to love herself as fiercely as she works to protect those around her. 

Two mysteries explore the glamour and ugliness of the 1920s.

Mystery

Mutts, matchmaking and a touch of murder

Feature by Alice Cary

Looking for an absorbing but lighthearted mystery? Two very unusual detective agencies—one in the American Southwest and the other across the pond—take readers on fast-paced and funny adventures.

When people see Bernie Little’s large black dog, they often ask, “Is he yours?” “We’re more like partners,” Bernie always responds. Indeed, there’s hardly a more devoted team than Chet and Bernie of the Little Detective Agency. Bernie is a hardscrabble private eye in Arizona who lives and works with his canine pal, Chet, the narrator of their adventures. Hats off to author Spencer Quinn for making this potentially cloying premise work—not just well, but superbly. The duo’s 11th case, Tender Is the Bite, follows on the heels of titles such as Of Mutts and Men and Heart of Barkness. Quinn loves wordplay, and it’s one of the many things that makes this series so endearing. 

Chet and Bernie’s new adventure begins when a pretty young woman with a large diamond ring begins to follow them but then goes missing. Around the same time, a Ukrainian man who may have ties to a powerful senator threatens Bernie. Bernie also begins a romance with a police sergeant named Weatherly who has a dog that, incredibly, seems to be Chet’s sister. The suspenseful plot’s many threads are made all the more enjoyable by Chet’s narration.

“I made no attempt to understand,” Chet notes as he listens to Bernie ponder their latest puzzle. “That didn’t mean I wasn’t listening. I always listen to Bernie. His voice is like a lovely brook bubbling by.” What Chet lacks in linguistic understanding, he compensates for with his finely attuned senses of smell and hearing. “This might amaze you,” he notes, “but I could smell what the senator was drinking—namely bourbon. I was even pretty sure that it was the kind Bernie liked, the bourbon with red flowers on the label.” With each chapter, Quinn ramps up the action while still keeping things light, snappy and funny. With its thoroughly lovable detective duo, Tender Is the Bite is highly entertaining from start to finish.

In 1946 London, Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go at professional matchmaking with their Right Sort Marriage Bureau, but murder keeps getting in the way. They find themselves involved in detective work once again in Allison Montclair’s A Rogue’s Company, the third in the Sparks and Bainbridge series. It’s a delightful blend of historical intrigue, sharp-tongued humor and savvy sleuthing. 

Iris and Gwen have a new client, a Rhodesian man named Simon Daile. As Simon’s enigmatic past gradually unfolds, Iris and Gwen begin to worry that he is not being completely forthcoming about his intentions, and having a Black client leads to some lively discussions between the white matchmakers about race and their own privilege. Gwen and Iris’ animated dialogue throughout, on a wide variety of subjects from race to women’s roles, is always enjoyably thoughtful-provoking. The plot thickens with a murder, and later a very close-to-home double kidnapping. 

This detective duo could hardly be more different. War widow Gwen lives in luxury, although she’s fighting to regain custody of her son from her bullying father-in-law, who wants to send 6-year-old Ronnie off to a strict boarding school. (Gwen lost custody when she suffered a mental collapse after her husband’s death and spent four months in a sanitarium.) Meanwhile, Iris lives a decidedly less elegant life, which includes a boyfriend whose criminal connections often turn out to be helpful. “I thrive on chaos,” Iris admits. “That’s my life.” 

Montclair does an excellent job of exploring the post-War World II London setting and showing how the series’ characters and relationships have evolved. Both Gwen and Iris fight to hold their own in their patriarchal, class-driven society, and their constant pushback against prejudice and sexism is a centerpiece of the series. With well-defined characters, high-stakes action and a quickly evolving plot, readers will find much to enjoy. Like its predecessors, A Rogue’s Company is brisk, entertaining fun.

Looking for an absorbing but lighthearted mystery? Two very unusual detective agencies take readers on fast-paced and funny adventures.

Mystery

Ladies of the law

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Murder, deceit and corruption are all in a day’s work for Detective Maggie D’arcy and Sheriff Heidi Kick, who hunt down killers while wrangling with office politics, family matters and the patriarchy in two exciting series entries. 

Sarah Stewart Taylor’s A Distant Grave is a complex, slow-burning follow-up to 2020’s The Mountains Wild, wherein readers learned of the family tragedy that inspired Maggie D’arcy to become a homicide detective. The aftereffects still linger for Maggie; trauma “sits sleeping, for years, and then comes back, in ways you never would have expected.” She has reengaged in the rhythms of Long Island daily life, but her daughter, Lilly, is still reeling from the death by suicide of her father, Maggie’s ex-husband.

When the body of Irish citizen Gabriel Treacy is found in affluent Bay Shore Manor Park, Maggie’s detective brain snaps into focus. She welcomes the chance to concentrate on a case she can solve rather than emotional pain she cannot. The district attorney believes the victim is a casualty of gang warfare, but there must be more to the story. Why was he murdered in an area to which he has no ties? Are the horrific scars on his back related to his death? 

Maggie thinks the answers are in Ireland, where her boyfriend, Conor, lives. She travels there with Lilly and teams up with Roly Byrne of the Irish Garda (the national police). In the county Clare countryside, they learn Treacy was an international aid worker who was kidnapped and tortured in Afghanistan years ago, and had recently been searching for the brother placed for adoption by his mother years before Treacy was born. 

Just as the disparate puzzle pieces begin to fit together, the DA orders Maggie back to Long Island. Determined to get justice for Treacy, she navigates naysayers and shrugs off looming danger as she closes in on the complicated, sad truth of his demise. With painstaking investigative work and conflicted internal monologues from a protagonist who is something of an enigma, even to herself, Taylor has crafted another believable and intriguing installment of Maggie’s story.

