Dee (author of The Dirt Girl) gives middle-grade readers a stealth science lesson wrapped in a lively and engaging tale of derring-do. Thirteen-year-old Myles is a typical middle-grader—until he suddenly starts seeing words and emotions visually as energy. When Myles’ friend Sally Munson wears a distinctive pair of purple pants to school, his ability to see emotions as fireballs or soft love is ignited. He struggles to accept and understand his new powers—aided by Sally and a series of boxes Myles’s late grandmother to be given to Myles as he celebrates his thirteenth birthday. Myles comes to realize that humans have a responsibility to bring happiness to others, even those they’ve never met, with Sally helping to prove the truth of the statement.

Dee skillfully conveys basic tenets of quantum physics as she powers readers through the fast-paced story. The author also shows the simple power of kindness and what a difference it can make in a peer who is struggling. Myles proves this when he befriends Lucy, a girl from an often-moving military family. ”We also have a responsibility to not spread misery,” the protagonist opines, with wise words readers will learn from. “And you can’t fake it, because energy is real. You are affecting people around you even when you don’t know it. We need to learn to become aware of our own energy and to contain or control it.” This is tangible advice to readers who may be unconvinced of their important places in the world.

Dee deftly makes the unusual and offbeat believable, with characters who engender loyalty. Skillful plotting and lively prose power readers through the pages, eager to find out the next step in Myles’ complicated destiny. Impatient readers won’t be happy to find that this tale ends on a tantalizing cliffhanger, but they’ll be eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Takeaway: Imaginative adventure emphasizing kindness, inclusion, and quantum physics.

Comparable Titles: Aimee Lucido’s Emmy in the Key of Code, Gordon Korman’s The Unteachables.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: B+

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In 1986, Jessie Grandier III, a Black Harvard graduate with grand film ambitions, wakes up in a dingy, roach-infested apartment, a far cry from his once-promising future. He spirals down when slapped with an eviction notice. Desperate, he calls his father for financial help— "the only thing [he] had worth wanting"— but gets rejected. Later, the TV company he works with faces layoffs, leaving him no recourse but to pursue his career as an artist, something he had long believed he wanted more than anything else: "That he would make beauty from nothing. That he would be more than a mere man."

Gaiter (author of Bourbon Street) presents an uncompromising, incisive story of the will to create, told with rich and urgent prose, juxtaposing Jessie's memories of a bittersweet Louisiana childhood—frequent escapades with friends, abuse at the hands of his father, and last moments with his mother—with the hard realities of adulthood as a Black and gay artist in an America hostile to such people. The narrative pulses through Jessie's psyche, choices, and experiences (like an acid trip at Harvard and a hookup in a Greenwich Village gay bar), illuminating the mind and heart of a man who admires Bach, Mingus, Ellington, and Henry Threadgill for managing to “successfully hide their humanity behind” their art. Jessie’s alienation is evoked with precision: he faces a “human realm from which he stood apart, by design, by nature, by whose fault?” Despite such passages, the narrative is alive with dark humor, striking detail, and urgent sociocultural analysis, magpied into a compelling portrait of Jessie's ambitions—"he imagined himself a life worthy of projection.”

Gaiter defies conventional prose to offer a lyrical narrative that is both tender in recollection and brutal in anger, drawing out a nuanced character in his mid-life crisis, and whose life is made complex by race, sexuality, familial expectations, and personal ambitions. The novel’s challenges and charged insights will reward those fascinated by the pain and work of self-invention.

Takeaway: Urgent novel of art, creation, race, and sexuality in Reagan-era America.

Comparable Titles: Raven Leilani’s Luster, Henry Threadgill’s Easily Slip into Another World.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about A Memory of Fictions (or) Just Tiddy-Boom

With an emphasis on financial freedom, Duniec’s enlightening debut offers an introduction to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investing, presenting an historical account of the invention and rise of crypto, a look to its possible future, an introduction to monetary policy, and much practical guidance. Duniec presents this information using a narrative structure, telling the story of a fictional crypto-curious everyinvestor named Roger. Through these eyes, readers get clear breakdowns of the evolution of cryptocurrency from its unregulated conception, the various stages of growth and development, to its current, ever-changing state in global markets. Duniec makes the case that, despite predictions of cryptocurrency crashing due to “drawbacks” like “high volatility, lack of regulations, and cyber-attacks,” Bitcoin has survived and even “thrived”—but that entrants to the market must “become aware of the challenges they might have to navigate.”

Before delving into the nitty-gritty of investing in tokenomics, Duniec uses Roger to explain the fascinating complexities of the industry, technical jargon, global economics, and more. With clear, direct prose, the guide covers Bitcoin’s birth after the collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008 and the publication of the revolutionary “Bitcoin whitepaper” by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Roger demystifies the inception of blockchain technology, the various types of cryptocurrencies, crypto wallets, and the problems that plagued the industry in its early days such as high-profile hacking incidents and fraud schemes.

Through dramatized conversations with friends, Roger shares straightforward investment advice but doesn’t shy away from the cons of investing in such a highly volatile asset. While Duniec acknowledges the potential for exaggerated price swings and volatility, financial empowerment is the end goal for readers. “Bitcoin and Crypto could make you a millionaire with the right mindset and balance of careful research, diversification, time, and some luck,” he argues. He urges readers to embrace innovation and be ready to adapt to changing scenarios. This comprehensive guide is ideal for readers new to the world of Bitcoin and digital money investing.

Takeaway: A comprehensive beginner’s guide to Bitcoin and crypto investing.

Comparable Titles: Saifedean Ammous’s The Bitcoin Standard, Ben Armstrong's Catching Up to Crypto.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-

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Missun, a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, takes a refreshing detour by urging readers to “rethink” their retirement plan, keeping “matters of the heart” at the forefront. He includes all the conventional advice—the nuts-and-bolts of personal finance, setting up emergency funds, portfolio management—but also delves into the why behind retirement planning, emphasizing how to uncover cognitive blind spots that may derail investment strategies and stressing that “investing early and often is essential.” Beyond the day-to-day grind of retirement planning, Missun urges readers to make a positive mark on loved ones and the world at large.

Missun recounts his divorce as a key turning point in his own life, “a catalyst for profound personal growth” that sparked his desire to live with purpose moving forward. To that end, he educates readers on behavioral biases (recency bias, or ascribing more significance to recent events then is accurate, and familiarity bias—sticking to what’s already known—are just two on his list) and shares functional steps to overcome them, as well as outlining helpful resources on how to devise investment policy statements, a five-step method for creating an investment game plan, and more. Missun’s background in statistics is evident throughout, and some sections (notably a chapter devoted to risk management) are heavy-handed when it comes to statistical analyses.

Though some of the information may feel basic to seasoned investors—including an intro to social security benefits and estate planning—Missun’s debut offers readers several jumping off points that will help them immediately pursue active retirement planning. For those uncomfortable with going it alone, he breaks down the different types of available assistance, ranging from health care planning to portfolio critiques, emphasizing that, above all, financial advisors must be able to help clients articulate their long-term vision. “Retirement planning feels overwhelming for many,” he acknowledges, but readers will feel more prepared when armed with his actionable advice.

Takeaway: Actionable advice on retirement planning steps, with heart.

Comparable Titles: Mitch Anthony’s The New Retirementality, Joseph R. Dominguez and Vicki Robin’s Your Money or Your Life.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A

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Gardner’s debut makes an impassioned case for returning America to economic self-sufficiency and national security via a revival of its once highly productive domestic labor force. Gardner, the proprietor of a highly specialized manufacturing business and son of a mechanical engineer, takes on such economic titans as Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and Paul Krugman in his defense of tariffs and criticism of so-called free and fair trade, which he calls “disastrous” and “the destruction of countless family-built American businesses that for hundreds of years supported this country.”

Beginning in the years before the American Revolution, Gardner notes how domestic manufacturing was the force behind the phenomenal acceleration of the United States. Homegrown manufacturing nurtured by tariffs played a critical role in the rapidly growing country, he writes, an act that peaked with America’s victory in World War II—and in the international dominance that followed. But as jobs subsequently went overseas in a bid to exploit cheap labor in a post-war economy, it left many once thriving manufacturing-based cities in a wake of desperation.

