FRAGILE MONSTERS

Catherine Menon, $32.99 On a visit to her childhood home in rural Malaysia, Durga faces a reckoning. Stuck with her sharptongued grandmother, they must untangle the truth from the myth of their family’s past. What happened to Durga’s mother after she gave birth? Why did so many family members disappear in the war? And who is to blame for the childhood tragedy that haunts Durga? Tracing one family’s story from 1920 to present day, it’s a thrilling tale of love, betrayal and redemption, set against the backdrop of natural disasters and fallen empires.