Full of characters that are courageous, smart, and full of heart, BEINONI is an action-packed adventure.
BEINONI
by Mari Lowe
Levine Querido, July 2025
(via Context Literary)
In a Beinoni time there should be no war, no terrible illness, no crime. Even if that also means there won’t be any great discoveries, any cures, anything extraordinary. Ezra believes that’s worth fighting for.
In fact, he’s been training most of his life to fight a battle to determine whether Beinoni time continues, or gives way to a more violent, less certain future. He is the Nivchar, the chosen one, with the sign of the scales on his skin. When he comes of age at his bar mitzvah, so too will the gurya, a fiery beast of uncertain form, emerging from a cave to conquer, destroy, and herald a time of conflict.
But Ezra begins to sense that something is very wrong. His friends, his neighbors, the whole world is losing the careful, even balance he’s come to expect in a Beinoni time. It was always uncertain whether he’d be able to best his terrifying, magical foe. But now, is it even possible?.
Mari Lowe has too little free time and spends it all on writing and escape rooms. As the daughter of a rabbi and as a middle school teacher at an Orthodox Jewish school, she looks forward to sharing little glimpses into her community with her books. Her debut middle grade novel, Aviva vs. the Dybbuk, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, and is a Sydney Taylor Book Award winner. She lives in New York with her family, menagerie of pets, and robotic vacuum.
Alice has been unhappy ever since her parents sent her to Prince Edward Island to live with her strict grandmother. Alice is fanciful, prone to telling tall tales, and absolutely 
For centuries faeries have lived safely in their ancient forests, but now their peace is under threat. Devils are escaping the prisons that have held them since the Dawn Days, and only one faerie stands in their way.
A few things to know about the town of St. Muckle’s: It’s too out-of-the-way to interest greedy lords, and too damp and muddy for marauding dragons to burn. And anyone, from a humble serf to a runaway nun, may earn their freedom by living for a year and a day within the town walls. Seven years ago, Charl and his mother fled to St. Muckle’s and made it their safe-haven, building a new life in this so called Peasant’s Paradise. But when Charl sees something impossible—a ghost—soon the embers of his past are threatening to engulf his world in flame. A tragic accident is quickly followed by murder, a deadly plague, and a mercenary dragon.