In her first book, the author, a scientist and co-founder of Philippine Global Explorers, presents a narrative about overcoming a midlife crisis and gaining global perspective. Following the death of her mother, a struggle with infertility, and a marital breakup, Rasco reexamined the life she’d built that had been defined by conventional ideas of success; her journey to deeper understanding included leaving her prestigious tech job and beginning a period of international travel (the author made it her goal to visit every country in the world). Rather than providing a complete blow-by-blow account of her travels, the author relates highlights that emphasize intercultural exchange, focusing on activities from driving (a consistent challenge as she navigated unfamiliar territory in different parts of the world) to dancing (“I feel most alive when I’m in motion”). Rasco’s travels (which included the founding of a short-lived tour company in Togo) would eventually lead to her current work. Throughout the memoir, Rasco leads readers on a thoughtful journey of self-discovery that never comes off as self-absorbed or glib. While the author acknowledges the importance of transcending one’s limits, she is also cognizant that there are times to recognize and respect them—this is expressed most vividly in a description of her visit to the Everest Base Camp, when she realized that her body could not handle the altitude. The author also demonstrates the extent of her willingness to adopt local customs when living among the Matsés of the Brazilian rainforest—Rasco was okay with going topless but drew the line at nose-piercing. (The author indulges in a bit of exoticization when describing a llama sacrifice, but she manages to maintain a certain reverence.) Ultimately, this memoir is a testament to the power of self-reinvention, and may inspire readers accordingly.

This fascinating biography by British historian Tremlett gives us dictator Francisco Franco’s Galician childhood, military school, and the “Africanist” apprenticeship in Spanish Morocco before the civil war that brought him to power. The book is also, inevitably, a concise history of Spain during the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Franco remained on the world stage until 1975. Tremlett describes him as a kind of dam that held back progress, despite “his lack of charisma, intellectual spark, ideological conviction or the kind of personal traits that Spaniards consider ‘simpático.’” He was, however, “fueled by relentless personal ambition and considerable luck.” Franco ruled for 39 years as the nation’s caudillo, or military strongman, not so much for power itself, but to prevent others from wielding it. He was forever caught between church and monarchy, his own reactionary position, and progressive Republicanism in a conflict that cost half a million lives. He also played both sides between the Axis and the Allies, depending on one for arms and the other for wheat. Wracked by indecision, he masked it as shrewdness. Stranded in Morocco at the outbreak of the uprising, he depended on Italian and German planes to airlift 24,000 of his troops into Andalucia, the first air bridge in history. Franco was a brilliant military tactician, but waited months before pressing his advantage invading Madrid, his own capital. Relations with the church soured as it became more liberal, and his desire for autocracy stunted economic development. It took the tourist boom of the 1960s and the return of workers from abroad to give his oppressed people a view of their isolation from the prospering outside world. His late years were marked by physical decline from Parkinson’s disease and terrorist attacks by Basque and Catalan separatists. Fifty years after his death, the book offers a fresh look at a ruthless leader.

Genevieve Newhouse is a brilliant physicist, so used to being ignored next to her sparkling sisters that she’s developed the ability to turn invisible. Never one to let a little transparency get her down, 18-year-old Genevieve becomes a thief, stealing library books in order to perfect her invention, the “important, dramatic, ETCH-MY-NAME-IN-HISTORY accomplishment” that will finally get her noticed. A devastating accident that could bring about the apocalypse certainly would have done the trick—if it weren’t for intervention from Ash Hargreaves, also 18, who’s run away from his religious extremist community. His desire to prevent a terrible tragedy grew so strong that he gained the ability to time travel. In Genevieve’s moment of crisis, he yanks the two of them back 41 years, from the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair—where Genevieve was exhibiting a cyclotron—to the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Luckily the stranded teens (both cued white) meet the brilliant Matilda Flemming, a Black physics genius, who’s being exploited by an arrogant professor. Ash, Genevieve, and Matilda are up against racist and sexist physicists, paranoid capitalists—and time itself. They still find spare moments for both romance and heavy-duty personal growth. Ash, who tries to redeem the worst people in his life and never needs to outshine his talented love interest, is genuinely heartwarming, and the friendship between Genevieve and Miss Flemming is a joy.

After Rue Holloway was caught kissing a girl, her mom enrolled her at Sacred Heart Academy, “in the middle of East Jesus Nowheresville,” where students are instilled with values of purity and deference. Rue, who’s labeled “too much,” has no desire to be a “good girl,” so she’s intrigued by her classmate Charlotte Savage—the rule-breaking, social outcast senator’s daughter, who sneaks off into the forest at night. When Rue befriends Charlotte and learns her secret—she can transform into a wolf—Rue is inspired to rebel and discover the wild wolf within herself. As the girls’ relationship deepens beyond friendship, other classmates who are fighting against societal and parental expectations join their pack. The more they embrace their truest selves, though, the closer danger lurks; there are those who would prefer to keep wild girls caged. The strict, stifling school setting heightens the feeling of confinement, while the power and ferocity of the girls in their wolf form is vivid and awe-inspiring. This boldly feminist story highlights varied experiences and obstacles while resolutely asserting that every woman and girl deserves to thrive and feel free. The themes are timeless; the mid-1990s era is cued through some pop-culture references and an absence of cellphones and social media. Rue and Charlotte are white, and there’s racial diversity among the other students.

Weaving her impressive debut around the true story of the 1919 wreck of the Valbanera, “the poor man’s Titanic,” Ojito follows the epic journeys of two women, 100 years apart: journalist Mara Denis, a 55-year-old widow with a 19-year-old son, sent to cover a story in the Canary Islands, and her great-grandmother, Catalina Quintana Cabazas, whose birth certificate Mara’s mother has asked her to track down. As Mara picks out the threads of the long-buried story, she begins to realize much of what her mother believes about the family’s history is incorrect, or incomplete. The first big indication is that Catalina’s name is listed among those lost in the Valbanera shipwreck, along with a husband whose name is completely unfamiliar. We readers know the real story, as we are watching Catalina’s life unfold in parallel, first on the isle of La Palma where she was born, one of three daughters raised on a silkworm farm, and then, after her father promises her to an older businessman, in Cuba, where Mara’s mother and Mara herself were born. No more details can be revealed here, but it is a story of complex passions, tragic destinies, and Latin American culture that recalls the novels of Isabel Allende. If Mara’s storyline slows a bit in the last third of the novel, Catalina’s stays dramatic and intriguing with secrets and twists the reader may not have guessed still to be revealed. As profound a role as the sea plays in shaping the destinies of the characters, the deeper force referred to by the title is likely the maternal bond, so central in every generation of this far-flung family, though never uncomplicated. As Mara, who has convinced herself that she is content with her single and solitary life, finds her world filling up with new faces and connections, this often-tragic story takes a hopeful turn.