Gardner argues that in many areas, including in America, free trade has backfired. He points to the lopsided effects of such deals as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the ramifications those deals have had on the working class, both in the U.S. and abroad, producing largely flat wages and a generally declining standard of living amid a growing wealth gap. Gardner also criticizes many foreign competitors for unfair labor practices, environmental degradation, and various abuses—including intellectual-property theft and forced labor—while simultaneously providing an abridged yet illuminating history of labor in the United States. He does leave readers with hope, arguing for a “national, government-funded marketing campaign” to foster our manufacturing industry and notes that “middle-class employment is a guardrail against economic hopelessness and blight.” This is an informative, discerning call to action.

Takeaway: Impassioned case for restoring America’s manufacturing industry.

Comparable Titles: Robert B. Reich’s The System, Farah Stockman’s American Made.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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Alive with telling detail, incandescent prose, and fresh insights into her adopted nation and city, Clementi’s sweeping memoir follows her from a childhood in Rome that found her dreaming of New York City, to graduate school in the “bubbly ferment” of Brandeis, near a Boston that is stubbornly not Manhattan; and then to exciting, unexpected opportunities in New York. Her circuitous route at times proves harrowing. She endures relentless sexual harassment as a young writer and thinker in Rome—"America may be militaristic, imperialistic, and hypernationalistic,” she notes, “but it recognizes the right of ‘No’ for women”—and later endures assault and rape during a brief New Jersey marriage.

But Clementi refuses to yield her story to horrible men. Despite moments of tension and heartbreak, South of My Dreams is a richly pleasurable read, its heft and discursiveness lightened by a restless intelligence and a passion for living. Her first days in New York find her falling in love with an Upper West Side diner and then hoofing it all the way down Broadway to the Battery. “What a pity that immigrants’ first impression today is but a frigid airport,” she writes. That energy persists when, in the late 1990s, she finds work as a reporter for the Queens Tribune (“$16,000 a year, no expense reimbursements”) before moving on to Town & Village (for whom she once interviewed a thoroughbred pug), and elsewhere. Apartment hunting, how sex and dating differ from sitcoms, the city’s deep Jewishness, and the surprising way Bill Clinton is responsible for her green card, are all explored with wit and vigor.

A late destination, teased by the title, surprises: Clementi becomes “the eccentric Italian professor of Jewish literature” in South Carolina. That adjustment compels, but Clementi is especially strong on the topic of cities and self-authorship, noting that her New York is a bit of a fantasy but that “I invent it a little too, hoping that my version will make room for me.” NYC lovers will find much to feast on.

Takeaway: Exuberant, incisive memoir of dreaming of and inventing a New York life.

Comparable Titles: Tova Mirvis’s The Book of Separation, David Adjami’s Lot Six.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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Seaborne’s twelfth Divisible Man thriller kicks off with welcome vigor, starting with a desperate chase, high stakes, interlocking mysteries, and chapters that fly by, all as series hero Will Stewart takes flight on the trail of his dear friend, Pidge, whose identity may have been compromised by the militant white supremacist group Company W. (She embarrassed them, anonymously, in an earlier entry.) The setup briskly invites in new readers while reminding fans why they have stuck with the series—yet again, Seaborne makes the process of launching a prop plane tense and exciting, and the cast of pilots and law enforcement pros he reintroduces on the (literal) fly proves, as always, irresistible. That dazzling set piece is just the start, though, as Twelfth Knight soon finds Will and his friends rushing to take on Company W in Texas, where a young woman has been murdered—and Company W might have support in the highest echelons of state government.

Further complicating matters for Will is the pregnancy of his better half, Andy, a highly capable police detective who refuses to sit this one out, much to Will’s chagrin. The mystery that follows involves clever ciphers, banking hijinks, and the bloody consolidation of white supremacist power. For all the exciting showdowns and sequences of tension—perhaps the most suspenseful involves an unpiloted plane in airspace it shouldn’t be in—the story is powered by Seaborne’s commitment to testing his characters. Will agonizes over his desire to shield Andy from danger, while FBI agent Leslie, an invaluable source of info, risks her career to help.

Helping Will is dangerous because Will could be—according to feds—“the greatest threat to our national security since Bin Ladin” due to his supernatural powers: the ability to vanish and to unshackle himself from gravity. Seaborne again finds fresh uses for these skills, but his series, admirably, sources its thrills in many other places, too, especially aviation action, smart detective work, and relationships that humanize the superheroics.

