Hachette Library – Starred Reviews

★ LET’S MOVE THE NEEDLE: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers

By: Shannon Downey

Library Journal – Starred Review

Downey (design and business, Columbia Coll.) is the artist behind Badass Cross Stitch and a longtime activist. When she returned to stitching during a period of personal burnout, she found that her creative work aligned with her community organizing and activism efforts. These interconnecting spheres led her to craftivism, a centuries-old merging of handmaking and activism that has spread widely through online creative communities. In this guide, she takes aspiring activists through a step-by-step approach to defining problems, building coalitions, setting goals, and developing messaging to motivate and engage. For example, she uses a sample community project involving a beach cleanup as a template. Throughout the book, she emphasizes her key message: craftivism isn’t a “quiet, humble” form of activism; it’s an impactful way to encourage social change. Crafters looking for specific projects won’t find them here, although there are numerous examples of Downey’s work throughout the book.

VERDICT This is a practical manual for aspiring activists, crafters or otherwise, who want to make a difference in the world around them. This stimulating, thoughtfully-organized guide to craftivism will appeal both to activist-minded creatives and noncrafters looking for practical steps to help turn their intentions into action.

Storey: October 1, 2024; ISBN: 9781635868906, Paperback

★ A LIFE IN THE GARDEN: Tales and Tips for Growing Food in Every Season

By: Barbara Damrosch

Booklist – Starred Review

This is a wonderfully informed how-to guide on nearly every aspect of backyard veggie growing, though it’s cleverly disguised as simply a leisurely stroll through the garden, the amiable Damrosch having honed her narrative skills as co-host of the Learning Channel’s Gardening Naturally for a decade and as author of the Cook’s Garden column for the Washington Post for 14 years. Much of her information can be found elsewhere, but her informality sets a perfect tone with the new or reluctant gardener. And she resists preaching—for example, instead of taking a stand on tilling versus not tilling, she relates that her friend Ruth, who, tired of waiting for the man with the tractor to till her soil one season, simply sowed her seeds “among the previous year’s debris,” where they thrived. Point made, gently. Readers can expect solid, specific growing tips on tomatoes, salad greens, heartier greens, peas and beans, “earth” vegetables, onions, garden fruits, and herbs, along with especially good info on extending the growing season.

Timber Press: October 1, 2024; ISBN: 9781643261812, Hardcover

★ BISMILLAH, LET’S EAT!: Fresh and Vibrant Recipes from my Family to Yours

By: Zehra Allibhai

Library Journal – Starred Review

Allibhai, a Canada-based fitness influencer known for her website the FitNest, makes her cookbook debut. She begins by providing a helpful list of tools and ingredients for stocking the pantry and having on hand for the book’s recipes. While the majority of them draw on the author’s Indian and Kenyan background, there are also plenty of fusion recipes that mix cuisine styles, such as grilled-cheese stuffed naan and butter-chicken pizza. There are also recipes that can be prepared with vegetarian variations. The book includes a great section at the end discussing Ramadan, what recipes might be most appropriate to help people through their fasting time, and how to break the fast. She also suggests celebratory recipes for Eid.

VERDICT Librarians looking to add variety to their cookbook collections and readers who want to experiment with fusion recipes will find this a useful addition.

Hachette Go: October 1, 2024; ISBN: 9780306831119, Hardcover

★ CHRISTMAS SWEATER WEATHER

By: Jacqueline Snowe

Library Journal – Starred Review

Driving through a blizzard to join her brother and his fiancée at a ski resort for their pre-wedding party, Charlotte ends up stuck in a snow drift on the side of the highway. Of course, it’s Hayden, her brother’s sexy best friend, who comes to her rescue. Charlotte has spent the last three years avoiding him after she confessed her feelings for him and he rejected her, claiming to only view her as a sister. While that was a lie, Hayden had his reasons for the rejection, and becoming a single dad only made him more determined to leave Charlotte alone. Now they’re stuck together for days at a Christmas wonderland resort and don’t want to ruin the trip for their family and friends, especially the stressed-out engaged couple. Attempting to reestablish their friendship, they find that they definitely still have feelings for each other, but the reappearance of his baby’s mother threatens their new relationship.

