Middle-aged librarian Nelly finds escape from her solitary world in her love for (some might say obsession with) the life and work of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prairie books. Nelly’s fascination with the Little House books began early, partly as a means to escape a traumatic childhood that included a domineering mother and traumatic abuse. As the novel begins, she’s 45 and still enamored with Wilder’s literary world—so much so that after she loses her job, she retreats into Wilder’s books, chatting on fan sites and compiling a Laura Ingalls Wilder bible, an encyclopedia of everything she knows about Wilder. This leads to an impulsive, Wilder-themed pilgrimage to De Smet, South Dakota, the setting for some of the Little House books. There, with the help of a fellow Wilder aficionado named Al, Nelly begins to reckon with the loss, loneliness, and longing that have defined her life. Tracey takes readers on this journey with the help of footnotes that reveal Nelly’s innermost thoughts, including those about her scarring childhood and her burgeoning, life-changing romance with Al. Eventually, she begins coming to terms with her childhood, her mother’s role in it, and how she’s hidden her true self in Wilder’s world. The narrative is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreakingly honest, a balancing act that the author manages with aplomb. The footnotes could be gimmicky, but they work effectively here to offer clever insights into Wilder and her work—and into Nelly’s life as well. The novel boasts a distinctive voice, thanks to its first-person point of view and Tracey’s lively blend of humor, intellect, and emotional honesty. The story is full of warmth and wit that will delight readers, whether they’re fans of Wilder’s work or not.

This fourth novel in this series unfolds in 1991 with the Greek American Jewish Covo clan settled in the New York City area and beset with ethical quandaries. Psychiatrist Nicky Covo faces a malpractice lawsuit alleging deliberate neglect of a patient who died by suicide—a charge that Nicky is almost certain is baseless. Meanwhile, his second wife, Helen, doesn’t want to face the fact that her daughter, Sarah, has terminal cancer, and Nicky’s daughter, Kayla, is dealing with schizophrenia, which derailed her career as a concert pianist, while raising her 7-year-old son, Jackie. She starts courting a man in her Hasidic congregation who seems like a straight arrow—until he proposes premarital sex to test their compatibility. Nicky’s son, Max, starts questioning his legal career while pursuing a nasty, thankless case. Nicky, Helen, Kayla, and Jackie also visit Nicky’s sister Kal, who’s now a Greek Orthodox nun known as Sister Theodora at a monastery in Greece, where she and Nicky grew up. Theodora converted after a priest sheltered her from the Nazis and Nicky miraculously survived a grenade explosion during the war. She still wrestles with guilt over her previous, insistent claim that Jackie is the second coming of Jesus, an idea that offended her family. Still, her uncanny warmth and clairvoyance make the Covos turn to her for solace: Helen asks her to pray for Sarah; Kayla seeks help for her composer’s block; Nicky, a professed atheist, confessed infidelity the previous year; and devoutly Jewish Jackie starts seeing visions of the Virgin Mary.

Berger’s yarn presents his characters with moral conundrums large and small, set in the context of deeply held religious traditions. It’s also a rich, subtle study of the varieties of religious devotion, from Talmudic legalism that tempers commandments with practical wisdom to mystical visions that feel rapturous and dangerous and prayerful communion with God. Berger explores all this via complex, flawed characters mired in real-life quagmires. He often writes with a meticulous realism that dissects behavior and motivations with clinical precision, as when Helen attempts to find solace in bourbon: “The surge of alcohol into her throat and esophagus brought about a coughing spell, and a small quantity of bourbon became airborne as droplets in Helen’s kitchen. When the coughing stopped, Helen spilled out the rest of her drink….That’s what grief does to you, she thought. It makes you selfish. It makes you reckless and thoughtless.” However, the prose also takes on a quiet lyricism in moments of plangent reflection: “The times in Kayla’s life when she had most felt prayer encompassing her, although she wouldn’t have called it such at the time, was when she performed. Beethoven, the Appassionata in particular, was nothing but a prayer to Hashem.” The Covos’ struggles are sure to resonate with anyone who’s ever had an uneasy conscience and a hopeful heart.

The book opens with an introduction that encourages readers to explore its contents however they wish rather than feeling constrained to read in order from beginning to end. Science writer Thomas divides the information into six sections: “Earth,” “Near-Earth Space, “Our Solar System,” “Stars,” “Galaxies,” and “The Universe.” Readers can tighten their Kuiper Belt and head through the Oort cloud to explore the thoughtfully laid-out topics, each covering a two-page spread. The clear writing is dense with information. Factoids about subjects such as tardigrades and exploding meteors will reel in younger readers, while information about topics like the cosmic web and measuring gravitational waves speak to a more sophisticated audience. The stylized font used for many headers can be difficult to decipher. Timelines, key facts, and text boxes accompany the entries, with succinct explanations arranged in colorful squares. Catchy subheadings (“Are We There Yet?,” “What Is It Made Of?”) and Gillingham’s generous use of color and gradient shading against black backgrounds keep the look lively and the information flow organized. The plentiful illustrations use saturated colors and crisply rendered geometric forms to support concepts, present diagrams, and portray space scientists from around the world.

In a world populated by mambabarang—sorcerers with the ability to communicate with and control insects—12-year-old Yumi is a lowly Cricket who can’t wield her powers. Yumi longs to be in the capital city of Tinanglawan, where the revered Fireflies, who can manipulate light, live. When the rajah, the husband of the ailing empress, calls all mambabarang to Tinanglawan for the Crowning of First Daughter Eyrin, Yumi jumps at the chance to leave the countryside. En route, her party is attacked by the Ghost Swarm, a horrific, destructive cloud comprising “the ghosts of all the insects that had ever lived,” which was created by dark magic when the magicless, bitter over their unfair treatment, sacrificed mambabarang. On the day of the coronation, the Firefly Crown—the only thing that can defeat the Ghost Swarm—is stolen, and Yumi is falsely accused. In the rajah’s dungeon, she makes new insect and human friends and must summon her courage and minimal magic skills to find the real thief and fight the Ghost Swarm. Infused with Filipino folklore, this fantasy is full of action and adventure. The empire’s robust worldbuilding includes distinct social classes based on types of magic; Yumi’s low status makes her an object of prejudice, and she struggles with finding respect and belonging.

Zinnia is a small-business owner who’s given up on the dating scene. Instead, she decides to get straight to the point with what she calls a “marriage-merger,” treating the dating process more like a job interview. Selected applicants will be subjected to screening calls and in-person meetings with the goal of marrying within a month. Her friends aren’t quite sold on the idea, but Zinnia feels this is the most efficient way of ticking the nuptials box. Jordan comes from a famous family of reality television stars, whose lives are recorded for salacious entertainment on a show called Zaffre Hours—think Keeping Up With the Kardashians—though he’s never been part of the cast. The producers have now cooked up a storyline that would entail Jordan officially joining the show, which would include reuniting with and marrying his ex. Jordan would prefer to have more of a say in his love life when he sees Zinnia’s marriage-merger dating profile, it strikes him as the perfect opportunity for a mutually beneficial arrangement. This a slow-burn romance, but it’s hard to tell if the romance is slow because the main characters start as strangers or because the romantic tension is frequently interrupted and overshadowed by Jordan’s toxic family members and drama-hungry TV producers. Meanwhile, Zinnia isn’t looking for love, but more of a business partner in life; to her, marriage seems like just an obstacle to overcome. Why she feels this way isn’t fully explored, aside from not wanting to be left behind while her friends are getting coupled up.