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RUINED A LITTLE WHEN WE ARE BORN

In each of these 40 stories, family pulls at the characters in different ways. In “Mother, False,” it’s in a fantastical way, extra hands growing out of her body after her mother dies and she must take over that role in the household. In “There Are Places That Will Fill You Up,” a girl leaves the comfort of her father’s home for the dangerous magic of her unknown mother’s world. In “Nartaki,” a girl runs from the responsibilities of her family to join a group of dancers led by a woman everyone

THE CLINIC

Magda Batey, the implant physician at a Pittsburgh fertility clinic, directs the lead embryologist, 36-year-old Emily Daugherty, to meet with and gracefully reject two potential clients; they’re risky prospects that could bring down Batey’s success numbers. Emily is surprised when the couple in question turns out to be her former college boyfriend, Ben Holiday (“The only man I’d ever thought of having a child with, and I just let him go.”), and his wife, Ally. Emily can’t bring herself to disap

THE FIREWEED MOON

Ohioan Leon Ziemny knows “things could flip on a nickel,” and in this series entry, things certainly do: Leon’s childhood home back in Langston, Indiana, is on a list of buildings to be demolished. His middle-aged daughter, Willow, unexpectedly shows up in his current hometown of Weeping Willow, Ohio, just after someone else wanders into town asking about her. Leon’s first wife, Noël Trudeau, died giving birth to Willow in this quiet town, which was known as just Willow back then. Tragedy haunt

DIORAMAS

To read this novel is to be immersed in both its retro-futuristic setting and the obsessions of its haunted protagonist. Narrator Wiggins has retired from his job at a museum, and he spends his time musing on the way the world in which he lives—characterized by an abundance of dioramas large and small—came about. This is not a novel that abounds in exposition; it’s not until a third of the way through that we get a sense of when in the future we might be. Specifically, it's at least 300 years a

THE CELDAN HERESIES

Before Gaelle was a heretical nun being held in a prison cell suspended high in the air, she was just a girl. Her mother died in childbirth and her woodsman father raised her with the help of her mother’s sister, her wise aunt Jillian. When Gaelle is 15, her father is killed by a horse. By the law of the Imperial Church of Esaosh, the strict religion that governs Gaelle’s homeland of Celd, the horse is to be put to death, and the horse’s owner, Wilm, is to be beaten. It falls to Gaelle to carry

ALWAYS ORCHID

In a prologue set in the New York City subway system, Roy, who has “slid too easily from military veteran to unsheltered,” is pulled back from a suicide attempt by a stranger (entrepreneur Phoenix Walker) who is then trapped on the tracks himself. Nine months later, Chinese American marketer Orchid Paige, who is about to leave for a job in China, is asked by Phoenix (now with a prosthetic arm and prosthetic leg due to the subway incident) if they can “try again.” Orchid was traumatized by the d

FORCE OF NATURE

In 2004, celebrating her 50th birthday, the author, along with her best friend, Z, threw an “over-the-top party.” Only days later, Z was killed by a drunk driver. Attempting to come to terms with the loss, Griffin escaped to Yosemite, where she camped and read. There she found inspiration in the words of the Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue: “When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of the mountains...” She felt the sudden desire

THE MALTESE IGUANA

Where better to ride out the tedium of the pandemic lockdown than a condominium in Islamorada, halfway down the Florida Keys? With assistance from both Alexa and Siri, who compete vigorously for the boys’ attention, Serge and his perennial wingman, Coleman, collect enough consumer goods to keep them amused for at least 24 hours of isolation. Once that’s over, they go back to what they do best: careening wildly through the streets in Serge’s Ford ’73 Galaxie, going after scalpers who charge insa

THE BOY WHO FOUND HIS VOICE

Tyler’s words always get “STUCK.” “Long words. Short words. Silly words. All words.” In his head, Tyler can speak “loudly” and “proudly,” tell knock-knock jokes, and “even reveal the real reason why that chicken crossed the road.” Yet in reality, “his tongue [gets] tied, and his words just [won’t] come out right,” a predicament vividly expressed via tangled scrawls and a spread depicting Tyler with a long, loop-laced tongue. Still, Tyler won’t give up. His mother encourages him, and together th

HUMANS IN SHACKLES

“Raised as a white person” in southern Brazil, Howard University professor Araujo is determined to include in her account both Latin America and those regions from which enslaved Africans were kidnapped. Synthesizing primary sources and other historians’ findings, she works her way from West Africa and West Central Africa, through the Middle Passage, to the Americas, then back again. As she contrasts the experiences of bondspeople across time and space, she takes care to explore the lives of en

