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THE SALT WIDOW
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Janessa “Nessa” Douglas left her hometown near Chesapeake Bay nearly two decades ago. Now she’s returned to Mystic Beach, because her late grandmother Elspeth bequeathed her a coastal home there. Nessa, who’s between jobs, plans to sell the house, but Elspeth’s will stipulates that she must live there at least a month before putting it on the market. Nessa has also come into possession of a book of her grandmother’s “fairy tales,” many of which are set by the sea and feature the enigmatic Salt Widow. Some of the stories even feature characters named after real people, including Nessa’s mother, who died years ago in a car accident. Is there any truth to these tales? Nineteen-year-old Baltimore college student Ivy Camden certainly believes so. She’s been digging into lost folklore around Chesapeake Bay and is convinced that Elspeth “encoded” real-life crimes in her stories, such as a teenager’s fatal drowning in the 1960s. Nessa and Ivy put their heads together to find out what’s been h...
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LUNAR RENDEZVOUS
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Captain Zephyra “Zeph” Zamora and her Uncle Jack work best as a team. Together, they run missions for Cellexis, a powerful corporation that’s leading the ambitious effort to solve Earth’s water crisis by creating the LunaRing Reservoir, which consolidates water gathered throughout the galaxy. When a disaster tears apart one of the company’s space stations, Zeph is compelled to rescue Stellan, a man she’s only just met, and bring him aboard her ship. Though she’s reluctant to trust him at first, Zeph gradually allows Stellan past her defenses, revealing both the painful history she’s spent her life outrunning and a closely guarded secret: Vim, an alien “chaos bear,” is living on her ship. (“The creature pushed off the bulkhead and floated toward them, its eight stubby legs, each with a hand-like appendage, pumping in the air as if it were swimming.”) The delicate new balance of personalities is disrupted when Jack is kidnapped by the Corsairs, a brutal band of space pirates with ties t...
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BRAIN DAMAGE
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McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitat...
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THE WRONG SIDE OF FREEDOM
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In this expansive memoir, Slavova recounts her life from her childhood in Bulgaria to her present life in Los Angeles. Born in 1977, the author grew up with her sister, Luiza, a disciplinarian mother, and a gentle father. After her Olympic judo dreams were crushed in a car accident involving her boyfriend, Slavova made her escape to work on a French cruise ship. Her career as a cruise ship housekeeper was cut short when she stood up to an abusive boss, leading to her arrest in Puerto Rico. After escaping the police, she found work, but her boss discovered a warrant for her arrest. Slavova escaped again to the small island of Vieques. There, the author was able to thrive for several years before meeting the enigmatic James, one of the terrible men who mark the transitions in her narrative. In the course of her tumultuous journey, the author traded hospitality work for modeling, acting, and even running her own wedding-planning business. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her re...
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HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GHOST?
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In a neat, apparently empty pink bedroom, an unseen narrator insists, “There is a ghost in this room.” A pointed hat floats before the window, and readers are invited to comment: “Do you like their hat? Do you like the way it brings out their eyes?” As the book progresses, it becomes clear that Ghost is fretting about an upcoming party; they try on makeup, practice small talk, and ask for advice on a gift to bring the host. Ghost stumbles while going to get the present, which unleashes feelings of panic, conveyed in a series of “what if” statements swirling across a double-page spread. But after sharing these thoughts—and a cup of tea—with readers, Ghost feels much better. Turns out Ghost is worried about making a good impression on the party’s host, Martha (a fellow ghost). Will readers come, too? Please? Inside Martha’s home, the narrator reports that Ghost and Martha are happily chatting. “She’s laughing! She’s touching Ghost’s arm!” Though some of the social situations may not res...
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WHAT TRUCKS LOVE TO DO 2
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The setting is a city populated by expressive Pixar-style cars, trucks, and other motorized characters with windshield eyes and smiley bumpers. A variety of helpful trucks and service vehicles go about their work, including ambulances, fire engines, helicopters, tow trucks, blue-hatted police cruisers, delivery vans, school buses, dump trucks, street cleaners, repair vehicles that clean up after storm damage, and food trucks that keep other vehicles well fed. They all work hard and deserve our appreciation, notes the narrator: “So, when you’re riding through your town, / make sure you stop to look around, / and wave and shout a big ‘thank you!’ / To helper trucks for all they do.” Riera brings the setting to life with simple rhyming couplets and creative variations of type size, color, and orientation. Weizman’s two-page-spread illustrations again portray a busy, vibrant city with denizens whose pun-based names give them delightful character; for example, there’s musician tour bus Tra...
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THE LAST LEAF
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As the first autumn leaf floats onto his nose, Parker treats it like a toy to chase. But more and more drift down, and he begins to fret: “What if the trees ran out of leaves altogether?” He consults the big dogs, who have no answers and seem unconcerned, but the leaves keep dropping. Unnerved, Parker follows the trees “out of the city…and into the forest,” where looking up makes him so dizzy that he keels over. Thoroughly unsettled, he meets a know-it-all squirrel who amplifies his anxiety, followed by more of the same from a bird and a fox. A sudden loud noise makes him sure that everyone was right: “The SKY IS FALLING DOWN!” But it was just a “ground-trembling” yawn, and the source, a kindly bear, helps Parker survive the final lovely leaf fall. They play together as new friends before bedding down in their respective homes, looking forward happily to spring. Well-chosen, often witty words channel Parker’s fears and the other animals’ voices, while an effectively paced arc delivers...
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