New York Times journalist Watkins writes with exactitude and compassion, digging deeply in archives to capture a high-stakes tale that played out internationally during the early 1970s, when the Northern Irish sectarian war against British domination (the Troubles) was at its brutal extreme. While the Provisional IRA received a new generation of recruits due to outrage following Unionist excesses like the “Bloody Sunday” massacre, weapons were in short supply. With a sprawling cast, Watkins focuses on the “Philadelphia Five,” a group of ordinary-seeming blue-collar Irish Americans with covert ties to the Republican cause, eventually “charged with trafficking hundreds of rifles to the IRA.” But for years, their complicated multistate network maintained “plausible deniability” via involvement with NORAID, a charity outwardly devoted to aiding beleaguered Catholic communities: “It was a fragile arrangement, having a public-facing organization as the front for a decidedly illegal transcontinental gun-smuggling operation.” Watkins ably captures the quirky personalities and gritty working-class backdrop of the American side, but she alternates it with the chilling narrative of how one smuggled rifle armed a young woman in Belfast in 1973, on an IRA mission ending with her own shooting and imprisonment. As Watkins notes, while the Troubles would endure for another 25 years, the brazen actions of the Philadelphia Five predictably provoked an unwelcome diplomatic firestorm: “Officials in Belfast and London had been making the case, nearly since the Troubles had started, that the majority of the IRA’s arsenal came from American hands.” And despite their cocky Irish patriotism, “As the boys in Belfast were fighting the British Army, the boys in NORAID were barreling toward their own confrontation, with the US Department of Justice.”

Vaharja, the Recordkeeper, is one of the “phantasmal” Elegies (immortal, instinct-driven entities). Though she’s no longer human, she’s recently shared an experience with a mortal named Gyer. He’s a government operative in the colony of Golem who’s wanted for treason; as he fishes in a “quaint lake,” Vaharja tells him of the Elegies’ origin. The story involves an Elegy who consumed a woman’s body and was reborn as a human one thousand years later, which wasn’t so long ago in this narrative’s timeline. Vaharja’s tale ultimately centers around Liarua Fora, who’s part of a small group of people volunteering to join the Forerunners of Golem, a branch of Golem’s government. What starts as a tour of a building turns into a harrowing ordeal as Liarua and others fight off terrifying creatures and contend with a mysterious energy that infects and mutates humans. This leads to a climax involving Liarua’s fellow volunteers and FOG associates, as well as Gyer and, of course, Vaharja. The cast and corresponding subplots of Nullius’ sophomore series entry are abundant—some characters will pop into the story with few or no traits described. Narrative perspectives frequently shift, from that of an android (with an “almost human-level autonomy”) to one of the infected, to a member of a cyberterrorist organization trying to recruit someone. It’s the enthralling mystery that truly drives the story—what part in all of this does the “shadowy” group Scion Finis play, and will the reincarnated Elegy remember who she is/was? There’s copious technology in scientifically advanced Golem, though most of it is familiar (a portis is simply a mobile device). But most of Golem feels otherworldly, given the immortals, vicious beasts, and the curious fact that Gyer regularly converses with Vaharja, who easily reads and records his thoughts.

As America reels with racial injustice, war, and political upheaval, the story alternates between snapshots of the two figures’ personal and political struggles. Kennedy—aka RFK, or, as some call his politically ruthless incarnation, “Bad Bobby”—is profoundly transformed by his brother John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He publicly pushes for civil rights reforms while also secretly investigating conspiracy theories about JFK’s death​. RFK’s political aspirations overlap with the struggle for racial justice and lead to a tense but working relationship with King, who often finds Kennedy’s efforts on race insufficient. Meanwhile, King struggles to bear the burden of leading the civil rights movement. Threats loom on all sides, from violent white supremacists to conflicts among activists. Increasingly exhausted, King’s prophetic instincts foreshadow his own tragic killing. Kennedy’s presidential campaign makes groundbreaking efforts to connect with Black voters, even agreeing to a politically risky meeting with the Black Panthers​. The novel culminates in his June assassination. Carpenter uses colloquial language and rich inner monologues to paint a detailed picture of two men with a shared vision of justice. Their struggles are effectively shown to be both personal and political: Kennedy yearns to move beyond his privileged detachment, and King finds the responsibility of being America’s moral conscience to be enormously heavy. The moral thrust of the novel takes a page from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail​” in its assertion that white moderates slowed progress on civil rights. Yet, despite the novel’s successful depiction of the era’s tense, sweat-drenched atmosphere of violence and political maneuvering, the novel may leave readers wondering whether it adds insight or merely revisits already well-documented events, especially as much of this historical ground was already covered in David Margolick’s 2018 nonfiction book The Promise and the Dream and elsewhere.

Born in Canada just 12 months apart to a “young urban Indigenous couple full of dreams,” Alexander and Andria struggle with self-worth and identity in this debut by Anishinaabekweauthor Angeconeb. The “honorary twins,” Andy the painter and Ally the poet, are mirrors of each other, but despite their close connection, they keep their struggles with emptiness hidden. Andy feels like “a hollow shell,” and Ally is consumed by addiction. The first section focuses on Andy’s feelings, relayed in vignettes and letters that begin “Dear Brother,” as she describes watching Ally succumb to addiction. Unable to cope following his overdose death, she pushes friends away. After she discovers a shoebox of Ally’s poems, she’s confronted with the depth of his pain. The second section shifts to Ally’s perspective, revealing his internal battles through his poetry: “i have no identity, / no sense of self.” In the final section, Andy begins to face the weight of her grief, her feelings of powerlessness, and the ways she and her older brother lived through one another. She embarks on a healing journey, finding strength through friends and connecting with her cultural heritage across generations of colonial cultural dislocation. This introspective, character-driven novel in which events are relayed after the fact moves slowly, offering a powerful exploration of identity and trauma through its emotional depth.

After co-writing the epistolary enemies-to-lovers SF novel This Is How You Lose the Time War (2019) with Max Gladstone, El-Mohtar makes a solo novella debut featuring another haunting harmony. The town of Thistleford is known for the grammar, or transformative magic, that flows from the Faerie land of Arcadia to be conjugated in the River Liss and translated through the Professors, the pair of willow trees rooted into its banks. The Hawthorn family is known for its willow-wood business as well as the stirring duets of sisters Esther and Ysabel: respectively, the gregarious elder daughter cheekily composing riddle songs for her immortal lover and the shy younger beauty who can belt a murder ballad but secretly wishes to be the adored subject of a beloved’s poem. When a greedy mortal suitor forcibly separates the sisters on opposite sides of Arcadia’s border, they must bridge an impossible distance measured only by how far the voice can reach. True to the title, darkness lurks just beneath the surface of this story, in which death is cruel yet not without its lingual loopholes. El-Mohtar’s blend of prose and poetry will catch readers in its fast-moving flow, even if the magic system requires multiple rereads. The core tale will be relatable regardless of a reader’s genre affinity: an ode to sisters’ secret languages, a paean to petty adolescent envy reshaped into the foundation for growing together into adulthood, an anthem for bloody retribution. The only slightly bitter note is the rather neat resolution, but the poetic justice nonetheless adds up to a satisfying performance.