AUDACIOUS, ABSORBING FANTASY THRILLER heralds the return of reluctant magic-user Ray Lilly, this time to an eerie nightmare world that only he can conquer. Satisfyingly twisty plot, memorable characters, tough paranormal noir voice. A MINUS

THE IRON GATE: TWENTY PALACES
Radar Avenue Press
2022

SATIRE, EXISTENTIAL HORROR, body horror, and an insider’s look at Los Angeles microcelebrity culture combine in this absolutely stunning short novel. What a ride! A MINUS

#THIGHGAP (MY DARK LIBRARY BOOK 2)
Cemetery Gates Media
2022

EXTRAVAGANTLY GAY, AUTHENTICALLY Latino memoir is witty, sophisticated, rawly candid, and wholly open-hearted. A fresh young perspective and energy mixes with deep insights about identity and belonging into an exhilarating cocktail of lush prose. A MINUS

HIGH-RISK HOMOSEXUAL
Soft Skull
2022

POWERFUL NEAR-FUTURE NOIR thriller works both as a tightly paced mystery and an absorbing vision of a 2040s world where, after an inexplicable pandemic, a quarter of the population never sleeps. You won’t want to put this one down! A MINUS

THE SLEEPLESS
Erewhon
2022

ALWAYS OPEN-HEARTED, SOMETIMES UNCOMFORTABLE, generously candid memoir in essays of a life lived in stories—from a hardscrabble Massachusetts childhood, years of wandering (literally and metaphorically), to a deep home in the literary community. A MINUS

DIRTBAG, MASSACHUSETTS
Bloomsbury Publishing
2022

STUNNING DEBUT THRILLER mixes police procedural and the paranormal. Evocative settings in New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation add even more depth to a powerful story. A MINUS

SHUTTER
Soho Crime
2022

A FATHER’S UNEXPECTED DEATH sends a young woman on a journey to understand him—and herself—better. Pitch-perfect evocation of an overachieving twenty-something life of share houses, late nights at work, and reckless choices. A MINUS

THE CATCH
Random House
2022

SPECTACULAR LITERARY TIME TRAVEL takes readers from an eventful 1982 high school production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” to the 2016 lives of the cast and their charismatic, predatory director. Stunning tragicomedy of manners! A MINUS

CYCLORAMA
Bloomsbury Publishing
2022

EXQUISITELY POETIC NOVEL centers on a undersea expedition gone awry, and its impact on a scientist and her shorebound wife. But it’s also an extraordinary examination of love, loss, and the power of the natural world. A MINUS

OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA
Flatiron Books
2022

A TRANSLATOR FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL DIPLOMATS is the chief suspect in a locked-room murder even more complicated than it seems. Marvelous worldbuilding of a near-future, post-First Contact, climate-ravaged Manhattan—and a tightly plotted whodunnit. A MINUS

DRUNK ON ALL YOUR STRANGE NEW WORDS
Tordotcom
2022