A thousand miles away in John Galligan’s fictional Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, another person is found dead: a homeless young man with two gunshot wounds and no identification who, Sheriff Heidi Kick is appalled to learn, was buried alive. 

That’s just one of the myriad things Heidi’s got on her precariously overloaded plate as Bad Moon Rising opens. To paraphrase one of her what-on-earth-is-going-on mental tallies: Her period is 17 days late; her young son’s unexplained anger is ramping up; in 87 days she’s up for reelection against the deplorable Barry Rickreiner (and his vicious mother, Babette); and an anonymous emailer is offering supposedly damning information about her opponent.

When more victims are found and other crimes unearthed, Larry “Grape” Fanta, Vietnam veteran and editor of the Bad Axe Broadcaster for 43 years, proffers assistance to “his favorite sheriff.” Sure, “his pig [heart] valve felt sticky as it flapped,” but his brain and will are strong, and he has a hunch that the increasingly disturbing letters and calls he’s fielded over the years might be related to the murders. 

Galligan moves between multiple points of view—widely varied, all compelling—as Heidi’s investigation takes her through oft-hostile and dangerously rugged country, with a relentless heatwave and toxic political machinations ramping up the tension. The author’s trademark dark humor is in fine form here, whether through Heidi’s irrepressible dispatcher, Denise, or well-wrought descriptions like “torrid mist of atomized manure.” 

As the pages turn, the author prompts readers to consider a range of timely issues (climate change, homelessness, corrosive wealth) via masterfully executed and action-packed storylines that coalesce in a shockingly memorable final act sure to leave readers eager for the next Bad Axe County thriller. 

Criminals’ days of freedom are numbered when these two women are on the case.

Dead girls, dream girls and final girls

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Crime fiction has no shortage of misogynistic stereotypes, from idealized victims to nastier tropes of vindictive harpies and one-dimensional femmes fatales. These thrillers refuse to deify or demonize the women at their hearts, diving instead into the darkness that only complexity affords.

The Lost Girls

Marti Reese has all but given up on finding out what really happened to her older sister, Maggie. When Marti was only 8 years old, she watched Maggie get into a car, never to be seen again. Every time a new clue sparks hope that Maggie will finally be found, it always ends in disappointment. Twenty years later, Marti’s obsession with finding the truth has ruined her marriage, fractured her relationship with her parents and driven her to drugs and alcohol.

Author Jessica Chiarella expertly balances Marti’s emotional turmoil and sense of loss with the dark mystery at the heart of The Lost Girls. Chiarella plants readers firmly in Marti’s mind by limiting them to her first-person narration. You can’t help but feel Marti’s anguish, as well as admire her tenacity to uncover the truth despite knowing what she may find.

After Marti shares her sister’s story on her true crime podcast, a listener, Ava Vreeland, approaches her about the death of Sarah Ketchum, whose case has remarkable similarities to Maggie’s. Marti’s need for closure once again overrides logic, and she finds herself using Sarah’s story on her podcast and renewing her quest for answers.

Marti and Ava are both deeply scarred individuals still longing for some sense of satisfaction after the police have given up, settling on any number of cliched theories to explain away Maggie’s disappearance and Sarah’s death. But rather than making readers simply feel sorry for them and the girls they seek justice for, Chiarella celebrates Marti and Ava’s strength and resolve, even as law enforcement and the women’s loved ones try to dissuade them from following the clues. The result is a richly textured missing persons story that drip-drops clues with each new interview of long forgotten witnesses.

Dream Girl

Spoiled by success, novelist Gerry Andersen is nevertheless having a rough go of it when we meet him in Laura Lippman’s twisty Dream Girl. A publishing deadline is looming closer, he’s recently lost his mother to Alzheimer’s disease, and he’s been confined to his bed for weeks after a horrific fall in his luxury Baltimore apartment. But worst of all, he is being tormented by phone calls from a woman named Aubrey, who claims he has wronged her in some way. Aubrey is also the name of the central, completely fictitious character of Gerry’s bestselling novel, Dream Girl. When Gerry wakes one night to find a woman slain on his bedroom floor, his paranoia takes on a new level of urgency. 

A former reporter and the author of more than 20 novels Lippman thrilled readers last summer with her bestseller Lady in the Lake. With Dream Girl, she strikes a similarly creepy vibe to Stephen King’s Misery, in which a fiction writer is tormented by an adoring fan, but upends it by making Gerry the bad guy. Lippman’s sharp prose builds icy suspense by showing the myriad women who have come in and out of Gerry’s life over the years, any of whom may be out for revenge. Aubrey effectively becomes an amalgam of them all, revealing how Gerry’s misogynistic behavior is inexcusable and toxic, even if he refuses to see it that way. (Lippman fans will be happy to see her popular private eye, Tess Monaghan, make a brief but important appearance.)

★ The Final Girl Support Group

Grady Hendrix, author of 2020’s darkly comedic The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, delights traditional horror fans again with an edgy, campy follow-up, The Final Girl Support Group.

The six women in Lynnette Tarkington’s therapy group are fiercely independent and strong-willed but also tragically haunted by their past experiences. All of them survived random mass killings that later became the bases for Hollywood slasher franchises that were popular among moviegoers in the 1980s and ’90s. In the book’s alternate version of history, these women not only inspired the classic era of slasher horror but also profited from it by selling or outright owning the rights to their stories. 

