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LAST NIGHT

Rice’s latest novel literally starts with a bang. Acclaimed artist Maddie Morrison—her level of fame is compared to that of Andy Warhol and Banksy—is fighting her way through a raging blizzard on her way to meeting someone outside a historic hotel situated on Rhode Island’s coastline. Within seconds, she’s shot execution-style, and the killer finds her 6-year-old daughter, CeCe, hiding in the snow. The killer kidnaps CeCe, then Maddie’s sister discovers her body, and the race to catch a killer

AQUA BOY

Aaron and his sister, Angel, live by the ocean, where they and their parents serve as ocean guardians, volunteers who take care of the beach. Angel, a strong swimmer for whom the ocean is a second home, has nicknamed herself “Coral Girl,” but Aaron fears going underwater. Mom and Dad reassure him that one day he’ll be ready. Later, a big storm litters the beach with trash, which the ocean guardians clean up. The children fantasize about finding a way “to clean up the ocean for good”: with a hug

THE NOTEBOOK

British publisher and diarist Allen brings his love of notebooks to a lively, wide-ranging history of bound blank pages. Notebooks, he writes, “interest me as a technology that has had tangible effects on the world around us.” The author started keeping a journal in 2002: “Writing a diary made me happier; keeping things-to-do lists made me more reliable (which in turn made those around me happier), and I learned never to go to a doctor’s appointment, or a meeting of any kind, without taking not

THE YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF

A Latine girl with brown skin and wavy brown hair lives in a modest farmhouse with her family, including her abuela. Abuela keeps busy with chores, and the yellow handkerchief she wears in her hair—a gift from her own grandmother—proves useful throughout the day. Feelings of shame and embarrassment swirl as the narrator’s visiting friend Becca, who presents White, asks innocent questions about what Abuela is doing. Reading Becca’s curiosity as criticism, the narrator concludes, “I definitely do

LIBRARY FOR THE WAR-WOUNDED

Austrian writer Helfer explores the life of her father, Josef, in this work of autofiction. The child of a single mother—a maid in the household of his biological father—Josef is a bright child who grows up in poverty and, initially, without educational advantages. A local builder allows him access to his own home library, and Josef’s lifelong love affair with books and libraries begins. Upon his return from the war, Josef eventually secures a position as the manager of an Alpine convalescent h

THE MYSTERY OF MYSTIC MOUNTAIN

Becca, who’s nearly 13, had different hopes for her summer, ones that didn’t involve leaving Connecticut to bond with her mom at Get Away Ranch, a Montana resort that promises yoga and cooking classes, a spa and swimming pool, and more. Due to a mix-up, they end up instead at rustic Far Away Ranch, with its spotty internet and more down-to-earth facilities. Meanwhile, Jon, who’s almost 14, is working at the ranch with his dad. He’s heard stories from his great-grandmother about the founding of

FREEZING REIGN

The story begins in an alternative late-20th-century United States—or what’s left of it. The 1976 Olympic Games was a super-spreader event for a flu that’s killed millions of people, and is invariably deadly to women. In Texas, where society has already started to fragment, strong-willed 18-year-old Mirari Vega sees her best friend die and senses that women are likely to become extinct. In her distress, she agrees to a plan by her maverick-scientist father (in collusion with her love interest,

PLAYING WITH WILDFIRE

Early on, a woman named Gretel—the closest thing to a central character you’ll find here—explains her situation: “I live on the evacuation perimeter of what is now Colorado’s largest wildfire, which has been burning for months.” That she does so as part of a grant application—the text of which is one of several found documents included in the book—is an early indication that this novel isn’t a simple narrative of humanity at the mercy of a changing climate. Later, Pritchett includes the text of

UPSTAGED

It’s the summer before high school, and Ashton Price is excited for their six-week arts camp. In addition to stage managing and building sets for the “Cinderella”-inspired musical Ella, they’ll bunk with lead actor Ivy Santos. She’s the “PB” to their “J”—and maybe more? But then, things start to go wrong. The friends are assigned to different cabins, rehearsals keep Ivy super busy, and worst of all, there’s Lucas—a.k.a. Prince Charming to Ivy’s Ella. He’s always there with Ivy, being charming,

BENNY RAMÍREZ AND THE NEARLY DEPARTED

Not only is Benny Ramírez the grandson of a famous Cuban American musician, but everyone else in his family has a talent, too: Papi is a well-regarded Hollywood producer, Mami has a gift for languages, older sister Cristina is a star dancer, and younger brother Manny is a promising actor. When the family inherits Benny’s estranged grandfather’s Miami home after his death, they leave Los Angeles, and the Ramírez kids enter the South Miami Performing Arts School, where Benny, who feels like he is

