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THE MORTONS

The novel opens with narrator Jessica Morton, a junior at Helshire College and a member of an age-old crime family, taking Peter, her younger cousin and fellow Helshire student, on a climb—no, not the recreational kind. It’s actually a midnight trek up the school’s tallest building, from which Jessica ensures, at Grandmother’s orders, that Peter […]

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FINDING INNOCENCE

Wemlinger prefaces his fictional story with true accounts from his time as an Army captain. He watched dozens of women face discrimination, harassment, and abuse at the hands of the countless men who surrounded them; now, 50 years later, this treatment continues. The young woman in question is 22-year-old Sergeant Rebecca Farnsworth, who works on […]

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WITH FRIENDS LIKE YOU

Fifteen years past college, Emily finds herself horribly unsatisfied. She’s on maternity leave from her ho-hum job, recovering slowly from a difficult childbirth, and feeling increasingly isolated from her husband and friends. She remembers her college roommate, Daisy, as her one true soul mate but, unfortunately, the women lost touch after freshman year, when Daisy […]

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FATAL GLITCH

Sofia Mendoza injures her sister (after accidentally-on-purpose tripping her), so her father sends her to Forestjaw to reflect on her behavior. Things get off to a weird start: Monarch, Forestjaw’s leader and seemingly only real adult, greets the campers (or “candidates,” as she calls them) with a terrifying mechanical vulture on her shoulder before confiscating […]

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A SUPREME FRIENDSHIP

“Ruth and Nino”—as Rovin Murphy refers to Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia—both loved many of the same things, from the law to travel, food, and opera. “But when they disagreed…they REALLY disagreed.” In a perspicuous study that will resonate with readers accustomed to seeing even the most casual dialogues in public […]

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DREAMS OF EMPIRE

Findley, professor of History at Ohio State and author of The Turks in World History (2004), writes that the Ottoman Empire lasted six centuries under a single dynasty because Islam permits a man to have four wives, and the children of concubines are easily legitimized. With so many male heirs, until around 1600, it was […]

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INFERNAL TRAMPS

The 17 tales herein feature an array of horrors. Some are blatantly sinister, like a serial killer who’s more than she appears to be; others seem innocuous but have the potential to become outright menaces, like an apparatus for keeping pests out of a garden. In still other instances, the true horror doesn’t reveal itself […]

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SAMA CRUSHES THE CODE

In a clever combination of fiction and outright coding instruction with inset vocabulary and snatches of actual samples, high schooler and tech entrepreneur Mehta and co-author Stevens pitch fretful Sama into middle school. There, while forming new friendships and seeing old ones change, Sama also struggles for acceptance in Tech Club after finding herself odd […]

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THE INTRIGUE

Ulises Linares is hard up. The 29-year-old con artist, living in World War II–era Mexico City, is down to his last few pesos, three years after his father and partner in crime died following a long illness. What little cash he’s able to bring in comes from postal scams—he corresponds with women who are willing […]

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HOBBY LOBBY

“I want to know that I have affected people for eternity. I matter 10 billion years from now.” Thus said the normally retiring David Green, founder of Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby. The location is no accident, for Oklahoma has long been home to countless fundamentalist congregations and businesses, a font of support for Christian nationalism. Privately […]