Takeaway: Swift, vigorous action thriller in a series that continues to soar.

Comparable Titles: Natalie Zina Walschots’s Hench, James Byrne’s The Gatekeeper.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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Miller’s sophisticated and resonant parable about inequality hits the right tone with empathy and revelation. Seventeen-year-old human, Rikki, is a midnight rider, a racer who rides the fire-breathing hell-horse, Elchron. His racing partner and frenemy, Darian, is a lupista, a wolf-like humanoid with big ears, fur, and a tail. In church, humans and lupista are taught that through the higher power’s grace, lupista successfully protested their enslavement by the humans and now live in peace as equals. Skeptical Darian, who lives with oppression every day, is tired of being told he should be grateful for what lupista have. He tells Rikki that the truth of this “tolerant” society lurks in the church’s basement. There, Rikki encounters a dangerous-looking manticore—part tiger and scorpion with a human face—who convinces him that society still separates humans and lupista. “I bet you never even considered it possible: a world without labeled categories of people,” it said. Rikki makes it his mission to convince the town of the injustice.

Carefully written with allegory, acerbic observation, and the striking details that bring an imagined world to life, the story navigates one side’s propaganda versus the other side’s lived reality: theaters feature lupista actors only as background characters, scientists claim lupista are inferior because their brains are wired differently, and there’s the derogatory name Footsies because lupista don’t wear shoes. At first Rikki is blunt, confronting clueless humans with insults, which only causes more adversity. But when the manticore’s solution is to kill anyone who disagrees, Rikki realizes that Darian and even Elchron have roles to play in making people listen.

With engaging, swift-moving prose, appealing dialogue, and much emotional urgency, Miller’s inventive fantasy setting reveals the truths and lessons we can learn for our own society. This consequential, fast-paced fable is captivating for its diplomacy and heart. A fantastic and timely allegory, this is fantasy at its best.

Takeaway: Relevant fantasy parable about social injustice between humans and werewolves.

Comparable Titles: Susan Dennard’s The Luminaries, TJ Klune’s Wolfsong.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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The latest historical novel from Villhard (author of Company of Women) captivates with a Roarin’ Twenties journey through the leather-helmeted early days of American football. The legendary and charismatic real-life star Harold “Red“ Grange, with his red hair and dynamic playstyle, leaves an indelible mark on the game, symbolizing the era when the sport was raw and unpolished. Grange works as an ice man to build strength in the off-season, before big pro money and agents were the norm. His partnership with opportunist C.C. Pyle connects him with Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, and Charlie Chaplin, while two women, Polly and Helen, offer true insights into a man challenged by his overwhelming celebrity.

Sharply told, pulsing with energy, this meticulously crafted historical fiction celebrates the legends but also critically examines the complexities of football’s early years, exploring excessive violence, the financial struggles of teams, and the dawn of mass-media celebrity. For all the crisp excitement of the gridiron action, and the impassioned considerations of questions like who invented the idea of the “running game,” Villhard deftly dramatizes football as business and life, finding fruitful tension between the reputed purity of college football and the perceived greed of the professional ranks, when in truth the pro teams could barely pay players while college coaches and the NCAA profit with increased incomes, intense loyalty, and monumental stadiums.

Villhard’s portraits of legendary figures prove rousing, including George Halas, who builds the league with entrepreneurial ingenuity through his roles as a player, coach, and owner of the Chicago Bears. The era’s vigor fizzes in the storytelling, especially as Grange’s cultural impact, highlighted by his foray into movies, broadens his appeal beyond the gridiron, while iconic writers Grantland Rice and Walter Camp shape the public’s perception of the sport. Preserving the legacy of Red Grange for a new generation makes this a must-read for both football enthusiasts and history buffs.

Takeaway: Exciting novel of pro football’s origins and first superstar.

Comparable Titles: David Neil Drews’s Iron Tigers, James Whitehead’s Joiner.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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Australian student Maxwell’s picture book debut is a sparkling, compassionate fable that takes place at the base of “the Wish Tree, [...] an old enchanted tree [...] in a big, green field in the middle of nowhere.” Where the roots of the Wish Tree enter the soil, fairies founded a metropolis called Sparkle Time City, where they live in harmony among bees, birds, and other creatures of the Wish Tree ecosystem. That harmony is threatened, however, with the arrival of vengeful goblins who have been living in squalor due to the loss of a most prized, magical possession: “the Great Diamond of the Goblins.”

