Arthie Casimir and her brother, Jin, managed to uncover the real identity of—and steal a ledger with incriminating evidence about—the Ram, monarch of Ettenia, but their crew, a mix of vampires and humans, is irrevocably changed. The revelation of a secret leads to a rift between the siblings, the Ram is still in power, and now humans are going missing, with blame unjustly falling on the vampires. To take down the colonizer of her birth country, Arthie must get everyone to work together again, travel back to her homeland of Ceylan, and pull off her most daring heists yet. With chapters alternating among the perspectives of Arthie, Jin, and Felicity “Flick” Linden—a skilled forger and Jin’s love interest—this genre mashup set in an intricate fantasy world combines exciting action and adventure, heartfelt romance, and complex paranormal beings, all while feeling relevant to real-world issues. The trio of non-white leads face racial prejudice among other hardships in a society that constantly underestimates them. The plot takes a little while to really get started, but once the action amps up, there are plenty of tense and impassioned moments. The ending satisfyingly wraps up the main conflicts and is sure to evoke a strong emotional response from invested readers.

Her work as a consultant to the local police, along with what she earns selling custom-made dollhouses, has helped widowed Maple Bishop stabilize her financial situation. But it’s clear that the miniature crime scene recreations that she makes for Elderberry Sheriff Sam Scott are a source not only of income but of professional pride and satisfaction. So when Sheriff Scott calls her to the scene of a tragic fire in which Daniel Perkins was burned to death, Maple is grief-stricken but also excited; at last, she has something more interesting than televised political speeches to engage her nimble brain. She’s also puzzled. How could Daniel, a firefighter himself, been careless enough to let his cabin go up in flames? To solve the puzzle, she constructs a series of miniature crime scenes, which she calls “nutshells,” to help the police pinpoint the causes of the fire. She also goes to Boston, the last place Daniel lived before Elderberry, to interview the people who knew him best. Her return to her hometown gives her the opportunity to reconnect with family and friends, reflecting on her journey from the big city that rejected her bid to become a practicing lawyer to the small town that doesn’t always accept her as a friend but shows her respect as a professional. The second in Tietjen’s series documents Maple’s growth beyond the shadow of her late husband. Her nutshells may not be essential to solving the puzzle of Daniel’s death, but they go far in understanding the complex individual Maple has become.

It’s 1965 and Churchill, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, is near death. As the nation, and much of the world, prepares to mourn him, some nefarious elements see an opportunity: The funeral will certainly attract powerful figures from all over the world, and it creates a fine opportunity for chaos—or so goes the thinking of some leading members of the KGB. The Cold War is raging, and it’s spawned a plan in the Soviet Union called KOBA, which involves placing explosives in Churchill’s coffin. They would be set off during the service, killing “many, many others in the church,” and after the initial attack, “long-dormant agents provocateur…would launch an orchestrated wave of precision bombings and assassinations” all over the world. It may sound like a somewhat bizarre way to kick off an operation, but Soviet spies have long been developing assets in other countries for a situation such as this; they include leftist sympathizers in Northern Ireland, who are “particularly susceptible to recruitment” by the KGB. It’s an ambitiously sinister plan, but it’s not one that goes completely undetected. When suspicions regarding the funeral ceremony are brought to the attention of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, he takes action: Not only does he decide not to attend the memorial services, but he also consults former CIA director Allen Dulles, who, along with many other government operatives, recognizes the seriousness of the situation, which could easily spiral out of control.

The story begins with a rather bland speech from 1960s-era Prime Minister Harold Wilson (“We are on the threshold of an extraordinary moment in the history of the realm”); a bit later on, there’s a similarly unexciting flashback to Churchill’s final public appearance in 1964, in which a woman unnecessarily explains to her young daughter, “Sweetheart, that is Sir Winston Churchill and his wife, Lady Churchill.” Nevertheless, as the pages turn, so does readers’ anticipation regarding the wild spy mission, which involves a large cast of diverse characters; they include a couple in the U.K. that “had dedicated themselves to Soviet intelligence for nearly three decades, their commitment unwavering despite upheavals and betrayals,” as well as a frazzled American spy who, before the threat of KOBA came to the CIA’s attention, had been living a very unhappy existence in Rome. The lively mix of real-life historical figures and Stokes’ fictional creations keeps events moving briskly along, and that includes the action scenes; in one, a character makes quick work of his adversaries by firing “three shots with great poise and precision, dropping all three men in less than two seconds.” And, of course, there’s always the chance that world-changing fiascoes will occur if the plan actually succeeds. The potential for such chaos will give readers plenty of good reasons to stick with the novel all the way to its conclusion.

Javed’s second work of fiction shares eight moving stories, each ending with its own kind of clarity, of “atonement.” In “Rani,” the opener, recently divorced Annie takes care of her grandmother, whose dementia has worsened after the death of her husband. Through their fractured conversations, Annie comes to remember Nargis, a maid who lived at her grandparents’ house when she was a child, and the unforgivable way she was treated. “Stray Things Do Not Carry a Soul” follows a young boy named Haider Ali, the book’s only male narrator, who, in idolizing his father, is forced to reckon with the realities of violence, addiction, and misogyny. While most of the stories stick to immersive realism, there are a couple of well-executed speculative moments: In one story, a woman’s dead twin visits her in a moment of suffering; in another, the ghost of an old, sickly woman’s lover appears to her in a glass bottle. The longest, closing story, “Ruby,” details the lives of 13-year-old Kaki and her mother, Rubina, after Kaki’s father dies. Rubina transforms into Ruby, becoming the vibrant, bold woman she had suppressed while trapped in a constrictive marriage. Newly free, Ruby and Kaki hide their Christian faith and move to a Muslim neighborhood, where Ruby falls in love with a man named Samuel and begins working for a wealthy widow named Tanya. Kaki begins to feel at home among these people, along with a new friend, Fatima. However, Kaki must grapple with the fact that this new iteration of her mother is a woman who primarily looks out for herself, and that financial security and friendships can shatter at any time. There are several chilling moments in the book—Javed does not shy away from tragedy and the darker sides of human nature—but the ending of this story is by far the most haunting. This collection is one to be admired, particularly for how it powerfully depicts Pakistani women (both in Pakistan and the U.S.) yearning for lives they have had ripped from them by patriarchy or prejudice. “We are catacombs of trauma,” Javed writes, “reservoirs of hurt.” Even so, these stories uplift the idea that we will all come upon an opportunity to be purified, whether in life or death.

Victoria Goldsborough is about to vastly improve her family’s fortunes by marrying Peregrine, Marquess of Harrington. The Goldsborough girls are admired and envied because of their grandmother’s plans to marry them off to great advantage, and Victoria’s death is a terrible blow to the family. Emily and Colin have solved many crimes, and given all the suspects from the cream of society, it’s far better for everyone concerned if they investigate than if it’s Scotland Yard poking around. They question the family for hints of a motive. Victoria died from yew poison that must have been administered within a limited window of time. Peregrine’s mother had a diamond tiara she’d planned to give Victoria. Its disappearance on the night of Victoria’s death leads Emily and Colin to suspect Sebastian Capet, a charming, erudite jewel thief in love with Emily and currently involved in opening what may be Boudica’s grave. Victoria’s closest friend, Frances Price, is the daughter of a suffragette, although neither Victoria nor Frances is involved in the battle for women’s rights, a cause despised by Peregrine and many in his set. Emily finds out that both girls were secretly involved in Boudica’s Sisters, a group of society women planning on marrying well and convincing their husbands to support the suffragette cause. When another debutante is poisoned, the sleuths must step up their game and dig out the real reason for murder.