VERDICT Snowe (Snowed in for Christmas) writes another delightful holiday romance full of charming characters and steamy scenes.

Booklist – Starred Review

Charlotte Calhoun would do anything for her brother Christian. That includes hiding her hatred of skiing while spending a pre-wedding celebration with Christian and his fiancée Penny at a snowy resort in the mountains. Charlotte has even reluctantly resigned herself to the fact that one of the other guests that weekend will be Christian’s best friend, Hayden Porter. The same Hayden who romantically rejected a crush-stricken Charlotte three years ago. On one hand, spending more time with Hayden might provide Charlotte with the chance to rekindle the close friendship the two once enjoyed. On the other, staying in the friend zone might be a tad difficult, since Charlotte could swear Hayden has gotten even hotter than he was three years ago! Snowe (Snowed in for Christmas, 2023) deftly balances all of the Christmas cheer and festive fun she artfully layers into her latest fabulously fun contemporary romance with some tundra-melting love scenes and a welcome measure of delightfully snarky wit.

Forever: October 8, 2024; ISBN: 9781538739839, Paperback

★ BLK MKT Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and Curiosities That Tell Black Stories

By: Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart

Library Journal – Starred Review

Business and life partners Handy and Stewart, owners of BLK MKT Vintage, share their mission of curating and reclaiming Black history through physical objects. Frustrated by seeing racist objects labelled as “Black memorabilia” in antique shops, Handy and Stewart dreamed of creating their own store for Black cultural ephemera; they now have an online marketplace as well as a brick-and-mortar site in Brooklyn, NY. The couple’s book is not only a tribute to Black culture but a celebration of their 10-year-old company, their personal histories, and their relationship. The text is highlighted by 300 photographs of vintage objects, including books, magazines, playbills, vinyl records, advertising posters, clothing, pins, photographs, pennants, and yearbooks. The authors share cherished items from their private collection as well, including a rare first edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, a Faith Ringgold lithograph, the program from James Baldwin’s funeral, and a backgammon board that belonged to Handy’s father. The book is also an inside look at the resale industry and includes tips for building, preserving, and displaying collections.

VERDICT This one-of-a-kind monograph will inspire readers to cherish and curate their own collections.

Black Dog & Leventhal: October 15, 2024; ISBN: 9780762484034, Hardcover

★ WISH I WERE HERE

By: Melissa Wiesner

Library Journal – Starred Review

Catherine Lipton’s childhood was filled with uncertainty as her loving but flighty father bounced from job to job and apartment to apartment. She learned to love rules and order, keeping track of school schedules and rent due dates amid her father’s freewheeling chaos. Now she’s an adult, with a new job as a mathematics professor and a quiet apartment she loves, even if the building’s doorman, Luca, is prone to misplacing her dry cleaning and leaving the front desk unattended. On her university’s orientation day, Catherine is stunned to learn that all her meticulously filled out paperwork has been rejected, and her identity declared fraudulent. Faced with the prospect of joblessness and imminent homelessness, Catherine agrees to accept help from happy-go-lucky Luca and his sprawling Italian family. The more she’s forced to bend her rules, the more Catherine begins to wonder if her strictly regimented, calm, and quiet life is what she wants after all.

VERDICT In Wiesner’s (The Second Chance Year) latest, the combination of methodical workaholic Catherine and easygoing Luca makes for a compelling opposites-attract love story with a central message about finding meaning and happiness in life.

Forever: October 15, 2024; ISBN: 9781538741948, Paperback

★THE WAITING: A Ballard and Bosch Novel

By: Michael Connelly

Library Journal – Starred Review

Renée Ballard, who runs the Open-Unsolved Unit for the Los Angeles Police Department, has her badge, gun, and ID stolen from her vehicle while surfing. Her attempts to get them back open a massive can of worms in Connelly’s new Ballard & Bosch title (following Desert Star). Other cases that keep Ballard and her team busy include a serial rape case that has a familial link to another suspect and a legendary case that, if solved, would rewrite the history books. To help her sort through all of the bureaucracy and get the facts is Harry Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, who volunteers her time while not on patrol. Solving these cases will step on higher-ups’ toes, and if she can keep her job and her team intact, it will have lasting ramifications.

