It’s 1990. Sixteen-year-old Morgan’s mom left when she was 10, but Morgan tries not to think about that; she has a decent life with her white commercial fisherman father. But Morgan finds it tough being Native in a largely white school. When she drops out, her friend Skye, who was expelled, convinces her to join her at Kaien Island Alternate School. Morgan’s academic achievement took a nosedive after her mom’s departure, and thanks to Skye’s influence, she gets pulled into shoplifting and partying. But as Morgan gets to know “cute Native guy” Nate, her priorities change. The more she learns about her family’s history with residential schools, the more she realizes how this legacy affects her. Spencer, who’s from the Gitxaala Nation, writes with sincerity about a “fictionalized Indigenous community,” examining how intergenerational trauma from residential schools affected families. The short, easily digestible chapters sustain an effective pace, and Morgan is a realistically drawn teen with conflicting emotions, desires, and needs. Over the course of two years, she grows and changes. The early ’90s setting allows the author to examine politics and pop culture from the perspective of a young adult finding herself at a time when residential schools were still in existence.

Stephanie Zamekova, the queer daughter of immigrants from the Czech Republic, has no recollection of what caused the fire that took the life of her best friend, Matt; tore apart her friend group; and left her with a traumatic brain injury. Now, ominously, the survivors receive invitations to return to BREAKOUT to participate in “an escape room in honor of Matteo Luca Cesari.…Because secrets won’t keep themselves.” Someone wants their secrets to come out at any cost—and Steffi’s determined to get the answers she needs to solve the mystery of Matt’s death (and her potential role), but her former friends seem just as determined to keep what transpired under wraps. Wlosok steadily builds the tension, leaving carefully crafted clues showing the complexity of the escape room puzzles and weaving in elements of misdirection as the clock ticks down and Steffi and her friends must figure out if there’s a traitor among them. The author doles out revelations from the past through newspaper articles, social media chats, courtroom transcripts, and online gossip column posts—and all the while, readers will wonder whether they can trust Steffi if she doesn’t even trust herself. There’s diversity in race and sexual orientation among the friend group.

“The shoes were packed. ‘Daddy loves you,’” Josie’s father tells her, “glancing around—had he left anything?” Martin Brier is halfway out the door, first wife cast aside for the younger model destined to become his second. Shorr’s latest novel is a mid-20th-century, Midwestern, nearly father-free coming-of-age story that follows Josie, her two brothers, and their mother as they try to build a life for themselves in Martin’s cavernous absence. Shorr favors a close third-person point of view which hovers, hummingbird-style, outside her characters’ windows. It’s an effective strategy, especially in Shorr’s fluidly engaging prose style, which allows readers to access the thoughts of even the most difficult characters—Martin included. He shows us in the passage above, for instance, that he can’t focus on his daughter long enough to tell her he loves her without simultaneously wondering if he’s adequately packed his belongings. His selfishness is astounding. So is the psychological astuteness with which Shorr has loaded the sentence—and the rest of the book—which is, in the end, the portrait of a girl and her wider family as they adjust to a world whose parameters they have not set themselves. Shorr picks up the narrative in the mid-’50s and sets it down half a century later, when Cleveland has changed irrevocably and Josie’s family has scattered. If the book putters out in the last two or three chapters, that seems a small price to pay. The larger missed opportunity is that Lora, Josie’s mother, doesn’t seem fully rendered. As a momentarily penniless single mother of three, she has to act decisively—and does. Still, Shorr has cast her sights elsewhere, and the result is a remarkable success.

Tennis isn’t the only thing weighing on Leo: He’s gay and not out to anyone. He doesn’t always agree with his father, legendary tennis player Johnny Chambers, who retired to coach Leo after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis cut his own career short. After Johnny suffers a stroke that keeps him from traveling as much as usual, Leo switches up his game, and the success he finds in his father’s absence drives a silent gap between them. When Gabe comes out, becoming the first openly gay male tennis pro on tour, his coach quits and he attracts the homophobic attention of Sascha Volkov, a Russian player who consistently ranks No. 1. Gabe and Leo are eventually able to bury the hatchet long enough to start practicing together, only to find that their chemistry doesn’t stop at the tennis court. Even after realizing they play for the same team, their secret romance is not without barriers. The things that divide Leo and Gabe become the things that bring them together: Sascha, the media, and their own fear. This is a well-written (very) slow burn that focuses much more on sports than on romance, though the gradual thaw from enemies to lovers is highly satisfying. While the spice is relatively mild, fans of gay sports romances will appreciate the snappy dialogue, compelling characters, and high-stakes pacing.

In 1930, the Rosenthals were a bustling, happy family. Friedel and Gina were two of six children, their father a successful small businessman who managed three corner shops throughout Dusseldorf. Antisemitism was on the rise, however, and Hitler eventually came to power. The Rosenthals were systematically stripped of their businesses, property, possessions, and humanity. The 13-year-old twins, like other Jewish students, were forced to leave school. The story follows the girls as they experienced the agony of being torn from their family members, forced into degrading conditions in the Czestochowa ghetto, and ultimately hauled off to concentration camps. Dronfield explains the historical facts simply and directly, presenting painful truths and not minimizing the horrors of Nazi Germany. His well-drawn portrayal of Friedel and Gina is compelling; he shows them to be creative, brave, tenacious, and somehow, despite it all, hopeful. Readers will be engrossed by each turn of their tale, each new atrocity they somehow survive, and will cling desperately to the hope that the sisters get a chance at the beautiful lives they should have had all along. This is a historical page-turner with two remarkable, inspiring women at its center that deserves a place on library and classroom shelves.