This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
With The Book of Koli, M.R. Carey (Fellside) launches an exciting post-apocalyptic coming-of-age trilogy. It is the distant future, and nature has become hostile to the point where even trees attack those who venture into the forest. Small human settlements remain within walled communities. The Ramparts who can "wake" the small amount of surviving technology make up the ruling class of teenage Koli's village. When Koli learns a secret that may allow him to master the tech and shake the Ramparts' control, he begins a journey that will take him far beyond the relative safety of his village.
Koli looks back on his story from a future distant enough that he expects his audience to be unfamiliar with the society of his youth, so he makes this strange world in which he lives accessible to readers. At the stage of his life when the action takes place, Koli is not an especially mature teenager, and the rash decisions he makes in pursuit of a changed life are both believable and extremely ill-considered, but his first-person narration makes it clear that his heart is good, and the deep bonds that he forms with his companions will win readers' hearts. He will evidently live long enough to tell his tale, but watching him grow and learn is a pleasure. One hopes he will not only survive but thrive. Readers will finish The Book of Koli eager to read the next installment. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: A teenager challenges authority and must face a hostile, post-apocalyptic wilderness in this first book of a thrilling trilogy.

This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
In Conjure Women, a debut novel, Afia Atakora has created a vivid picture of African American life in the decades immediately before and after emancipation. Two years after the end of the American Civil War, Rue works as a midwife and healer on the plantation where she was once enslaved. The close-knit, quiet community strives to avoid having the outside world notice that the white family that owned the land and the now-ruined mansion is gone. But everything begins to change when one of the women gives birth to a pale child with strange black eyes, "like little black-eyed beans," for which he is named.
Although Rue is shocked by the sight of him, she feels bound to him, "a secret retribution for a long-ago crime, the punishment she had been dreading." In chapters looking back to the times of slavery and war, when Rue learned her healing talents from her mother, May Belle, who also dealt in curses, the network of secrets that underlies Rue's life slowly becomes known to readers. In the Reconstruction era chapters, when illness sweeps the plantation, it becomes clear those secrets may soon destroy the fragile peace that Rue has found.
The hints of supernatural retribution and the heart-wrenching depictions of love and suffering will remind readers of Toni Morrison's work. Rue's determination to protect the people who mean the most to her, including Bean, and the devastating mistakes she makes along the way will leave readers eager for more by Atakora. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: Two generations of healers use their gifts to protect those they love through slavery, war and epidemic in this haunting debut novel.

This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Listeners of the eerie podcast Welcome to Night Vale know that in the town of Night Vale, there is a faceless old woman who lives in everybody's home. She might light a refrigerator on fire if it upsets her, or she might want the Wi-Fi password, but never has she revealed how she came to live there or what happened to her face.
Her story stretches back to the 18th century in a Europe that features several additional countries. An idyllic childhood ends in tragedy, setting her on a lifelong quest for revenge against a shadowy criminal organization. Adventure and humor blend with a fablelike tone reminiscent of The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Woven throughout the story are chapters set in modern Night Vale, in which she addresses a resident named Craig. She treats him sometimes like a roommate, sometimes like a son in whose life she meddles and sometimes as if she's the ghost who haunts his house. By the end, her particular interest in Craig will become chillingly clear.
This third Welcome to Night Vale novel from Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Welcome to Night Vale) requires no prior knowledge of the previous books or the podcast, although readers versed in the larger universe will be pleased to get glimpses of the history of other familiar characters and mysterious organizations that populate that world. Part Ruritanian romance, part horror story, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home will enchant fans and newcomers alike. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: This story of adventure and betrayal with a favorite Night Vale character will charm, chill, and excite new and old fans.