VERDICT Connelly’s name on the cover guarantees a great read; his latest is no exception. The story follows the cases methodically and realistically, and the characters continue to grow. With a TV series on Amazon Prime coming soon starring Maggie Q as Renée Ballard, this novel will generate more interest than usual.

Little Brown: October 15, 2024; ISBN 9780316563796, Hardcover

★ LIKE CATS & DOGS

By: Lizzie Shane

Booklist – Starred Review

For 10 years, Mackenzie “Mac” Newton has been the bane of Magda Miller’s existence. If Mac’s obnoxious tabby named Cat isn’t muscling his way into Magda’s apartment and upsetting her beloved pit bull, Cupcake, then Mac is exploiting, for his own business advantage, his illicit
appropriation of her grandmother’s recipe for maple cake. So when Magda gets the chance to get out of Pine Hollow, Vermont, and away from Mac by becoming a contestant on her favorite show of all time, The Great American Cake-Off, she can’t say yes fast enough. There is just one little thing the show’s producers failed to share with Magda; this show is a very special “Arch Rivals” episode, and Mac just happens to be her rival baker! In the latest impeccably crafted addition to her puppy-filled Pine Hollow series, following Four Weddings and a Puppy (2024), Shane deftly sifts all the delicious whimsy and charm of The Great British Baking Show into a
scrumptiously sweet romance that is enhanced with two duelling pets and just the right dash of zesty humor.

Library Journal – Starred Review

Mac, the owner of a coffee shop that also serves food, and Magda, the owner of a rival French-style pâtisserie, have been feuding for over a decade. The feud is legendary in their small town of Pine Hollow, and it’s what lands both of them on a reality show spinoff called The Great American Cake-Off: Archrivals Edition. But Magda has no idea of the spinoff’ concept change or that Mac will be there as her archrival. Mac’s presence throws her off, and it shows in her baking. Mac hates being there as Magda’s rival, and he’s sick of their feud. As the filming progresses, contestants begin to band together against their rivals, and Magda and Mac realize that they bake best together—at least when they’re not fighting. Their temporary truce could even turn into true love. This “Pine Hollow” series finale, after Four Weddings and a Puppy, adds realism to the romance. The arguments between Mac and Magda are truly spectacular, with witty comebacks and misunderstandings. The baking show is likewise believable, showing not only the on-screen edit but the drama, stress, and panic behind the scenes.

VERDICT While this novel can stand alone, first-time readers will want the entire series. Highly recommended.—Heather Miller Cover

Forever: November 12, 2024; ISBN: 9781538710371, Paperback

★ THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS (The Echo Archives, Book 1)

By: Melissa Caruso

Library Journal – Starred Review

On leave from the Guild of Hounds, Kembral Thorne is determined to enjoy her time away from her newborn while at Dona Marjorie Swift’s year-turning party. But when party guests start dying around her, Kem is drawn back into her work, determined to discover the killer. Her nemesis, Rika Nonesuch, is also searching for answers, and the two try to set aside their differences to uncover what’s going on. With every chime of the clock, they fall into an Echo, a layer of reality that gets more and more twisted each time they descend; a person could be lost here forever. She knows that no one has ever survived going too deep, but that may be the least of their problems when powerful figures play bloody games. It’s even worse when time resets to the start of the party, and no one remembers what has happened, except Kem.

VERDICT Clever, empathetic characters, an unusual world, and a rapidly paced story that keeps readers guessing will delight fans of Caruso’s (The Ivory Tomb) and create new ones.

