A BOMB PLACED CLOSE TO THE HEART

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Indranath Mukherjee, a Bengali revolutionary, has come to California in 1917 awaiting an arms cache from the German government. While in Palo Alto, he meets graduate student Cora Trent at a party and the two are soon inseparable, united as much by their chemistry as their devotion to revolutionary causes, despite the disapproval of friends both South Asian and American. The real-life biographies of M.N. Roy—known as the founder of communist parties in Mexico and India—and Evelyn Trent inform the adventures of Indra and Cora, who interact with remarkable fictional figures including a university president, an Irish mystic, an expatriate Bengali leader, and the editor of a leftist newspaper. Each of these introduces some facet of the era’s political and social concerns, from eugenics to birth control, communism to nationalism. The author, a historian, has clearly done the research; unfortunately, so much research that it overtakes the throughlines of an authentic love story, and of Cora’s chafing at the bonds of wifehood and the way they affect her identity. Scenes proceed too quickly from those with overarching political import (discussions about the Zimmermann telegram) to others focused on emotional heft (concocting a home-cooked dessert for an elder). Interspersed with the action are interior meditations from the couple, many of which contain beauty and wisdom, such as Indra’s realization that after the initial pleasure of passion, what had grown between them was “an invitation into frailty and mutual aid.” Unfortunately, many of those sections suffer from overwrought prose: “To be his wife or to be herself, that was the choice, but all love is drunkenness, and like the drunk unable to walk a straight line, there arose in her some uncontrollable bodily urge to go between both, to stumble between fidelity and solitude.”

WENDY’S EVER AFTER

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At almost 18, Wendy is expected to marry soon—in fact, her mother has been obsessed with the notion ever since the recent death of Wendy’s father. But Wendy detests all her suitors and daydreams about the fun she had with Peter Pan. Still, she agrees to attend a ball, and there she meets Liam Blackwell, an intriguing Navy lieutenant who ignites a sense of adventure in her. Not only is he charming, he’s lost his mother and can understand Wendy’s grief. When he leaves the ball, Wendy quietly follows him through the streets of London. Soon she finds herself back in Neverland, eavesdropping on Liam and his uncle—Captain Hook. Not only is Liam the pirate king’s heir apparent, his mission is to kill Peter Pan. Horrified, Wendy vows to find Peter first and stop Liam from carrying out this plan. But she realizes there’s something terribly wrong with the island as well: The normally verdant forests are dying. Wendy will have to save both Peter and Neverland, all while fighting her attraction to the suitor who’s turned out to be an enemy. Peter comes across as truly eerie, and Liam and Wendy’s romance deftly walks the line between fantasy and reality, making for a gratifying return to a Neverland remade through the lens of young adulthood. Main characters present white.

ETIQUETTE FOR LOVERS AND KILLERS

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Small town girl Billie McCadie has big dreams. A cultural linguist and Jane Austen fan with fantasies of working in a museum, marrying a “dreamy archeologist,” and living a life of “nerdy splendor,” Billie works as a seamstress in her hometown of Eastport, Maine. Everything changes the day she receives an envelope in her post office box with no name on it. Inside is a diamond engagement ring along with a passionate love letter addressed to someone named Gertrude, a woman she later learns is a high-society habitué. With sparkle, verve, and a fine eye for the details of the mid-1960s, author Healy follows Billie through darkening twists of fate that begin after she meets a man named Avery Webster. Scion of an old money Eastport family, Avery offers Billie glimpses into a glittering world of garden parties, yachts, and secrets that culminate in the brutal stabbing death of Gertrude Taylor. Unable to resist Avery or the mystery surrounding Gertrude and her murder, Billie begins her own private investigation. What she learns along the way—not just about the skeletons littering the closets of Eastport’s wealthiest citizens but also about her own less-than-decorous desires—transforms Billie’s humdrum, nowhere-going-fast life into one that is anything but ordinary. Replete with Emily Post–style epigraphs about etiquette, this hybrid mystery/romance hearkens back to Austen’s novels of refined drawing room intrigue while revealing, beneath smiles and witty banter, the underside of human nature.

THE BEAST IN THE CLOUDS

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Holt, a journalist who has written several books about overlooked women in history, here turns her attention to an odd gap in the world of natural history—namely, the lack of any formal record of the giant panda, “whose whereabouts, habitat, and behavior were still unknown” other than by anecdote outside China. Indeed, when Kermit and Ted Roosevelt traveled to China in quest of the panda in the late 1920s, it was widely assumed that it was a kind of polar bear, so that “researchers expected the animal to be extraordinarily fierce…and likely one of the most aggressive animals in the world.” As the brothers, working under the aegis of the American Museum of Natural History, venture into country that no non-Chinese visitor has ever seen, they face howling winter storms in 16,000-foot-tall mountains, endure starvation, and lose half of their pack mules and supplies. Such might be the dangers of travel in the wilderness under the best of circumstances, but, Holt clearly establishes, the brothers both lacked the intrepidity of their famed father and sometimes took unnecessary risks. The story becomes grim when members of the expedition kill a rare golden monkey, leaving its baby an orphan that does not live out the night: “They skinned the tiny creature for the museum,” Holt writes, “but its death hung heavily round their heads.” After they finally catch up with a giant panda, their bad luck becomes worse still: The expedition ends in serious illness; both brothers survive but become estranged from one another, with Kermit descending into alcoholism, and both nursing the knowledge that the blustery adventures they report to the public on their homecoming are only part of the story.

BEHIND FRENEMY LINES

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Looking for a new start after her long-term boyfriend moved to California and she was passed up for several promotions, Kriya Rajasekar accepts her boss Arthur’s invitation to follow him to a new firm, Swithin Watkins. Her optimism about the new job is short-lived, though, as she soon discovers that she’s sharing an office with none other than Charles Goh, a fellow lawyer she views as her personal bad luck charm. Whenever things go wrong for Kriya, Charles always seems to be present. Not wanting to make waves at the new firm on her first day, she makes do with the working arrangements, though she and Charles are like oil and water. Charles is very much a by-the-book type, adorably awkward and stuffy. Kriya exudes much more confidence and she quickly makes an impression on her colleagues, jeopardizing Charles’ potential rise to partner. As Kriya settles in, it becomes clear that Arthur’s suggestion that she join him at Swithin Watkins was motivated by more than just professional courtesy. Asking Charles to pretend to be her boyfriend seems like the ideal temporary solution. Charles doesn’t mind; he’s been harboring a crush on Kriya for years. When they start spending more time together, they connect over their Asian cultures—Kriya is Indian and Charles is Chinese, and both have familial and formative ties to Malaysia. They both have experiences being othered in their profession, while also navigating complex family dynamics where they don’t feel fully seen or heard. This is a sweet, delightful romance that never feels saccharine due to deep issues the lovers deal with including workplace harassment and family debt. Kriya and Charles feel evenly matched and truly perfect for one another.