SOMETHING MORE

The author writes that when he first attempted to grapple with the fact that his young daughter, Mackenzie, had a degenerative medical condition, he read the Book of Job. When he realized that he needed more than simply an account of unjust suffering, he says, he moved on to Ecclesiastes, noting that the book “doesn’t concern itself much with matters of salvation, heaven, or eternity. Ecclesiastes wants to know how to live now on this planet, even when conditions are less than ideal.” The Old T

ONLY FOR THE BRAVE AT HEART

Not only has America failed to adequately say “I am sorry” to the “descendants of Africa’s Eve,” writes Pettiway, it has also “never said, ‘Thank you,’ ” to the African American writers, artists, thinkers, and “ordinary people who worked with little recognition but who deserve great praise.” This prologue, which simultaneously challenges America’s self-perception and celebrates the lives of Black men and women, sets the tone for the poignant collection of 11 essays. Divided into four parts, the

TINY TALES

A group of creatures, including a ladybug, a roly-poly, a snail, and a couple of slugs, watch the sunset. Firefly shows up and encourages the others to stay up late to see the moonflower bloom. “Bedtime can wait,” they decide as Firefly leads them through the forest. At first, they startle at the nighttime sounds of owls and frogs but soon find them soothing, like a lullaby. “I never thought of it that way before,” muses Firefly. Later, Firefly uses its flash to help turn unexpected and seeming

NO PERFECT PLACES

The summer before their senior year of high school, Olly and Alex’s well-known tech CEO father dies from a heart attack while still in prison. But before he dies, he tells Olly not to tell his sister about their secret half brother. Tyler Dell, who is two years older than the twins, sent a letter that Olly intercepted and kept from his sister. A year later, Alex is mired in an abusive relationship with a rich-boy drug dealer, and while Olly is coping, he’s still tangled in his father’s lies. Th

IRISH MILKSHAKE MURDER

What do Galway, Ireland; Arborville, New Jersey; and the North Pole have in common? Why, they all mark the name day of Ireland’s patron saint by serving up frosty milkshakes for revelers to savor. In O’Connor’s title story, these revelers are traveling to an island off Ireland’s western coast to celebrate Tara Meehan’s upcoming wedding to Danny O’Donnell, so the milkshakes have real booze in them and everyone’s already pretty sloshed when Noel Carrigan, one of the twins hitching a ride on the b

THE RIVER OF CHEESE

In a classic tale of pursuit and near capture, a nameless feline finds his tranquil existence in an aging Victorian house rudely interrupted by the appearance of a mouse. As may be expected, he gives chase, dashing past a number of local village residents: an older man, a woman in a green dress, a fox, a baker, a jockey, and more. The race endures for a number of pages until the cat decides to approach the problem with smarts instead of the speed that has failed him thus far: “I’ll get that mou

CHILDLESS MOTHER

In 1968, Mayo was the 13-year-old daughter of a career Navy officer who recently moved the family to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. There, she met Kenny Locke, who also came from a military family; he was 16 and seemed a kindred spirit. Over the next year, the teens enjoyed independence within the base, and she writes, “The time Kenny and I spent unaccompanied was becoming, increasingly, an exploration of each other.” Mayo, then 14, became pregnant, and her parents checked

LIFE UNDER PRESSURE

Grounding their study within the confines of pseudonymous Poplar Grove, a wealthy, predominantly white suburban American community, sociologists Mueller and Abrutyn present an erudite study on several “suicide clusters” inexplicably plaguing the region. While their initial goal was to better understand how individual community members processed suicide losses, their study eventually branched out to encompass the mechanics of youth communal environments, the dilemma of mental health stigma, and

THE NEW EARTH

In his latest novel, Row introduces us to the Wilcox family, a sprawling, dysfunctional group traumatized, in various ways, by several key moments in their past. When their mother, Naomi, informs them that her biological father had been Black, Patrick and his sisters, Winter and Bering, are horrified that she's been keeping that secret for so long. Bering winds up traveling to Palestine as a peace activist, where she's killed by an Israeli sniper. Winter becomes an immigration attorney; Patrick

WE WHO PRODUCE PEARLS

“We who dream / mark time by the moon, / a heavenly body containing multitudes, whose many faces mirror our own.” Writing in verse, Ho notes the diversity of the Asian American community. She alludes to the many reasons that people took the risk of immigrating to America: the wounds of colonization, unfair labor practices, and dreams of opportunities. Affirming that the Asian experience is an integral part of U.S. history, she acknowledges the oppression that Asian Americans have endured, but,