As Sampson reflects in a pardonable understatement, “Bad things have happened to the Cross family before.” So what’s left to suffer now that Sampson has rescued Cross from a near-fatal bullet wound? Glad you asked. When his son Damon’s academic advisor phones from Chapel Hill to report that nobody’s seen Damon for three days, Cross instantly arranges to fly to North Carolina with his wife, investigator Bree Stone. But she’s called back to Washington almost immediately to work on a series of bombings that’s already prevented Sampson from joining Cross in the search for his son. Both investigations are thoroughly routine—that is, spiked with menace and violence and cast with characters you wouldn’t look at twice in a police lineup—but Patterson’s fondness for bite-sized chapters suits the structure of Cross’ latest adventure to a T, since there’s an opportunity for a cliffhanger of greater or lesser proportions every five pages or so, when the collaborating authors cut away to the other story. Although many of the resulting jolts come across as synthetic, some are rooted in current events. The prime suspect in the bombings is an ex–Special Forces officer who served as an explosives expert in Afghanistan, and the kidnapping of Damon is racially motivated. There’s no escaping today’s headlines, not even if you’re riding along with Alex Cross.

Julietta has known a centuries-old guiding spirit known as the Night Mother, whom she calls “Mistress,” since she was a child. Mistress shepherded Julietta out of an abusive orphanage, keeping her safe for years on the street in exchange for obedience: “When she disobeyed, the jackals”—predatory men—“invariably came as punishment, as swift as they were sadistic.” As the story opens, the teenaged Julietta is saved from men threatening her by a vampiric stranger clothed in black—a “towering Nosferatu” named Farron who has an iron prosthetic arm and serves the Marquis Bellamy Valentin de La Clermont. She happily goes to work as a maidservant at Bellamy’s estate, where the marquis clearly favors her; he allows her to dine with him and to wander the grounds and even teaches her how to read. Bellamy also sponsors a brother-sister ballet duo, Colette and Sabien, who are close in age to Julietta and whose training he sometimes oversees personally. Bellamy begins an affair with Colette; Julietta, infatuated with Bellamy, becomes envious, occasionally sneaking into the hall outside his bedroom to watch the couple’s intimate encounters. Sabien also resents Bellamy, since he and Colette had previously been in an incestuous relationship. His bitterness culminates in an attack on Julietta, who stabs him with a letter opener. He survives that attack, but the household soon collapses into despair when multiple tragedies occur. Julietta begins to question Bellamy’s influence, suspecting that something dark and supernatural has taken hold of him. Although she loves him and wishes to save him, her Mistress may have other intentions. When a new pair of siblings arrive at the manor, Julietta must uncover the origin of the marquis’s malevolence and end it.

The atmosphere in this novel, which is part of a series, is richly imagined, with gothic imagery that heightens its sense of dread: “Those trees, with their scabrous, twisting trunks and jagged black branches, invoked images of gaunt hands reaching desperately towards the heavens.” Gruesome action scenes are interspersed with voyeuristic erotic moments, reinforcing the book’s fixation on desire, violence, and power. The supernatural narrative, paired with recurring themes of Catholic morality, open up engaging discussions about sin and damnation: “So long as God in Heaven dwells, we who sold our souls shall be judged and condemned. Cast down to scream in hell and so lend our voices to that chorus of the wailing damned.” Although the marquis is a well-developed character with a compelling backstory and disturbingly clear motivations, other figures remain more elusive. Farron is a memorably bloodthirsty villain (“the vampire tore off his head and lifted it like a brimming goblet towards his mouth, spilling the sanguine wine onto his tongue, toasting the last survivor of the radicals’ crooked gathering”), although his past, including the origin of his prosthetic, is left unexplored. The Mistress, in particular, would have benefited from further development, as her allusions to larger plans are never fully explained. However, fans of erotic horror will find plenty to enjoy here.

In this quiet and elegant collection, novelist and short story writer Lowenthal uses the essay as a means of excavation, uncovering the tensions between his queer and Jewish identities and the desire to belong fully to both. The opening piece, “Out of Nowhere,” sets the tone: It’s a deeply moving examination of family silence, the Holocaust’s long reach, and the burden of inherited stories. When Lowenthal learns of an uncle who perished in Bergen-Belsen, he sets out to trace how the pull of history and desire have both defined and divided his sense of self. In “Ligature,” he recalls the confusions of Dartmouth in the 1980s, when being openly gay meant social exile. A summer spent with an Amish family—whose children experience rumspringa, their brief taste of secular life—becomes his own model for authenticity. “Be more honest, I thought. Be bolder. Be myself,” he writes, a line that captures the book’s ethos. In an essay on Sun Ra, with whom he plays trumpet during a college residency, Lowenthal finds a kindred spirit in the cosmic jazz musician who taught him that fitting in isn’t the point: “Change the space around you.” Throughout, Lowenthal writes with the precision of a novelist and the candor of a confessor. His mother’s unexpected turn from judgment to activist (she joins Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) illuminates the collection’s many grace notes; his reflections on faith, art, and identity give it heft. By its close, this collection has become not simply a chronicle of one man’s search for belonging, but an act of moral and emotional cartography.

In London, circa 1809, Alaina Sinclair, daughter of the Earl of Norwich, is making her debut at the city’s classiest balls (her prospects are helped by her gorgeousness but hindered by her scandalous habit of reading books). Heading her dance card is Graham Wallace, the Duke of Ashford, who is tall, dark, great looking, rich, kind, polite, and actively hunting a wife. Complicating matters is Graham’s best friend and ballroom wingman Christopher Kendall, the Marquess of Rochester, who is tall, blond, blue-eyed, great-looking, rich, gruff, and disdainful of marriage. (He and Alaina meet cute when he stumbles into her at the refreshments table; she calls him a drunk, and he calls her ill-mannered.) Naturally, Alaina falls for the brooding rogue Christopher while being officially courted by Graham, leading to tense scenes in which she’s supposed to be flirting with the duke but can’t help gazing into the marquess’ eyes, their hearts aflutter. Christopher proves his worth (saving Alaina when her horse bolts and defending her when she’s accused of being a bookworm), and their passion escalates to secret kissing. Alas, miscommunications—he worries that she is a gold digger after Graham’s money, she thinks he’ll never commit—keep intervening to prevent them from confessing their love. Further stirring the pot are Graham’s cousin Percy (a vile cad who hopes to steal the dukedom, threatens to spread scurrilous rumors questioning Alaina’s virtue, and briefly kidnaps her) and the sinister Lady Barbara, who masterminds Percy’s crimes in the hope that he will become rich enough to marry.

Harrington’s period yarn features an intricate, nuanced, and affecting love triangle that requires Alaina and Christopher to navigate their own mutual suspicions along with their reluctance to betray Graham. The novel’s haphazard plot has third-act problems—after the triangle resolves itself in a graceful bow-out followed by a lavish wedding-night sex scene, there are several chapters still to go with more far-fetched scheming by the villains—but the writing is strong. Adventure scenes are handled with vigorous aplomb: “He came around with his other hand with vicious intent, driving the butt of his pistol down on [Alaina’s] head, the lantern hanging from his arm the only point of light before darkness closed in on her.” The characters are colorful and sharply etched, and despite some anachronisms (Christopher talks about “collateral damage”), the prose has a droll, Austen-esque verve to it, using pompously polite palaver to reveal the crassness of high society. (“Oh no, here he comes, the lascivious Lord Finch and his merry band of drunken fools,” sighs Alaina at a ball wherein his lordship makes a hilariously insulting proposal: “I fear I have fallen madly in love with the idea of having you as my wife, and I feel you should be happy with such an arrangement.”) In keeping with the style is the spirit of the book’s message—that true love triumphs over mercenary calculation. Readers will root for the feisty Alaina to overcome the stuffed shirts and find her heart’s desire.

This book, part of a series that pairs authors with common objects and ideas, views the ballot through a topical, politically progressive lens. A novelist and poll worker, Enjeti pens evocative opening pages linking her childhood participation in mock elections to her “reverence for the right to vote.” Another engaging chapter zips through the etymological, social, and technological history of ballots. Mostly, though, Enjeti is interested in the current state of the franchise, recounting her experience supporting Democrats while living in Republican-heavy places. Her observations illustrate how voting has changed due to conservative-friendly court rulings and “an avalanche of voting restrictions” enacted after Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election. Her local drop box was among those that Georgia eliminated in 2022, making it harder to cast absentee votes. Statewide, Georgia made it illegal to offer refreshments to voters in line near polling places. Meanwhile, gerrymandering has transformed her “very racially diverse and solidly Democratic” congressional district into “a very white and solidly Republican one.” The remedies Enjeti supports range from practical to quixotic. Voters seeking to reform criminal justice and protect immigrants can help by voting in relatively overlooked sheriff and district attorney elections. But overhauling the Senate so that not all states have two seats? This makes sense from a population standpoint, but in the current political climate, it’s a nonstarter. Enjeti’s account of the “dilemma” she faced in 2024—as a battleground state voter, she opposed both Trump and the Democrats’ approach to the Gaza war—is relatable. But she’s not looking to please centrists with her characterization of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign. To her, Harris’ “Republican, warmongering, imperialist brand”—her opposition of an arms embargo on Israel—was a big reason she lost to Trump.