Delaney Huger is running late—a last-minute phone call from her boss delayed her departure. She has already missed the sunset wedding ceremony on the beach; she slips into the reception tent and meets up with her younger sister, Haven, who leads her to the singles table. Delaney grew up on the island and knows most …
“New Orleans shimmies,” Sussler writes at the outset of her strangely haunting debut: “formed from a swamp into a Creole capital, it’s all sweat and longing, the sweet smell of decay and wild, wild wails.” This is a novel full of longing—and wild wails, for that matter—though not so full of straightforward plot. Here’s what …
A little over three years after he returned in triumph from his epic exploration of the North American West with William Clark, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in October 1809 of gunshot wounds at a small inn along the historic Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Ever since, historians have debated how he died, with most opting …
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, …
Reminiscent of Langston Hughes’ The Negro Speaks of Rivers, illustrated by E.B. Lewis (2009), this elegantly wrought, first-person telling is both human and natural history. Lines from Negro spirituals that sing of rivers, like “Wade in the Water,” appear between Weatherford’s stanzas in a scriptlike font. The Alabama describes its size (“318 miles long, fifty …
Davies’ long-running series delightfully inverts Arthur Conan Doyle’s focus as Sherlock Holmes plays supporting character to a successful investigation by his observant landlady, Mrs. Hudson, that largely passes beneath his notice. Taking the Watson role of sidekick and narrator is scrappy teenage maid Flotsam, whose voice combines period formality, youthful snark, and as much insight …
“Why didn’t more people resist Nazism?” Berryman is often asked. The author replies that it depends on what one means by resistance. The founder of the Ninth Candle, a nonprofit that helps schools improve Holocaust education, Berryman writes that not every German under Hitler’s rule had the wherewithal or access to bomb the Führer in …
Lazowski was 11 when the Nazis came for him. Separated from his family, he found himself lost in Polish forests, wandering in brutal winters before war’s end, before making it to New York. Now in his mid-90s, the rabbi emeritus of two synagogues in Connecticut looks back on a career as counselor to generations of …
Alice Wilson receives an email from her ex-husband, Dan, announcing that their long-estranged daughter, Esme, has been arrested (“she doesn’t want to hear from you”). The news cracks open silent years of guilt and longing. A successful environmental financial analyst, Alice has lived with the ache of separation since Esme chose to live with her …
Teagan is an accountant, the mother of an adopted baby, and a wife—but when her husband, Mike, is struck by a car, her new identity as a widow supersedes the rest. Luckily, Teagan is surrounded by family and friends. Siblings Padrick, a police chief, and motherly Bridget are supportive, though bitter middle sister Colleen shows …