But then “America’s first final girl” and keystone support group member Adrienne Butler is killed in a massacre of camp counselors at Camp Red Lake. Hendrix puts Lynette and her fellow survivors through all the typical horror tropes as they are forced to once again face a mysterious killer.

This fast-paced novel has plenty of gory thrills, but Hendrix never loses sight of the emotional fallout experienced by the women at its core, each of whom has an idiosyncratic response to the horror she endured. Lynette, for instance, is paranoid to the point of checking sightlines and exits everywhere she goes and building a state-of-the-art panic room. When she does venture into the outside world, she’s armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons, just in case. 

While this story’s appeal should be obvious to fans of movies like Friday the 13th and Halloween, Hendrix gives the slasher genre an added level of depth and sophistication as he explores residual trauma as well as the consequences and complications of commodifying that trauma. The Final Girl Support Group is a quirky but refreshingly thoughtful homage to slasher films and the stalwart women who outfoxed their diabolical stalkers. 

These thrillers refuse to deify or demonize the women at their hearts, diving instead into the darkness that only complexity affords.

NonfictionTrue Crime

Mad, bad scientists

Feature by Deborah Mason

The history of science and medicine is full of people who have done horrific things—and the bestseller lists are equally full of proof that we’re fascinated by them. Are they simply bad apples? Or are there darker forces at work that turn scientists into monsters? Two new books examine these questions in very different ways.

In The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer, Dean Jobb dives into the life of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, aka the Lambeth Poisoner, who is believed to have killed at least 10 victims, including his own wife and the husband of one of his mistresses, in three different countries. Many of his victims were prostitutes or unmarried working-class women who sought abortions from the sympathetic Dr. Cream but received fatal doses of strychnine instead. Eventually he began stalking the music halls and bordellos of London in search of victims.

Cream was hardly a criminal genius. Tall with a distinctive squint and an equally distinguishing top hat, he had a bad habit of calling attention to his crimes. He nonetheless eluded Scotland Yard for months, primarily because of police indifference to the fate of “fallen women.” 

Raised in a wealthy but strict religious family, Cream seemed to be an archetypal Jekyll/Hyde character—Sunday School teacher and respected physician by day, poisoner by night. It would be easy to paint him as purely evil, but Jobb, a true crime reporter and teacher of creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, creates a nuanced portrait of Cream that’s much more chilling than Mr. Hyde. Yes, Cream was a remorseless killer, but he was also warped by Victorian hypocrisy, misogyny and classism—the same factors that allowed him to hide his crimes while hunting for more victims.

In The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science, Sam Kean takes a more systemic approach to examining why good doctors and scientists go bad. Kean looks at 12 case histories of people in these professions running off the rails: patients needlessly lobotomized, individuals and communities destroyed in the name of research, thousands of prisoners convicted on the basis of fraudulent forensic evidence and worse.

Sometimes the crime was committed by someone who just happened to be a scientist, such as a Harvard anatomist who found a grisly but scientifically sound method of dealing with an annoying creditor. Others, like Thomas Edison, were indifferent to the pain of others in the quest for scientific glory and wealth. In many cases, the crime was the result of the scientist’s fanatical devotion to finding “truth,” no matter the cost. But the worst crimes included here weren’t even recognized as such at the time because society accepted them as normal, even moral. That was how Henry Smeathman, an 18th-century natural historian and abolitionist, became a trader of enslaved people to fund his expeditions.

Kean is a podcaster with a gift for making science understandable. His writing style is conversational and witty—but he never forgets the real human costs of these crimes. The more powerful science becomes, the more subject it is to abuse, he says. And yet, Kean remains optimistic about the potential of science and medicine to do good, if scientists and nonscientists alike take action. He argues that diverse voices, enforced standards and critical appraisal of scientific assumptions would make crimes like the ones in The Icepick Surgeon more detectable and preventable—and science more trustworthy.

Two nonfiction books delve into nefarious crimes committed in the name of science and medicine.
RomanceWestern Romance

Romance: July 2021

Feature by Christie Ridgway

Two Regency romances and a Western friends-to-lovers tale will charm with their good-natured characters.

★ West End Earl

A Regency-era aristocrat finds love right under his nose in West End Earl by Bethany Bennett. Calvin, Earl of Carlyle, enjoys his life and his friends, one of whom is Adam Hardwick, a young man whom he took under his wing. After a childhood of scandals, handsome and clever Cal works to keep his days drama-free. Then he discovers that “Adam” is actually Ophelia, who created the disguise to save herself from a dangerous uncle. This revelation turns Cal’s world on its axis, and as he takes a second and then third look at his friend, his feelings become the opposite of platonic. Ophelia desires him, too, but can they keep their new relationship secret? Between Cal’s wayward younger sister and his father’s attempts to marry him off, all looks lost for true love. Ophelia is just as clever as Cal (as a particularly delightful stratagem near the end of the book more than proves), but can they overcome all the obstacles standing in the way of happily ever after? Damsels donning trousers to hide their identities is a beloved romance novel trope—These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer springs to mind—and it provides delicious, sexy fun in West End Earl.

Hope on the Range

Hope on the Range by Cindi Madsen takes readers west to find love. Cowboy heroes and a friends-to-lovers plot tick a pair of popular romance boxes, and Madsen’s take on them doesn’t disappoint as next-ranch neighbors Tanya Greer and Brady Dawson finally discover that just being buddies isn’t enough. Tanya has been aware of her feelings for a while, and when she at last decides to speak up, their mutual passion is unleashed. But they’re not in clover quite yet, as Tanya dreams of a career that might take her away from home . . . and away from Brady. Beyond the central love story, there’s also romance between the teens at Brady’s horse therapy ranch, rodeo events to win and heart-tugging horses in need of rescue. Madsen writes with an assured, warm voice that matches this life-affirming love story. Optimism abounds in this sunny romance that will surely leave Western romance fans smiling.

