Square³

The latest from bestseller Grant (after Kingdom of Needle and Bone) reads as a labor of love—or a bit of a lark, really. Grant (a pen name for Seanan McGuire) experiments in the vein of Alan Moore’s Watchmen by drawing on mid-century comics and pulps, updating the tropes, and making no bones about politics. There’s a YA vibe at the outset as teenage sisters ride their bikes through an Evanston, Ill., cemetery and into cataclysm: a rift opens in the air between them, one of many throughout the world, leaving brash Susan on the normal side of reality while neurodivergent Katharine lands in a hellscape that defies physics. For 17 years, scientists fruitlessly study the odd “exclusion zones” the rifts leave behind. A grown Susan joins them, establishing her lab as close as she can to where Katharine disappeared and relentlessly looking for signs her sister is alive. The sign arrives with the same breathtaking abruptness as the rift itself, and Susan is tasked with a life-or-death mission that will bring the answers she has sought—alongside conspiracy and mayhem. As in any pulp escapade, pace and spectacle matter significantly more here than logic or nuance, but readers who go in with expectations properly adjusted will find a satisfying, light adventure. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (Dec.)