Best New Books: Week of February 23, 2021

The following books, published this week, received starred reviews in Booklist. Want to read our starred reviews before the books go on sale? Subscribe to Booklist!

Adult Fiction

★ Checkmate to Murder, by E. C. R. Lorac

★ The Smash-Up, by Ali Benjamin

★ Smoke, by Joe Ide

★ Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters, by Aimee Ogden

★ Waiting for a Scot Like You, by Eva Leigh

Adult Nonfiction

★ Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race, by Shanna Swan and Stacey Colino

★ Speak, Okinawa, by Elizabeth Miki Brina

★ The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, by Jonathan Cohn

★ Tom Stoppard, by Hermione Lee

Youth Fiction

★ It’s So Quiet: A Not-Quite-Going-to-Bed Book, by Sherri Duskey Rinker and illustrated by Tony Fucile

★ The Valley and the Flood, by Rebecca Mahoney

Youth Nonfiction

★ The Sea-Ringed World: Sacred Stories of the Americas, by María García Esperón, illustrated by Amanda Mijangos, and translated by David Bowles