This cozy near-future novella speaks to me as someone who watched our Brooklyn neighborhood’s restaurants take care of each other during covid lockdown, but Annalee Newitz’s new book will appeal to anyone who connects food with community. As San Francisco recovers from a devastating war, a band of recently reactivated robots take over a ghost kitchen to make the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the Bay—because even when you’re living through unprecedented times, you gotta eat.

Big queer Practical Magic vibes from Charlie Jane Anders’ new contemporary fantasy novel about Jamie, ostensibly a New England academic but also a witch teaching her mother Serena witchcraft from a three-hundred-year-old book. As with many mother/daughter tales involving magic spells, there’s a dark family history snaking around their bond, and it will take more powerful spellwork than Jamie has ever harnessed to save Serena from her darkness.