A Duke in Time 

A veteran duke is determined to help his fellow soldiers as they return home in A Duke in Time by Janna MacGregor. But first, Christian, Duke of Randford, must deal with the mess his deceased half-brother, Meri, left behind: three wives, each unaware that her husband had married other women. Their scandalous predicament can’t be ignored, and neither can Christian’s immediate attraction to Katherine “Kat” Vareck, Meri’s first wife. While Christian would prefer to focus on helping his regiment, he’s distracted by Kat, a self-made businesswoman who sells fine linens to the aristocracy. But after he realizes Kat’s expertise might help his charity efforts, they spend more time together and begin to fall in love. There’s more at stake than hearts, however: Kat, Christian and Meri’s other two “widows” have their reputations and livelihoods to worry about, as well as past sorrows to come to terms with. This excellent Regency romance, the first in the Widow Rules series, stands out thanks to its detailed love scenes and swoon-inducing dialogue. 

Two Regency romances and a Western friends-to-lovers tale will charm with their good-natured characters.

Romance

Take my hand

Feature by Amanda Diehl

Readers turn to romance novels for many reasons; they’re a bastion of enduring hope, as things are guaranteed to end well. But another draw is the way romance novels depict how characters who have experienced trauma and anxiety can find ways to heal and cope, with the added bonus of finding a partner who exudes support and acceptance. In these two contemporary romances, authors Sonali Dev and Roni Loren introduce characters whose lives have been changed by violence and fear and who carefully chart their paths toward recovery as well as true love.

Sonali Dev continues her Rajes series of Jane Austen retellings with Incense and Sensibility. Indian American politician Yash Raje has launched himself into the race to become California’s next governor, but while attending a campaign rally, he is the victim of a racist assassination attempt. Although the plot is foiled and he is unharmed, Yash is deeply traumatized. Being the direct target of gun violence leaves him anxious and fearful, despite the boost it’s giving him in the polls. 

Yash wants to treat his anxiety and PTSD before their severity is made public, so he seeks help from India Dashwood, a stress-management coach and yoga teacher. The situation is complicated by the fact that India isn’t a stranger to Yash; the two had a passionate affair 10 years ago, and he hasn’t forgotten her since. 

As with many of Dev’s central couples, Yash and India are endearingly bighearted. Their closed-off, protective demeanors cloak how much they’re seeking to be loved and understood by someone willing to make the effort. Dev masterfully explores the darker moments of being human while leading the reader to a realistic, hard-won romantic ending. Incense and Sensibility shares its source text’s focus on family, but it also launches Austen’s novel into the 21st century with its emotional, complex survey of racial identity in America.

What If You & Me, Roni Loren’s newest release in her Say Everything series, also puts mental health front and center. Andi Lockley’s life is shaped by a traumatic experience she had as a teenager, the details of which Loren carefully and sensitively spools out later in the novel. Despite her isolated lifestyle, Andi is still able to pursue her passions and work as a horror writer and true crime podcaster. But there’s one thing currently disturbing her carefully constructed peace: her neighbor, Hill Dawson, whose insomnia is annoying audible through the thin walls of his and Andi’s duplex.

To call Hill a grump is putting it mildly, but the former firefighter has a good reason for his standoffishness. He’s grieving the loss of his career and part of his leg following a disastrous rescue mission. When Andi and Hill finally come face-to-face, the two prickly neighbors feel something unexpected, and their instant attraction kicks off a casual arrangement.

Both Andi and Hill have issues to work through, and What If You & Me emphasizes that when it comes to healing from trauma, you don’t have to go it alone. This love story heaps on the yearning; Andi and Hill smolder through their agonizingly slow-burning romance. Loren’s unparalleled ability to plumb the depths of her characters is on full display in this multilayered and emotional romance.

In these love stories, mental health and the path to treatment are just as important as the journey toward a happily ever after.

Romance

Battles of the heart

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

There’s a special allure to a soldier in historical high society, almost as if he’s a magic trick. This singular creature has the strength and ferocity of a warrior simmering beneath the veneer of a gentleman. He knows how to behave, but he might choose, at any moment, to rebel. It’s no wonder that he makes for an exciting, unconventional hero in the restrictive worlds of Georgian and Regency Britain—and no surprise that he finds love with the most interesting and unconventional of heroines.

In A Scot to the Heart by Caroline Linden, our soldier hero is Andrew St. James, a Scotsman who joined His Majesty’s army to support his mother and sisters after his father made a mess of the family finances. To everyone’s surprise, Andrew learns that he is next in line to become the Duke of Carlyle. Which means, as the dowager duchess informs him, he needs to straighten up, learn estate management, do absolutely nothing to bring shame to the family—and find a suitable wife immediately. 

But suitability is the last thing on Drew’s mind when he returns home to Edinburgh and meets Ilsa Ramsay, the notorious “wild widow” who plays golf, keeps a pet pony that she treats like a child and paints her drawing room to look like an open field. After a loving but stiflingly overprotected childhood and a frustrating marriage to a neglectful husband, Ilsa relishes her freedom and couldn’t bear to tuck her selfhood away into the role of a duchess. And yet, the thought of letting Drew becomes unbearable.

