Fatima's Great Outdoors by Ambreen Tariq, ill. by Stevie Lewis (on sale 3/30): A testimony to the healing powers of outdoor adventure, family time, and fun! Fatima has not been enjoying her days at school — kids have been teasing her because of her accent and the food she brings for lunch, her grades have not been what she hoped for, and her parents are tired from working two jobs to make ends meet. But the weekend her parents introduce the girls to camping becomes a healing balm. Fatima learns to light a fire, build a tent, gather firewood, overcome her fears, and just play. Tariq is the founder of Brown People Camping and this is a beautifully illustrated love letter to the power of the outdoors to keep us empowered and grounded.

- Linda

Red Island House by Andrea Lee (on sale 3/23): Madagascar's beauty and exoticism seduces the reader, as it does Shay, an African-American professor married to a brash Italian businessman. The lavish Red House he builds, supposedly for her but more as a testament to his success, affords Shay a dream vacation home. While navigating her role as mistress, she must also come to terms with colonialism's effects on the people of this impoverished island nation, a people with whom she shares skin color and a legacy. A land plundered demands payment. Spanning twenty years, Lee weaves the stories of those who arrogantly deem a paradise for their taking with those left grasping for what's rightfully theirs into a provocative tale. - Linda

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (on sale 3/30): Amadeo Padilla thinks he understands what he needs to sacrifice to get his life together. He's made mistakes, but he thinks that if he can just be strong — carry the cross in the Good Friday procession in his small town of Pas Penas, New Mexico, make himself take the nails, feel a little of what Christ felt — then redemption will be his. His pregnant fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up and, in a brilliant twist of the old hero's journey, becomes his mentor, the one who ultimately leads him to a true understanding of redemption. Best of all, you're in the hands of a masterful writer who understands that there's magic in us. Achingly painful and transcendent, you will not leave Las Penas unchanged.  - Linda