Maxwell’s vibrant illustrations have a lively, imaginative, but still-childish charm that will inspire young readers to consider telling their own stories. Maxwell brings fresh personality and pizazz to the fairies, goblins, and pixies that struggle for peace in the war for the diamond; the author delineates fey personalities through outfit choices and even includes an amusingly precise scale of the creatures’ bodies (“fairies are 100 times smaller than goblins” and “the pixies towered over the fairies but were still much smaller than the goblins.”) Sparkles and glittering stars adorn almost every page, and each creature has its own unique style, expression, and identity, like “Fire Fairy,” whose “wings are like flames,” and the royal goblin family.

Without the diamond, Maxwell presents the goblins’ domain, by contrast, as colorless and dismal; even the light from their bonfires is dull and gray, and after centuries of enjoying the diamond’s magical power given their long lifespans (“goblins live for over 1,000 years”) all they want is their home back. However, their method of getting their home back, centered on assumptions and revenge, creates more problems than solutions. Goblins and human readers both can discover an important lesson in this story from Maxwell, who readers will hope continues to write and illustrate many more.

Takeaway: Charming, glittery story of what happens when goblins make assumptions

Comparable Titles: Sophia Spencer’s The Bug Girl, Ul de Rico’s The Rainbow Goblins.

Production grades
Cover: B-
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: B
Editing: B
Marketing copy: B

Click here for more about The Wish Tree

McGavin and Cornell’s patient and methodical self-help manual offers both a comprehensive diagnosis of the problems that become the sticking points in people’s lives, and remedies to get unstuck. By “deliberately inviting a felt sense” of what keeps you stuck “and then spending time with it,” rather than ignoring or seeking to vanquish it, we can “untangle,” be happy, and be free. Through a mixture of powerful personal anecdotes, astute theoretical analysis, and concrete, easy-to-follow instructions, McGavin and Cornell have created an indispensable manifesto of personal healing.

The authors draw their techniques for unburdening yourself from past baggage and harnessing your full potential from Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing, a landmark work of psychotherapeutic theory and technique, thoughtfully adapting and translating his ideas for contemporary readers. In doing so, Untangling explores many terms—“getting a felt-sense,” “Parts,” “Self-in-Presence”—which are both key to its power as an actionable resource and its potential undoing. Readers who master these patiently explained and readily understood terms will find that they easily interlock to produce potent, multivalent meanings that can be effectively converted from theory into practice. But this language sometimes slips into the cryptic, and the urgent meaning behind it can become obscured.

Fortunately, McGavin and Cornell are highly trained and intuitive teachers. Their personal stories of overcoming alcoholism and depression ground the ideological advance of the book whenever it becomes unmoored from its pragmatic tracks. Clear analogies also aid understanding, as when they explain “change alone” not being enough to heal: “If the ocean liner is sinking, it doesn’t help to rearrange the deck chairs!” The volume of itemized, actionable information, such as how to practice the five “Powers of Presence” to create an environment conducive to untangling, or “resourcing” to remain “relaxed, open, and energized,” is so ample that it’s hard to imagine the reader who won’t come away better off.

Takeaway: Methodically detailed motivational program for anyone who’s ever felt stuck.

Comparable Titles: Manis Friedman and Rivka GoldsteinCreating a Life That Matters, Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about Untangling

This surprising diaristic novel follows a young woman named Lauren who opens her tale with a dispatch from her mother’s womb, in 1989, musing about how the world will see “a proper lockdown”—as in the Covid-19 pandemic—some 31 years later, but that we all begin life in one. The novel that follows charts Lauren’s childhood, student years, and early adulthood, her thoughts, desires, and observations about everyday life (“Is it a fact of life that only mothers can cope with poo,” she wonders), as Lauren recounts happy times with her wealthy family, charts their prodigious intake of Prosecco and cigarettes, muses on the friendships she attempts to maintain even as everyone ages and seemingly grows apart, and considers all that she can become as she excels in school amongst her peers.

Early on, Lauren seizes on the idea, floating in the family, that she could one day be a movie star, and Lauren takes steps in that direction, enrolling in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. But Lauren's life is changed forever when tragedy strikes and she is forced to grow up fast and adjust to her new normal. Nicholson eschews conventional scenecraft and pacing for summarized reports of Lauren’s experiences that sound like actual diary entries (antsy budgeting; kisses noted; movies logged as viewed). Eight Mile High paints the emotional life and the everyday detail of a determined and intelligent young girl with insight and some playful wit. The novel’s present is like a fog of feeling from which milestones and adversities suddenly emerge or vanish; the storytelling emphasizes how choices become habits and fates become sealed.

Those unusual choices, plus a tendency toward long paragraphs, diminish narrative, though the story, turning on inheritances and what sense Lauren can make of what others want of her, builds to surprising, even noir-ish twists. Eight Miles High covers wide swathes of a young woman’s learning how to live, from crawling to surviving Los Angeles.

Takeaway: A young star-to-be’s surprising coming-of-age, in experimental journal form.

Comparable Titles: Alissa DeRogatis’s Call it What You Want, Bethany C. Morrow's So Many Beginnings.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: N/A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: C
Marketing copy: C

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Raw, tender, lyric, uncompromising, and bursting with life, the second volume of Sullivan’s A Place of Safety series follows 17 year-old Brendan Kinsella as he faces life in the aftermath of the first book’s quite literally explosive climax. To his surprise, he awakens not in the war-torn Northern Ireland city of Derry and the life of poverty to which he had become accustomed. Instead, smuggled out by the IRA, he’s in a wealthy suburban Houston neighborhood—where Americans “lived in fine homes and drove cars as big as barges on the Foyle”—and in the care of an aunt and uncle he’s not sure he can trust. In the U.S. illegally, uncertain whether he’s guest or prisoner, Brendan must adapt to a new identity, a new nation with its own violent fissures, and the guilt he feels over what happened in Derry— and left people he loved dead.

Sullivan’s story covers just a few years of the 1970s, as Brendan begins to find his place, working at a bar and then as a mechanic, experimenting with sex, discovering love, and facing the harsh starkness of American racial and sexual binaries. Again, the narrative voice is intimately insistent, touched with music, frank about dark feelings and events. Even as Brendan finds much to love in his new home—friendships, family, romance, opportunity—the worst of his past bleeds through his consciousness, creating scenes of raw tension when offhand remarks from, say, his scene-stealing young cousins set him spiraling, fighting his own mind.

The ample dialogue and occasional sex are handled with electric vigor, as both author and narrator alike find transcendence in moments of urgent connection, as when Brendan and a girlfriend, who is Black, discuss the roots of hatred in their homelands, or when Brendan and a friend in Israel’s IDF commiserate over what it costs a person to have to kill. For all its density and heft, the novel often moves briskly, at a fierce emotional pitch.

Takeaway: Vigorous, fiercely emotional novel of an Irishman’s coming of age in Texas.

Comparable Titles: Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies, Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A

Click here for more about A Place of Safety-New World For Old

Fablewright’s ambitious and thought-provoking debut delves into the complexities of human existence and the eternal quest for meaning. The novel's protagonist, Edward, serves as a compelling vehicle for the author's philosophical musings, as his journey from successful CEO to a man grappling with divorce and unemployment provides a relatable context for exploring his purpose and role amid his changing circumstances. Fablewright skillfully uses Edward's relationship with his daughter to ground the novel’s more abstract concepts in tangible human connections, as the two orbit around each other in this newfound world, with Edward marveling at “the loss of his previous existence and the hopelessness of it all.”

Fablewright's prose is both engaging and challenging, seamlessly weaving together fictional narrative, historical facts, and scientific concepts, all while making complex ideas accessible without oversimplification. Edward muses on such concepts as the immortality of lobsters, atom-sharing, and the symbiosis between viruses and human survival, prompting readers, also, to ruminate on the twists and turns that comprise this life. Humor woven throughout balances the weightier themes amidst the layers of critical thinking and philosophical prowess, played out in Edward’s rambling conversations with his friend, Albert, where the two probe the limits of the “human machine,” comparing life to children’s board games and wondering if God is more “science geek” or “dictator.”