Ilsa is a vivacious, engaging heroine. Those familiar with the Georgian period know how easily a woman like Ilsa could end up committed to an asylum against her will, or shunned and disgraced, simply because she wants to color outside of society’s restrictive lines. Her driving desire to throw open life’s windows and let the world in shows the kind of spirit that should be admired instead of stifled, but it’s exactly this spirit that makes her think she could never be the wife that Drew needs. 

Drew, to his credit, doesn’t take too long to let her know he disagrees. Even when scandal makes her a more inappropriate choice by the minute, he stays by her side to prove that he loves her for who she is, not for who others wish her to be. The way the scandal itself plays out is a bit of a sore spot—the true villain is never really held accountable—but one can forgive A Scot to the Heart for failing to satisfy readers’ vengeful sides when the romance wraps up so very sweetly.

Sweetly satisfying could also apply to the romance in Mary Balogh’s Someone to Cherish, the eighth installment of her Westcott series. It’s been a year of lonely widowhood for Lydia Tavernor after the tragic death of her handsome, charming and wildly charismatic vicar husband. Lydia harbors harmless fantasies, idly imagining what it would be like to take a lover. But things don’t stay idle when she accidentally lets slip a reference to those fantasies to the man who is their perennial star: Major Harry Westcott. No fantasy can compare to the flesh-and-blood passion of the man himself when he enters her life—and her bed—just as no fury can compare to the community’s outrage that Lydia would betray her “saintly” husband’s memory.

Here again is a story that easily could have been tragic, with another heroine who was lovingly smothered by her family and then overshadowed and ignored as a wife before embracing her widowed independence. But where Ilsa settles for private eccentricities, Lydia shows her strength and truly remarkable courage by stepping forward into society, directly challenging everyone’s view of her. When Lydia attends a public gathering dressed in pink, not black or gray or lavender as everyone would expect, it feels as shockingly brave as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman striding undaunted across No Man’s Land. 

One of the loveliest things about this romance is how, as Lydia comes into her own, the reader gets to watch Harry’s view of her shift accordingly. In the beginning, he really does dismiss her, as everyone has before. She’s not an instantly captivating beauty who dazzles every room she enters. Instead, she has a quieter loveliness that grows as Harry gains a better understanding of her and as she comes to a better understanding of herself. It’s that loveliness, inside and out, that surprises Harry, moves him, wins his heart in spite of himself and rallies his entire, hilarious family to support and encourage their match. (The Westcott family, by the way, is out in full force in this book. At this point in the series, it would require several pages to explain how everyone is linked, a fact that Balogh playfully lampshades when Harry teasingly threatens Lydia with a written test.) Harry works to win Lydia’s heart, but most of all, he fights to earn her trust—to prove that he loves her as she is and does not seek to change or control her. That’s what makes him worthy of her love in return.

In the end, these soldiers aren’t heroes because of their prowess on the battlefield, but because of how they fight for freedom for themselves and the women they love.

Upstanding soldiers get swept away by unconventional, openhearted women in two historical romances.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The machines are coming

Feature by Laura Hubbard

In these two dark visions of the future, empathy provides a much-needed source of light.

In the future, the world has been dominated by advanced artificial intelligences, and the majority of humanity has chosen to live entirely online. The Caspian Republic presents itself as a traditionalist utopia, the last bastion of humanity. In reality, the country portrayed in When the Sparrow Falls is a repressive surveillance state ruled by a single paranoid anti-AI party. Dissidence can get you killed—assuming you don’t starve first. 

This carefully controlled political ecosystem is thrown into jeopardy after the death of an anti-AI journalist named Paulo Xirau. During Xirau’s autopsy, officials learn the unsettling truth: The writer, a mouthpiece of the party, was in fact an AI himself. In the aftermath of this discovery, State Security Agent Nikolai South is asked to escort Xirau’s wife, Lily, who is revealed to be another AI, as she identifies her husband’s remains. Despite his initial distrust and revulsion, Nikolai soon forms an attachment to Lily, beginning an unlikely friendship that will test the mettle of Nikolai’s morals—and potentially the strength of the Caspian Republic itself.

Neil Sharpson’s debut novel (based on his play The Caspian Sea) is surprisingly retro. Part John le Carré, part Kurt Vonnegut, When the Sparrow Falls feels more like a Cold War-era spy novel than a story set after the singularity. Part of this is aesthetic; the Caspian Republic is a country without a stitch of modern technology in sight, full of poorly bound notepads, stacks of paperwork and face-to-face meetings. The threat of AI takeover is ever present, but it is abstract, more akin to the looming atomic threat during the 1950s than an actual impending attack. 

The other portion of the novel’s Cold War aura is in the nature of the Caspian Republic itself. The hidden eyes of Party Security watch every move from cobweb-filled cracks, an embargo threatens to drive the entire populace to starvation, and a series of purges purify the party and country from within. Together these variables add to a disconcerting, uneasy whole.

While When the Sparrow Falls projects an aura of a dingy, rain-soaked East Berlin, We Have Always Been Here creates a world that is stiflingly sterile and bright. Lena Nguyen’s debut novel tells the story of Grace Park, a socially awkward psychologist tasked with monitoring the 13-person crew of the Deucalion, a ship sent to survey Eos, a strange icy planet far from civilization. 

Park’s position as psychologist immediately puts her at odds with the rest of the crew, who think that she has been sent to spy on them by the Interstellar Frontier. To make matters worse, however, Park prefers the company of the ship’s androids to her fellow humans. In a society where “clunkers” are at best tolerated and often despised, this oddity leads to rising tensions. And when members of the crew start falling prey to waking nightmares and violent fits of insanity, paranoia sets in on the windowless ship. As crew members fall to all-consuming delusions, the terror of the unknown grips Park. The question soon becomes not what the crew of the Deucalion will find on Eos but whether any of them will survive the journey.

