This rollicking account from historian Gardner (The Earth Is All That Lasts) revisits the Wild West exploits of Wyatt Earp, an itinerant policeman known for his coolheadedness, and Doc Holliday, a part-time dentist and full-time gambling addict. Holliday saved Wyatt from getting jumped in Dodge City in 1878, and later became a regular in the Earp posse in Tombstone, Ariz., where Wyatt and his brothers Virgil and Morgan became lawmen. There they squared off against a gang known as the Cowboys, eventually precipitating the shoot-out at the OK Corral. The Earps and Holliday prevailed, but the Cowboys later assassinated Morgan, provoking the Earps and Holliday to a monthlong vengeance campaign that made national headlines. Gardner’s retelling of this famous incident paints a colorful, atmospheric panorama of the Wild West as an archipelago of saloons, gambling dens, and whorehouses where brutal violence was status quo. Gardner conveys it all in two-fisted prose that smacks of a Hollywood western; while he brings some nuance to the tale—highlighting, for instance, that Wyatt pivoted easily between lawbreaker and lawman—he still finds a lot to admire about the duo (“Their odd but endearing friendship [is] a bona fide saga if there ever was one”). The result is a raucous and entertaining slice of Americana. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Laroux (Her Soul for Revenge) is out for blood in this visceral and deliciously dark gothic romance set against the moody backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. Salem spends what was supposed to have been her wedding night in a dive bar hooking up with Rayne, a gorgeous, secretive stranger who ends the encounter by announcing that Salem will never see her again. Except the next day, when Salem arrives for a two-week retreat at Balfour Manor on Blackridge Island, there Rayne is behind the check-in desk. When Salem starts seeing terrible apparitions in the converted manor house, Rayne comes to her rescue and tells her the truth about Blackridge’s haunting history. The rugged island hides terrible secrets, including murders, ghosts, and a monster that roams its shores as soon as the sun goes down—and Rayne is somehow tied up in all of it. Salem is impossibly drawn to the lonely hotelier, but as Rayne’s family secrets come to light and bodies pile up, the women will have to fight the evils of the past if they ever hope to have a future. Laroux doesn’t hold back on either the splatter or the spice, balancing truly embodied horror with genuinely sexy erotica. The decadent result thrills from start to finish. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Rowley (The Guncle) serves up a feel-good if fluffy novella about a heartbroken American man alone in Venice for Christmas. Paul’s partner, Darren, left him just before the trip to Italy they’d planned to take together, but Paul goes anyway. Rowley paints Paul as disarmingly sweet, stumbling across the threshold of his rented Venice flat and the language barrier to charm both the landlady and her daughter. Lonesome at first, he becomes obsessed with tracking a stray dog he spies out his window one morning, a creature he views as a symbol of resilience. He walks the streets of the art-filled city, discovering San Rocco, the patron saint of dogs and bachelors. He eats well, and after a tryst with a beautiful waiter, finally encounters the dog again and begins coming to terms with his loss (“the Dog too, was afraid,” Rowley writes. “Perhaps how to be alone wasn’t even the lesson Paul was seeking; how to be present was”). There’s not much nuance, but Rowley sprinkles in the right amount of sweetness and melancholy. This will do in a pinch. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Philosopher Rowlands (The Philosopher and the Wolf) weaves together philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and personal anecdote for an expansive look at how memory shapes identity. Memories are made, preserved, and recalled in ways that imbue them with inaccuracies, Rowland notes, explaining that each time a memory’s called up, it must be repackaged for long-term storage, a process wherein links are drawn between previously unconnected neurons; over time, repeated reconsolidations can warp the memory. Such edits may be a flaw of the human brain—or, as Rowlands suggests, an intentional means of ensuring memories are retained by tailoring them to better fit one’s current context. (The author describes a childhood memory in which his father now looks like an “old man”—a way of retaining the memory in the absence of a ready image of his father’s younger face.) He also explores how memories can be passed from one person to another, with children, for example, sometimes absorbing their parents’ memories. Throughout, Rowlands provides perceptive insights into how the brain negotiates the past, how memory shapes the self, and how identity is therefore best understood as a complex, shifting entity that exists beyond “the spatial boundaries of your body” and experience. (“The question of when and where you begin and when and where you end has no straightforward answer,” he observes.) The result is a mind-expanding meditation on what humans recall and why. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

An adrift Chinese American woman unexpectedly becomes an online celebrity in Chang’s lively sophomore effort (after The Wangs vs. The World). The story opens at a Los Angeles cemetery, where Lola Treasure Gold, 31, is reeling during the funeral for her best friend Alex, a skateboarder who died while attempting a stunt. “I felt outside of time,” Lola narrates. Later, Lola and Alex’s other friends play a game in which they take turns delivering mock TED Talks on random subjects. Lola’s “drunken monologue” about scams is recorded and posted online. A couple of weeks later, someone posts a clip of Lola’s speech cut together with a video of Alex’s final moments, and the post goes viral, partly due to Alex’s catchphrase “be your own beacon,” which was meant to spoof self-help language, but is taken as the real thing. Lola gets a major spike in followers, and in need of cash, she reluctantly embraces her new influencer role. She also begins searching for her birth mother, who was deported to China when she was a girl and has been unreachable since then. Chang’s irresistible narrative effortlessly toggles between story lines as Lola explores her origins and deals with her grief and youthful angst. Readers will be glad to encounter Lola’s arresting voice. Agent: Marc Gerald, Europa Content.

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Karon returns to her bestselling Mitford Years series, eight years after To Be Where You Are, with a charming story about a misplaced love letter that touches everyone who reads it in their town of Mitford, N.C. As Christmas approaches, Episcopal priest Tim Kavanagh writes a heartfelt note to his wife, Cynthia. Father Tim is delighted with the result, which he places in a gift-wrapped volume of poetry before losing the package. Through a comedy of errors, the letter winds up being read by several of the couple’s neighbors, each of whom are restored by Tim’s message to Cynthia. Among them are piano teacher Helene, who gains faith in love (“that such depth of feeling exists in the human spirit was itself a gift”); elderly former mayor Esther, now homebound, who’s reminded of a love she’s felt throughout her life; and bookstore manager Hope, who recalls how she once harbored romantic feelings for Father Tim and, recognizing his handwriting, places the book and letter under the counter before it winds up in yet another set of hands before Christmas comes. Karon infuses the story with down-home charm and an earnest belief in the importance of community, family, and grace. Series fans will be enchanted. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink