His best friend, Jasminder Cheema, who has her life together, is going with Joe Chan, one of the hottest boys in school—because of course she is. But when Jas surprises Alfie one morning with the news that their school’s golden couple, Harvey Ledger and Summer Gray, have broken up, everything changes. Harvey and Summer have been inseparable for years, and now they’ve split up just four days before prom. Despite Harvey’s presenting as straight, Alfie has had a quiet crush on him for years. So when Jas encourages Alfie to ask Harvey to be his date for prom, he does the most un-Alfie thing he can think of: He gets up the courage to invite Harvey to join him. To his immense surprise and pleasure, Harvey accepts. In short chapters that advance the plot at a swift pace, this work for reluctant readers that uses a dyslexia-friendly font explores relatable themes of popularity, sexuality, friendship, and identity. This sweet and accessible novel about potential romance and being true to yourself is a strong narrative that’s sure to engage readers and leave them wanting more. Alfie and Harvey are cued as white.

Han is introduced as “mostly ornery. That’s another word for grumpy.” Then Kate and Olly move in; the youngsters are “curious and loquacious. That’s another word for talkative.” Though Han tries to avoid the kids, eventually they meet, much to his discomfort. Using soft colors textured with simple lines and deftly blended shadows exuding warmth and charm, Phuong presents humorous, cartoonish scenes of the kids invading Han’s space. Eventually Kate and Olly ask about a picture of Han’s late wife, Lan; seeing his sadness, they perform small acts of kindness that artfully chip away at his hard exterior. After the children ask Han about his favorite food, he makes them an offer: He’ll prepare his beloved pho (which he used to make with Lan) if Kate and Ollie can find the ingredients. The kids rise to the occasion, and a comforting montage of cooking scenes ensues. Kate brings Lan’s picture to the table, and, over time, Han’s world expands to envelop the larger community. Presented in a mix of speech bubbles and narrative text, Krans’ prose is spare yet intimate; the author trusts readers to fill in the quiet spaces of the story. The children are pale-skinned; Han is East Asian (references to pho suggest he’s of Vietnamese descent).

A cancelled flight has jeopardized Piper Adams’ maid of honor responsibilities. Instead of being on a plane to her best friend Allie’s bachelorette party and wedding at an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas, she’s stuck at the Atlanta airport. Fortunately, a knight in shining armor comes to her rescue, but unfortunately, he’s Wyatt Brooks, the man who broke her heart. As luck would have it, he’s attending the same wedding, and a former Army connection has offered him the use of a small plane to get him there. What should have been a two-hour flight ends in disaster, though, as Piper and Wyatt barely survive a plane crash on an unknown island. When Piper finally comes to, after having been unconscious for almost a day, her first thought is that she’s missed her friend’s bachelorette and may very well miss the wedding. Strange priorities for someone recovering from a plane crash. The story jumps between “Now,” with Piper and Wyatt on the island, and “Then,” when they first met as teenagers, and those flashbacks to a standard romance aren’t as compelling as the current situation, with the pair having to navigate a harsh environment while fighting old feelings. Piper doesn’t make a great impression on the reader, coming across as immature when faced with difficult experiences. She whines to a gate attendant just trying to do her job to get an entire plane full of irate passengers rebooked. She gets angry with Allie for inviting Wyatt to her wedding even though he’s her cousin. Being stranded softens her a bit, but it’s hard to be on her side. The deserted island setting adds some tension to the story, but Piper’s self-centered behavior and decision to hold a grudge against Wyatt for his earlier relationship insecurities make it a challenge to reach a compelling happily-ever-after.

An unnamed stage actress sits in her apartment, telling her young son a fairy story. Urged on by the ghosts of blood-drenched women that only she can see, she speaks of a boy born in a stately home. A curious, perpetually hungry child with sharp nails and pointed teeth, the boy is abandoned by his spectral mother and soon-dead father, and doted on by his wet nurse, Agnes. He seems to bring a curse upon the village—the crops suffer blight year upon year, walls crumble, a young girl’s skin peels from her bones. When Eunice, a villager who played with the boy as a child, moves into the manor as his lover, the furious townspeople storm the gates with pitchforks, and the young couple flees. A shotgun wedding in a roadside chapel makes Eunice the first of his many abused and blighted wives, and the only one to bear him a son of his own. Young Tristan grows up determined to take revenge on his father—and the narrator’s son listens with bated breath. Theodoridou interweaves teller and tale to dizzying effect, leaving the reader to relish in some satisfying uncertainties. The narrator’s own career staging shows about violent men adds a delicious metatextual twist. “Easier to tell you of a man who was a myth, a natural disaster, a fairy-tale thing,” the narrator concedes to her son, “than to say your father is a wife-beater, a rapist, a murderer.” Unfortunately, the book’s length outstrips its conceit—a dense, dark gem of a story becomes frustratingly repetitive. The carousel of murdered wives, rotting fruit, and blood-soaked gowns evokes the cyclical horrors of abuse, but the eventual predictability soon dulls the narrative’s edge.

Seventeen-year-old Selaina lives in isolation; her mother warns her never to wander past a particular stream in the forest. Beyond it, apparently, lies the “wicked world” of Galanor. That doesn’t stop Selaina from jumping the stream, but one day, she returns from a forest walk to discover her mother missing. She sets out to find her without much of an idea of where to search and luckily runs into an obliging ally along the way. Elsewhere, Rykan, a relatively inexperienced soldier in the kingdom of Elenior, looks for help. Merciless Vatreus has led his Iron Flood army to devastate the capital city that Rykan and fellow soldiers vowed to protect. Help may come from the Wishing Stone, which some claim can undo things that have already happened. Rykan ultimately crosses paths with Selaina as they and several others brave savage creatures and a dark, ancient building to get that stone. Cox masterfully builds an expansive world within a taut narrative—characters pass through a ruined city and enter an enchanted forest “from which no one ever returns” while name-dropping locations in Galanor that readers don’t see in this first installment. Genuinely terrifying villains keep tension high, from Vatreus (who wields a blue-flamed, oversized sword) to a variety of creatures covered in flames or “black fur bristling like jagged spikes” that the cast must defend themselves against. Interactions among Rykan, Selaina, and their comrades are highlights; they prove to be either fiercely loyal or deceptive, and while some share romance, others don’t make it to the end. Nonhuman races add further texture, with Selaina enduring rancor and epithets for being a pointy-eared “Lith” just like the much-despised Vatreus.