High Tech

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

A popular misconception about prayer, writes Jones, is that its worth is “measured in how many of our prayers God answers just as we want.” He suggests that prayer’s real value is the “treasure of talking with God,” who gives us “unfettered access and open invitation.” After an introductory chapter that provides a broad overview of prayer, including how it is defined in the Bible and examples of the various forms it can take (from songs and rote liturgical recitations to unique, individual, and even silent prayers), the bulk of the book pinpoints 10 specific “treasures” that an active prayer life offers. These include the fostering of virtues like persistence, honesty, and forgiveness, as well as lessons about embracing limitations and appreciating simplicity. Each chapter follows a similar format that makes the work an ideal daily devotional, beginning with a brief story from the author’s life; Jones reminisces about discovering his grandfather’s baseball card collection, growing up ...

The fourth book in Weigley’s Abuse & Energy series aims to help readers recognize the ways in which abuse—whether physical, emotional, or spiritual—can leave lasting impressions on the soul and provide them with steps that can help them heal. The handbook is divided into three parts; the first tackles the terrible consequences of abuse, largely through stories of the author’s own experiences growing up with an emotionally violent mother. Weigley, a speaker, teacher, and former attorney, describes her ongoing feelings of “fragmentation,” in which she has lost (and subsequently, through a long healing process, regained) pieces of her own energy. Part two presents various strategies that can be used to help the soul heal from abuse, which include embracing one’s own sense of intuition and nourishing one’s “Foundational Energy Needs” by “using the elements of Variety: color, hydration, breath, and the rest” in order to “experience life , not just survival.” The last section alerts rea...

Inside, the studio hums with motion as the youngster wanders from room to room, each spread revealing a new style: ballet at the barre, swirling hula, the powerful unity of the haka, and more. As the journey continues, Mello’s illustrations grow more abstract and electric: Technicolored breakdancers explode across pop-art panels of bold color and looping shapes, with figures that blur into their surroundings, making movement, music, and space feel inseparable. Layered panels, cinematic perspective, and repeated motifs create a mural-like quality, evoking both street art and a vibrant, citywide pulse. Shifting layouts—from full-bleed scenes to crisp panels—showcase global traditions like the Chinese dragon dance, the First Nations round dance, and Brazilian capoeira. Quintero’s celebratory prose details what dancers need—a beat, a space, and music—and what dance can be: ritual, joy, connection. Backmatter adds depth with cultural context to the many featured dance types and a how-to fo...

Thirty-something venture capitalist Rylan “Ry” Birk; his younger sister, Katie, a U.S. Department of Labor investigator; chemical company director Bobby Doogan; and homicide detective Dan Wilson have been friends since childhood, but they’ve become somewhat estranged from the final member of their group, Connor Clayton. He’s been in an emotional tailspin in the years following an incident involving an unusual gun called a Borchardt C-93. The weapon belonged to JD, a drifter the 17-year-old friends met near some railroad tracks while getting drunk and high. An impaired Katie, while playing around with the gun, fired a wild shot into the air that, they found out later, may have killed an elderly man. (Later, Connor testified that JD, who killed a convenience store clerk the same night, was responsible for the errant shot.) Many years later, the group has largely made peace with their complicity in the cover-up—but then Connor goes missing, and it appears that JD might be back in their l...

Ducky the Spy, clad in trench coat and trilby hat, is back on the beat, accompanied by the fabulously flatulent Donny Donkey. As the story begins, there’s no particular case to solve, but Ducky and Donny have no problem creating one. Easily irritated farm boss Mr. Pig, against his better judgment, asks the pair to keep an eye on his prize pumpkin in anticipation of its entry into the Big Veggie Contest. Donny gets too close, taking a huge bite out of the gigantic pumpkin, and Ducky must scramble to find a suitably humongous replacement before Mr. Pig discovers what’s happened. Gretta, a giant chicken (and Mr. Pig’s daughter), has an ideal invention primed to solve their problem: a Veg-big-inator Ray. Unfortunately, it’s been purloined by the meddling Cat Gang. And so Ducky and Donny’s mission begins, with plenty of donkey farts and suspicious glances from the fiendish felines, as well as a few delightfully destructive moments of dramatic action. Once more depicting a broadly sketched,...

Contogenis explores themes of family, trauma, and death in these bittersweet poems. In “Giddy Green,” the speaker reflects on the effort to capture fleeting sensations and the ordinariness of daily survival. “In Tandem” explores the changing relationships between mothers and children as they age, while “Drachmas for My Father” depicts a paternal reunion; “Ikaria” and “A Sure Thing” document the speaker’s interactions with a dying father. In “What Is It Like to Be a Guinea Pig,” the speaker wonders if one guinea pig is mourning its dead companion. “Easier Done” portrays a strained mother-son relationship in which the grown speaker recalls his mother’s controlling care with a mix of resentment and tenderness. The speaker transitions their mother to a “longer-dying / home” in “That Me.” While playing cards with his mom in “Corpsing,” the speaker notes the death of their old roles and wonders, “is she not // my dear-old unlovable mother?” “View from the Temple at Nas” depicts a modern vis...

In the opening story, “Bazaar Bozorg,” a woman living in Toronto returns to Tehran to help the sister who betrayed her trust. “The Late Bloomer” explores the nuances of sex and power, while “Kafkaesque” shows a father working through the complications that come with divorce. “The Fruit on the Farthest Branch” offers a touching scene between a father- and son-in-law. “After the Election,” “The Naked Dream,” and “Dayi” all invoke the specter of violence, political and domestic, that lurk in everyday life. Ironically, the title story is one of the weakest. But overall, these dozen stories depict a fascinating array of Iranians, mostly in the diaspora, journeying through 21st-century life. These characters, usually erudite—Ph.D. candidates, librarians, and the like, as well as parents and siblings who have joined them in Canada or remained in Tehran—manage entanglements with lovers, exes, spouses, siblings, and friends. One of the characters in “Stray Dandelions” has a motto that also def...

It’s July of 1862, and Montgomery “Monty” Tolliver, one of the beleaguered president’s most trusted advisers, is sitting in Lincoln’s office. Today, Lincoln wants to hear Monty’s thoughts about how his Proclamation should be structured—should it apply only to the slave states, the border states, or to the whole country? And when should it be rolled out? Both men agree that the announcement should wait until they’ve achieved a Union victory. (“Changed circumstances require new thinking, different strategies,” Monty offers.) Meanwhile, across town, newspaper reporter Robert Geddis has just returned from covering the Union’s defeat in the battle for Richmond. The survivor of tragic family losses, Robert is now achieving success as a battlefield reporter for the Evening Star ; his reports are said to be so detailed that Lincoln himself has requested that his articles be placed on his desk every day. In a Virginia medical tent, Robert’s friend from his time in Kansas, Billy Rutledge, is re...

Sixteen-year-old Kit, who’s “prone to freckle under the dimmest sunlight,” has “murky hazel eyes” and is affected by a painful disability that reads like rheumatoid arthritis. She was a commoner until her mother married the king. Kit and her new sister, Catherine, who has pale skin and dark hair in ringlets, are dear friends, but Catherine is the target of Kit’s mother’s jealousy—and Kit has been victimized by the king since she was 14. After fleeing from their parents (and the consequences of a magical body swap), the princesses try to help the handsome northern island prince who’s afflicted by a selkie curse. Kind, brown-skinned Prince Idris discovers on his 18th birthday that his ancestor wronged one of the Hidden Folk (the “mermaids, finfolk, and selkies” who inhabit this alternate Scotland). Now, in a much-delayed fairy revenge, he’ll dance himself to death. Kit can break Idris’ curse but struggles with her shameful, secret desire not to swap back into her own body, which is the ...

In the near future, nearly everyone in the world is equipped with an Ego: “a neural augmentation device” that can tap into people’s senses and perceptions, developed by the Arc Corporation and mainly used for high-tech virtual-reality games. Arc has extensive contracts with the military and government and seems to be untouchable, until a series of Arc employees are mysteriously murdered, which places the company at the center of a case led by Det. Nate Wartman of the Corporate Bureau of Investigation. While looking for clues at an Arc facility, Nate forms an unexpected alliance with Pol Haff, a renegade Arc engineer who’s willing to go to extreme measures to find the truth about what happened to his friends. Together, they become embroiled in a dangerous VR arms race between Arc and its biggest rival, Mee Corp., as the two companies fight to achieve “digital immortality” via the next generation of neural implants. Nate and Pol embark on an investigation that takes them from an undergr...

Burton, a pediatric behavior specialist with decades of experience, opens her nonfiction debut by acknowledging how challenging parenting can be in the modern world—everything costs more, communities are less extensive and more transient, and social media is full of advice that’s relentless, loud, and often contradictory. “Today’s parents,” she writes, “are substantially overworked, overburdened, and under supported” while dealing with experts and advisers who “try to make parents feel like we have the skill level of newborn lambs wearing roller skates.” The author draws a distinction between conventional parents who are loyal to tradition and “freestyle” parents who are more open to innovation; in these pages, she lays out 21 “practical pathways” that parents can use to shape the responses they want. “The most obvious way parents can steer children’s behavior,” Burton asserts, “is to give clear verbal instructions about our expectations,” but that approach obviously doesn’t always wo...