MAKE MORE S'MORES

The marshmallow has been “slowly turned and gently roasted” over glowing campfire coals. The graham crackers and the chocolate squares are ready. Roscoe the raccoon assembles his first s’more, but when Grizzly Bear arrives and asks, “Is that for me?” of course Roscoe shares and begins to roast two more marshmallows, one for his s’more and one for Grizzly’s second. When two black bear cubs beg for a snack, Grizzly Bear agrees to wait for a second s’more. The cubs lick the plate clean, and Roscoe

OBSESSION

Tech billionaire Carl Novak is only just starting his own production company, so he has no reason to know that Billy Barnett, the producer of Storm’s Eye, is actually Teddy, a former CIA agent who also moonlights as Oscar-winning actor Mark Weldon. But it’s a lucky thing for him that Teddy’s on hand when Carl’s wife, Rebecca, is kidnapped by Croatian gang leader Zoran Janic, since Teddy’s even more at home hunting down vermin like Janic than he is in the Hollywood scene. Janic claims he’s holdi

THE MEXICAN DREIDEL

Danielito loves Janucá (Hanukkah), and tonight, he and his Bobe will light the first candles. Danielito doesn’t know any of the kids in his grandmother’s neighborhood, but when he sees them playing trompos (tops) in the street, he asks Bobe if she has one. “No,” she tells him. “But I have a dreidel!” The local kids let Danielito join in, and when his dreidel is the last top spinning, something magical happens. Each fallen trompo the dreidel touches starts spinning again, and soon the dreidel is

MIRRORVERSE

While the old tales continue on as normal in the Source Worlds, in the Mirror Worlds, characters from Disney stories exist in heightened forms. The light and dark mirrors created in the stellar collision fell, pitting the forces of good and evil magic against each other. But the dark mirror has broken, and the Fractured Magic that now claws its way out from it threatens to rend the worlds as we know them asunder. Snow White’s peaceful life has been shattered by this magic: Her friends are missi

VOICE OF THE STRANGER

“You are entering strange territory,” remarks Schaller in a smart, sinister introduction that cautions readers that any stranger encountered “might be the Stranger”—or rather, the devil himself. Fourteen stories are offered here, many of which draw inspiration from fairy and folktales. In the opening story, “The Five Cigars of Abu Ali,” an old friend returns to tell a tale about his encounter with a genie while in Pakistan. Meanwhile, in “North of Lake Winnipesaukee,” the surviving wolf of a sl

DEADLY TO THE CORE

Still mourning the loss of her husband and healing from the car crash that took Brian’s life, Kate Mulligan is ready to turn the page. So when she inherits her great-uncle Stan’s orchard, she leaves her home in Pittsburgh for rural Orchardville. Working in a cidery has given her the tools she needs to turn Stan’s apples into cider, and watching Brian restore houses has taught her how to frame walls and build a bar and tasting room. But no one’s taught her how to solve crimes. So when Carl Rando

THE JASAD HEIR

Ten years after Jasad fell, its people live in hiding within the four nations that conspired against their homeland. The Jasadis were the last people in the world to possess magical abilities; to be outed as Jasadi is to face summary execution. Essiya is the heir to the Jasadi throne. Now calling herself Sylvia, the 20-year-old hides her magic behind a pair of invisible bracelets that help stifle its power. When her cousin Felix of Omal throws a young girl under his horses' hooves, Sylvia's mag

GETTING TO YES

In the summer of 1978, Chris is back in his hometown of Brandon, Florida, after his first year in college at Florida State University, setting up his summer job at JB’s pizza restaurant. There, he meets Chloe; beautiful and sweet, she immediately dazzles. What follows is a look back at Chris’ previous romantic exploits, beginning with his relationship with Deb, stretching from the end of his high school days in 1977 through his first year in college and his meeting with Chloe. The narrative wea

OUR MOON

Science and nature journalist Boyle opens in 1943 with the Marine invasion of the Japanese-held island of Tarawa. Planners expected high tide to allow landing craft to pass over the reefs. Stuck, the soldiers were forced to wade to shore under fire, and more than 1,000 were killed. The lesson: Ignore the Moon at your peril. Most readers know that the Moon influences the tides, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Rewinding the clock, the author delves deeply into prehistoric artifacts, monu

BACK TO THE BRIGHT BEFORE

A debilitating injury prevents 11-year-old Perpetua’s father from working, forcing her waitress mother to take double shifts. The cost of yet another surgery is prohibitive, so Pet and her younger brother, Simon (who since their father’s accident says only one word: cheese), set off in search of a priceless coin said to have been held by Christ. The coin is rumored to be located somewhere on the 200 acres belonging to a nearby community of nuns, and the only clue to its whereabouts is a rhyme r