English literature scholar Bilston (The Promise of the Suburbs) unspools a sprawling saga of greed, triumph, and evolution, all swirling around the hunt for an elusive orchid. British naturalist William Swainson arrived in Brazil in 1816 “animated by a passionate, chaotic, destructive urge to discover.” In financial straits and short on social skills, Swainson saw this venture as a chance to make a name for himself. Among the specimens he sent back to Britain was the Cattleya labiata, a lustrous purple and crimson bloom—considered “the epitome of floral beauty”—that launched a wave of “orchidomania.” A disruptive, brutal cadre of orchid hunters descended on South America, many of them “socially peripheral figures”—“rootless, working-class, ill-educated”—who would lie, steal, or do anything else it took to find specimens. Orchid retailers, meanwhile, created a rosy alternate reality in their marketing campaigns, drawing on tropes from contemporary adventure stories by authors like Rudyard Kipling to depict orchid hunters as heroes. Even as hybridization and advances in greenhouse technology meant orchid-growing was possible for British gardeners, the search for the Cattleya labiata continued. Bilston scours myriad firsthand sources to construct an edifying story of imperialism, the rise of the natural sciences (including Darwin’s fascination with orchids), and some genuine tales of adventure and derring-do. Readers will be engrossed. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

America dragged itself kicking and screaming into the Civil War, according to this stimulating history. Winik (1944) recaps the ratcheting tensions over slavery that led to Southern secession, from the “Bleeding Kansas” violence of the 1850s to John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry. This is well-trod subject matter, but Winik breaks new ground in his detailed study of 11th-hour efforts to save the Union, especially the Crittenden Compromise, a set of constitutional amendments that would have permitted settlers to vote on slavery in the nation’s western territories and guaranteed states’ right to keep slavery forever. These proposals were rejected by a politics polarized between Republicans and secessionists, but Winik provocatively suggests that they had majority support among a public that dreaded secession and war, and would not have led to the extension of slavery in the territories, as the institution had little support among settlers. Winik presents a vivid, tragic narrative of a nation coming to pieces, where intransigence and mutual incomprehension—Lincoln, he observes, considered Southern secessionism just a negotiating ploy until almost the eve of war—made the unthinkable inevitable. Along the way, he weaves in evocative profiles of leading figures and their drift toward extremism. The result is a dramatic and insightful retelling of a fateful turn in America’s saga. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

King (Paul Nash), a professor emeritus of English at McMaster University, centers this comprehensive history of vorticism, a short-lived avant-garde art movement formed in England in 1913, on the intertwined lives of its major players. He highlights David Bomberg, Jessica Dismorr, Henri Gaudier-Breska, Wyndham Lewis, William Roberts, Helen Saunders, and Edward Wadsworth, all of whom had roots in the Slade School of Fine Art and were driven by desire, poverty, or discrimination to rebel against the complacencies of English art and society. With vorticism, they aimed to capture a point of “stillness” at the heart of modernity, drawing influence from cubism’s geometric shapes and perspective and the speed that futurism aimed to capture. King covers how the movement took shape at the Rebel Art Centre in London; was promoted by Blast, the vorticists’ magazine; and was beset by internal and external rivalries (Lewis, a misogynist who believed women were incapable of becoming “true revolutionaries,” harbored particular disdain for Saunders and Dismorr). WWI supplanted the metaphorical stillness of the vortex with chaos, eventually curtailing the movement in 1915, though King also discusses his subjects’ work after the war (including Saunders’s Still Life, which marked a return to representational art). Drawing on archival materials, the author scrupulously—if a bit dryly—captures the volatile sociopolitical moment that birthed vorticism and eventually killed it. Art history scholars will find much to appreciate. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

