The March 2023 Prepub Alert posts are also available as a downloadable spreadsheet of titles. 

FICTION

Mystery

Benn, James R. The Refusal Camp: Stories. Soho Crime. Mar. 2023. 264p. ISBN 9781641294515. $26.95. MYSTERY

Deciding to write short and sweet, Barry and Macavity Award finalist Benn flies beyond the horizon of his World War II–set Billy Boyle series in this first collection. The stories range from bloody murder and betrayal during the Revolutionary War to a futuristic collapse of the time-space continuum as two cousins wrangle over an atomic supercollider.

Bowen, Rhys & Clare Broyles. All That Is Hidden: A Molly Murphy Mystery. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250808097. $26.99. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

Former private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is gobsmacked when policeman husband Daniel announces that he’s moving them to a lush Fifth Avenue home and running for New York sheriff on the Tammany ticket, making bedfellows of the corrupt politicians he’s always despised. From the New York Times best-selling Bowen and Broyles, her teacher/musician daughter.

Jaswal, Balli Kaur. Now You See Us. Morrow. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063161603. $27.99. CD. MYSTERY/INTERNATIONAL

Experienced Corazon hides a secret from her rich employer, while high-spirited newcomer Donita labors for the demanding Mrs. Fann and heartsore caretaker Angel worries that she’s about to be replaced. They’re Filipina domestic workers in Singapore, on high alert when one of their own is accused of murdering her employer. From Singapore-born Jaswal, whose Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Leon, Donna. So Shall You Reap. Atlantic Monthly. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780802162366. $27. MYSTERY/INTERNATIONAL

Investigating the death of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant, Commissario Guido Brunetti must rely on hearsay and books, found at the victim’s tiny abode on the grounds of a university professor’s palazzo, that concern Buddhism, the Tamil Tigers, and the political terrorists of 1980s Italy. In the end, Brunetti is reminded of Italy’s complex history and the tarnished idealism of his youth. Leon was declared among the 50 Greatest Crime Writers of all time by both Time and the Times of London.

Pandian, Gigi. The Raven Thief: A Secret Staircase Mystery. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250805010. $26.99. MYSTERY

After her family’s Secret Staircase Construction company completes one of its clever renovations, Tempest Raj joins Grandfather Ash at the homeowner’s celebration—a mock séance meant to banish the bad vibes of her faithless ex-husband. Then he turns up dead, with Grandfather Ash the main suspect. Following Agatha/Anthony/Lefty award winner Pandian’s well-received series launch, Under Lock & Skeleton Key; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Rosenfelt, David. Good Dog, Bad Cop. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. 304p. ISBN 9781250828965. $27.99. CD. MYSTERY/PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

Joined by K-9 partner Simon Garfunkel, Corey Douglas’s K-Team has its pick of cold cases from the Paterson (NJ) Police Department. The latest concerns the death of a cop named Jimmy Dietrich, unhappy in retirement, whose body was wrenched from the Passaic River with that of a local woman named Susan Avery amid lurid speculation. From Edgar-nominated, Shamus-winning Rosenfelt; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Swanson, Peter. The Kind Worth Saving. Morrow. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063204980. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. MYSTERY/PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

Private investigator Henry Kimball is uneasy when Joan, connected to a tragedy during his teaching days, suddenly appears and asks him to keep tabs on her husband. Good thinking: his investigation leads him to two dead bodies in an empty suburban home touting a “for sale” sign—and lots of questions about the possibly treacherous Joan. From the New York Times best-selling Swanson; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Winspear, Jacqueline. The White Lady. Harper. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780062867988. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD.

In 1947, former wartime operative Elinor White lives quietly in the Kentish village of Shacklehurst, occupying a "grace and favor" property granted to distinguished servants of the Crown. She keeps her neighbors at bay until stepping in to help the Mackies; husband and father Jim is being sought by his powerful crime family, who wants him back in the fold. A series launch from the author of the beloved "Maisie Dobbs" mysteries; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Literary Fiction

Aboulela, Leila. River Spirit. Grove. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780802160669. $27. LITERARY

In the late 1800s, Sudan is moving toward independence, with Ottoman control weakening, British conquest not yet arrived, and a revolutionary leader—the self-proclaimed Mahdi of Islamic eschatology, prophesized to bring justice at the world’s end—on the rise. Orphaned Akuany and her brother have been taken in by pious young merchant Yaseen, who considers the Mahdi false, and the narrative follows her coming-of-age in a tumultuous climate. From Caine Prize winner Aboulela (Elsewhere, Home), a three-time Orange Prize nominee.

Adjapon, Bisi. Daughter in Exile. HarperVia. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780063089020. $27.99. CD. LITERARY

Boasting a university degree, a good job, and a busy social life in Senegal, Lola is riding high when she falls for Armand, a marine stationed at the U.S. embassy. She eagerly anticipates an exciting new life in the United States, but her mother, a high court judge in Ghana, opposes the match. Mother was right: the life of an undocumented immigrant in an unrecognizable and sometimes hostile new environment is not what Lola expected. A U.S. debut for Caine Prize nominee Adjapon.

Barry, Sebastian. Old God's Time. Viking. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780593296103. $27. LITERARY/PSYCHOLOGICAL

Living in a lean-to snuggled up against a white Victorian Castle in seaside Dalkey, Ireland, retired policeman Tom Kettle leads an uninterrupted existence until two former colleagues show up, pumping him about a decades-old case he would rather forget. Then there’s the troubled young mother who moves in next door, reminding Tom of his own lost family. From two-time Costa winner and two-time Booker short-listed Barry.

Catton, Eleanor. Birnam Wood. Farrar. Mar. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780374110338. $28. CD. LITERARY

Founder of the guerrilla gardening group Birnam Wood, which plants crops in neglected spots like roadsides and untended parks, Mira Bunting sees an opportunity following a major landslide; beyond the rumble, they can create a huge, sustainable farm on abandoned land. The only problem: billionaire Robert Lemoine wants the land to build a bunker. From the author of Luminaries, winner of Man Booker and Governor General’s honors; with a 250,000-copy first printing.

Clifford, Stephanie. The Farewell Tour. Harper. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780063251137. $27.99. CD. LITERARY

In 1980, country-and-western star Lillian Waters has organized a coast-to-coast farewell tour, relishing the glory of playing live music to packed houses one last time. But she’s facing some demons, too; on her last stop, she’ll visit the farm and the sister she left behind at age 10. Threaded throughout: Lillian’s early days in the Depression and World War II eras and her flame-throwing rise to stardom. From the author of the New York Times best-selling Everybody Rise.

Hanks, Tom. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780525655596. $32.50. LITERARY

A burnt-out soldier returns home from World War II, then vanishes after meeting his gifted young nephew. The nephew grows up to create underground comic books, including one featuring a World War II fighting hero inspired by his uncle. In the present day, the comic book is rediscovered and inspires a multimillion-dollar superhero action film whose workings two-time Academy Award–winning actor Hanks should detail with verve and grace.

