“Nothing is as it seems” is a repeated refrain in this Christian political thriller that pits Satan’s and God’s plans against each other. When Jimmy’s mother was murdered, her unforgettable last words to 11-year-old Jimmy were: “This is not the end.” Now, 17-year-old Jimmy is asked out on a date by classmate Sasha, whose senator […]
Shortly after Beatrice and Maxine Clark moved to Los Angeles at 19 and 18 respectively, Beatrice made her music debut as Blue Velour, inspired by a couch the sisters found on the street. As Dorn’s novel opens in 2019, the rebellious artist has just released her seventh album, Blue’s Beard, and is finally interviewed by […]
Ladybugs play an important role in our world as eco-friendly pest controllers and plant pollinators—and they bring us good luck, according to lore. This Czech import opens as spring rolls in and a “loveliness” of seven-spot ladybugs wake from their winter slumber and stretch. One of them, Mariella, launches into an account of one year […]
Seventeen-year-old Indigo “Indie” Watson is a star soccer player at her school in Meadow Creek, Pennsylvania, and she’s also the emotional cornerstone of her family. At a Saturday night party, Indie drinks too much with her friend and crush, “Boy X”; the next morning, she doesn’t remember what happened, but she suspects that he raped […]
This debut compilation of 15 tales, often driven by unlikely premises, works hard to upend readers’ assumptions. “My Son, David,” for example, centers on a young boy’s unsettling plea to leave his bedroom window open—and allow access to monsters that only he can see: “They need to come back or they can’t go home.” Many […]
It’s 1985 in Southern California, where Samuel McCammon is the devout and fiercely observant only child in a volatile household rife with alcoholism, discord, and domestic abuse. In his strict religious school, his demonic visions have already made him notorious. As children begin disappearing from the neighborhood, Samuel’s visions grow darker and more disturbing, and […]
Founded by young revolutionaries in 1897 in what is now Vilnius, Lithuania, the Bund was “a sometimes-clandestine political party whose tenets were humane, socialist, secular, and defiantly Jewish,” as writer and artist Crabapple has it. Descended from Bundists and Puerto Rican radicals, Crabapple (née Caban) immediately connects the Bundist experience with modern leftist struggles: “The […]
Little Gnouf and Mirabelle—two “Gnoufs,” who look like pale-skinned children with snouts and animallike ears—are thrilled to be visiting the ocean for the first time. The pals are marveling at their surroundings when Mirabelle hears with her “magical ears” a far-off cry for help: It’s a baby whale trapped in a fishing net on the […]
No one notices Joe! Though his buddy Tiago—whose many talents include soccer prowess and a gift for language—is reassuring, Joe wants to start middle school “as a new person.” A YouTube video centered on an outdoor adventurer known as Wildman Mike convinces him to follow suit, and the report of a mysterious creature in nearby […]
In her debut, art historian and podcaster Blackwell Baines explores the haunted-house phenomenon through eight homes—five in England, three in the U.S.—tracing how a loosely defined building type became a remarkably stable cultural symbol, a space that “subvert[s] our expectations of the house (or ‘home’) as a place of safety and privacy.” Each dwelling anchors […]