The setting is a city populated by expressive Pixar-style cars, trucks, and other motorized characters with windshield eyes and smiley bumpers. A variety of helpful trucks and service vehicles go about their work, including ambulances, fire engines, helicopters, tow trucks, blue-hatted police cruisers, delivery vans, school buses, dump trucks, street cleaners, repair vehicles that clean […]
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from […]
In 1988, 20-year-old Sandra Ramirez is savagely kicked to death and left under an old oak tree in Santander, Spain. She’d written a short story from the point of view of a stray dog that dies under the same oak tree, and the murder remains unsolved two decades later. In 2008, master detective Hans Rekke […]
In her introduction, editor and contributor Salazar describes this work as “a playlist of stories, about music, for music, because of music, through the music of poetry.” The collection spans a range of poetic styles, geographical locations, and time periods. The authors represent distinct cultural and ethnic backgrounds and include Indigenous and Afro-Latine writers and […]
Goldberg was a student at New England Conservatory of Music when she joined the Klezmer Conservatory Band, a group playing traditional Jewish dance music that originated in Eastern Europe. Four members of the group, after learning of the plight of Soviet Jews who had been denied the right to emigrate, decided to form a quartet […]
Rayne follows a child who answers the call to donate a beloved pet to the war effort, then tracks the dog’s journey from training to frontline service. The tale is told entirely through sequential art panels that shift in size and pace to control the narrative rhythm. The illustrations, created with ink, watercolor, colored pencil, […]
The daughter of a distinguished lawyer, Lasker-Wallfisch opens her memoir with chatty family letters and her father’s painful, futile efforts to arrange emigration from Germany in the 1930s. As the persecution of Jews grew, her parents were deported in 1942; her grandmother was also taken away. “The destination was unknown; they were never heard of […]
Older sister Rikki, who’s “almost double digits,” is often tasked with keeping an eye on her rambunctious younger sister, Rai, a freshly minted 8-year-old. Rai suffers from asthma and frequently misses school, but Rikki has had perfect attendance since kindergarten. While the girls frequently bicker over chores and pocket money, they always stand up for […]
Teddy Riggs prefers to be known as Daytona: “Fastest on the field. Fastest on the road.” Third-generation scion of an oil family, he’s been cut off from his trust fund by his parents and lives with Granny, who will cook him a dozen eggs to slake the appetite he’s developed on “the juice.” His “roid […]
Lady Caroline Morton, who prefers just Caroline, has been fortunate to work for Mrs. Frogerton since her father lost both her dowry and the family fortune. Mrs. Frogerton’s money comes from trade, but she’s a kind employer, treating Caroline like a daughter and relishing the murders they’ve helped solve together. Mrs. Frogerton’s doctor suggests a […]