In Fort Empire, Iowa, Kylie Kaiser, a 40-something, pink-haired mall custodian of 20 years, has a dream to launch an empire centering Punk Piglets—inspirational miniature ceramic pig figurines—and use the money to help animal welfare. When the mayor tells her that the Fort Empire Mall is set to close, Kylie has one month to save it. But the return of Kylie’s high school enemy Wendi, now a Yale-educated agricultural business mogul who has a mayor-approved vertical farming vision for the mall, brings complications. Not to mention that Wendi is married to Justin Wayne, the high school love whom Kylie never got over, or that a hot, rule-loving new sheriff has arrived in town. When a skylight crashes down on a mall gathering that Wendi organized, Kylie immediately suspects sabotage, but the simultaneous reveal of Kylie’s secret art studio threatens her big plan for a Punk Empire Extravaganza. Still, Kylie is undeterred, and her relentless hope calls for pivoting. Kylie is a flawed yet symp...

A ruthless assassin known as Bridei travels through the rugged 2nd-century Scottish Highlands with a single objective: Kill the feared warlord Drust. Armed with an enchanted knife believed to be the only weapon capable of ending Drust’s life, she infiltrates his camp at night, calculating every step of the mission while watching the soldiers and fires from the surrounding hills. The attack fails when Drust’s mage senses her presence, and she’s captured before she can strike. Instead of executing her immediately, however, Drust orders her crucified on a mountain as a warning to enemies. Suspended between life and death, Bridei struggles with pain, memory, and the consequences of a life devoted to killing. At the same time, another voice recounts the history of a Cruithne family living within the fragile structures of clan society. Tisiphone remembers the birth of her son, Timaeus, the fragile hope he represented, and the difficulty of life in a community shaped by superstition, grief, ...

The legacy of colonialism casts a long shadow over the Virgin Islands. Although the enslavement of native people is consigned to the historical past, the current status of the islands as colonies of two different countries, the U.K. and the U.S., complicates travel and commerce with other Caribbean nations, as the editors point out in their introduction. Reliance on tourism also places constraints on the islands’ economic growth. This collection confronts this legacy in powerful stories like Nisha Khiani Savara’s “Jellyfish” and Hadiya Sewer’s “Interment.” Apart from Traci O’Dea’s “American Bully” and Raven Phillips’ “Bush Cat,” very few of the entries are crime stories in the traditional noir sense. In place of murder, fraud, and extortion, economic privation and exploitation are sources of misery, as in editor Georges’ “What Dread Hand,” Gillian Royes’ “The Last Sail,” and Tobias S. Buckell’s “Off the Rock.” Family conflict also takes a noir turn, as in Rea Vanterpool’s “A Guide to ...

Demagogues have always had a bad rap, understandably, but since the turn of this century, voters throughout the world have elected them to national leadership. Keane, professor of politics at the University of Sydney in Australia and author of The Shortest History of Democracy (2022), asserts that modern autocrats eschew the mass brutality of their 20th-century counterparts. “Those who think despotism is a synonym for repression, fear and raw force are profoundly mistaken,” he writes. “Despotic power can’t properly be understood through similes of hammers and nails; it requires thinking in terms of the attraction of metal filings to magnets.” The author asserts that the U.S. is an empire in decline and no longer the beacon of peace and freedom it once proclaimed. President Trump publicly disparages liberal democracies in Europe; praises autocratic leaders of India, Turkey, Argentina, and the Middle East; and admires Vladimir Putin. The media, including traditional conservative outlets...

In this second entry in the author’s Splintered World fantasy saga, readers are transported to the Red Desert / Great Divide Basin area of Wyoming, which has settlements but no modern cities; there is barter and trade but no technology. It’s a place where some people develop superpowers, exerting control over elements like air or water. These “capabilities” range from very simple to powerfully complex, and Moyer’s main characters in the first volume had to learn how to wield these powers, just as they had to learn all the ways of the splintered world: from human dangers, to animal-world predators, to simple wilderness survival. An element carried over from the first volume becomes even more important in the second: Through a very tricky palm-to-palm process, “simple” capabilities can be transferred. Blending even two capabilities can be dangerous, and in this installment, the main character, a young man named Esah, is somehow balancing three. “You should be dead. Or catatonic,” says H...