BOOKLOVES

Why do all journalists in early 20th-century New York get to party with the Fitzgeralds? Morris Markey squired Zelda to the scandalous Midnight Frolic in Mariah Fredericks’ The Girl in the Green Dress (2025), and now Freddie Archer, author of the Touch of Rouge column in Gotham magazine, pours herself into a taxi and goes […]

This first entry in a new series opens with Violet encountering Miller one summer night—he’s taking a walk, and she looks out her bedroom window and spots him in the moonlight. Wealthy Violet, a self-described nerd, becomes a friend and safe haven for aspiring musician Miller, who’s living in a car with his mother. The […]

Aria Nguyen is barely staying afloat, balancing college classes in Washington, D.C., with caring for her ailing Aunt Thu and managing the mounting medical bills. As the anniversary of her mother’s disappearance approaches, Aria receives a voicemail from the Les Eaux Police Department with new information, turning her longing into anxiety. By contrast, Aria’s identical […]

Jean Detrez, the narrator of Belgian author Toussaint’s novel (in Polizzotti’s translation from French), has a lot on his mind. When the novel begins, it’s 2016—specifically, the time around the Brexit vote on June 23. Jean’s marriage to a woman named Diane is also coming to an end. A few months later, flipping through his […]

After Lizzie Wells loses her husband, the professor of British literature finds the structure she needs to begin living the rest of her life in Victorian mourning customs. She goes on a “widow shopping spree for black clothes.” She puts a lock of her husband’s hair in a locket and wears a pendant marked with […]