A passionate couple from different sides of the Soviet divide avoids discussing their inevitable rifts in Yelena Moskovich’s sultry, wrenching novel-in-verse, "Nadezhda in the Dark". During a “black-milk,” mournful winter, as... Read More

Sharp-minded Carrasco can be a bit literal for his own good in this curiosity-lauding picture book about untangling metaphors for oneself. When a space-invading neighbor he’s avoiding declares him a “strange bird,” it’s enough to... Read More

An eccentric picture book befitting its subject, this primer on Charles Darwin offers offbeat advice on problem-solving. When Darwin faced a puzzle, it says, he would walk loops in the woods with only a walking stick and his terrier,... Read More

A tender tale about seeing the world differently and loving one another all the same, this picture book is a hug put to paper. A boy visits his grandmother in her small house that holds an even smaller world: the miniature Tiny Town the... Read More

Generations of women wrestle with an inherited legacy of trauma in Celeste Mohammed’s sprawling novel-in-stories "Ever Since We Small". Split into two sections, “Then” and “Now,” the novel does a masterful job of capturing the... Read More

A night of violence is routine, expected, and devastating in Francisco Maciel’s literary novel There’s No Point in Dying. There is a favela (slum) in the birthplace of samba. At its center are three bars. They’re close enough that... Read More

An elder shares her story in Chi Zijian’s reflective novel "The Last Quarter of the Moon". An unnamed Evenki woman laments the loss represented by her home’s emptiness. Her family voted to leave their mountains; modernization... Read More

Dark academia meets enemies-to-lovers themes in Jaclyn Rodriguez’s debut novel "A Vow in Vengeance". Fifteen years ago, as punishment for a failed uprising, a decree was made by the three immortal kings: the elves, seraphs, and druids... Read More