Elin Hilderbrand — known as the "Queen of Summer" — is back with another beachy tale of family secrets and intrigue (and tasty period details), set on Nantucket during the turbulent summer of 1969.

NPR's new kids' fiction column — by Juanita Giles, founder of the Virginia Children's Book Festival — kicks off with an explanation of why the epic poem Beowulf is the perfect bathtime read.

Richard Kadrey — known for his Sandman Slim series of supernatural noirs — reinvents himself in grand fashion with The Grand Dark, a diesel-punk fantasy set in a simulacrum of Weimar Germany.

This debut story collection from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the TV show BoJack Horseman, has some excellent, risk-taking work in it — but stumbles sometimes over its higher concepts.

Craig Laurance Gidney's debut adult novel is set in a marshy, mysterious rural town where a community of artists, students and townspeople are united by visions of a strange, pinkish-purple color.