The story charts the disappearance and death of 7-year-old Jacob Hawkins and the subsequent accusation of his 13-year-old brother, Dominic. Readers follow the case chronologically, beginning in the frantic early hours when sheriff Tommy Blumhagen mobilizes a community search. Later, dark revelations regarding the seemingly upright Hawkins household emerge. Attorney Mason Mitchell, reluctantly drawn into the case, serves as the narrative’s conscience as he uncovers layers of institutional failure, including teachers who ignored warning signs, clergy reluctant to intervene, and law enforcement officers who accepted too many convenient explanations. As Mason works to prevent Dominic from being tried as an adult, the story explores the corrosive effects of religiously-rationalized physical abuse and the community’s unwillingness to confront its own complicity in allowing it. Themes of shame, authority, and children bearing the sins of their parents culminate in a wrenching courtroom sequence that questions Dominic’s guilt and the moral responsibilities of every adult who failed him. As a novel of crime and legal proceedings, Allan’s yarn is straightforward, well-paced, and soberingly plausible. The author maintains tight control over the procedural elements and legal wrangling. The main characters’ emotional states are conveyed via crisp dialogue that also gives a sharp edge to the legal maneuvering without tipping into melodrama. Mason and the other characters, like legal assistant Lori Bedford, are drawn economically but effectively, their flaws and misjudgments lending the story moral depth. Details about the setting of off-season Door County, Wisconsin, the “Cape Cod of the Midwest”—its wintry rural landscapes, hardboiled, heavy-drinking culture, and small-town political dynamics—feel relevant and lived-in. The narrative occasionally leans on coincidence, but the book’s emotional force and procedural authenticity make it a compelling and thoughtful work of contemporary crime fiction.

Got no time for ashrams and gurus but still want to understand your true purpose on this planet? Maybe you’ve already consumed enough self-help material to fill your own library and want something more portable? Melson has you covered with this cogent and concise collection of workaday wisdom that puts practicality and utility squarely at the forefront and drops it all in the palm of your hand. The author sets a galloping pace from the outset, seamlessly moving between topics impacting our daily lives including self-identity, social interaction, and money. The result is a compelling mixture of the esoteric and the utilitarian; for every foray into the philosophical and theoretical, the author includes enough hard-and-fast to-do lists, affirmations, and writing exercises to make readers feel they haven’t lost their heads in the clouds. “The best way to positively feed your subconscious mind is through emotions of gratitude,” Melson writes. “Gratitude comes into anyone’s life who speaks positive words and who gives thanks.” The author gets granular as well, suggesting that readers use audiobooks as “fuel for [their] success” and restrict their spending to “no more than seventy percent of [their] annual net income.” Melson’s discussion of what he calls the “Wheel of Values” is a highlight of the book—it serves as a nifty survival guide all on its own. Consisting of 10 sections (Family, Appearance, Friends, Attitude, Finances, Career, Fellowship, Health, Direction, and Recreations), each part of the wheel is assigned a number value ascending up from the hub. The further out from the hub one progresses, the smoother the wheel—and life—will roll. Many readers may have difficulty relating to the billionaires (Sam Walton, Warren Buffet, and the like) that Melson holds up as aspirational figures, but those who stick with his text will surely find much here to appreciate and incorporate into their own inner journeys.

An unnamed protagonist dons a special khaki vest and borrows Grandma’s camera before heading out of a house to look for butterflies. They’re pursued by a much younger child, and the second-person narration recommends that “if trouble follows you, embrace it.” (Both characters are portrayed with pale skin.) As the older child continues to look for butterflies, the toddler pretends to be a mermaid, a pirate, and a shark. Each time, the protagonist keeps the younger one entertained: offering the shark Goldfish crackers, for example, and telling the pirate where to find secret treasure. The pair hide out in lilac bushes but only find snails and caterpillars, until finally “one butterfly, two butterflies, more butterflies flutter up, up, up into the sea-blue sky” as they look on. Mackey’s text is engaging yet sparse, offering tantalizingly few details about the kids, which effectively invites the reader to ask questions about their backstory: What are their names? Are they siblings? Where are the grown-ups? Couët’s watercolor-style illustrations drive the story, offering beautiful, sweeping landscapes of butterflies flying over a body of water and endearing close-ups of the children examining insects.

The author compares resilient people to willow or palm trees, simultaneously rooted and flexible, and grief as unexpressed love for something or someone lost. The book goes on to put grief into three categories: physical only (loss of objects), emotional only (loss of opportunities), and physical and emotional (death, divorce). The author reassures readers that “it’s okay to live with grief and to keep living.” Compassion, she says, bridges the gap between oneself and others, and it’s comprised of four components: perspective-taking, sympathy, empathy, and care. Energy is divided into two categories—kinetic (active) and potential (dormant); it affects one’s ability to put the best self forward and engage with the world, the author asserts. She encourages journaling, actively giving thanks, and practicing reflection to make feelings of gratitude more reflexive. The book also presents karma as a “Universal Law” of cause and effect; its patterns can be healed through prayer, mantras, and blessings, Faulkner says. The work concludes by contrasting “life by design” with “life by default” and encourages readers to live actively and deliberately. Overall, this is a thoughtful book that effectively invites readers to work toward greater self-awareness. The consistent chapter structure, with each involving “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How” sections, makes the material easy to follow. The language can be convoluted at times (“A person who desires to be resilient, and isn’t willing to do the work, will end up in a constant cycle of chasing resilience, which ultimately undermines any resilience they may have already had, making it the one way resilience can actually fade or fail”); at other moments, it’s oddly stilted (“Grief is most commonly expressed through tears”). That said, Faulkner does offer some empowering lines along the way, such as “Who you choose to become is up to you,” and readers navigating loss will find concepts like “The Grief-Life Ratio” relatable and reassuring.

Partners Josie and Derek are no strangers to the many manifestations of grief: Derek suffered a childhood weighed down by the death of the older brother he never got to meet, while Josie inherited from her grandmother the gift of spirit communication. Both are now struggling to keep their New Orleans-inspired restaurant, Miss Sylvie’s, afloat in the competitive Manhattan scene. Derek struggles with Josie’s insistence that a table in their restaurant be set aside for spirits he doesn’t even believe in; Josie bumps against Derek’s pessimism for their prospects of keeping Miss Sylvie’s afloat. At the encouragement of a therapist, they decide to hire a manager, and soon land on Stephanie. Derek is wary about her competence and character (“I’m not sure. Something felt off”), but Stephanie is enthusiastic and promises to bring the business to life with weekly happy hours and live music. This enthusiasm is misplaced, and Stephanie soon proves to be as much of a threat as rising rent prices. In the midst of all this, Josie meets with her absent father and is forced to accept that he will always prioritize Josie’s stepmother over her. When spirits convey the message that Derek’s mother is dying, the pair must reckon with their histories. Buchwald’s story is one of making peace with the past, embracing the complexities of grief, and fighting to move forward. It is refreshing to find a narrative featuring ghosts that doesn’t give into the tropes of horror, and that works to fully characterize each and every spirit who appears. There are points where the tone of the writing fails to match the more intense stakes of the story, and more could be done to make the protagonists active agents—the novel’s strengths are its most sentimental moments and the characters readers will come to root for.