10 noteworthy books for April

Aubry Tourvel, the indulged youngest sister in her loving Parisian family, suddenly develops painful convulsions and life-threatening blood loss. It doesn’t take long to work out that relief comes only when she goes somewhere she has never been. With no choice but to leave home and keep moving, spending just days in one place until the bleeding starts again, she quickly learns to navigate a late-19th-century world where she is forever an outsider and perpetually alone. Sharing a shelf with philosophical adventure novels like “The Midnight Library” and “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue,” Westerbeke’s debut thoughtfully explores the effects of being forced to live only in the present. (Avid Reader, April 2)

As a journalist, Tometich knew there would be headlines when her mother was arrested for using a pellet gun to shoot out the car window of a mango thief. She was still surprised, though, by how harshly people judged her Filipina immigrant mother based on skin color alone. The moment is an entry point for Tometich to revisit growing up in a mixed-race household and desperately longing to appear “normal.” The goal of her turbulent formative years was to go unnoticed, whether it was hiding in her room while her parents were scream-fighting or disappearing in the back seat of her best friend’s car as a rotating cast of popular kids sat up front. In seeking to understand the complexity of her mother’s life, Tometich reveals the difficulties that many immigrants and multiracial families face as they try to find a way to belong. (Little, Brown, April 2)

Huguley’s engaging historical novel reimagines the then-taboo interracial friendship — noted in a 1978 Washington Post obituary — between Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice and Booker T. Washington’s daughter, Portia. These children of American luminaries, who are smart and savvy characters in their own right, share an uncommon connection. As their friendship flourishes, the intriguing women encourage each other through both political and personal tumult. (William Morrow, April 2)

While earning a doctorate in clinical psychology, Gagne wrote a dissertation examining the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety, a subject with which she was intimately familiar as a sociopath herself. From childhood, she was at a loss to explain why people were uncomfortable around her; she only knew she didn’t understand emotions like fear, guilt or empathy. The inner drive to experience such feelings led her down a path that included lies, criminal behavior and violence. Her studies gave her a diagnosis but little hope: The consensus among late-20th-century psychologists was that there was no treatment, nor the possibility of a normal life. Yet after years of study and therapy, plus the encouragement of supportive family and friends, she shares an inspiring story — of building a life filled with love and meaning — while upending the prevailing narrative of sociopaths as monsters. (Simon & Schuster, April 2)

Jean is a midwife in an 1830s Canadian coastal village when a mysterious woman shows up during a storm, uncommunicative and in labor. After Jean assists with the birth, her neighbor Tobias arrives, explaining that the woman is his Gaelic wife, Muirin, who doesn’t speak at all. During the following week, Jean stays with the new mother, secretly teaching her English while becoming suspicious of Tobias’s intentions. When their friendship turns into something deeper, Jean plans an escape, but she fears that her actions may be putting Muirin and her baby in more danger. Sutherland’s atmospheric, feminist retelling of the selkie wife folk tale is a mesmerizing debut. (Dell, April 9)

Tess moved from her Jamaican community in London to the English countryside, where her husband, Richard, grew up, to raise their twin boys — Max, who presents as White, and Sonny, who presents as Black — in a place where they could muck about in nature. Struggling to find happiness after a great loss, Tess ignores racial slights and devotes herself to cooking Caribbean food, while Richard immerses himself in his winter garden, avoiding difficult conversations. Max can talk only with Sonny about his feelings, although everyone can sense the family is suffering. Like Richard’s plants, only the hardiest of people can endure a desolate winter, but spring’s warmth and light might bring what the family needs for healing and growth. (Henry Holt, April 9)

Langan’s satirical observations shine in this dystopian thriller set in a wealthy enclave where something sinister lurks under a glittery surface. After climate devastation fueled chaos, the only safe places to live are guarded company towns like Plymouth Valley, where the Farmer-Bowens hope to be accepted as residents. An underpaid Environmental Protection Agency employee, Russell has just gotten a one-year trial job offer that could save his family from financial ruin and reverse their deteriorating health issues. Linda gives up her job as a doctor, and they relocate to a three-story colonial and send their two teens to the neighborhood’s blue-ribbon school. Valley residents are tightknit, though, and social breakthrough is difficult until Linda accepts a job offer at a clinic supported by local power brokers. The family’s new stature opens doors but also prompts questions about how far Valley natives might go to justify their wealth and isolation. (Atria, April 9)

As covid sweeps the globe, Pia’s mother sends the 15-year-old to New York City to live with her cardiologist father, David, and his new young wife, Kate, a teacher. To protect Pia and newly pregnant Kate from covid exposure, David takes an apartment near the hospital where he works, leaving his daughter to make sense of the upheaval brought by her parents’ divorce. Meanwhile, Kate struggles to connect with a teenager — and questions her own ability to raise a child — while leading online classes for high-schoolers who are facing their own family dramas. Freudenberger ably captures the sense of uncertainty and displacement during the height of the pandemic, matching the inner confusion of major life changes with the outer turmoil of a world in crisis. (Knopf, April 9)

Fluffy and fun, Gable’s novel takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the lives of Palm Beach jet-setters through the eyes of fictional former debutante Margo Hightower. Desperate for money after a broken engagement and a family scandal, Margo takes a job as an assistant to photographer Slim Aarons and is thrust into the world of uber-wealthy scions with names like Vanderbilt, Kennedy and Rousseau. As a friendship develops with heiress and up-and-coming fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer and her seemingly devoted husband, Peter, the divide between work and play starts to blur. When lines are crossed and secrets are revealed, Margo must rely on her skills to forge a path for her future. (Graydon House, April 16)

Even at her age — “eighty plus a dash of salt” — Honey Fasinga still does herself up before leaving the house, donning one of a number of outfits from years ago that still fit her: the green silk custom creation with marigold cuffs; a Gucci day dress with ribbon trim; a militantly angular Vivienne Westwood suit. Half a century earlier, Honey fled the world of organized crime to settle in Los Angeles, where she created a fashionable, art-filled life. Honey has always told herself she was different from her now-deceased parents and brother and is convinced she has moved past old grievances. But as she returns home and is faced with a seemingly drug-addled grandnephew, old friends turned enemies and a carjacking to boot, she’s no longer sure whether she is looking for absolution or reprisal. Lodato skillfully brings to life a haunting and irresistible character who is as complex as she is charming. (Harper, April 16)