Molly Chenault

“Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” by Kylie Lee Baker, MIRA, 2025, $28.99. Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of that seems so terrible when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister, Delilah, being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer shouted two words: bat eater.

“Death at Morning House” by Maureen Johnson, HarperCollins, 2024, $19.99. The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

“Raising Hare” by Chloe Dalton, Pantheon, 2025, $27.00. Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and bounded around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, more than two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end.