Smithsonian curator Lunde debuts with a gripping investigation into the origins of the large mammal collection at the American Museum of Natural History, including its surprising ties to eugenics. At the center of the story is blue-blooded New Yorker Henry Fairfield Osborn, who led the museum at the turn of the 20th century. Osborn saw the museum as an instrument to popularize his belief that “white humans originated in Central Asia and not Africa” and were a separate, superior species from Black humans. Toward this end, Osborn sent expeditions to bring back megafauna from Africa, the very existence of which Osborn saw, in a twisted turn of logic, as proof of the genetic inferiority of Africans, since it showed that they, unlike “superior” Europeans, had not become their continent’s “destroying angels” by exterminating all their large mammals. Osborn also saw these expeditions as demonstrations of the kind of “taut masculinity” that he and many white elites believed was “under threat” due to the sedentary lifestyles brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the influx of Eastern and Southern European immigrants to New York. Osborn and his fellow curators explicitly hoped, Lunde shows, that the megafauna exhibits would inspire in the “American Nordics” who visited an appreciation of their own “lordly race.” It’s a revelatory look at the deep influence of eugenics on the sciences. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

A pivotal step toward American independence gets its due in historian Shumate’s immersive follow-up to The Sugar Act and the American Revolution. In the early 1760s, Great Britain wanted to raise revenue so it could keep a standing army in America. After colonial resistance derailed the 1764 Sugar Act, the British retrenched in 1765 with the Stamp Act, which required all colonial documents to be printed on embossed paper from Britain. The result, Shumate writes, was “a political great awakening.” He draws deeply on archival sources—including government records, pamphlets, and handbills—to put together a collage of that awakening’s development, with his own writing serving mostly to move the story from one primary source to the next. Surprising facts emerge along the way; e.g., it was New York, not Massachusetts, that first explicitly refuted Parliament’s legal right to levy taxes on the colonies, and they did so in a petition “conceived in terms so inflammatory” that nobody dared read it aloud in the General Assembly. Elsewhere, the contributions of minor figures are spotlighted, like Daniel Dulany of Maryland, whose pamphlet against British taxation contains the fiery line “I acknowledge dependence on Great Britain, but I can perceive [only] a degree of it without slavery, and I disown all other.” It makes for a captivating blow-by-blow account of the buildup of revolutionary fervor. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

Immigration lawyer Burden traces the exhilarating start and excruciating dissolution of her two-decade marriage in this bruising debut. Dividing the narrative into five acts, Burden recounts how, during the Covid pandemic, her husband of 20 years abruptly walked out on her and their three children without explanation. After he left, Burden desperately searched for answers, blaming herself and relitigating their idyllic courtship, looking for signs of his unhappiness in his occasional coldness and passing moments of rigidity. As her husband’s communication grew less frequent and he refused to see their children, she came to accept that she may have never truly known him. Then he initiated vicious divorce proceedings, transforming from “a benign stranger wandering out of my life” to “an adversary, determined to win.” After the divorce was finalized, Burden published a “Modern Love” essay in the New York Times, breaking an emotional dam within her and allowing her to finally move on from her recursive cycle of self-blame. With unsparing emotional clarity, Burden examines the often-baffling ways relationships can fall apart, and charts a path for people looking to reassemble their own lives. It’s a gut punch. Agent: Bretne Bloom, Book Group. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s ramshackle 1980 musical comedy gets a good-natured graphic novel companion. It’s a family affair—Aykroyd’s daughter Stella and Belushi’s son Luke share writing duties with James Werner, with art by Brazilian cartoonist Felipe Sobrerio. The book wisely acts as if the unloved 1998 sequel never happened, opening in 1997 with Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues (now a priest) in prison for destroying most of the Chicago Police Department’s cars. Though he’s just days away from parole, Jake escapes. A couple proto–Blues Brothers—guitarist Wolfgang and Officer Ztdetelik, son of Jake’s jilted, flamethrower-wielding fiancé (played in the film by Carrie Fisher)—take part in the chase. This sets off a daisy chain of chaos involving a secret briefcase that could change music history, more vehicular mayhem, and set pieces like a run through the Art Institute of Chicago that reverently reference the original film. Unfortunately, without the actors, the graphic novel format can’t match the movie’s deadpan comic timing. Felipe Sobreiro’s cartoony art still mostly carries the energy forward, with flashbacks that have a nice, densely hatched R. Crumb quality. Back matter includes interviews with the authors about their fathers’ legacy, and Dan Aykroyd provides a sweet foreword. Dedicated fans will dig this, though they may prefer a rewatch. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bellefleur (Truly, Madly, Deeply) pairs a pop star and a quarterback in this delightful, ripped-from-the-headlines contemporary. When publicist Poppy Peterson’s client, quarterback Cash Curran, aims a cheeky tweet at superstar musician Lyric Adair, Poppy’s convinced he’s lost his mind. She’s shocked when the public pickup line works and Lyric’s high-profile publicist, Rosaline Sinclair, reaches out to set up a meeting between the two celebs. Sparks soon fly between Lyric and Cash—and between Poppy and Rosaline as the women work to wrangle their rebellious clients. Then a deepfake scandal whipped up by someone from Lyric’s past threatens to tear both couples apart. Readers will quickly fall for all four leads. Cash is a lovable goofball with a heart of gold and Lyric is his perfect foil, but it’s Poppy and Rosaline who generate the most steam. Readers will find it extremely satisfying to witness the women move from strained professionalism to red-hot romance. Bellefleur also adds depth to the narrative by probing into Poppy’s past struggles with alcohol and Rosaline’s imposter syndrome. This charms. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this thought-provoking if disorganized sci-fi outing, brothers Mahyar (The Hubris of an Empty Hand) and Mabod Amouzegar offer jumbled glimpses of humanity’s future after the devastating Wars of Settlement, a conflict brought on by human error and a corrupt judicial system. The narrative toggles between timelines: the present follows Dolores and her android companion, KR, inhabitants of the second Elysium, a libido-less utopian city where, to preserve the peace, all human sexuality has been eradicated. The duo’s mourning of their friend, Darius, who has been exiled to the Walled City, a prison for aberrant humans who still experience desire, leads them to revelations about the nature of their world. In the distant past, Alexandra, the first sentient android, is primed to build the first Elysium, a project that ultimately fails. The time skips occasionally confuse, and the plot is overloaded with grandstanding speeches denouncing human failures, including population issues, hierarchies of power, sexual violence, and climate destruction. Still, the big ideas on offer here will give readers much to chew on. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bala delves into the messy workings of international philanthropy in her thoughtful follow-up to The Boat People. When Children of the World, a struggling nonprofit founded by an aging rock star, hires seasoned PR professional Clare Talbot to revive its fortunes, she invites Hollywood actor Dallas Hayden to visit their clinic in the Latin American country of Santa Rosa. Dallas’s immediate bond with Maria, an ill child from a near-destitute family, prompts her to aggressively pursue adoption—never mind Maria’s loving family—and pledge a hefty donation to Children of the World. Moral queasiness aside, Clare accepts the apparent victory. Then the story gets picked up by tenacious freelance journalist Emmanuelle Clemmons, who digs into both the details of Maria’s adoption and the operations of Children of the World, unearthing a string of unsavory practices that force Clare to reckon with her dreams of “doing good.” Bala’s blackly comic tale rotates through a kaleidoscopic cast of narrators, each of whom believes themselves to be the hero in their own story. With a satirical eye that never tips into cynicism, Bala delivers a quietly profound, thriller-adjacent dissection of global inequality that bruises even as it entertains. Agent: Martha Webb, CookeMcDermid. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