Lacey, Catherine. Biography of X. Farrar. Mar. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780374606176. $28. LITERARY

When convention-smashing artist X unexpectedly drops dead, her grieving widow, CM, commits herself to writing X’s biography and discovers well-kept secrets and destructive patches in X’s life that she never knew. Meanwhile, she studies the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that divided from the United States after World War II. From NYPL Young Lion Lacey; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

McKenzie, Elizabeth. The Dog of the North. Penguin Pr. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593300695. $27. LITERARY

Her marriage may be done, her job tossed aside, her mother and stepfather long missing, and her doctor grandmother under investigation, but optimistic Penny still believes in fresh beginnings. That’s why she’s on a road trip in a lumbering van named Dog of the North, encountering many a twist and turn in her upbeat, offbeat journey. From the author of the Baileys short-listed, National Book Award long-listed The Portable Veblen.

Ma, Kathryn. The Chinese Groove. Counterpoint. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781640095663. $27. LITERARY

Burdened by the scorn heaped on his family and the ongoing grief of his widowed father, 18-year-old Shelley flees China’s Yunnan Province and arrives hopefully in the United States, only to find his relatives there splintered and struggling and entirely uninterested in him. The only way to make his own dream come true is to work at bringing them together. From Iowa Short Fiction Award winner Ma, twice named a San Francisco Public Library Laureate.

Pylväinen, Hanna. The End of Drum-Time. Holt. Jan. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250822901. $28.99. LITERARY

In the 1850s Scandinavian tundra, Lutheran minister Mad Lasse finally succeeds in converting one of the native Sámi reindeer herders, who leaves headstrong son Ivvár to singlehandedly manage their herd. Then Ivvár and Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa fall in love, with Willa following the annual reindeer migration north to the sea. From Whiting Award winner Pylväinen (We Sinners); with an 80,000-copy first printing.

Row, Jess. The New Earth. Ecco. Mar. 2023. 592p. ISBN 9780062400635. $29.99. CD. LITERARY

In the early 2000s, Naomi Wilcox informed her children that their biological father was Black, shattering their Jewish, Upper West Side, New York, family; college-age daughter Bering promptly became a peace activist on Palestine’s West Bank and was killed by Israeli sniper fire. Now daughter Winter is getting married and hopes to bring her remaining family together again. From Whiting Award winner Row; with 50,000-copy first printing.

Schine, Cathleen. Künstlers in Paradise. Holt. Mar. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9781250805904. $27.99. LITERARY

While job hunting, slightly lost New Yorker Julian Künstler is trapped in Los Angeles by COVID and ends up bunking with feisty 93-year-old grandmother Mamie, whose family arrived in California in 1939 from Vienna. And has she got stories to tell about the community that surrounded them—from the Jewish artists and intellectuals who fled Hitler to the likes of Christopher Isherwood and Greta Garbo. From the author of the New York Times best-selling The Three Weissmanns of Westport; with a 125,000-copy first printing.

Simpson, Mona. Commitment. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780593319277. $29. Downloadable. LITERARY

It’s the 1970s, and Los Angeles–based single-mother Diane Aziz has always worked to give her children what she never had; having illegally secured them spots at a classy public school, she’s just dropped older son Walter at Berkeley. Then, deeply depressed, she enters a California state hospital as daughter Lina dreams of attending an Ivy League school like her friends and younger son Donny slides into beach going and drug use. Acclaimed novelist Simpson (Off Keck Road, Casebook) is publisher of the Paris Review.

Yan Lianke. Heart Sutra. Grove. Mar. 2023. 416p. tr. from Chinese by Carlos Rojas. ISBN 9780802162199. $27. LITERARY

Located at the National Politics University in contemporary Beijing, the Religious Training Center is a place of study for disciples of China’s five main religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam. Here, Buddhist nun Yahui and Daoist master Gu Mingzheng draw close even as an official competition among the religions is being arranged. From the Franz Kafka Prize–winning Yan, two-time finalist for the Man Booker International Prize.

Literary Debuts

Cauley, Kashana. The Survivalists. Soft Skull: Catapult. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781593767273. $27. CD. LITERARY

Mirabella, Richard. Brother & Sister Enter the Forest. Catapult. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781646221172. $26. LITERARY

Palmer, Soraya. The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter & Other Essential Ghosts. Catapult. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781646220953. $27. LITERARY

Pin, Cecile. Wandering Souls. Holt. Mar. 2023. 208p. ISBN 9781250863461. $26.99. LITERARY

Winn, Alice. In Memoriam. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593534564. $29. LITERARY

In former lawyer/current TV writer Cauley’s The Survivalists, perpetually single Black lawyer Aretha is laser-focused on her career until she becomes involved coffee-entrepreneur Aaron and moves in with him and his doomsday roommates, prepping for the end of the world. Mirabella’s Brother & Sister Enter the Forest, whose title hints at fairytale or horror (maybe both?), is a queer coming-of-age novel about emotionally shattered Justin and his sister, Willa, who’s struggling to care for him—or to leave and claim her own life. Imbued with mythic figures—the ocean-dwelling Mama Dglo, the butcher-hunting Rolling Calf—Palmer’s The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter & Other Essential Ghosts plumbs the lives of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters in Brooklyn who find themselves at odds even as their parents’ marriage becomes untethered. In Wandering Souls, London Writers Award winner Pin depicts three Vietnamese siblings struggling to survive in the UK without their parents, lost in the family’s escape from Vietnam after the war (80,000-copy first printing). In Winn’s In Memoriam, Henry Gaunt escapes his strong feelings for boarding-school classmate Sidney Ellwood by enlisting during World War I—but then Sidney enlists, too, and they find love amid battle.

Short Stories

Atwood, Margaret. Old Babes in the Wood: Stories. Doubleday. Mar. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780385549073. $30. lrg. prnt. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Herrera, Yuri. Ten Planets: Stories. Graywolf. Mar. 2023. tr. from Spanish by Lisa Dillman. 112p. ISBN 9781644452233. pap. $15. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Link, Kelly (text) & Shaun Tan (illus.). White Cat, Black Dog: Stories. Random. Mar. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780593449950. $27. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Featuring a knockout 15 stories, seven focused on a married couple across decades, international star Atwood’s Old Babes in the Wood examines love and relationships, loss and memory in her first collection since 2014’s Stone Mattress. In Ten Planets, award-winning Mexican author Herrera conjoins sf, noir, and the meditative aspects of Jorge Luis Borges’s Fictions and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics in short-short stories whose subjects range from sentient objects to a bacterium that gains consciousness after its host ingests a psychotropic drug (30,000-copy first printing). From Macarthur Fellow/Pulitzer Prize finalist Link, White Cat, Black Dog offers seven reimagined fairytales that illuminate the contemporary world, with stories including a woman in poor health stranded at an airport and a billionaire putting his sons through absurd tasks to see which should be his heir.

Thrillers

Black, Cara. Night Flight to Paris. Soho Crime. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781641293556. $27.95. THRILLER/ESPIONAGE

Waving a momentary au revoir to beloved mystery star Aimée Leduc, Black brings back Kate Rees from Three Hours in Paris, Black’s successful 2020 foray into thrillerdom. Now the British Secret Service has returned Oregon-born and -bred sharpshooter Kate to Paris with a triple-decker assignment: bring penicillin to a group of sick children, assassinate a high-ranking German operative, and rescue a British agent who once saved Kate’s life. Can she do it all? With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Bose, Disha. Dirty Laundry. Ballantine. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780593497388. $27. PSYCHOLOGICAL

Picture-perfect Ciara Murphy rules over the mothers of her Irish village, who include best friend Mishti Guha, raising her children in the damp and cultural dissociation of Ireland to escape an arranged marriage in India. Mishti’s a bit envious of Ciara, and outsider Lauren resents her exclusion from the mommy group, but Ciara’s murder soon shows that nearly everyone could have benefited from Ciara’s death. Film/TV rights bought by Sony TriStar.

Briscoe, Connie. You Never Know: A Novel of Domestic Suspense. Amistad: HarperCollins. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780063246584. $27.99. CD. THRILLER

Alexis Roberts can give few details about the intruder who broke into her home and tried to assault her; it was night, and without her cochlear implants she couldn’t hear much. But her husband, Marcus, vanished after she learned that his first wife was missing and presumed dead, and she’s terrified that he’s come back. The New York Times best-selling author of romantic and historical fiction goes scary. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Burt, Anne. The Dig. Counterpoint. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781640096042. $26. THRILLER/LEGAL

Pulled from a bomb-gutted apartment in 1990s Sarajevo, siblings Antonia and Paul are raised by a prominent family of contractors in Thebes, MN, which Antonia escapes by attending law school. She had no intention of returning but unexpectedly accepts a promising job there, only to discover that her activist brother has disappeared and that her adoptive family is hiding some ugly secrets. From debuter Burt.

Coben, Harlan. I Will Find You. Grand Central. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9781538748367. $30. CD. THRILLER/DOMESTIC

Following his chart-topping The Match, the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Award–winning Coben tells the story of a father serving life for a murder he didn’t commit—that of his own son. Then he learns that his son might still be alive and must find a way to spring himself from prison to discover what’s happening. With a 750,000-copy first printing.

Finlay, Alex. What Have We Done. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Mar. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250863720. $27.99. CD. THRILLER/SUSPENSE

Jenna, Donnie, Nico, Arty, and Ben became best friends at Savior House, a group home for troubled teenagers that was closed down when several residents disappeared. Some 25 years later, they are managing adulthood, if imperfectly, but they are now being murdered one by one, with the survivors gathering to figure out why this is happening and how they can survive. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Gómez-Jurado, Juan. Red Queen. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Mar. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781250853677. $27.99. CD. THRILLER/INTERNATIONAL

The daughter of a British diplomat and a Spanish mother, brilliant detective Antonia Scott refuses to work or even leave her apartment after personal trauma. Disgraced Bilbao police officer Jon Gutierrez is tasked with coaxing her back to solve a gruesome murder that seems to be spawning other crimes. First in a trilogy that sold over two million copies in Spain and is being produced as an Amazon streaming series. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Jance, J.A. Collateral Damage. Gallery: S. & S. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982189150. $28.99. CD. THRILLER

Ali Reynolds is muddling through her first Christmas without her father when she learns that her husband, the founding partner of High Noon Enterprises, has been injured in a suspicious automobile accident. He wants her to take his place at an important ransomware conference in London, but she’s got to ask: Who wants to take their tech company out of the picture, and is the rest of the team now in danger? Next in the New York Times best-selling series.

Landay, William. All That Is Mine I Carry with Me. Bantam. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780345531841. $28.99. CD. PSYCHOLOGICAL

Nothing was out of place—not even her pocketbook—when Jane Larkin vanished from her home in November 1975, and though the police suspect her husband, a criminal defense attorney, nothing can be proved. Two decades later, when her remains are found, her three children must decide whether their father is innocent or guilty. From Strand/Dagger winner Landay.

Lansdale, Joe R. The Donut Legion. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780316540681. $28. Downloadable. CRIME

Charlie Garner is worried: former wife Meg, who worked at a donut shop run by a shadowy evangelist cult that believes their compound will soon host an extraterrestrial Second Coming, has gone missing. Some investigating leads to a giant stash of weapons and a leashed chimpanzee—but still no Meg. Edgar and multiple Bram Stoker winner Landsdale takes a break from his “Hap and Leonard” series; with a 25,000-copy first printing.

Matthews, Owen. White Fox. Doubleday. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780385543446. $28. Downloadable. THRILLER/SUSPENSE

Newly in charge of a Soviet penal colony, a post typically reserved for disgraced agents, Lt. Col. Alexander Vasin flees during a bloody revolt in the company of an enigmatic prisoner claiming he knows who ordered John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Wrapping up the “Alexander Vasin” trilogy, begun with Black Sun (long-listed for the John Creasey, i.e., “New Blood,” Dagger Award) and Red Traitor (a Financial Times Best Thriller of 2021).

Oates, Nathan. A Flaw in the Design. Random. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780593446706. $28. THRILLER

When his sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car accident, creative writing professor Gil reluctantly takes on their only child, 17-year-old Matthew, who placed Gil’s daughter in a dangerous situation when he last visited seven years ago. Now Matthew is back, chilly as ever, and when he takes Gil’s class, he submits stories imagining the death of Gil’s family. A debut novel for Oates after his Spokane Prize–winning story collection, The Empty House.

Patterson, James & Mike Lupica. The House of Wolves. Little, Brown. Mar. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780316404297. $29. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER/SUSPENSE

Following up their last outing, The Horsewoman, the Patterson/Lupica team introduce readers to California’s powerhouse family, the Wolfs. Mid-thirties Jenny is now in charge, running the San Francisco Tribune and the professional football team, the Wolves, while looking into her father’s murder. But her three brothers are plotting her overthrow. With a 400,000-copy first printing.

Sullivan, Justine. He Said He Would Be Late. Holt. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250842855. $27.99. THRILLER/PSYCHOLOGICAL

Liz Bennet is suddenly not so happily married; she’s discovered a suspicious text on her husband’s phone, replete with kissy-face emojis, and she starts a deep dig into her husband’s life to see whether he’s cheating. Obviously, things are going to be more complicated than she expects. From debuter Sullivan; with an 80,000-copy first printing.

Historical Fiction

Hargrave, Kiran Millwood. The Dance Tree. HarperVia. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780063274778. $27.99. CD. HISTORICAL

Heng, Rachel. The Great Reclamation. Riverhead. Mar. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780593420119. $27. lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL

Johnson, Sadeqa. The House of Eve. S. & S. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781982197360. $27.99. HISTORICAL

Loesch, Kristen. The Last Russian Doll. Berkley. Mar. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593547984. $27. HISTORICAL

Otoo, Sharon Dodua. Ada’s Room. Riverhead. Mar. 2023. 320p. tr. from German by Jon Cho-Polizzi. ISBN 9780593539798. $27. HISTORICAL

Rosner, Jennifer. Once We Were Home. Flatiron: Macmillan. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781250855541. $27.99. HISTORICAL

Spence-Ash, Laura. Beyond That, the Sea. Celadon: Macmillan. Mar. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250854377. $28. HISTORICAL

Walls, Jeannette. Hang the Moon. Scribner. Mar. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781501117299. $28. CD. HISTORICAL

Webb, Heather. Strangers in the Night: A Novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Morrow. Mar. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780063297111. $28.99; Morrow Paperbacks. ISBN 9780063004184. $17.99. CD. HISTORICAL

Willig, Lauren. Two Wars and a Wedding. Morrow. Mar. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9780062986184. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD. HISTORICAL

Following Hargrave’s adult debut, the Betty Trask honoree The Mercies, The Dance Tree spins off from real-life events as it visits 1518 Strasbourg, France, where women have begun dancing wildly in the town square and provoked a state of emergency (40,000-copy first printing). Opening in a fishing village in British colonial–ruled Singapore, Suicide Club author Heng’s The Great Reclamation features a sweet boy with an extraordinary gift—he sees shifting islands no one else can—who comes of age during the Japanese occupation and, with a neighborhood girl, ends up remapping the future (75,000-copy first printing). Following the multi-best-booked Yellow Wind, Johnson’s The House of Eve intertwines the stories of two young Black women—15-year-old Ruby, whose college ambitions are threatened by an ill-advised affair, and Howard University student Eleanor, looking for acceptance from her boyfriend’s elite Black family. In Loesch’s debut, The Last Russian Doll, a Russian émigré studying at Oxford returns to Moscow after her mother’s death and uncovers a family tragedy stretching back to the 1917 Revolution. A prize winner in Germany and a publishing phenomenon there and in the UK, where Berlin-based British-Ghanian Otoo is a Cambridge writer in residence, Ada’s Room features four Adas: a 15th-century West African woman who confronts a Portuguese slave trader, Victorian England’s Ada Lovelace, a Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp inmate, and a contemporary resident of Berlin, connected to them all in spirit. Following The Yellow Bird Sings, a National Jewish Book Award finalist, Rosner’s Once We Were Home builds on real-life events to tell the stories of Jewish children wrenched from their families during World War II—like Ana, who remembers the mother who smuggled her out of a Polish ghetto, and Ana’s brother, who knows only the family who raised him. In Spence-Ash’s Beyond That, the Sea, Bea Thompson is sent from bomb-blasted World War II London to live in safety with a family in Boston, MA, and becomes so contented with her new life that she is reluctant to return home (150,000-copy first printing). From the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Walls, Hang the Moon follows the life of feisty young Sallie Kincaid, daughter of the big man about town in Prohibition-era Virginia, who’s back home to reclaim her place nine years after being ejected from the family. The USA Today best-selling Webb’s Strangers in the Night replays the romance between Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner (100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Two Wars and a Wedding, the New York Times best-selling Willig follows aspiring archaeologist Betsy Hayes from 1896 Greece, where she ends up tending the wounded as fighting breaks out with Turkey, and 1898 Cuba, where she serves with the Red Cross during the Spanish American War, hoping to find a lost friend (75,000-copy first printing).

Contemporary Fiction

Berg, Elizabeth. Earth’s the Right Place for Love. Random. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593446799. $27. lrg. prnt. COMING OF AGE

Brown, Diane Marie. Black Candle Women. Graydon House: Harlequin. Feb. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781525899911. $27.99. CD. FAMILY

Fedor, Emma. At Sea. Gallery: S. & S. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982171544. $27.99. CD. FAMILY

Jimenez, Claire. What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez. Grand Central. Mar. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781538725962. $28. FAMILY

Langbein, Julia. American Mermaid. Doubleday. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780385549677. $28. HUMOROUS

Napolitano, Ann. Hello Beautiful. Dial. Mar. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593243732. $28. FAMILY

Novey, Idra. Take What You Need. Viking. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780593652855. $27. FAMILY

Steel, Danielle. Worthy Opponents. Delacorte. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781984821805. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CONTEMPORARY

In Berg’s Earth’s the Right Place for Love, a stand-alone connected to her popular Truluv series, Arthur tries to contain his crush on gorgeous Nola McCollum (who’s crushing on his older brother) while steering clear of his violent war-veteran dad; then tragedy upends his family. In debuter Brown’s Black Candle Women, three generations of Montrose women must carefully tell sparkling young teenager Nickie that a curse delivered decades ago by a New Orleans vodou sorceress means that anyone she falls in love with will die. In Fedor’s debut, Carla is shattered when the man she loves disappears with their baby but heartened years later when a man and child are spotted At Sea calmly treading water—Brandon claimed to be part of a U.S. Special Forces experiment that allowed him to stay longer than humanly possible beneath the waves. Puerto Rican sisters living on Staten Island, Jessica and Nina may finally learn What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez, their long-lost little sister, when Jessica spots a look-alike on a reality TV show; from debuter Jimenez, the winner of multiple honors for her story collection Staten Island Stories. In standup comedian Langbein’s debut, Hollywood hacks are trying to turn the androgynous, eco-crusading protagonist of Penelope Schleeman’s feminist novel American Mermaid into a vampy teen, and creepy things (e.g., threats suddenly materializing in the script) are starting to happen. Following Napolitano’s New York Times best-selling Dear Edward, Hello Beautiful features reserved William, who’s hamstrung by his upbringing in a household shadowed by tragedy but lucky enough to have found effervescent Julia and gained her sisters’ seal of approval—until trouble from his past threatens the relationship. From award-winning poet/novelist Novey (Ways To Disappear), Take What You Need returns Leah to the Appalachian home of her recently deceased stepmother Jean, from whom she had been estranged and who has left her with some surprises. Steel’s Worthy Opponents pits Spencer Brooke, now owner of her family’s luxury department store in New York and a divorced mother of twins, against overeager investor Mike Weston.

SF/Fantasy/Horror

SF

Ballingrud, Nathan. The Strange. Gallery: Saga: S. & S. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781534449954. $26.99. SF

With her mother having returned to Earth to tend family, 14-year-old Annabelle Crisp spends quiet nights in father’s diner in 1930s New Galveston, Mars. Then the Silence descends, and an attack by Silas Mundt’s gang irreparably harms her family, leaving Annabelle intent on revenge. A debut novel from Ballingrud, a two-time Shirley Jackson Award winner for his stories.

Mandelo, Lee. Feed Them Silence. Tor.com. Mar. 2023. 112p. ISBN 9781250824509. $19.99. SF

A neurological interface allows Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon to do something she’s always wanted: to enter the mind of an animal—in this case, one of Earth’s last remaining wolves—and experience the world as it does. But this research is dangerous, threatening her mental and physical health, driving her from her wife, and possibly threatening the wolf itself. Following the debut novel Summer Sons and numerous Nebula/Lambda/Hugo–nominated stories.

Older, Malka. The Mimicking of Known Successes. Tor.com. Mar. 2023. 176p. ISBN 9781250860507. $19.99. SF

In this sf/mystery mix, set on the forbidding outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, Investigator Mossa searches for a missing man, heading first to the university town Valdegeld. There, he links up with former girlfriend Pleiti, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems, and together they try to crack a mystery that places life on Earth at stake. From the author of the multi-best-booked Infomocracy; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Fantasy

Chakraborty, Shannon. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Harper Voyager. Mar. 2023. 496p. ISBN 9780062963505. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. FANTASY

Having wowed readers with the trilogy begun with The City of Brass, Chakraborty launches a new trilogy starring Amina al-Sirafi, once one of the Indian Ocean’s fiercest pirates and now retired to indulge the quiet joys of motherhood. Then she is offered big money to find an old comrade’s kidnapped daughter. Why not have one last great adventure, even if it means encountering sorcerers and demons and maybe risking one’s soul? With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Dyachenko, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko. Assassin of Reality. Harper Voyager. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780063225428. $28.99. CD. FANTASY

A third-year student at the Institute of Special Technologies, where grammar is magic and graduates join the Great Speech, Sasha Samokhina aces final exams as a singularly powerful aspect of language: Password. But her powers threaten the establishment, and as she finds herself manipulated by an unscrupulous mentor, she realizes that she must find a way to rewrite the world—and possibly fail big. A sequel to the multi-starred Vita Nostra; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Estep, Jennifer. Conquer the Kingdom. Harper Voyager. Mar. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780063023468. pap. $17.99. CD. FANTASY

In this wrap-up to the well-received “Gargoyle Queen” trilogy from the New York Times best-selling Estep, crown princess Gemma Ripley of Andvari might be a sly spy and a masterly mind magier, but she still can’t locate her most dangerous adversary. It’s going to get even hard with gladiators swarming to the capital for the Sword and Shield tournament. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Gladstone, Max. Dead Country. Tor.com. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780765395917. pap. $17.99. FANTASY

Tara Abernathy, who was thrown out of her hometown and has since resurrected gods and destroyed monsters, is finally returning to bury her father. But along the way, she encounters a girl as lost but plucky as she once was and by saving her from raiders changes the course of the world. The Hugo/Nebula/Locus–winning Gladstone launches a new series, “The Craft War,” that will finally bring his epic “Craft Sequence” entire sequence to a close. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Holland, Jacqueline. The God of Endings. Flatiron: Macmillan. Mar. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9781250856760. $29.99. FANTASY

Head of a prestigious fine arts school for children, Collette LeSange was made immortal centuries ago by her grandfather and has led a troubled life ever since. Now a student arrives at the school whom she recognizes as a stalking presence from her past. Rising star Holland gets a 200,000-copy first printing for her debut.

King, Owen. The Curator. Scribner. Mar. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9781982196806. $28.99. CD. FANTASY

In a fantastical city split by a mountain range and entirely unmappable, former domestic servant Dora wants to discover where her brother went after he died. As revolution rages in the streets, Dora and her student radical lover use their new-found power to secure her the curatorship of a museum where she could find some answers. King is author of Double Feature and coauthor with father Stephen King of Sleeping Beauties.

Utomi, Moses Ose. The Lies of the Ajungo. Tor.com. Mar. 2023. ISBN 9781250849069. $19.99. FANTASY

There is no water in the City of Lies, and inhabitants have their tongue wrenched from their mouths when they turn 13 so that the monstrous Ajungo Empire will continue sending water. Soon to be 13, Tutu strikes a bargain: if he’s given water for his mother, dying of thirst, he will venture into the desert to find water for the entire city. A debut writer from Nigerian American Utomi; his YA debut, Daughters of Oduma, also appears in spring 2023.

Whitten, Hannah. The Foxglove King. Orbit: Hachette. Mar. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9780316434997. $29. Downloadable. FANTASY

Whitten follows up her big-hit debut, For the Wolf (100,000 copies sold within a year of publication) and its sequel, For the Throne, with a start-up featuring Lore, who escaped from the catacombs beneath Dellaire at age 13 and has been running death magic for a decade. When she gets into trouble after a bad run, the Sainted King demands that she discover why so many people have been dying in the outlying villages. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Horror

Enriquez, Mariana (text) & Pablo Gerardo Camacho (illus.). Our Share of Night. Hogarth: Crown. Mar. 2023. 608p. tr. from Spanish by Megan McDowell. ISBN 9780451495143. $28.99. HORROR

After his mother dies, Gaspar travels with his father to her ancestral home, where he confronts a terrible truth: her family, the Order, commits atrocities in their search for immortality, and they want him to join the clan. Argentinean Enriquez’s The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories was a finalist for the International Booker Prize and two Los Angeles Times Book prizes; this is her first novel to be translated into English.

Gout, Leopoldo. Piñata. Tor Nightfire. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250781178. $28.99. HORROR

Carmen Sanchez is back in Mexico with her two young daughters, supervising the renovation of a crumbling abbey, when an accident uncovers ancient artifacts and sends a suddenly fired Carmen home to New York. Unfortunately, something evil awakened from the renovation is following her. From artists/filmmaker/author Gout; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Kingfisher. T. A House With Good Bones. Tor Nightfire. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781250829795. $26.99. HORROR

Following the Hugo Award–winning Kingfisher’s multi-starred Nettle & Bone, this Southern gothic features Sam Montgomery, concerned that her mother is acting strangely and switching things around at their house on Lammergeier Lane. Does it have anything to do with Sam’s late (but not missed) grandmother? And are nasty family secrets buried beneath the rosebushes?

LaValle, Victor. Lone Women. One World. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780525512080. $27. Downloadable. HORROR

In 1915, having inadvertently killed her parents, Adelaide dashes frantically from Redondo, CA, to Montana, where she plans to homestead on land given out by the government. With her is a trunk she keeps securely locked because when it’s opened, people start to disappear. But can she really keep her secrets all locked up? From Shirley Jackson and Ernest Gaines Award winner LaValle.

Nonfiction

Current Issues

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith. A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War. Knopf. Mar. 2023. ISBN 9780593536889. $30. HISTORY

An architect before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Baghdad-born Abdul-Ahad became a translator and then a multi-award-winning journalist covering not just Iraq but Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Here he returns home to disclose the consequences of both Saddam Hussein’s rule and its violent end, focusing on disrupted human interchange and expectation.

Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany. Beijing Rules. Harper. Mar. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780063057418. $32.50. CD. POLITICAL SCIENCE

The West has long proclaimed that capitalism ensures democracy, but in the last two decades China has toppled that belief by achieving a flourishing capitalist state under rigid Communist Party rule. The China reporter at Axios, Allen-Ebrahimian reveals what the advent of authoritarian capitalism means for the world. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Cahn, Naomi & others. Fair Shake: Women and the Fight To Build a Just Economy. S. & S. Mar. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781982115128. $27.99. WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Even before COVID, women were stumbling further behind in the economy, and the coauthors—all law professors—blame an unhealthily competitive business environment ruled by what they call the Triple Bind: Women lose whether or not they compete on the same terms as men, and when they do, they often remove themselves from the workplace—or get pushed out. So far, they show, laws have failed to protect women at work.

Desmond, Matthew. Poverty, by America. Crown. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593239919. $28. lrg. prnt. SOCIAL CLASS/INCOME INEQUALITY

Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Evicted, a game changer that has sold over 750,000 copies, MacArthur fellow Desmond considers why the uber-wealthy United States has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. It’s precisely because of that wealth, he argues, with the affluent benefiting from keeping poor people poor, whether by suppressing wages, driving up housing costs, or continuing to monopolize money and opportunities they already have.

Farahany, Nita. The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right To Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. St. Martin’s. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781250272959. $29.99. CD. SCIENCE/ETHICS

With the brain already subject to alteration via performance-boosting drugs or electrical stimulation, neurotechnology looks to be the next bold, bright horizon. But what if your brain could be plumbed to determine your political beliefs and thought crimes could get you imprisoned? Duke University professor Farahany examines the ethics of neuroscience; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Geronimus, Dr. Arline T. Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society. Little, Brown Spark. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780316257978. $30. Downloadable. SOCIAL SCIENCE

As the data show, social injustice inflicts physical harm, with the marginalized in U.S. society more likely to face chronic disease, death in childbirth, and abbreviated life spans than their middle- and upper-class white counterparts. Veteran public health researcher Geronimus (Univ. of Michigan) examines weathering, a term she coined to describe the health consequences of systemic oppression, while offering solutions.

Gross, Neil. Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Cop Culture. Metropolitan: Holt. Mar. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781250777522. $27.99. CRIMINOLOGY

The murder of George Floyd led to stepped-up calls for police reform, but the focus has remained on containing police power rather than changing police culture. A former policeman, Colby College sociology professor Gross embedded himself in three police departments—in Stockton, CA; Longmont, CO; and LaGrange, GA—that have countered aggressive policing with a more community-minded approach. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Hoffman, Liz. Crash Landing: The Inside Story of How the World’s Biggest Companies Survived an Economy on the Brink. Crown. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593239018. $30. Downloadable. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

The pandemic completely upended the economy, but Hoffman, a senior reporter for the Wall Street Journal, argues that with Wall Street focused on efficiency, cheap debt, and growth at all costs, trouble was waiting to happen. While laying bare the economy’s weak points in the 2010s, Hoffman also uses exceptional access to top business leaders to show how they scrambled to change the rules simply to survive.

Howley, Kerry. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780525655497. $28. Downloadable.

A New York magazine features writer who authored the multi-best-booked Thrown, Howley takes readers on a raucous ride through the shadowy deep state by following the adventures of an anonymous young NSA analyst who sneaked a state secret out of the office. Along the way, she limns the death of privacy in today’s world and how we are ruled by data.

Nayeri, Dina. Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn’t Enough. Catapult. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781646220724. $27. IMMIGRATION

Iranian-born novelist Nayeri (A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea), whose multi-award-honored The Ungrateful Refugee drew on her experience as an asylum seeker in United Arab Emirates, Italy, and the United States, continues in nonfiction vein with a new work prompted by the question, Why are honest asylum seekers often dismissed as liars? Extending her meditation to emergency rooms, office work, and family life, she probes the social constructions that shape our perception of what’s true and what’s not.

Nuila, Ricardo. The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine. Scribner. Mar. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781501198045. $28. CD. MEMOIR/MEDICAL

For many, U.S. health care is unaffordable and often unavailable. But not for patients at the Ben Taub Hospital, operated by the Harris Health System in Houston, TX. A doctor there, Nuila follows the cases of five patients to show how this publicly funded hospital supports the community by making good health care accessible to all.

Sharlet, Jeff. The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. Norton. Mar. 2023. 302p. ISBN 9781324006497. $28.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE

A National Magazine Award–winning journalist whose The Family served as the basis of a Netflix documentary series, Sharlet explores a splintering nation from the perspective of gender, faith, and money. In particular, as he attends to the religious aspects of Trump rallies in 2016 and 2020, he looks at Christian churches that preach hate while fostering materialism and the Right’s near-deification of Donald Trump.

Wiggins, Chris & Matthew L. Jones. How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. Norton. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781324006732. $30. TECHNOLOGY

From facial-recognition tools to automated systems determining who gets loans, our lives are ruled by data-fueled algorithms. The authors expand on their much-attended course at Columbia University to track the rise of data’s power from the U.S. Constitution–sanctioned census to the emergence of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the triumph of Google search.

History

Black, George. The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 496p. ISBN 9780593534106. $30. Downloadable. HISTORY/VIETNAM WAR

Buruma, Ian. The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II. Penguin Pr. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593296646. $30. HISTORY/WORLD WAR II

Healey, Jonathan. The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603–1689. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780593318355. $35. Downloadable. HISTORY/EUROPE/GREAT BRITAIN

Kennedy, Jonathan. Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues. Crown. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593240472. $30. HISTORY/SCIENCE

Loftis, Larry. The Watchmaker’s Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom. Morrow. Mar. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780063234581. $28.99. CD. HISTORY/WORLD WAR II

Mar, Alex. Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy. Penguin Pr. Mar. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780525522157. $28. TRUE CRIME/HISTORICAL

Roberts, Rebecca Boggs. Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson. Viking. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593489994. $28. BIOGRAPHY/U.S. HISTORY

Sanghera, Sathnam. Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain. Pantheon. Feb. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780593316672. $29. Downloadable. HISTORY/EUROPE/GREAT BRITAIN

Webster, Rachel Jamison. Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family. Holt. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250827302. $28.99. BIOGRAPHY/BLACK AMERICAN

In The Long Reckoning, award-winning investigative journalist Black (The Good Neighbor) chronicles the efforts of U.S. veterans, scientists, and pacifists and their Vietnamese partners to compel the U.S. government to acknowledge the ongoing damage done by unexploded munitions and the toxic defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam, particularly in the demilitarized zone. From notable U.S.-based Dutch writer/editor Buruma (The Churchill Complex), The Collaborators examines three figures seen as either heroes or traitors during World War II: Hasidic Jew Friedrich Weinreb, who took money to save fellow Jews but betrayed some of them to the Gestapo; Manchu princess Kawashima Yoshiko, who spied for the Japanese secret police in China; and masseur Felix Kersten, who claimed to have talked Himmler out of killing thousands. Oxford associate professor Healey’s The Blazing World portrays 17th-century England as a turbulent society undergoing revolutionary change. A professor of politics and global health at Queen Mary University of London, Kennedy argues in Pathogenesis that it was not human guts and ingenuity but the power of disease-delivering microbes that has driven human history, from the end of the Neanderthals to the rise of Christianity and Islam to the deadly consequences of European colonialism (75,000-copy first printing). Continuing in the vein of his New York Times best-selling The Princess Spy, Loftis introduces us to Corrie ten Boom, The Watchmaker’s Daughter, who helped her family hide Jews and refugees from the Gestapo during World War II (100,000-copy first printing). Mar’s Seventy Times Seven chronicles Black 15-year-old Paula Cooper’s murder of septuagenarian white woman Ruth Pelke in a violent home invasion in 1985 Gary, IN; her subsequent death sentence; and what happened when Pelke’s grandson forgave her. Journalist/consultant Roberts fully reveals the Untold Power of Woodrow Wilson’s wife Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, who effectively acted as president when her husband was incapacitated. A best seller in the UK when it was published in 2021, Sanghera’s Empireland—an exploration of the legacy of British imperialism in the contemporary world—has been contextualized for U.S. audiences and carries an introduction by Marlon James. In Benjamin Banneker and Us, Webster explores the life of her forbear, the Black mathematician and almanac writer who surveyed Washington, DC, for Thomas Jefferson, and his descendants to highlight how structural racism continues to shape our understanding of lineage and family.

Arts, Literature, and Philosophy

Bakewell, Sarah. Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope. Penguin Pr. Mar. 2023. 496p. ISBN 9780735223370. $30. PHILOSOPHY

Covering seven centuries of humanist thought, this hefty volume ranges from Erasmus and Christine de Pizan, to anatomists and agnostics, to Voltaire and Zora Neale Hurston as it elucidates a wide range of sources that, whether emphasizing the scientific, the cultural, or the moral, consider how best to live. A nice fit with Bakewell’s dazzling Duff Cooper/NBCC-honored How To Live and New York Times best-booked At the Existentialist Café.

Bennett, Joshua. Spoken Word: A Cultural History. Knopf. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780525657019. $30. Downloadable. SOCIAL SCIENCE/LITERATURE

Slam champion and all-’round astonishing poet Bennett investigates the roots of the spoken-word phenomenon in the Black Arts movement and Black culture, then moves on to the influential Nuyorican Poets Café, the growth of slam, and the helping hand lent by social media. Dartmouth professor Bennett grounds his writing in scholarship; poet Bennett grounds his writing in a lifetime’s journey with his art. Look for his new LJ -starred collection The Study of Human Life.

Cohen-Solal, Annie. Picasso the Foreigner: An Artist in France, 1900–1973. Farrar. Mar. 2023. 624p. tr. from French by Sam Taylor. ISBN 9780374231231. $35. BIOGRAPHY/FINE ARTS

A distinguished biographer of Jean-Paul Sartre, Leo Castelli, and Mark Rothko, French historian Cohen-Solal takes a new approach to art titan Picasso, highlighting the prejudice the Spanish artist encountered as a foreigner in France and the police surveillance visited on him owing to his radical politics. With a 20,000-copy first printing.

Fernández, Nona. Voyager: Constellations of Memory. Graywolf. Feb. 2023. 136p. tr. from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer. ISBN 9781644452172. pap. $15. LITERATURE

Observing that her ailing older mother’s brain scan recalled the glittery night sky, National Book Award finalist Fernández (The Twilight Zone) connects the dots to examine the nature of personal and communal memory. She’s particularly interested in understanding what people want to remember and what they want to forget, asking her country, Chile, to look squarely at its own history—as readers will know from her fiction.

Hessel, Katy. The Story of Art Without Men. Norton. Mar. 2023. 512p. ISBN 9780393881868. $45. FINE ARTS

An art historian who founded Instagram's @thegreatwomenartists and the podcast of the same name, Hessel celebrates too often little-known women artists from the 14th to the 21st centuries, ranging from late Renaissance court painter Sofonisba Anguissola to Harriet Powers, a folk artist and quilt maker enslaved from birth in the United States. Along the way, readers will encounter non-Western, queer, and marginalized artists, textile workers and photographers, and more.

Kem with David Ritz. Share My Life: A Journey of Love, Faith and Redemption. S. & S. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982191245. $28.99. CD. MEMOIR

Raised in Detroit by distant, troubled parents, artist Kem learned quickly that “hard things are better left unsaid,” which left him homeless at 19 as he coped with internalized pain by using drugs. Here he recounts his journey from that hard beginning to renown as an R&B singer/songwriter with multiple Grammy Awards to his credit.

Lee, Debra. I Am Debra Lee: A Memoir. Legacy Lit: Hachette. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780306828591. $29. Downloadable. MEMOIR

From her shy and proper childhood in Greensboro, NC, Lee moved on to Brown University and Harvard Law School and finally rose to become the CEO of Black Entertainment Television, breaking race and gender barriers along the way. Her story is interleaved with career advice of special interest to Black women seeking leadership roles. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Magsamen, Susan & Ivy Ross. Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. Random. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593449233. $30.

Founder of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Magsamen joins with Google designer Ross to explain how we react biologically to a striking painting or ravishing piece of music. And that, in turn, reveals how art can help us heal from trauma. Welcome to the exciting new science of neuroaesthetics.

Penaluna, Regan. How To Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How To Live a Life of the Mind. Grove. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780802158802. $28. PHILOSOPHY

Plunging into the study of philosophy, Penaluna ended up embittered by its implicit rejection of women's intellect. Then she discovered epistemologist Damaris Cudworth Masham; English novelist, dramatist, and philosopher Catharine Cockburn; and philosopher/rhetorician Mary Astell, all of whom she presents with Mary Wollstonecraft as leading 1660s–1770s women philosophers who taught her to love the discipline again.

Waldstreicher, David. The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence. Farrar. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780809098248. $30. LITERATURE

In Slavery’s Constitution, Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, unpeeled the U.S. Constitution to reveal enslavement at its heart. Here he unpeels the life and work of seminal Black American poet Phillis Wheatley, revealing how her writing prompted argument and counterargument about race, subjugation, and British rule and what it ultimately meant for the institution of enslavement during a fight for independence.

