This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Fans of United States and French history alike will be captivated by Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, the engrossing biography by Mike Duncan (The Storm Before the Storm).
The career of the Marquis de Lafayette started with the sort of education typical for a young nobleman with more land than cash in mid-18th-century rural France. After he made a name for himself in the American Revolution, he was involved in the French Revolution and then  the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty in the Revolution of 1830. His adventures in America began with a representative in France who overreached in offering commissions. Lafayette's departure was opposed by his family and the king, but he returned a celebrated hero.
Although he is occasionally overly fond of repeating the title of the book, Duncan paints a thorough and nuanced portrait of his subject. He highlights Lafayette's long dedication to abolition and his continued pressuring of George Washington to free those he enslaved, but does not overlook Lafayette's rather more indifferent attitude toward slavery in his early years. This includes a never-executed plan to raid British colonies in the Caribbean with an American warship and cover the cost by selling the enslaved people they anticipated capturing there. Lafayette's principles developed in a rapidly changing era, but once he found them, he clung to them no matter the personal cost. Duncan's absorbing account of Lafayette's life will enthrall devotees of United States and French history. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: This is a captivating account of the Marquis de Lafayette's involvement in more than 50 years of upheaval on two continents.
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This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
A mysterious death is only the beginning in How to Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott (The French Girl), a gripping work of suspense.
Georgie and Lissa were always the closest of their tight-knit group of friends from the college swim team, but Georgie wasn't on the last trip when they all got together, and then Lissa drowned. Her drowning was incongruous, considering that Lissa was the strongest swimmer among them, but there are local legends about the dangers of Kanu Cove on the island where Lissa and her husband owned a resort. Now her friends have gathered at the resort for her memorial. Georgie and Bron, another member of the group, who secretly had an affair with Lissa's late first husband, begin receiving strange notes and other threats. The vacationers who are not part of their group begin to leave the island, the weather turns threatening and the friends come to understand that the secrets they are uncovering might mean that Lissa's drowning was not an accident.
Elliott's book is an intricate, twisting story. Georgie kept Bron's secret about the affair, but she had suspicions about Lissa dating back to her first husband's death. The intensity of Georgie and Lissa's bond has a dark streak; no matter what Georgie thought Lissa may have been hiding, the only thing she would not consider is betraying Lissa. The heightened emotion of their relationship ramps up the suspense in this gothic-tinged, breathtaking thriller. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: In this suspenseful novel, a suspicious death is only one of the secrets among a group of old friends on an isolated island.

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Ordinary life is touched by the supernatural, and supernatural creatures have surprisingly ordinary concerns, in this expanded edition of Spirits Abroad. Nine new stories (including Hugo Award winner "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again") combine with the original 10 included in Zen Cho's (Sorcerer to the Crown) enchanting debut short story collection, first published in 2014.
Vivian returns to Malaysia after the death of her grandmother, who may have been a witch, to find the old woman visiting her in her dreams. Odette, raised and emotionally abused by her uncle, takes desperate measures to secure his house for herself. Ah Lee, who prefers the term vampire instead of what she really is, worries about the boy that she likes and how to keep him from noticing that she eats people.
Cho makes Malaysian folklore and British colonialism frequent themes, which are sometimes strange and gothic but more frequently charming. Love is a recurring subject--such as the case of a dragon who falls for a very ordinary woman named Prudence. Diaspora is another: in "The Four Generations of Chang E," an age-old story about the ways immigrants and the next generations of their families relate to the culture around them plays out on the moon. Characters struggle to achieve their ambitions in ways to which readers can easily empathize, even if those characters are an imugi struggling to transform into a dragon or an earth spirit digging a first hole of its own.
Fans of Cho's novels will find just as much wit and warmth to savor in her short works. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: The magical and the everyday mix in these 19 charming fantasy stories with Malaysian roots.