Nguyen maintains a delicate balance in We Have Always Been Here. The slow, creeping unease aboard the Deucalion is punctuated by memories from Park’s past that  soften the growing horror of what’s happening on the ship and slow down what otherwise might be a rather straightforward psychological thriller. Flashbacks explore the depth of Park’s relationship with her android caregivers, providing a soothing counterpoint to the anti-android animus on the ship. However, her memories of violent anti-android protests also highlight the lack of regard for android life and the latent distrust for both artificial intelligences and the people who associate themselves too closely with them.

When the Sparrow Falls and We Have Always Been Here show startlingly different yet equally dark views of the future. Sharpson’s future is a mirror of our past, thrusting us into the surveillance state of regimes gone by. Nguyen’s is full of precise lines and icy sharpness, creating a world that is simultaneously oppressively expansive and uncommonly claustrophobic. Despite their differences, the thrillers share a surprising theme: empathy. Nguyen and Sharpson have given us two different views of what life with machines could be like—and the challenges that we will have to deal with as we encounter intelligences dissimilar to our own. But if you aren’t in the philosophical mood, both books share something else as well: insomnia-inducing plots that will leave you looking over your shoulder long after the stories conclude. 

In these two dark visions of the future, empathy provides a much-needed source of light.

YA FictionYA

The case of the teenage gumshoe

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

It’s hard enough to be a teenager without having to deal with, say, ghosts, disappearances or murder. In this trio of YA mysteries, smart and determined girls do whatever it takes to solve the case.

When All the Girls Are Sleeping

Never has a supply closet been so ominous as in Emily Arsenault’s slow-burning gothic mystery, When All the Girls Are Sleeping. The site of said closet is Dearborn Hall, the senior dorm at Windham-Farnswood Academy. Until last year, the closet was room 408, home to the mercurial Taylor Blakey. In the wee hours of a frigid February night, screams echoed down the hallway, and Taylor’s lifeless body was found on the ground beneath her open window. Since that night, Taylor’s former room has become a taboo space, intentionally ignored and never entered . . . or has it? 

Haley Peppler, Taylor’s erstwhile best friend, isn’t so sure. She’s skeptical of rumors about the ghostly Winter Girl who supposedly haunts Dearborn Hall. But lately, unexplainable things have been happening around the closet (its window left open during a freeze, whispers emanating from within), and Haley is starting to think there really could be something supernatural afoot.

When Haley receives a strange video filmed the night of Taylor’s death, it heightens her unease and spurs her to investigate: Is there another explanation for Taylor’s demise than the flimsy story the school offered? As Haley researches Dearborn Hall’s colorful history, Arsenault does an excellent job of unfurling a centuries-old mystery within the context of this contemporary tale. 

Carefully timed flashbacks and revelations make for a tantalizingly suspenseful read. Using newspaper archives, social media and interviews, Haley unearths plausible motives and suspicious sorts aplenty, contributing to the book’s atmosphere of increasing dread. As the anniversary of Taylor’s death looms, a thought-provoking undercurrent of class conflict and unresolved anger adds urgency to Haley’s quest for the truth. When All the Girls Are Sleeping is a spooky and compelling examination of what truly haunts us.

That Weekend

On prom weekend, Claire Keough and her closest friends, couple Kat and Jesse, head up to a cabin in the Catskills to celebrate their entry into adulthood. It should be a fun, secret trip, but when Claire wakes up in a forest clearing alone and seriously injured, That Weekend becomes the most definitive event of her life thus far. Kat and Jesse are missing, and due to Claire’s head trauma, the last 36 hours are a blank. It’s a horrific dilemma: “All that matters is what happened on that mountain. The only important information is what I can’t remember.” 

This dramatic and terrifying turn of events is just the tip of the iceberg in this twisty, fast-paced mystery. Kat and Claire take turns telling the inventive story, which moves to and fro in time. The question of motive is at the heart of the story, which offers readers a rich mine of human behavior to ponder as characters crack under the stress of the weekend’s aftermath. Kat’s wealthy, powerful family tries to take control, the FBI gets involved and a Nancy Grace-esque journalist seems determined to portray Claire as a villain. The resultant media attention coupled with her nagging self-doubt compel Claire to conduct her own investigation in hopes of regaining control over her reputation, emotions and future. As we draw nearer to the truth of that fateful weekend getaway, author Kara Thomas (2018’s The Cheerleaders, et al.) expertly layers plenty of reasons to suspect almost everyone. Whodunit lovers will be delighted.

Lies, betrayals and pulse-pounding moments abound as Claire questions whether she can ever trust or even know anyone. The book’s shocking ending will surely cause readers to look upon innocuous things in their lives (friends, family, weekend jaunts) with sharp eyes.

The Box in the Woods

Readers who heaved sad sighs upon reaching the end of Maureen Johnson’s The Vanishing Stair, the final book in her Truly Devious trilogy, will be thrilled to learn that smart, funny teen sleuth Stevie Bell is back in The Box in the Woods.

It’s summertime, and Stevie is home from Ellingham Academy, the boarding school where she solved a 1930s cold case. That amazing feat made her famous for a time, but now she’s pondering what’s next and making the best of a deli job where the customers feel “entitled to her entire soul as she [gets] them ham.” 