The protagonists of these gorgeous stories from Williams (Concerning the Future of Souls) grapple with mortality and their hold on reality. The sad and darkly funny “Stuff” begins with 60-something Henry mistakenly receiving a terminal diagnosis meant for a much older fellow lung cancer patient, before learning his own cancer is a “bit more advanced” than the other guy’s. Henry then works up the courage to tell his mother, who lives in a rest home and is “the one who was supposed to be dying, though she never did.” In the wonderfully strange “Nettle,” about the fear of growing up, a 21-year-old man claims semi-seriously that he’ll end his life before his 22nd birthday, so that he won’t reach the age his father was when he was born. “The Beach House,” an arch story of disinheritance, follows middle-aged Amber’s attempt to dissuade her father from bequeathing the family’s vacation home to his dog. Amber commiserates with a friend, who goes on a rant about their parents’ generation and the end of inherited wealth, saying, “They’re using everything up themselves, or they’re giving it to something wacky.” Throughout, William grabs the reader’s attention with striking dialogue and arresting conceits. This collection is a gift from a master of the form. Agent: Amelia Atlas, CAA. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

Alemán (Family Album) offers an illuminating story of the military dictatorship in Paraguay. The aging protagonist, Gabriela, returns to Asunción after the end of Alfredo Stroessner’s decades-long rein in 1989, having spent the past 20 years abroad. Andrei, the man who raised her, has recently died, and he left his journal for her with his youngest son, Pablo. From its pages, Gabriela learns how Andrei sailed across the Atlantic from Palermo as a boy in the early 20th century after his mother’s death. In Buenos Aires, he meets bacteriologist Palamazczuk. Later, pursuing his interest in medicine, Andrei works with Palamazczuk to treat people with leprosy on an island at the Paraguay border, and in 1933 he winds up healing Stroessner, then a lieutenant in the army at war with Bolivia. As the novel draws to a close, Gabriela uncovers secrets from the journal and from speaking with Andrei’s children about how Andrei came to settle in Asunción and the painful ways the family was entwined with Stroessner after he became president in 1954. With striking revelations of the bargain struck by Andrei and wrenching details of Stroessner’s repressive rule, Alemán dramatizes Paraguay’s tumultuous history and the complex role played by its civilians. Fans of A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende will find much to admire. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Salam’s chilling latest (after Hazardous Spirits), a Scottish marine archaeologist fears she’s encountered a ghost while exploring a Victorian shipwreck off the coast of a remote island. Marta Khoury, riddled with grief and guilt after the drowning death of her illicit lover, Lewis, travels from Edinburgh to the island of Cairnroch in December 1962. The Purdie family has hired her to search the underwater wreckage of the HMS Deliverance, their ancestor’s ship, recently discovered in the Arctic Ocean and dragged back to a port on the island. During her first dive, she sees a skulking figure inside the Deliverance and fears it’s Lewis, who also hailed from Cairnroch. Terrified, she resolves to leave the island as soon as possible. Back on land, the heirlooms she recovered from the wreck inexplicably disappear, and the Purdie lighthouse burns down. As Marta hunts for the stolen artifacts, she’s viewed derisively as an outsider and even banished from a shelter during a nuclear bomb scare. Meanwhile, a deep snow settles over the island, isolating it from the mainland. Salam sustains a sense of dread and keeps readers guessing as to whether Marta is truly haunted by a ghost or simply overcome by very real human threats. Fans of neo-gothic fiction ought to check this out. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 11/28/2025 | Details & Permalink