“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” James McBride’s tour de force of a new novel, opens in 1972, when authorities discover a human skeleton and mezuzah at the bottom of a well in the small community of Pottstown in Pennsylvania. Suspecting foul play, they question Malachi, an old Jewish man who lives in the ramshackle neighborhood of Chicken Hill, where the town’s Jews, Blacks and immigrant whites once lived together in harmony.

The next day, Hurricane Agnes barrels into the region, churning up flood waters that wipe out every trace of the potential crime.

So begins McBride’s mesmerizing, moving, almost magical tale set nearly half a century before the flood about the intertwined lives of a group of poor Black, Jewish and Italian misfits and dreamers who band together to rescue an orphaned deaf Black boy from a state institution while fending off interference from the town’s bigoted white leaders.

McBride, a prize- winning author and accomplished musician, writes sentences and paragraphs that swing like jazz melodies. Whether he’s describing Malachi; the mysterious klezmer dancer interrogated by police; or Miggy Fludd, a formidable Gullah fortuneteller, he creates utterly believable characters who speak pitch-perfect dialogue.

At the center of the novel is Chona Ludlow, who runs the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store in Chicken Hill, extending credit to customers without expecting to be paid while her husband, Moshe, integrates his dance hall and theater. How they conspire with Nate Timblin, a Black man who helps manage the business, and his wife, Addie, to save the 12-year-old boy is a miracle of storytelling that will leave you laughing and crying.

The novel is dedicated to Sy Friend, the retired director of a camp for disabled children in Pennsylvania, where McBride was a counselor in college. McBride writes he “taught all of us the meaning of ‘tikkun olam,’ ” the Hebrew expression for “repairing the world” and the guiding spirit of this book. — Ann Levin, Associated Press

Lady Imogen Ashbourne is rich, spoiled and obsessed with looks. She’s also tremendously weighted with guilt both earned and unearned. She’s got a lot of growing up to do, and the sink-or-swim adventure she’s about to embark on will guarantee she does.

Author Claire Legrand, already established in the world of teen fiction, is also growing up into the world of adult fantasy with “A Crown of Ivy and Glass,” the first in the Middlemist Trilogy. Her author’s note serves as a brief content warning — one that is wholly merited, as the book touches on sensitive but important topics.

Imogen struggles with panic attacks, self-hatred and a mysterious, debilitating illness that no healer can seem to puzzle out: She’s a magicless anomaly in her Anointed family, who was granted magic by the gods, and the mere presence of the stuff sends her reeling in pain.

Disenchanted by it all, Imogen doesn’t believe the stories that a family feud between the Ashbournes and the Basks is fueled by a demon. But the foreigner Talan d’Astier, with a magical power to soothe her aching body and racing mind, persuades her it’s worth pursuing. She devises a plan to ask the demon to cure her and give her magic — if such a demon actually exists, if they find it and almost regardless of what it wants in return.

The result is a genuine and exciting character arc that puts disability and mental illness in the spotlight for an honest, earnest evaluation. Legrand is a polished painter of word pictures. Luscious descriptions bring the story alive, making it immersive and fun even when it’s uncomfortable or excruciating.

But it remains to be seen whether the next two books can keep up the excitement. — Donna Edwards, Associated Press