The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars Chanel Cleeton offers an interesting novelization of the lives of Evangelina Cisneros, Marina Perez (of her famed Perez family), and a fictional character, writer Grace Harrington, who is working for William Randolph Hearst. Set in Cuba during the precarious period just before the Spanish American War. Cisneros was the face of the Spanish oppression of Cuban separatists, made famous by Hearst coverage of her imprisonment after her purported resistance to a sexual assault by a powerful Spanish colonel. The Spani ..read more

The Force of Fire by Sayantani DasGupta My rating: 5 of 5 stars Another delightful entry into the Kingdom Beyond series, Force of Fire tells the backstory of our favorite rakkhosh Pinki, and Sesha, the Serpent King. Billed as The Pinki Adventures #1, this subseries set in Kiranmala's world provides a strong female character coming into her own. Pinki is utterly delightful! In many ways this novel was more enjoyable than the Kiranmala series. Pinki's acerbic humor is appealing even to adults and there is less tween/teen angst. The audiobook, narrated by Ulka Mohanty, is marvelous. Strongly ..read more

The Ship of Stolen Words by Fran Wilde My rating: 5 of 5 stars A wonderful book that offers children a chance to reflect upon the words they use and how they use them. From "I'm sorry" to "I love you" the power and magic of words properly used shines in this charming fantasy for middle graders. Sam and Tolver are two boys who struggle with doing the right thing, for different reasons. Their story will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced an apology that wasn't heartfelt, or who took shortcuts their parents told them not to take, only to have them end in big trouble. An excellent s ..read more

The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck My rating: 5 of 5 stars Following the life of the remarkable American spy Virginia Hall, Erika Robuck's novel "The Invisible Woman" gives readers a richly researched account of the only woman to win the Distinguished Service Cross during WWII, along with the French Croix de Guerre and the British OBE (Order of the British Empire). Hall worked for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), working to aid the French Resistance, helping downed airmen escape capture, providing cash and information to the Resistan ..read more

The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani My rating: 5 of 5 stars For longtime followers of Intisar Khanani's writing and social media, we've often heard about a novel with the protagonist of The Bone Thief, Rae. Here, at last, is her tale! Rae, or Amraeya, is a very smart young woman who is living life with a painful disability. She was born with a clubfoot and, though gently treated by family and loving friends, has long been bullied and scoffed about as a future spinster and has heard that shocking word to see on a page "cripple" used to describe her for far too long. Rae expects that her ..read more

Floodpath: A Novel by Emily B. Martin My rating: 5 of 5 stars When we left off in Sunshield, Veran Greenbrier had realized that Lark, the Sunshield Bandit, was actually Princess Moira, who had kidnapped from her family in Lumen Lake as a child, and Iano and Veran had successfully rescued a grievously injured Tamsin from her captors. But they are left with even more questions after these events. Who had Tamsin and Lark (for she refuses to be called Moira) kidnapped and why? Who is behind the undermining of Iano and Tamsin's efforts to stem the trafficking of children and young adult ..read more

Hush by Dylan Farrow My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dylan Farrow's debut novel is a YA fantasy that seems almost therapeutic in its exploration of the culture of silence in the face of uncomfortable truths, the bravery required to speak the truth, and the high price that can be paid for speaking that truth. A seventeen-year-old girl, Shae, has her world torn apart, first by a mysterious disease called The Blot, which is linked to reading and writing, which claims her beloved brother's life, and then by the stunning murder of her mother. When the story of her mother's death is steadily revised by t ..read more

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley My rating: 5 of 5 stars In a powerful and layered debut novel, Angeline Boulley has created a moving #ownvoices story about a young Native American woman whose life straddles two worlds- that of her everyday hometown in the Sugar Island/Sault Saint Marie area and the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Not currently enrolled among the Sugar Island Ojibwe because of a complicated family situation, Daunis Fontaine doesn't quite fit in with her father's Firekeeper family. The Fontaine family of her mother has been coping with a shocking recent loss. Daunis has r ..read more

Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo My rating: 5 of 5 stars Lauded poet Safia Elhillo has written a short novel in verse in which she contemplates identity, family, the disorienting sense of translocation that occurs when one is too foreign for suburban American and too American for one's country of origin. Nima is a teenager whose mother left an unnamed Arabic country with her after the death of Nima's father. But violence surrounds them in America after a boy in their community, Haitham is beaten by racist thugs. Nima contemplates what all this means, and envisions the girl she might ha ..read more

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles My rating: 5 of 5 stars In a moving novel of historical fiction, Janet Skeslien Charles's second novel, The Paris Library gives us two protagonists, Odile Souchet, a young woman who ignores her police officer father's advice and takes a job at the American Library in Paris shortly before WWII, and Lily, a teenage girl living in Froid, Montana in the 1980's, reeling from the death of her mother, and adjusting to her father's new wife, Ellie, and basically trying to grow up into a woman like her neighbor, Odile. Odile's story of when, how ..read more