Orbit: November 19, 2024; ISBN: 9780316303477, Paperback

★No Ordinary Duchess

By Elizabeth Hoyt

Booklist – Starred Review

Upon discovering Elspeth de Moray riffling through the books in his uncle’s library, Julian Greycourt’s first thought is to get her out of there as soon as possible. Elspeth may not be aware of just how dangerous the duke of Windemere is, but Julian has first-hand experience of how far the coldly, calculating duke will go to get what he wants. Not only does Julian hold his uncle Augustus responsible for his mother’s death, Julian currently spends every waking moment countering the lethal threat Augustus poses to the rest of Julian’s family. So, the last thing Julian needs in his already overstressed life is an opinionated, stubbornly smart lady with a penchant for inserting herself into dangerous situations. From Hoyt’s delightfully book-obsessed heroine to her deliciously brooding, tightly controlled hero with a secret, every character, including Plum the dog, is portrayed with a nuanced thoughtfulness that is rare and wonderful. Infused with a deliciously sharp sense of humor, Hoyt’s latest dazzling addition to her resplendently romantic and superbly sensual Greycourt series, following Not the Duke’s Darling (2018) and When a Rogue Meets His Match (2020), is well worth the wait.

Forever: December 10, 2024; ISBN: 9781538763582, Paperback

★UNROMANCE

By: Erin Connor

Library Journal – Starred Review

Chryssy Hua Williams is a traditional Chinese herbalist specializing in healing heartbreak. Together with her aunts, she runs an inn and healing center for the brokenhearted, which is ironic, since the Hua women are cursed to never find true love. Cellist Vin Chao, one half of the Chao Brothers musical group, is known as a heartbreaker—none of his relationships have lasted longer than a month or two. When Chryssy and Vin have a conversation at a child’s birthday party, social media blows it out of proportion. Vin’s publicist wants him to run with it, as the publicity is helping sell concert tickets. So Vin makes a deal with Chryssy; if she will fake-date and then break up with him, he’ll help promote her family’s business. It seems like a perfect deal, but as they get to know each other, warning bells start to ring—this fake relationship could get very real if they don’t watch out. The protagonists are well-developed, and secondary characters provide levity as they push Chryssy and Vin together at every opportunity.

VERDICT With fluid writing and an unputdownable story, Jessen’s (Red String Theory) witty rom-com leans hard into the fake-dating trope with great success.

Forever: January 14, 2025; ISBN: 9781538759424, Paperback

★ BEEN WRONG SO LONG IT FEELS LIKE RIGHT

By: Walter Mosley

Library Journal – Starred Review

Ten years ago, as related in Down the River Unto the Sea, Joe King Oliver, a Black private eye, was framed for assault and sent to Riker’s. The three months he spent inside changed how he saw the world: he’s not so quick to play by the rules anymore. In his third outing (after Every Man a King),he juggles two explosive assignments. A billionaire hires him to find the wife who ran out on him, taking their seven-year-old daughter. He wants his daughter back, but Joe soon realizes he also wants revenge. If Joe turns him down, though, he’s signed his own death warrant. Then Joe’s 93-year-old grandmother asks him to find his father, Odin, who was imprisoned for homicide when Joe was young. Joe wants nothing to do with Odin, whom he blames for his family’s disintegration, but he can’t say no to his grandmother, who wants to see her son before she dies. So Joe ends up looking for a father he hates while saving a mother and child from a violent, sociopathic man.

VERDICT A gritty crime novel with a pace that never lets up; Mosley’s best work since the incomparable Easy Rawlins series.

Mulholland Books: January 28, 2025; ISBN 9780316573269, Hardcover

★YIN YANG LOVE SONG

By: Lauren Kung Jessen

Library Journal – Starred Review

Chryssy Hua Williams is a traditional Chinese herbalist specializing in healing heartbreak. Together with her aunts, she runs an inn and healing center for the brokenhearted, which is ironic, since the Hua women are cursed to never find true love. Cellist Vin Chao, one half of the Chao Brothers musical group, is known as a heartbreaker—none of his relationships have lasted longer than a month or two. When Chryssy and Vin have a conversation at a child’s birthday party, social media blows it out of proportion. Vin’s publicist wants him to run with it, as the publicity is helping sell concert tickets. So Vin makes a deal with Chryssy; if she will fake-date and then break up with him, he’ll help promote her family’s business. It seems like a perfect deal, but as they get to know each other, warning bells start to ring—this fake relationship could get very real if they don’t watch out. The protagonists are well-developed, and secondary characters provide levity as they push Chryssy and Vin together at every opportunity.

VERDICT With fluid writing and an unputdownable story, Jessen’s (Red String Theory) witty rom-com leans hard into the fake-dating trope with great success.