She needn’t ponder for long. Tech bro CEO Carson Buchwald makes Stevie an intriguing proposition. He recently purchased Camp Sunny Pines, formerly Camp Wonder Falls, the site of an unsolved murder committed in 1978 that devastated the town of Barlow Corners. Carson intends to make a podcast and documentary about the case, and he wants Stevie to investigate. She can even bring her friends Janelle and Nate, and they’ll all work as counselors while Stevie attempts to solve the brutal crime.

As the story alternates between the present day and the 1970s, Johnson offers funny vignettes of summer-camp life and context for the deaths of the murdered camp counselors—locals whose family and friends still live in town. Readers will root for the irrepressible Stevie, who thrills to tracking down clues. Her romantic relationship is realistic and sweet, and her kindness toward the still-grieving residents of Barlow Corners is touching.

As Stevie fits pieces of the past together, the danger lurking in Barlow Corners emerges and creates irresistible tension, particularly after another murder happens mid-investigation. Can she find the truth before someone else meets an untimely end? The Box in the Woods is a gripping and complex mystery bolstered by its commentary on the popular fascination with true crime—and its empathetic reminder to consider the perspectives of those they leave behind in their wake.

In this trio of YA mysteries, smart and determined girls do whatever it takes to solve the case.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Tips for Teachers: Unstructuring summer

Feature by Emmie Stuart

Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

I feel the generational gap most strongly when I ask my students about their plans for their summer vacations. Consider a few of this year’s responses: “I’m going to eight different camps!” “Swim team in the mornings, baseball practice for my travel team in the afternoons and then we’re going on a trip out west!” “Summer school, art camp and two overnight camps with my entire Girl Scouts troop!”

My fondest and most vivid childhood summer memories are not from camp or swim team practice. They are from unstructured moments. I remember climbing the white stairs of Nashville’s downtown public library, giddy with the anticipation of new-to-me books and audiobooks waiting to be discovered inside. I remember endless afternoons under the backyard pine trees playing Roxaboxen (inspired by Alice McLerran and Barbara Cooney’s picture book of the same name, in which a group of children create an imaginary town together). I remember wading, catching crawdads and looking for pottery the pioneers left behind in the creek at the bottom of the hill.

Who else is in these memories? My sister, brother and parents. I know neighbors and friends were also there, but they are hazy figures in my mind’s eye. However, I can clearly recall my sister meticulously lining her Roxaboxen bakery with pinecones, my brother peering under a rock to discover the creek life hiding beneath and my mom loading stacks of our library materials into our red and white tote bags.

Unstructured family moments are at the heart of these three books. They remind me of the importance of creating a classroom environment that fosters child-centered creativity, play-based learning and genuine friendships among my students.

The Ramble Shamble Children by Christina Soontornvat book coverThe Ramble Shamble Children
By Christina Soontornvat
Illustrated by Lauren Castillo

“Down the mountain, across the creek, past the last curve in the road” is the ramble shamble house where five children—Merra, Locky, Roozle, Finn and Jory—live together. They each have their own responsibilities. Merra tends the garden and tells bedtime stories, Locky and Roozle chase off the blackbirds and fetch the carrots, Finn feeds the chicken and gathers the eggs, and infant Jory looks after the mud. Happiness presides until they discover “what a proper house looks like” in the pages of an old book. They set to work fixing up their own house, only to find that the upgrades and changes strip the house of its personality and comfortable if slightly chaotic atmosphere. Reflective of children’s tendencies to imagine a life independent of adults, The Ramble Shamble Children is a warm story filled with meadows, mud and simple moments.

  • Loose part play

What are loose parts? A key element from pedagogical philosophy called the Reggio Emilia Approach, loose parts are items that can be moved and manipulated. The versatility of these items creates space for creativity and provides opportunities for kinesthetic learning. My students look forward to loose-part lessons, and I’m always impressed with the innovation that occurs as they build and manipulate the objects.

Give each student a sturdy paper plate and invite them to gather a variety of loose-part materials from a central table. After reading The Ramble Shamble Children, we used wooden cube blocks, mulch chips, large pieces of wood, small pebbles, sea glass, small shells, buttons, acorns and small pinecones. I provided brown sandpaper to use as a base. Students used the materials to create their own ramble shamble house and garden.

  • Meal planning and prepping

Each child in The Ramble Shamble Children has a specific job in preparing meals. Divide students into groups of two to four. Provide cookbooks or recipe websites. Together, the students will plan a meal and determine who will be responsible for each part of the meal. Encourage students to create a list of the ingredients they will need for the meal. Older students can present their meals to the class in the form of a visual and oral presentation. Let the class vote on which group’s meal sounds the most enticing.

  • Ramble shamble collage

Provide a variety of home decorating, landscaping, travel and architecture magazines, along with scissors, glue sticks and oversized paper. Lead a discussion on different types of homes, houses and decorating styles. Let students flip through the magazines and cut and paste images creating personal “ramble shamble” houses.

When My Cousins Come to Town by Angela Shante book coverWhen My Cousins Come to Town
By Angela Shanté
Illustrated by Keisha Kramer

“Every summer my cousins come to visit me in the city,” says a girl with round red glasses and gold beaded braids. She is the youngest cousin and the only one who doesn’t have a nickname in their family, but she hopes her cousins will give her one as a gift for her birthday at the end of summer. As each cousin arrives, she attempts to emulate the characteristic that earned them their nickname. From cooking with her cousin Lynn (nicknamed “Spice”) to racing around the block like her cousin Sharise (nicknamed “Swift”), the girl’s efforts only result in frustration, and she worries that another birthday will pass without receiving a nickname. Comical, poignant and richly illustrated, When My Cousins Come to Town honors the importance of identity and the value found in family traditions.