STEM

Craig, Mya-Rose. Birdgirl: Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future. Celadon: Macmillan. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250807670. $28. BIRDS

Known as Birdgirl, 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi birder, environmentalist, and diversity activist Craig travels the world with her family in search of rare birds and the beauties of nature, which give her comfort in the face of her mother’s continuing mental health crisis. The founder of Black2Nature, which encourages teenagers of color to engage with environmental causes, she here decries both the destruction of the natural world and the consequences of ongoing racism.

Egan, Dan. The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance. Norton. Mar. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781324002666. $30. CHEMISTRY/ENVIRONMENTAL

Phosphorus is dangerous stuff, used in everything from firebombs to rat poison, but it is also crucial to the manufacture of fertilizer, a life saver for billions of people. Here, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Egan (The Death and Life of the Great Lakes) chronicles the scramble to source phosphorus and the dangers incurred, with the toxic “dead zones” thus created haunting waterways worldwide.

Fine, Karen. The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality. Anchor. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780593466896. $28. PETS

Fine has always followed her doctor grandfather’s advice to listen to the patient—but her patients are animals, and she’s a leader in the field of narrative medicine in veterinary medicine, for which she recently wrote a textbook. Here she recalls her career (a battle to launch in the 1980s, when most vets were male) and the many animals she’s attended.

Hazard, Leah. Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began. Ecco. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780063157620. $28.99. CD. LIFE SCIENCES

Every person on Earth emerged from a uterus, yet this organ is little understood—and the center of much contention. Journalist-turned-midwife Hazard blends medical history and reportorial investigation to explain the works of the womb and assess timely questions. Big rights sales worldwide.

Heisman, Rebecca. Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration. Harper. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780063161146. $28.99. CD. BIRDS

How do birds manage to fly thousands of miles each fall and spring, spanning continents and oceans? As science writer and self-proclaimed bird nerd Heisman explains, in recent decades dedicated scientists have thrown themselves into answering that question, investigating takeoff and landing points, flight paths, and the challenges along the way. For all those bird watchers out there; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Hertog, Thomas. On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory. Bantam. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593128442. $28.99. Downloadable. ASTROPHYSICS

Stephen Hawking's closest collaborator, Hertog sums up work they did at the end of Hawking’s life that yields a new quantum theory of the cosmos. Puzzling how the universe could have created conditions hospitable to life, especially with the math predicting many big bangs producing multiple universes mostly not capable of sustaining life, they eventually realized that physical laws can transform and even simplify until particles, forces, and time itself disappear. And that means physical laws might be born and evolve alongside the universe they govern.

Lightman, Alan. The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science. Pantheon. Mar. 2023. 208p. ISBN 9780593317419. $25. SCIENCE/PHILOSOPHY

Science and spirituality are not incompatible, argues novelist Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams), a professor of science and the humanities at MIT. Here he ranges through the literature, from Roman poet/philosopher Lucretius, whose materialism can illuminate less concrete phenomena, to contemporary social psychologist Cynthia Frantz, who uses science to explain our connection to nature, to make the case for what he calls “spiritual materialism."

Memoir

Ahdoot, Dan. Undercooked: How I Let Food Become My Life Navigator and How Maybe That’s a Dumb Way To Live. Crown. Mar. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780593240793. $28. Downloadable. MEMOIR

Braitman, Laurel. What Looks Like Bravery: A Memoir. S. & S. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781501158506. $27.99. CD. MEMOIR

Dowd, Michelle. Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult: A Memoir. Algonquin. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781643751856. $28. Downloadable. MEMOIR

Freeman, Hadley. Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia. S. & S. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781982189839. $27.99. MEMOIR

Mark, Sabrina Orah. Happily: A Personal History, with Fairy Tales. Random. Mar. 2023. 224p. ISBN 9780593242476. $27. MEMOIR

Martin, Clancy. How Not To Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Pantheon. Mar. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780593317051. $30. Downloadable. MEMOIR

Miller, Michelle. Belonging: A Daughter’s Search for Identity Through Love and Loss. Harper. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063220430. $27.99. CD. MEMOIR

Mouton, Deborah D.E.E.P. Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood, and Myth. Holt. Mar. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250827852. $27.99. MEMOIR

Ramotwala, Tabitha. The Will To Be: A Life Caught Between Two Worlds. Oprah Bks: Flatiron: Macmillan. Mar. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250789396. $28.99. MEMOIR

Robbins, Laura Cathcart. Stash: My Life in Hiding. Atria. Mar. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781668005330. $27.99. MEMOIR

Snyder, Rachel Louise. Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir. Bloomsbury. Mar. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781635579123. $28. MEMOIR

Stand-up comic, actor (e.g., Netflix’s Cobra Kai), and host of the No. 1 food podcast in the country, Green Eggs and Dan, Ahdoot uses an essay format in Undercooked to explain how food became a crutch and finally a dangerous obsession for him, starting with his brother’s untimely death. Before he died of cancer, Braitman’s father rushed to teach her important things like how to fix a carburetor and play good practical jokes; long after his death, she realized the cost of What Looks Like Bravery in suppressing her sorrow at his passing; following the New York Times best-selling Animal Madness. In Forager, journalism professor Dowd recalls her upbringing in the fervently Christian cult Field, founded by her domineering grandfather, where she was often cold, hungry, and abused and learned to put her trust in the natural world. Hospitalized from ages of 14 to 17 with anorexia nervosa, Freeman (House of Glass) recalls in Good Girls her subsequent years as a “functioning anorexic” and interviews doctors about new discoveries and treatments regarding the condition. In Happily, which draws on her Paris Review column of the same name, Mark uses fairytale to show how sociopolitical issues impact her own life, particularly as a Jewish woman raising Black children in the South. Philosophy professor Martin’s How Not To Kill Yourself examines the mindset that has driven him to attempt suicide 10 times. Award-winning CBS journalist Miller here limns a sense of not Belonging: abandoned at birth by her mother, a Chicana hospital administrator who hushed up her affair with the married trauma surgeon (and Compton’s first Black city councilman) who raised Miller, the author struggled to find her place in white-dominated schools and newsrooms and finally sought out her lost parent (60,000-copy first printing). From Mouton, Houston’s first Black poet laureate and once ranked the No. 2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (Poetry Slam Inc.), Black Chameleon relates an upbringing in a world devoid of the stories needed by Black children—which she argues women must now craft (60,000-copy first printing). A graduate of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, Mount Holyoke College, and Columbia University, Ramotwala demonstrates The Will To Be in a memoir of early hardship (her mother's first-born daughter died in a firebombing before the author was born) and adjusting to life in the United States (75,000-copy first printing). In Stash, Robbins, host of the podcast The Only One in the Room, relates her recovery from dangerous drug use (e.g., stockpiling pills and scheduling withdrawals around PTA meetings and baby showers) as she struggles with being Black in a white world. Author of the multi-award-winning, multi-award-nominated No Visible Bruises, a study of domestic violence, Snyder follows up with Women We Buried, Women We Burned, her story of escaping the cult her widowed father joined and as a teenager making her way in the world (100,000-copy first printing).