Book of the Day Roundup: February 23-27, 2026
Footeprint
Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women’s Rights
Lindsay H. Metcalf
Charlesbridge Teen
Hardcover $18.99 (304pp)
978-1-62354-633-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Lindsay H. Metcalf’s enthralling biographical novel-in-verse highlights the scientist’s contributions and challenges as an inventor, wife, and mother in the 1800s.
Footeprint begins with baby Eunice “kicking the glass ceiling / to breathe the air above.” Eunice’s curiosity led her to a school where girls studied science. Economic difficulties on her family farm led her to Elisha, the lawyer-inventor she married. They worked side by side in their home laboratory, where Eunice invented the first heat regulator for stoves, which Elisha patented because the law did not allow women to register inventions.
Eunice continued inventing after their two daughters, Mary and Gus, were born. She was involved in the early suffragette movement. In 1856, Eunice discovered that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warmed Earth. A scientific assembly accepted her results but required a man to present them. Eunice continued to invent and receive patents, then stepped back to enjoy her grandchildren and deal with family tragedies. Her role in climate science was forgotten until 2010.
The book’s approach is innovative, befitting its story of a trailblazing inventor. Historical details are highlighted, and critical thinking is encouraged, in its short poetic lines, which are packed with meaning as they ably convey Eunice’s vitality and the turbulence of her century: “Butterflies dance / in late-morning sun. / Earth’s heartbeat sounds / on the cricket’s wing. / Eunice packs her trunk, / bids the farm goodbye / & takes leave eastward / to usher grandchild No. 2 / into the changing world.” Photographs of her family homestead, significant people in her life, and of her published climate findings complement its revelations. The family tree and bibliographies are also edifying, and a research “scoop” regarding a possible image of Eunice adds flair.
An engaging biographical novel-in-verse, Footeprint is about the life of climate science pioneer Eunice Newton Foote.
LYNNE JENSEN LAMPE (December 18, 2025)
The Quicksand Theatre Company
Eidolonia #3
Molly Ringle
Central Avenue Publishing
Softcover $19.00 (320pp)
978-1-77168-442-2
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
A queer fantasy novel that brings literal magic to the theater, Molly Ringle’s The Quicksand Theatre Company is an original take on fae legends.
The third standalone in an interconnected series, the novel returns to Eidolonia, an imagined island nation in the northern Pacific Ocean, hidden from human sight and inhabited almost entirely by fae. Some humans have been allowed to intermingle with the fae over the centuries, creating humans with witch abilities.
Vai is one such witch; they have the ability to manipulate inanimate objects. After bringing a scandal down on their family’s head, Vai runs away to join the theater, knocking on the caravan of Leonidas, a handsome actor they have long admired because of The Quicksand Theatre Company’s performances. In exchange for using their abilities to help keep the gears of the traveling company turning, Vai is given a place to stay. Soon, they are swept up in the glittering world of the troupe—and falling for their enigmatic roommate, Leo, a witch with a dangerous secret: he’s made a bargain with a twisted fae, and his debt is coming due.
Despite the island of Eidolonia being an invention, the story takes place in the modern world, blending cell phones with mermaids and social media with magical algae rashes. Its familiar foundation gives the magical elements more room to be reveled in; the details of spellwork and the complications of a society with a blended fae and human population are enticing. Queer representation is also normalized in this magical setting, and a diverse variety of characters and relationships appear unremarked upon throughout.
With appeal to both young adult and adult audiences, this charming, inviting LGBTQ+ fantasy novel is set on the shores of a magical realm and tells a very human story about love, sacrifice, and self-discovery.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (December 18, 2025)
Welcome, Uncle Nowruz!
A Persian New Year’s Story
Rashin Kheiriyeh
NorthSouth Books
Hardcover $19.95 (32pp)
978-0-7358-4617-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
A charming retelling of a Persian folklore tale, this picture book adds a personal touch to the arrival of spring. Nane Sarma—a personification of winter—awaits her old friend Uncle Nowruz (“Nowruz” meaning “new day” and signifying the arrival of spring and the Persian New Year). Somehow, she always misses his yearly visits. This year, she invites her grandchildren to help prepare the New Year’s celebration, hoping they will keep her on track. But, inevitably, spring can only arrive when winter slumbers.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (December 18, 2025)
Dinner at Mine?
New Inspiration for Everyday Ingredients
Kate Young
Apollo
Hardcover $35.00 (272pp)
978-1-78854-530-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
A cookbook replete with light bulb moments for the ingredients you quite possibly already have on hand, Kate Young’s Dinner at Mine? is a wisdom-filled, enterprising cookbook.
Young’s warm introduction reveals that she always dreamed of cooking for her family, though her definition of “family” changed after she grew up and emigrated to the UK. There, through pandemic lockdowns and life changes, she wound up cooking for friends and visitors instead, or for herself during pauses in work. The recipes that resulted represent a decade-plus of growth, experimentation, and shifts—a gift designed to grow with the audience: “these recipes are yours now.”
Built from a regular rotation ingredient list of fifteen and meant to be “supremely useful,” the chapters focus on single ingredients, including butter, zucchini, eggs, and cabbage, from which proceed feasts for six, takeaway items, freezer staples, and fast meals. The recipes range from cozy fare so easy that ingredient lists wind into the narrative instructions, as with “jazzed-up” ramen and tomatoes on bread, to luscious wonders that require more preparation, including lamb shoulder with green salsa and almond chicken on tortillas.
These ranging recipes are made more flavorful and memorable by Young’s pert and vulnerable asides. Of fried sage leaves and anchovies, for example, she insists that this is for when “you want to show off, to flirt, to woo.” A tandoori chicken recipe is prefaced by memories of her mother’s home cooking; a spicy chicken dish evokes seaside vacation memories. Elsewhere, Young chides herself “I’m such a twee little loser” while waxing poetic about apples and prefaces her tomato chapter with the admission that “my favorite way to eat a great tomato is from my fist, like an apple.” Along the way, she makes converts of her audience, convincing all of the simple, incomparable joy of a meal prepared with love for those you love, including yourself.
Approaching fifteen basic ingredients with imagination and delight, Dinner at Mine? is an inspiring cookbook.
MICHELLE ANNE SCHINGLER (February 16, 2026)
Eve
B. K. O’Connor
Histria Fiction
Softcover $19.99 (300pp)
978-1-59211-669-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
The fate of the first woman after her banishment from Eden is the focus of B. K. O’Connor’s transcendent novel Eve.
In the verdant, fertile glades of Eden, God creates Adam. When Adam aches for a companion to share in his paradise, God creates Eve from Adam’s rib while he slumbers. Adam introduces Eve to the world they could share for eternity, his happiness complete. Eve, however, has questions. When she learns there is one tree in the garden that they cannot eat from, her hunger for knowledge seals both of their fates. What follows is a struggle to survive in a new world of hunger, thirst, pain, and sin. Despite the consequences of her choice, Eve never stops seeking knowledge, and God and Lucifer observe her in wonder.
The fall is the beginning of an odyssey that takes Adam and Eve into a world of betrayal and disillusionment. The distance between them grows. There are unorthodox surprises in this telling, though, which include a poignant yet unlikely attraction between Eve and Lucifer, God’s fallen angel. Eve reveals that her hunger for knowledge did not end in Eden, and her work to chart the known world will be the completion of the act she began there.
Interspersed with Eve’s experiences are ongoing conversations between gods, goddesses, archangels, and pining Lucifer. All engage in long-form philosophical questioning with themselves and each other. Their disquisitions are delicious at first, though some extend too long, and repetitiveness occurs. As Eve increases her knowledge, she comes near to glowing godhood herself—a narrative reinterpretation that elevates women’s agency, going beyond Eve’s “curse” to explain how she blesses the world to follow.
Eve is a lush, resonant novel that reimagines Eve’s wandering quest for the answers of existence.
PEGGY KURKOWSKI (December 18, 2025)
Kathy Young