  • Narrative writing

The girl loves the summer traditions she shares with her cousins. Invite students to think of a favorite tradition in their family. Remind them that it can be something as simple as watching a movie together each year, like how the cousins in the book watch The Wiz every summer.

Lead a brainstorming exercise in which students list every detail they can remember about the tradition, including sounds, smells and tastes. Next, ask students to turn their list into a piece of narrative writing that uses the first-person perspective. Remind them to include a strong opening and closing and descriptive details so that readers can clearly imagine the tradition.

  • Where are the adults?

Generate a discussion about the role of adults in imaginative play and child-centered problem resolutions by asking the following questions:

  • Why do you think the authors chose not to include adults in the books When My Cousins Come to Town and The Ramble Shamble Children?
  • How would adults have made the stories different?
  • Why do kids need time to play without adult direction?
  • In When My Cousins Come to Town, cousin Wayne’s nickname is “The Ambassador.” What role does he play?
  • Have you ever helped your friends work through a problem?
  • What are some ways that children can be peacemakers?

The House of Grass and Sky by Mary Lyn Ray book coverThe House of Grass and Sky
By Mary Lyn Ray
Illustrated by E.B. Goodale

“Once, out in the country, someone knew right where to build a house.” Over the years, the white wooden house is home to many families, along with their games, bedtime stories and birthday parties, until eventually it sits empty. Without a family living within its walls, the house feels different. It wishes to be a home again. Families come to look at it, but they all decide that it’s too small and too quiet. One day, the house is visited by a family with children who exclaim, “This one! This one! Please, can we live here? Please?” Working together, the family “fix what needs fixing and paint what needs painting,” restoring the house’s beauty and bringing life back to its rooms. Suffused with warmth and possibility, The House of Grass and Sky offers a unique perspective on houses, homes and family memories.

  • Personification

Discuss the concept of personification with your students. On a piece of chart paper, list the incidences of personification in The House of Grass and Sky. Read more books where a building is personified, including Jennifer Thermes’ When I Was Built, Adam Rex and Christian Robinson’s School’s First Day of School and Jacqueline Davies and Lee White’s The House Takes a Vacation.

Ask students to think of a favorite memory that took place at home and to describe it from their home’s perspective. Remind them to include not just the events, but the home’s emotions as well.

  • Pattern play

E.B. Goodale uses digital collage in her illustrations, which include some lovely patterns for the house’s wallpaper, curtains and linens. Ask your local hardware or paint store if they have any wallpaper books or samples you can have. (If not, patterned paper works well, too).

Provide students with watercolor paints and watercolor paper. Ask them to create a painting of a room in their home or of an outdoor setting around their house. After the paintings dry, give students paper punches and scissors so they can create small accents out of the patterned wallpaper or paper. They will glue these patterned accents into their watercolor paintings, emulating Goodale’s illustrations in The House of Grass and Sky.

I feel the generational gap most strongly when I ask my students about their plans for their summer vacations.

NonfictionPhotographyCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Lifestyles: August 2021

Feature by Susannah Felts

Connect to nature through humor, embroidery and art with the three wonderful books featured in this month’s lifestyles column.

★ Subpar Parks

Everyone’s a critic nowadays, and you can find a one-star online rating for even the most unassailable things—including the United States National Park Service. Finding this curiously funny, national park enthusiast Amber Share set out to apply her hand-lettering and graphic design chops to a series of art prints that poke fun at the shortsightedness of those dismissive and disappointed reviewers. First shared via Instagram, the project is now in book form, expanded with juicy facts about the parks. Subpar Parks is a clever adaptation, both playful and earnest in its appreciation for these storied landmarks. Did you know that Katmai National Park hosts an online competition called “Fat Bear Week” or that NASA has tested lunar rovers at Great Sand Dunes National Park? Share’s delightful book will make a terrific gift for anyone who loves our country’s natural wonders—and has a sense of humor about them.

Mystical Stitches

“Stitching by hand slows down the body and, over time, slows down the mind. It brings us . . . into the calmer, more restful alpha brain wave state,” writes Christi Johnson in Mystical Stitches, an embroidery guide with an emphasis on the power of symbols. Johnson first provides the fundamentals of the craft: a range of stitches and the sorts of design work they’re handy for. A treasury of symbols follows, including moon phases, Zodiac signs, animals and many other images from the natural world. The whole volume centers embroidery within spiritual practice, and if you’re already drawn to the mystical, you’ll likely reach for the floss soon after exploring these alluring pages. “By working with images and forms that correspond to the feeling and emotion we’d like to bring about in our own life, we are acting upon the idea that all things are interrelated in this tapestry of existence,” Johnson writes. “We can speak to our subconscious through the symbols in our immediate world, and get the subconscious aligned with the conscious mind.”

The Atlas of Disappearing Places

The Atlas of Disappearing Places beautifully harnesses the powers of art and metaphor to get urgent ideas across. Through maps and other works made from ink on dried seaweed, Christina Conklin illustrates the damage wrought to coastlines and what we could still lose to climate change and rising sea levels. Along with these visuals, Conklin and her collaborator, Marina Psaros, co-founder of the King Tides Project, present the stories of 20 hot spots around the globe, each ending with a “speculative vignette about the future.” Throughout, they emphasize an understanding of the ocean as a body, “so that we can more closely identify with—and possibly empathize with—the ocean, our original home.” The result is a striking and deeply researched work of art and environmental activism.

Connect to nature through humor, embroidery and art with the three wonderful books featured in this month’s lifestyles column.

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