Forever: January 28, 2025; ISBN: 9781538741634, Paperback

★A SEASON OF LIGHT

By: Julie Iromuanya

Kirkus-Starred Review

A Nigerian family living in Florida bears deep, abiding, and distressing scars from a long-ago but devastating civil war in their native land. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by Islamic terrorists unhinges an already tightly wound Florida attorney named Fidelis Ewerike, a Nigerian émigré and father of two who, upon hearing of the kidnapping, decides to place his 16-year-old daughter, Amara, in her bedroom under lock and key. The mass kidnapping reawakens in Fidelis the traumas he sustained as a soldier and prisoner of war in the late-1960s Biafran War, during which his younger sister, Ugochi, went missing. Amara’s uncanny resemblance to Ugochi magnifies Fidelis’ mad zeal to protect her from faraway peril. (“He believed that if his sister…could be stolen, could disappear into thin air, then the same fate could befall his daughter. Never mind that this was America, not Nigeria.”) This bizarre, inexplicable act pitches each of the other Ewerike family members into their own traumas, starting with the infuriated, bewildered Amara, who gets no explanation from her father for her imprisonment, only lots of sweets and his own elaborately cooked, dubiously fashioned meals. “Pickles don’t belong in Mac and cheese,” she dolefully informs her mother, Adaobi, whose futile efforts to release Amara from captivity leave her desperately pursuing solace, even possible solutions, through her deep religious faith. Meanwhile, Amara’s 14-year-old brother, Chuk, is compelled by the tumult at home to stand alone in the face of physical and verbal abuse from other boys in the neighborhood. When a gang jumps him, Chuk is rescued by Maksym Kostyk, the 17-year-old son of an alcoholic local handyman (another emotionally damaged émigré), who offers to give him boxing lessons. Maksym meets Amara, and they find in each other’s solitude the foundations of a romance—and a mutual resolve to run away from their respective family crises. The interweaving nightmares and yearnings of these characters are evoked with empathy, tenderness, and intensely lyrical prose by Iromuanya, whose tale of abiding sorrow and its long-term consequences serves as a reminder that, as one of her characters observes, battles might end, but wars never do.

An affecting, observant rendering of the immigrant experience in contemporary America.

Algonquin Books: February 4, 2025; ISBN: 9781643755519, Hardcover

★Nesting

By: Roisín O’Donnell

Kirkus-Starred Review

In Dublin, a pregnant woman with two little girls flees a controlling, critical husband. O’Donnell’s striking debut opens with what looks from a distance like a happy family at the seashore. Close up, the water is too cold, the wind is too strong, and as tiny as they are, the girls have outgrown their wetsuits and their father is screaming at their mother, demanding to know what she’d done with the money he gave her to buy new ones. By the end of the first chapter, we want to get away from Ryan as badly as Ciara does, even if he’s handsome, loyal, a good provider, and hasn’t actually hit her…yet. That wetsuit money has been tucked away in a diaper bag in preparation for something Ciara hasn’t quite admitted to herself she’s going to do. And then, at last, it’s time. O’Donnell’s novel follows Ciara, Ella, and Sophie as they negotiate the harsh realities of sudden homelessness, father’s rights, and the Irish housing crisis. Ciara’s mother and sister live in England, she’s lost her pre-marriage friends, and she can pay for no more than one night’s accommodation with that roll of bills. With Ryan constantly hounding her by text, she eventually finds her way into emergency accommodations in a hotel with a dedicated floor for unhoused women and families. Here, she will make a friend and begin to figure out next steps—which are that much more complicated when a pregnancy test reveals the reason for her recent nausea and exhaustion. The mounting tension and suspense as Ciara struggles to stay free and safe make the pages fly. O’Donnell gives us a great character to root for and a portrait of her situation that is both terrifying and ultimately inspiring. An afterword confirms the impression that it’s based on research into real women’s experiences. A propulsive, nuanced, achingly real novel that will appeal to both Colleen Hoover fans and devotees of Irish fiction.

Algonquin Books: February 18, 2025; ISBN: 9781643755700, Hardcover