Kalyani Saxena

NPR staff recommend four young adult novels: "Heir," "Annie LeBlanc is Not Dead Yet," "The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette For Young Ladies of Mad Science," and "Dragonfruit."

Who says romance is reserved for Valentine's Day? Love stories are a treat to be savored year-round. Here are some of the best romance novels hitting the shelves in the first half of the year.

From NPR's Books We Love list, we bring you four romance novel recommendations: "Starling House," "The Collective Regrets of Clover," "The Porcelain Moon" and "Forget Me Not."

Alix E. Harrow's Starling House depicts a dying, fictional coal town's horrors and dark past. Harrow joins a long tradition of authors writing Gothic fiction as a way to process the ills of society.

Asian fantasy has been increasingly popular over the past few years, but some authors shelved in that category are wondering whether it's really a useful way of describing a vast and varied subgenre.

"I never want people to feel like fantasy and romance and magic and adventure belong to just one kind of person," the fantasy author says. A new Netflix series is adapted from her works.

Brandy Monk-Payton, a media and Black cultural studies scholar at Fordham University, talks with All Things Considered host Michel Martin about the ABC franchise and its record on race.

Reforming juvenile justice is a critical part of broader criminal justice reform, advocates say. They want action from Washington beyond what the Biden team has promised.

The first lady reportedly isn't a big fan of the holiday tradition and her husband doesn't acknowledge he lost the election, but the White House's aesthetic aims for an old-school note.

Support from Navajo voters may have been what pushed the Grand Canyon State to support its first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996.