The novel’s protagonist is named Sergio (a moniker given to him by his Mexican American father); he’s known as Serge. When still a child in 1968, he and his older sister, Angela, are brought by their mother to Central California in search of “the Big Sur experience” (Big Sur being a place where, supposedly, “people…

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Idonea learned illegal blood magic from her mother, Nellith, who goes missing shortly after completing a tattoo on her daughter’s back. Idonea locates her mother’s ring and a mysterious volume with “obscure ritual references. A sketch of a tree without roots. A map of stars that didn’t belong to their sky.” Accompanied by Nellith’s pet…

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Cholera, a virulent, intestinal disease spread by contaminated water, emerged from South Asia in 1830, devastating the cities of Europe as it moved west. By 1832, it appeared in Canada, and, despite efforts to prevent its arrival, the U.S. didn’t have long to wait. Kelton meticulously documents the disease’s spread across the country and the…

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This novel, its author writes, “was born out of the real grief of the West Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting,” when a gunman shot 10 girls at an Amish school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While this book begins on that terrible morning in October, 2006, it doesn’t indulge in any violence, quickly switching to the voice of…

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The story begins in the waning days of 1916, with the United States soon to be embroiled in World War I under President Woodrow Wilson. In a crime that presages the violent conflict to come, a married wealthy couple, the Blandens, are brutally slaughtered in their home. The only other person known to be in…

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