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The Witch’s Daughter by Orenda Fink

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The Witch's Daughter by Orenda Fink
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Orenda Fink tells the story of her upbringing in various rural areas of middle and north Alabama. The second daughter of three, Fink and her sisters grew up in a family tormented by generational trauma, mental health issues, and addiction. This story describes how she was affected by, dealt with, and ultimately survived childhood to blossom into an acclaimed indie musician and songwriter. Filled with fascinating information on borderline personality disorder and anecdotes to satisfy any indie music fan, I would recommend The Witch’s Daughter to almost everyone I know. While I wouldn’t call it a happy story, it is an inspiring story of choosing your family, overcoming impossible situations, and protecting your peace.

The Witch’s Daughter by Orenda Fink, (List Price: $28.99, Gallery Books, 9781668047460, August 2024)

Reviewed by Tori, The Snail On the Wall in Huntsville, Alabama

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Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

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Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
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It’s been a long time since a book ending has made me cry, but Maas made me sob. The growth of Aelin and her court is phenomenal. Over the course of this series, I have seen Aelin grow from an injured, malnourished assassin to a strong, magical queen. The journey and backstories of these characters is mind blowing and will stick with me for a while after finishing the series.

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas, (List Price: $19, Bloomsbury, 9781639731039, February 2023)

Reviewed by Melissa Gray, The Blytheville Book Company in Blytheville, Arkansas

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Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

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Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
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It would be easy to use boxing similes or metaphors to describe how good this book is (as many a blurb has already done), but to me Headshot is a stunning cubist novel, weaving in and out of the minds of eight young women in a boxing tournament in Reno. In prose as taut as their muscles, we are shown almost simultaneously the fighters’ pasts, presents, and futures, via subtle commentary on social expectations, childhood, and how to hit the person in front of you. Rita Bullwinkel has written a book on boxing as vital as Bryce Courtney or Norman Mailer, because it’s not (just) about the boxing, but about who and what and how to be. Headshot‘s fractured viewpoint reflects and refracts the characters making the fights themselves almost incidental, leaving a short, sharp novel of brutal beauty.

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel, (List Price: $28, Viking, 9780593654101, March 2024)

Reviewed by Doron Klemer, Octavia Books in New Orleans, Louisiana

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Ground Zero by Alan Gratz

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Ground Zero by Alan Gratz
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Alan Gratz is the master at posing historical fiction in a compelling and propulsive way for middle-grade readers. I love the way he went back and forth between a boy fighting for his life in the tower and a girl fighting for her own life in the aftermath of 9/11 overseas. It was touching and eye-opening in a way that younger readers have not experienced the events of 9/11.

Ground Zero by Alan Gratz, (List Price: $17.99, Scholastic Press, 9781338245752, February 2021)

Reviewed by Olivia Schaffer, The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia

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The Phoenix Keeper by S. A. MacLean

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The Phoenix Keeper by S. A. MacLean
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I really enjoyed this book! I read Sorcery and Small Magics earlier in the month, and there was a recommendation for this book in the back. Well, Orbit, that worked because I read both! As a lover of conservation and zoology, this seemed right up my alley, and it was! Aila was a very well-written and believable portrait of anxiety, to an almost frustrating degree. But the growth she experienced throughout, being able to change her perceptions and grow in her career and community, was wonderful to see. I especially loved how her relationship development was paralleled by the relationship of the courting phoenixes in her care. The cast felt fleshed out and believable, I loved her friendship with Tanya which felt a lot like my own relationship with my best friend, whom I’ve known since college. Her crush on Connor and her rivalry with Luc were great starting points for growth over the course of the story. While I could see the twist coming and knew what the climactic confrontation would be, I did not mind it! MacLean dropped lots of little foreshadowing bits that I also didn’t see coming, and it all felt fresh and satisfying. The world’s pettiest gripe was that she was pulling so many late nights at work, but no one ever mentioned how the animals at her apartment were being cared for! Who was feeding her carbuncle and fern lizards and other critters? Overall though, I’d highly recommend this if you love animals and awkward women growing into their best selves.

The Phoenix Keeper by S. A. MacLean, (List Price: $19.99, Orbit, 9780316573092, August 2024)

Reviewed by Amanda White, Writers Block Bookstore in Winter Park, Florida

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Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield

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Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield
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Time and Time Again is the sweet, queer, YA romcom you didn’t know you needed! Phoebe has been experiencing the same day, over and over again for a month. She’s trying researching her way to a solution, but has had no luck so far. But one day, she rushed across the street faster than usual, and her ex-friend Jess runs into her with their car. She’s not hurt, but she soon finds out that now Jess is stuck in the time loop with her. Hopefully, together they can find a way out.

Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield, (List Price: $19.99, Bloomsbury YA, 9781547613908, July 2024)

Reviewed by Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías

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Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías
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I’m a sucker for a good dystopian novel, and Pink Slime is up there among the best (it’s also subtler and more nuanced than the title would suggest). In an unnamed South American city, an environmental catastrophe is unfolding: the streets are alternately blanketed by an all-encompassing fog and buffeted by a red wind, the result of a deadly algae bloom that has poisoned the air, while the population is slowly dying. Caught in the past – between her former husband and her mother, between her memories and ugly reality, between the fog and the wind – the novel’s unnamed narrator is unable to move forward. The result is elegiac, beautiful and haunting.

Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, (List Price: $24, Scribner, 9781668049778, July 2024)

Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi

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Unico: Awakening (Volume 1): An Original Manga by Osamu Tezuka

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Unico: Awakening (Volume 1): An Original Manga by Osamu Tezuka
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This was such an empowering story about friendship and redemption. It has strong Ghibli vibes with its “cozy granny,” talking cats that get up to mischief — throw in time travel and morally gray characters! You find yourself rooting for Unico from the get-go, can he figure out the mystery of who he is and help those around him?

Unico: Awakening (Volume 1): An Original Manga by Osamu Tezuka, (List Price: $12.99, Graphix, 9781339036335, August 2024)

Reviewed by Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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Hum by Helen Phillips

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Hum by Helen Phillips
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Hum is the kind of book that instantly changes your perception of your world. We are all acutely aware of the technology that surrounds us every day, the speed at which that technology is taking over, and the impact it’s having on our lives and our world. But Humputs the sort of magnifying glass onto it that really makes it feel uncanny. Like Orwell’s 1984. While doing all of that, though, Phillips manages to give us these vulnerable, complex characters that make us both root for humanity in a world of tech and pity them. You love them and feel exhausted by them. Because they are us. Hum is billed as speculative fiction… but is it really? Didn’t feel like it by the end.

Hum by Helen Phillips, (List Price: $27.99, Marysue Rucci Books, 9781668008836, August 2024)

Reviewed by Emily Lessig, The Violet Fox Bookshop in Virginia Beach, Virginia

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The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

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The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould
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“In a few strides she hit the tree line, and then she was in the dark. Everything was different here, like the trees had tugged her out of the world of open water and night skies and into an empty void.” Logan Ortiz-Woodley just graduated from high school, and all she wants is to find a place to call home. But first, she has to go with her dads to their hometown, Snakebite, Oregon, to do some location scouting for their ghost-hunting show ParaSpectors. But things are wrong in Snakebite, and they might be getting worse. Ashley Barton is one of the popular girls and her boyfriend Triston has gone missing. Time is running out, things are weird, and Ashley just wants things to go back to normal, so she enlists Logan’s help. The Dead and the Dark is a book that takes some time to pull you in, but once it does, there is no escape. Readers of both YA and Adult thrillers and horror will find something to love in Gould’s writing, which keeps readers on edge. Keep the lights on and start this book in the early morning because you won’t be able to stop but you won’t want to read after dark! Content warnings for absent parent, homophobia, assault, and harm to children.

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould, (List Price: $12.99, Wednesday Books, 9781250861092, September 2022)

Reviewed by Faith Parke-Dodge, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

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Vague Predictions & Prophecies by Daisuke Shen

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Vague Predictions & Prophecies by Daisuke Shen
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A dazzling, surreal debut short story collection, Vague Predictions & Prophecies reads like an indrawn breath. Each story is sprawling and languid, crumbling the barriers between the real and the imagined. An angel falls in love with a cosmic other and is banished from heaven. Long-distance partners shack up with cyborg copies of each other, then start to lose their memories. Teenage bullies find a field full of hypnotized women, tip them like cows, and are eaten alive. Shen’s writing is a narrative compulsion, drawing you ever deeper into worlds you didn’t know you wanted to inhabit. Hypnotic, disturbing, breathtaking. I’ve never read anything like it.

Vague Predictions & Prophecies by Daisuke Shen, (List Price: $18.95, CLASH Books, 9781960988133, August 2024)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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We Are Big Time by Hena Khan

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We Are Big Time by Hena Khan
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I love this new middle-grade graphic novel about a girls’ basketball team. The story could easily be that it is a team from an all-Muslim school, but there’s more to it than that. I love how the author has based this on a true story and helped guide the reader through the prejudice and media hype that would surround this story still. It’s nuanced and delicately handled, and I think will resonate with every reader.

We Are Big Time by Hena Khan, (List Price: $13.99, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 9780593430477, August 2024)

Reviewed by Jamie Southern, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings

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A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings
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A Well-Trained Wife is a horrifying portrait of a woman trapped in a marriage and religious system of abuse and misogyny. Perfect for fans of Educated and The Sound Of Gravel.

A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings, (List Price: $30, St. Martin’s Press, 9781250288288, August 2024)

Reviewed by Jessica Nock, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina

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Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida

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Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida
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A lithe novel of interlocking stories set over a series of very late nights in Tokyo. The characters either work through or leave their work in the AM part of the night; their stories overlap (or nearly overlap) via taxis, diners, and bars. Slice of life, relatively low stakes, and enjoyable.

Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida, (List Price: $18, Europa Editions, 9798889660279, July 2024)

Reviewed by Ginger Kautz, Quail Ridge Books in , North Carolina

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