Dayle (Everything Abridged: Stories) delivers a bracing Civil War satire focused on a young white volunteer’s reversals of fortune. Anders, 15, joins the Union Army as a morale-boosting flag twirler, desperate to get away from his overbearing mother. He switches his allegiance after he’s captured by Confederate soldiers (“No man deserved to lose his property, human or otherwise,” Dayle wryly writes), then defects back to the Union side after barely surviving the Battle of Gettysburg. He joins an all-Black regiment by passing himself off as an octoroon, having taken on the identity of a fallen soldier, and makes friends with Tobias Gleason, a Black soldier who writes science fiction plays. The regiment moves on to New York, where Anders and Gleason help to quell the Draft Riots, and then Nevada, where they take part in a “standard Indian purge,” which provokes them, and other Black soldiers, to desert and find sanctuary at the free city of San Valentin. An assault on San Valentin by Union general James McClellan leads to a final convulsive act of political theater. In Anders, Dayle has crafted an American Candide, whose naive beliefs are comically tested by his experiences with war and racism. This epic novel channels the absurdity of Catch-22 and the whimsical invention of The Intuitionist. It’s a blast. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Reid’s transportive latest (after Carrie Soto Is Back) revolves around a forbidden love between two female astronauts in the 1980s. In 1984, a botched satellite deployment by the Navigator space shuttle kills several members of the crew. As the disaster unfolds, capsule communicator Joan Goodwin desperately tries to advise surviving engineer Vanessa Ford from Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The narrative then rewinds seven years, to when Joan, a “Goody Two-shoes” astronomer at Rice University, feels a “pull deep down in the layers of her skin” upon learning that NASA is recruiting women for its astronaut corps. While training as a mission specialist, she meets tall, curly-haired Vanessa, an aeronautical engineer who longs to pilot the space shuttle. The two women are drawn to each other and begin a romance, which they keep secret due to NASA’s prohibition against “sexual deviation.” Their reticence makes the ill-fated 1984 flight even more poignant as Reid keeps the reader in suspense about what happens to Vanessa. Along the way, Reid makes palpable the astronauts’ passion for their work and captures in vibrnt detail the era’s high-stakes and fast-paced shuttle program. The author’s fans will find much to enjoy. Agent: Emily Sweet, Park Fine & Brower. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

The Malaysian Communist Party’s insurgency is rendered in vivid detail by Fan, a member of the party’s guerrilla forces from 1976 to 1989, in this remarkable collection, his English-language debut. In “Spell,” communist fighters catch a wild boar and try to bring it back to their camp alive so they can make pig blood soup. The heartfelt “Swansong in That Faraway Place” follows a pregnant revolutionary soldier who weighs the potential sacrifice of motherhood against the dreams of the insurgency, which is being fought to ensure a “better tomorrow” for the next generation. The narrator of the title entry reflects on joining the war decades earlier with a childhood friend, who earned the nickname Delicious for his enthusiasm about all the new food they ate in the jungle, such as cassava cake fried in elephant fat. The pair reunite years later and discuss their loss of innocence and the hunger they endured when rations ran low, agreeing that “without hunger, nothing tastes as good.” The revolutionaries’ daily lives come into sharp relief in Fan’s stories, which take on added depth through their exploration of themes of friendship, love, and purpose. Readers will find much to savor in these impassioned and unique tales. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bledsoe (The Forty Elephants) serves up a dynamic portrait of historical crime figure Virginia Hill, presenting her as a formidable player in the 1930s–1940s Chicago mob despite being known primarily as the girlfriend of gangster Bugsy Siegel. At a young age, Virginia learned to look out for herself, surviving her father’s physical and emotional abuse and defying his claim that she’d “never amount to anything.” Her self-preservation skills prove essential as she becomes entangled in organized crime following the disappearance of her best friend, Madeline, who’d waitressed alongside Virginia at the San Carlo, the Chicago restaurant favored by Al Capone before his imprisonment. While searching for answers about Madeline’s disappearance, Virginia agrees to help the mob launder money. Her success leads to an encounter with Bugsy, who becomes a love interest. Bledsoe’s narrative eventually reveals the disturbing truth about Madeline’s fate and presents an intriguing view into the 1946 hit on Bugsy at Virginia’s California home. Bledsoe doesn’t sugarcoat the barbarity of mob violence in her complex and admirable characterization of Virginia, who grows increasingly comfortable with carrying out the mob’s work and finds satisfaction in her sense of agency. It’s a humanizing portrait of a notorious woman. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this mesmerizing work of speculative fiction from Giddings (The Women Could Fly), the world is transformed by the sudden appearance of seven strange doors, which many come to believe are portals to a mystical realm. The story centers on two Black teens, twin sisters Olivia and Ayanna, who are raised separately by their mother and father following their parents’ divorce. Olivia attends Catholic school while Ayanna joins her father’s religious community, whose beliefs are built around one of the seven doors, which appeared in their Michigan hometown. When the girls get together, they compare notes on the racism they encounter and debate what might lie behind the door worshipped by their father. Olivia considers it a “door to nowhere,” while Ayanna imagines an idyll of “golden paths and golden plants.” After a group of billionaires gain approval from the U.S. government to go through the door, some of them spontaneously combust upon entry. Still, Olivia and Ayanna decide to explore what’s on the other side. Olivia accidentally enters first and disappears, leaving Ayanna behind to grapple with the loss. With her sister still missing, Ayanna goes off to college, where she’s haunted by visions and voices of spirits, whom she believes are talking to her from the realm entered by Olivia. In search of answers, Ayanna turns to a professor who specializes in Black spirituality. Giddings grounds the ethereal narrative with strong character work and wry narration as it builds to a stunning conclusion. Readers will be enthralled and left with much to ponder. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

A 12-year-old boy sifts through his memories of his late father in the nuanced latest from Buzbee (The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop). It’s 1970 when Robert Macoby’s father Elwell, known as Mac, dies of a heart attack. In nonlinear snapshots, Robert muses on the joyful moments they had together, like trips to a bar to hear Mac’s stories about making underwater repairs on Navy ships during WWII, sharing plates of Crab Louie, and watching Mac demonstrate his diving skills. Robert also wrestles with things he only partly understands at his young age, including Mac’s volatile relationship with his older son, who enlists to fight in Vietnam. A parallel narrative follows Mac’s life sequentially, from when his parents left him in an orphanage during the Depression through his early enlistment in the Army at 15, learning to weld, his career in the Navy, and his rocky civilian life, during which his self-worth is caught up in his ability to provide for his family. Buzbee effectively conveys the messy blend of adoration, fear, and affection a young boy feels for his father while making Mac a fully realized character with his own faults and charms. The author’s fans will be pleased. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

A struggling actor returns to Upstate New York to renovate a house and raise a family in Lahti’s lyrical and eerie debut. Raised by a workaholic father who renovated foreclosed homes, Vic Greener fled the “cultureless” region to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. His years of frustration have yielded a toothpaste commercial, a soap opera stint, and a romance with fellow actor Heather Roswell. The pair marry after a “surprise pregnancy” and Vic purchases a foreclosed property near his hometown, eager to flip it so they can use the money to move back west. But as time goes on and their son, Junior, starts preschool, Vic continues tinkering on the house and grows attached to it, despite being unnerved by his discovery of two gravestones in the basement. He purchases more properties, operating some as rentals and planning to flip others, still hoping to raise enough cash for their dream home in California. Lahti introduces sinister details—Junior claims to know about the bodies, which were buried on the property in the early 19th century; one of their tenants tramps menacingly through the garden—but they’re never fully explored or incorporated into the plot. Still, the prose is subtly alluring, such as the author’s description of nature as “a witch’s brew of mistrust.” This sly and creepy drama is worth a look. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

This exquisite triptych from Aciman (Call Me By Your Name) explores desire and fate among old friends, new acquaintances, and heartbroken lovers. In “The Gentleman from Peru,” a group of young Americans visit Italy’s Amalfi Coast, where they become transfixed by a solitary 60-something guest at their hotel. Over drinks, the older man, whose name is Raúl, entertains the Americans with his psychic abilities, correctly guessing their birth months and revealing a secret unrequited love between two of them. The elegiac title entry chronicles a week in the lives of two elderly New Yorkers who meet during jury duty. Catherine, a psychologist, and Paul, an attorney, are both unhappily married, a fact they confess to one another as the story builds to a surprising leap of faith. “Mariana” concludes the collection with the somber interior monologue of a scorned woman who struggles to reassess her self-worth and salvage her life without the security of her ex-lover’s attention. Throughout, Aciman eloquently explores the life-changing impact of love, explicated in a dazzling soliloquy from Raúl on the ever-present prospect of a connection with a stranger (“That person could just as easily be us in another body. And the beauty of it is that they feel it just as much as we do.... Us in others, isn’t this the definition of love?”). It’s a triumph. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Hartnett’s enchanting latest (after Unlikely Animals), a lonely and broken man hits the road in hopes of finding a new lease on life. PJ Halliday, 63, won the lottery 10 years ago, but he’s far from having it all. His ex-wife, Ivy, is about to marry his former best friend, Fred; his 26-year-old daughter, Sophie, is constantly irritated with him for his heavy drinking; and his older daughter, Kate, has been dead for 15 years, having drowned while drunk after her prom. When his late brother’s grandkids are suddenly orphaned, he is named next of kin to Luna, 10, and Ollie, nine. Casting about for an escape from the pain in his life, PJ takes Luna and Ollie on a road trip to Arizona, where his high school crush has been recently widowed. They’re joined by Sophie, who’s harboring a secret about Ivy and Fred, and more family drama ensues when Luna insists on a detour to meet Mark Stanpole, a soap opera actor she suspects is her biological father. Hartnett leavens the heavy subject matter with a lighthearted tone and comic relief from a therapy cat named Pancakes, who escaped from an assisted living residence and goes along for the ride. Readers will fall in love with this bittersweet tale of new beginnings. Agent: Katie Grimm, Curtis Brown Ltd. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

Driscoll’s immersive debut follows a Victorian Egyptologist seeking to save her sister. Dr. Clement Attridge’s daughters, Clemmie and Rosetta Attridge, grew up so steeped in Egyptian lore that they took to calling each other Nephthys and Isis, after the sisters of the Egyptian god Osiris. Now, in 1887, Rosetta plans to marry, while Clemmie is an expert in hieroglyphics who works alongside her father. Clemmie and her father are unwrapping a strange double mummy when she discovers an inscription cursing anyone who disturbs the sisters bound within. Though not normally superstitious, she begs Clement unsuccessfully to heed the curse. By 1892, her parents are dead and Rosetta is sliding toward madness. When she grows convinced she is Isis, Clemmie attempts to break the curse by returning the relics to Egypt. One of the three English strangers who sail with her down the Nile on a hired boat knows more about Clemmie than he should, and she’s shocked when Rosetta’s fiancé suddenly boards the ship after a stop at a bazaar. Furthermore, her belief in the virtues of Egyptology is shaken once she encounters sites pillaged by European scholars. Driscoll interweaves meticulous evocations of 19th-century life with eloquent retellings of Egyptian myth. It’s a notable tale of sisterhood and survival. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink