A well-meaning aid worker navigates political and cultural tensions while on assignment in Africa in "Sketches from the Periphery", a thoughtful fish-out-of-water novel. An American contractor faces the aftermath of the war in Darfur in... Read More

In Gianni Rodari’s madcap allegorical fairy tale "Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto", an Italian nonagenarian’s villa is besieged by unwelcome guests. Baron Lamberto is plagued by twenty-four sicknesses, including arteriosclerosis and... Read More

A former couple reunites for an investigation in Rachel Scott McDaniel’s dazzling romance novel "The Dreams We Knew". Delvina, the daughter of a mobster, was adopted by wealthy New Yorkers. In the 1920s, she becomes a flinty detective.... Read More

Julian Borger’s illuminating, elegiac memoir "I Seek a Kind Person" traces his search for his Viennese father’s wartime history. In 1983, Borger’s father, Robert, committed suicide. Borger, a journalist, later discovered an... Read More

An Irish woman finds solace with a Donegal weaver in Jennifer Deibel’s warm historical romance novel "Heart of the Glen". Saoirse, running from her past, is set to become a housemaid. When the job falls through, she’s taken in by... Read More

Comedy stirs between like-minded writers and meddlesome matchmakers in John J. Jacobson’s romance novel "Cupid on the Loose", about Californians who bond over Shakespeare. Billy is an aspiring novelist with a penchant for old-fashioned... Read More

A group chat spawns the idea of a ten-year class reunion in Beth Reekles’s lighthearted romance novel "The Reunion", about reinventions and roles that never changed. Ten years after graduating, Bryony, who was supposed to become a... Read More

In Sarah M. Eden’s romance novel "The Tides of Time", a seamstress fleeing persecution is cast eighty years into the future, where she faces unresolved pain from her revolutionary past. In France, Lili smuggles people to safety from... Read More