★★★★★ A children's book about life's most difficult subject—death—told with compassion, humor and grace at a level on par (or above) any adult literature.

★★★★☆ A woman returns home to ghostwrite her estranged father's memoir while trying to unravel if he was responsible for the 50-year-old murder of his siblings.

★★★☆☆ A British couple decide to sail from England to New Zealand in the 1970s, only to be stranded in the middle of the Pacific after a whale destroys their boat.

★★★★☆ Told mostly via flashbacks about four childhood friends, the novel focuses on resiliency and found family in the face of domestic violence and neglect.

★★★★★ A photographer spends a summer at a lake house where she meets a cocksure man whose charms threaten their mutual vow of friendship.

★★★★★ A strong start to a new fantasy series that can also be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel, a roguish young man travels to a distant city to solve the mystery of his father's death.

★★★☆☆ Part memoir, part history of fire, author Thomas recounts his time with the Los Padres Hotshots while positing ways to deal with megafires.

★★★★☆ A local publican is found dead with a crown of antlers on his head in this multi-layered mystery taking place in a small English town.