Rosemary and her two younger brothers have been scattered across England for the past three years while their parents have sought stable employment. Rosemary has lived in London with critical Aunt Katie and Uncle John, who have little good to say about Rosemary’s American father. Given the imminent threat of Germany’s Luftwaffe bombing campaign, Dad, who’s a veteran of the Great War, decides to reunite the family. They’ll sail for America to stay with his estranged mother in Wisconsin. Grandmother Charlotte, whose mother was “a full-blooded Ojibwe woman” and father was from Scotland, introduces the children to Anishinaabemowin vocabulary and Ojibwe ways. Her grandmother proposes a private bargain to Rosemary: If she helps with her garden so she can win at the county fair, she’ll lease Dad some land to build a home where the family can remain together, as Rosemary has long dreamed. The well-drawn rustic Wisconsin wilderness setting is enriched by the introduction of Anishinaabemowin terms for local flora, supplemented by a glossary. Johnson’s novel sensitively unpacks the generational trauma of injustices and discrimination against Native peoples both in the U.S. and abroad. Rosemary and her father’s side of the family are, like the author, of Indigenous and European descent.

Imagine a red-inked, angry declaration “sloppy” on a piece of grade-school homework, and then stretch that into an early life of blundering around: “It’s described me too many times, and in too many contexts, for me to remember who-all said it and why,” writes King, whether charged with being a sloppy drunk or having been raised to sloppy standards with no expectations of success or happiness. “My family is drunks the way other families are Teamsters or actors,” she writes, but she took that propensity well beyond alcohol to whatever drugs happened to cross her path. A stint in college ended in King’s working in a strip club (whence her nom de plume), although, she allows, “in reality, I was less a stripper than a daringly dressed cocktail salesman.” King’s memoir recounts a succession of hard knocks, from an abusive first husband to a brush with suicide (“an unfortunate but plausible method of avoiding enemy capture”). King, who has a few surprises to reveal along the way (a love of playing banjo, for one), is nothing if not self-aware; she allows that drugs and drink were an ultimately successful way of evading the patches of boredom that she now accepts, and she has smart things to say about her evolving feminist consciousness, with a confessed resentment for the fact that “so much of my teenage life was done to me by men.” It’s not as if she’s wholly adjusted to ordinary social expectations (“I remain an implacable shoplifter, and I still throw temper tantrums that would better befit a six-­year-­old”), but it seems as if she’s on the path.

Wambugu’s debut novel opens with Ruth, a successful painter, grappling with the absence of her friend: “When I met Maria, I learned that without an obsession life was impossible to live.” The rest of the novel moves back in time to unravel the roots of that obsession. Their story opens in their poor Pawtucket, Rhode Island, neighborhood when Ruth—the quiet, sheltered daughter of emotionally distant Kenyan immigrants—meets Maria, a gifted Panamanian orphan staying with her mentally ill aunt. Nearly a decade later, the girls graduate from their Catholic high school and attend Bard College, a small liberal arts school in New York’s Hudson Valley, to study art: painting and film, respectively. As Maria carves out a space within the overwhelmingly rich and white social circles, Ruth finds herself on the outskirts of her friendship with Maria—and even her own life. When Ruth, Maria, and Sheila, Maria’s wealthy girlfriend, move to New York City after graduation, a gulf begins to open between the friends. While Ruth struggles to make her art and a living, Maria continues to find professional and social success. Their hard-to-define relationship faces the ultimate test when they have to decide what, if anything, they are willing to give up for each other. The novel shows all the ways that their friendship—warm and cold, tender and terrible—exists in the area between extremes. Maria takes up an outsized space in Ruth’s life, and Ruth allows herself to be at the whims of Maria’s wants or needs. Despite hurting each other, they are bonded in a way that only long-term female friends seem capable of—and this novel distills this dynamic with devastating precision. Writing beautifully about ambition, class, art, domesticity, identity, and complacency, Wambugu’s prose is as striking as it is sure.

This dual-perspective psychological thriller​​ invites readers into the fraught lives of two girls who are caught in a spiral of secrets​, guilt​, and betrayal​. Told in the voices of Syl Jameson, a 17-year-old​ who dies in a suspicious car crash​, and Viola Harrison, also 17, her estranged former best friend​ and prime suspect​, the book deftly balances the paranormal with gritty emotional realism​. Syl’s ghostly narration​ pulses with quiet intensity as she pieces together what happened and why​, while Viola’s voice exposes the complex impact of friendships, privilege​, and trauma​ that defined their relationship. The small-town American setting of Lovell (ironically nicknamed Love Hill) feels like a character in its own right​. The heavily Christian community, established in the late 1600s “by white supremacists,” pushes queer residents into hiding. This work by Belgian author Paul, who wrote it in English, features sharp​, emotionally resonant​, and deeply atmospheric prose. The structure of the book, which lets readers choose whose version to read first, cleverly emphasizes the subjectivity of truth​ but can at times lead to repetitiveness. Even though some revelations lack depth, the narrative maintains a steady pace and will linger long after readers turn the last page. All characters read white.

Anne Lee gave up her one true love in college, persuaded by her aunt that he was too young and directionless for her. Splitting up with Frederick Nam broke her heart, but Anne convinced herself it was the right choice for her, saddled as she was with family responsibilities. Ten years have passed and Anne is back from her decade in Korea as a successful K-drama actress. While her father and older sister are as cold and self-centered as ever, Anne is now determined to live on her own terms. Then she meets Frederick again in her cousin Bethany’s second grade class, where he’s telling the kids about being a firefighter. The encounter shocks them both but is followed by repeated meetings due to mutual friends. These social brushes, during which they are nothing but polite to each other, are interspersed with internal monologues in which they relive old griefs and regrets. Readers familiar with Jane Austen’s Persuasion will know how the plot unfolds, with both characters pining and hoping for a different outcome to their romance. Lee centers her rewrite of the classic novel on a Korean family in Los Angeles, recasting Captain Wentworth as an ex-finance guy and fire department captain and Anne Elliott as a dutiful Korean daughter who is learning to trust her instincts. The novel sticks closely to the beats of its inspiration, but the lack of communication between Anne and Frederick becomes tiresome without the original’s powerful prose, especially after an abrupt sex scene. The device of including some of Frederick’s old email love letters plus the dual point of view belabors the fact that they love each other but do not trust that they are loved in return.