Readers will be immersed in Edward’s thought processes throughout the lofty narrative, and, though the novel's philosophical digressions may occasionally disrupt the flow, they ultimately contribute to its unique charm. Whether Edward is analyzing his seemingly pointless daily proceedings—questioned by Albert if “survival without purpose might only be consumption”—or working to understand that “purpose is the difference between filling in time and making a difference,” those readers willing to embrace the novel’s unconventional structure will be rewarded with a richly contemplative reading experience.

Takeaway: Intellectually stimulating journey that embraces the wonders of human existence.

Comparable Titles: Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, Sigrid Nunez’s The Vulnerables.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A

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Debut author Riley pulls from their own childhood experiences of being bullied to spin this redemptive story of grief, found family, and, above all else, unconditional love. Imari, a young Black boy horribly bullied by his peers—even as he’s tethered to life by his mother’s “blinding glow of acceptance and love”—struggles under the weight of his resentful father, George, who feels trapped by his family duties. Imari’s mother Imani, on the other hand, pours her love into Imari, taking him on adventures and regaling him with creative stories, forming an incredibly close bond that is shattered by her quick and unexpected death from cancer when Imari is in fifth grade.

This is a moving story of a mother’s eternal love, unbroken even by death, and the legacy such a love can bestow on others. Unbeknownst to Imari, his mother arranged for a new white family in the neighborhood, the Antenellis—whose daughter, Andrea, becomes a fast friend for Imari—to be his guardians after her death, a decision that comes with timely protection for Imari. When a neighborhood bully, Bruce, mercilessly torments Imari, Imari decides to take matters into his own hands, launching the two boys on a near-death collision course that’s stopped at the last minute by Andrea’s father, Andrew. Meanwhile, George descends further into destruction, eventually signing over his parental rights to allow the Antenellis to adopt Imari, conceding that Imari has “a right to get some joy in his life.”

From there, Riley paints Imari into a world of new beginnings, with the Antenellis’ care and concern allowing him to start over and later return to his hometown, as an adult, with his own family. Readers will be transfixed as Imari carries his young son Jack down the very same paths he walked with his mother, bringing the “magic and wonder” of her love full circle.

Takeaway: Transfixing story that illuminates the power of a mother’s love.

Comparable Titles: Rumaan Alam’s That Kind of Mother, Claire Lombardo’s Same As It Ever Was.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-

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Williams intertwines past and present, devotion and heartache, in a metaphoric story centered on Ronan Byrne and Emily Walton, two fractured individuals who come together on a bridge in New York City in December 1968, moments before Ronan plans to take his own life. Emily, recovering from a devastating accident, becomes the unexpected savior for Ronan, who is mourning the death of his beloved wife, Carrieann. The supernatural force responsible for uniting the pair later drives their separation, though their subconscious bond remains unbreakable.

The bridge Ronan and Emily meet on serves as a powerful image for their relationship throughout the book, symbolizing connection and the joining of past with present—and illustrating how love can transcend any challenge. Their initial joining is ripe with both spiritual and existential tokens, and, though Williams later shifts the narrative to 1975—where Ronan is managing a business alongside his sister Michelle while Emily runs the Safe Haven Clinic, providing mental health services to veterans and underserved individuals—the pair’s bond endures, tested over decades as buried histories resurface and threaten to untangle the delicate threads of destiny that bind them.

Williams (author of Unexpected Places) seamlessly blends genres, delivering a romance that is achingly tender and realistic, paired with mystery and suspense elements that add welcome tension. The narrative culminates in the COVID 19 era, where the supernatural force unveils itself in a poignant twist of fate that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Ronan and Emily’s journeys illuminate how individuals can find purpose and make a difference in a constantly changing world, making this a thoughtful exploration of personal and societal transformation. Despite occasional moments where the social commentary feels heavy-handed, the enduring love story between Ronan and Emily will keep readers engaged. Ultimately, this deeply emotional and socially conscious fiction is a testament to the power of love.

Takeaway: Emotive, socially conscious story that testifies to the power of love.

Comparable Titles: Christian Kiefer’s The Heart of It All, Gae Polisner’s The Memory of Things.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A

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