Debbie M

High stakes, action-packed scenes move the narrative along, but the author never loses hold of the pace, interweaving each woman's personal history. Beyond Batalion's talents for form and style lies her enormous achievement as a researcher. Any reader who has conducted research themselves will understand what it means for her to have waded through thousands of pages of archival material in different languages and in different countries. That she has been able to accomplish all of this without bu

For Ivy, the assimilation process is the site of a schism between who she was as a child in China and the hyphenated version of herself that develops in America. The novel details how much of her life is spent negotiating and trying to reconcile these parts of herself. It is truly a white-knuckle ride. White Ivy has been described as a thriller, a dark romance, a coming-of-age story and more. This excellent and thought-provoking novel is as difficult to classify and unpredictable as Ivy h

Black Sun embodies some of the best that fantasy writing has to offer. Rather than modeling its alternate reality after medieval Europe (as so many successful fantasy novels have done), Roanhorse takes readers into the pre-Columbian culture and landscape of the Americas. Historically, when fictional/fantasy literary landscapes have so often erased whole races, cultures and gender identities, Black Sun's alternative landscapes restore a plurality and give those voices space to be he

The Thursday Murder Club is equal parts intrigue, humor and pathos. On the periphery of the murder mystery are the sorrows and challenges of old age. Each member of the club has lost a spouse, or a close friend, or a profession, or his/her health to a degree. But in many ways, it's those losses that make the connections between them all the more poignant. The novel is a well-written, lively whodunit in the vein of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard on this side of the pond or Kaye C. Hill's

Jack traverses the intervening years between the titular character's departure and return to Gilead, painting a portrait of an infinitely flawed and complicated man grappling with what it means to truly love. Despite the deep connections to the other books in the Gilead series, readers don't need to have read any of them to appreciate Jack. They can lose themselves in Robinson's beautiful language and boundless empathy for her characters just as easily. However, if readers are retu

With an empathetic eye and evocative language trained on the ubiquitous qualities of the human experience, Kaikini guides readers to a sense of community and connection with his characters. Beyond its attention to class and gender dynamics, one of the most striking features of the collection is the author's use of seemingly recurring characters. On a first read, these stories are engaging, yet entirely discrete slices of life. However, Kaikini draws the collection together, heightening the sense

The concept of nothingness emerges as a deep wound and a pervasive trauma that weaves itself through every aspect of the characters' lives. Rather than being overwrought as a theme or device, this series of nothings underscores the morass of desolation that the characters have to navigate. Because of it, readers are drawn deeper into the emotional core of the novel, deeper into the questions raised by the horrors of a post-Holocaust world. True to the weight of its subject matter, They Went L