“While this is a business book, it’s also a book about love.... And most of all, Kindness,” write Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell, founders of goat-milk-based skincare brand Beekman 1802, in this hit-or-miss guide. The authors present 12 principles of success with down-home flair, promising that they’re “not outdated, old-fashioned clichés.” These include “chop your own wood and it will warm you twice,” which pertains to how to delegate (be careful not to micromanage, the authors advise) and “an empty vessel makes the most noise,” which guides readers through staying focused (“ignore both the good publicity and the bad”). Beekman 1802 is named after the farm in Upstate New York where the authors launched the business, and their attempts at on-theme bucolic charm can wear a bit thin (readers are frequently asked to “chew on this” and frugality is called “scraptitude”). But their chronicle of the missteps and growing pains that accompanied expansion is both vulnerable and informative, as when they recount having purchased $5 million of product they couldn’t sell on QVC during the pandemic and nearly going bankrupt. Readers willing to look past the “aw shucks” tone will find plenty of solid tips. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Memoirist King (Tacky) tackles grief, addiction, shoplifting, and mental illness in this brash, darkly funny essay collection. “Sloppiness,” King argues, isn’t just a trait—it’s an identity, as essential to her as her asthma (“and I take medicine for both”). Early essays cover her family’s alcoholism; her habit of cutting class to nurse hangovers, go to IHOP, or celebrate a liberating breakup; and her practice of swiping clothes from Brandy Melville to “stave off the DTs.” Her father’s death prompts some of the collection’s most poignant reflections: his ashes now share space in her apartment with his beloved Big Mouth Billy Bass statues and ashtrays (“In death, he too has become crap”). The subject matter is often bleak—King writes candidly of her suicide attempts and calls sobriety “the birthplace of boredom” (she’s sober now)—but her razor wit ensures the tone never veers into self-pity. Instead, she provides a bracing, brutally honest account of living outside the bounds of respectability. This will resonate with fans of gallows humor and readers who feel stifled by restrictive definitions of normality. Agent: Kent Wolf, Neon Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Pastor Jeremiah (The Coming Golden Age) makes his fiction debut with a gripping ride through endtimes-inspired chaos. U.S. Army major general John Haggerty heads a task force charged with containing the spread of deadly global viruses. As deaths linked to a new coronavirus spike, he heads to Crete and then Italy, where he focuses on implementing a quarantine—and reconnecting with his adult daughter, Sonya, with whom he’s had a strained relationship since splitting from her mother 16 years ago. After an earthquake hits and traps the two in a cave, Haggerty opens up about the real reason the marriage fell apart, revealing in the process devastating truths about Sonya’s dead brother. Just as their relationship starts to heal, they make it out of the cave and learn the virus has spread beyond the containment zone, multiple international conflicts have broken out, and fears of World War III are on the rise. As Haggerty works with international governments to contain the spread, he grapples with his damaged faith and weighs his responsibilities to his wife, his daughter, and his mission. Jeremiah makes good use of today’s social and political turmoil to fuel a propulsive plot amplified by plenty of emotional conflict, and leaves a few threads dangling for future installments. Readers will want to dive right in. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Radford’s outstanding debut elevates the classic zombie tale through its impressive psychological acuity, deep emotional resonance, and literary prose. In the near future, England is just recovering from a viral zombie outbreak that has been contained only through the eradication of all those infected. Now biomedical scientist Kesta Shelley is tapped for Project Dawn, a London-based research project tasked with developing a vaccine in preparation for future outbreaks. The appointment is a godsend because her husband Tim was among the infected—and she’s secretly keeping him alive, breaking all protocol to preserve him in his “undead state” until a breakthrough cure is found. Kesta is well aware that Tim’s zombie taint presents the risk of future outbreaks, and the subterfuges she devises to keep his continuing existence under wraps as she and her team race against the clock to find a cure infuse the tale with taut suspense. The novel’s heart, though, lies in Radford’s wrenching depiction of Kesta’s passionate devotion to Tim, and the painful concessions and moral decisions she makes in her care for a victim of a devastating terminal disease. Readers will be moved and thrilled in equal measure by this unique supernatural extravaganza. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Ruta (Last Day) serves up a deceptively breezy tale of a 30-something Manhattan food writer’s found family. When Sandy unexpectedly gets pregnant during a date with Justin, an aspiring rock musician, she decides she likes him enough to try to “make it work.” Tara, Justin’s mom in Brooklyn, hosts an embarrassingly retro baby shower and lets slip that Justin previously fathered a child with a woman named Steph, whom she describes as a “witch.” Things fizzle with Justin and Sandy arranges to meet with Steph, immediately connecting with her and her eight-year-old daughter, Ash. Steph is pursuing a doctorate in psychology at Columbia and deeply in debt, and the women support each other by sharing an apartment and managing their kids’ school, day care, and playdates. Then they meet another woman, a hairdresser named Kaya, who has had a child and is pregnant again, by none other than Justin, though he denies being the father, and the three mothers move in together. The plot thickens amid a custody battle with Justin, but what stands out the most are the women and children’s efforts to define themselves, as Ash comes out as nonbinary and Sandy resolves to go to law school. Readers will fall in love with this winning novel. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

In McGhee’s enticing and off-kilter debut collection, Black girls and women search for acceptance and find cruelty. In the title story, Daisy opts to live with coyotes after her protective mother torments her with stories of dead girls. “Valerie” chronicles a woman’s frustration with her lovers and her mission to have her first orgasm from another person’s touch. A “sexospiritual” healer gives her a tea meant to release her “tamped down” desire, but it only makes her uncomfortably hot (“I’d rather be a fake bitch than a sweaty bitch,” she reflects). In “Be Good,” a runaway teen changes her name and moves in with a trio of seemingly virtuous Christian video bloggers and saleswomen, only to unearth their hypocrisy. “A Matter of Survival” follows a teen who is sent to her grandmother’s house for spring break after her mother catches her on a date with another girl. At her grandmother’s, she learns of her family’s troubling and violent history. In each entry, McGhee commits to a deep exploration of physical, emotional, and sexual desire. These are accomplished and visceral stories. Agent: Ismita Hussain, Great Dog Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Seattle Times critic Macdonald debuts with a lively tale of three dissatisfied people linked by a Seattle bookstore. April, single at 33, laments the isolation of working from home for her tech job. She decides to leave a note for her crush in a book at the bookstore where he works, reasoning that “you just have to throw something out into the world and see what happens.” Westley, the bookseller, is oblivious to April, and though he loves the store, he feels destined for bigger and better things. During a movie shoot in the store, he throws himself into his role as a background character. In a comedy of errors, 40-ish widowed single mother Laura, a fashion consultant, finds April’s note in a book Westley sells her and thinks it’s for her, and that he was its author. Neither April nor Laura knows Westley’s name, and the trio’s continued correspondence yields a series of false starts and humorous twists. Macdonald shades in the details of her protagonists’ lives with colorful depictions of their friends and relatives, quirky coworkers, and awkward former lovers. It’s a diverting slice of life. Agent: Allison Hunter, Trellis Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink