Sponsored by Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Sara and Elizabeth could not be more different. Sara is at a new school unlike the Islamic school she used to attend. Elizabeth has her own problems: her British mum has been struggling with depression. The girls meet in a South Asian cooking class and form a shaky alliance that gradually deepens, and they make plans to create an amazing cross-cultural dish and win a spot on a food show. They make good cooking partners . . . but can they learn to trust each other enough to become true friends?
Welcome to your weekly round of new books! This is the last week of an abnormally packed August full of new books, and it’s so hard to narrow it down to just a few picks! I’m really excited to get my hands on a copy of Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale, Killer Kung Pao by Vivien Chien (love the Noodle Shop Mysteries!), and Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig.
Make sure you catch this week’s episode of All the Books! with Liberty and Patricia! They discuss The Great Offshore Grounds, Don’t Tell Me to Relax, and more!
Now onto some new releases!
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
I am so pumped for this mystery/thriller, which stars Virgil, who lives on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Virgil works as a kind of last resort for justice in his community–when something goes wrong and the American legal system or the tribal council can’t get justice, people come to him. And when heroin begins entering the reservation, Virgil has his work cut out for him. He investigates the source of the heroin, uncovering secrets that force him to reckon with his identity and his place in his community.
Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram
In this sequel to Darius the Great is Not Okay, we find Darius back home in the U.S., playing soccer, dating his first boyfriend, and keeping up a long distance friendship with Sohrab. But when both of Darius’s grandmothers arrive in town and his new internship at a tea shop doesn’t go quite as planned, plus Sohrab begins ghosting him and his dad is away on business, Darius’s life begins to scramble once again. And he has to decide if he wants to accept it, or that he deserves better.
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
Can you believe it is 2020 and this is the first time that Beowulf has been translated into English by a woman? Maria Dahvana Headley, who is a fantastic writer in her own right, has breathed new life into this old tale with her new verse translation about ambitious men, a woman seeking vengeance for her child, and monsters that walk among us. I haven’t read Beowulf since college, but I can’t wait for this new translation, which promises to give readers new context and nuance to one of our oldest surviving tales.
Happy reading!
Tirzah