โRead a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.โ – Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby โ
fiction / mystery / suspense.
Titus Crowne is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County. A former FBI agent and security expert, Titus came home to take care of his father and look out for his troubled younger brother. He ran for Sheriff to make a difference, especially in the Black community, which has so often been treated unfairly by the police.
But a year to the day after his election, a school shooting rocks the town. A beloved teacher is killed by a former student, and as Titus attempts to deescalate and get the boy to surrender, his deputies fire a fatal shot.
In the investigation, it becomes clear that the student they shot had been abused by the dead teacher, as well as by unidentified perpetrators. The trail leads to buried bodiesโand secrets. While Titus tries to track down a killer hiding in plain sight, while balancing daily duties like protecting Confederate pride marchers, he must face what it means to be a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South.
“[A] superb thriller… This is easily the authorโs strongest work to date.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Cosby, the multi-award-winning author of Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears, has a unique, powerful voice… His compelling writing will have readers rooting for his latest unforgettable, flawed hero.” – Lesa Holstine, Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“…gripping… crackles along with each new clue and obstacle… Another provocative and page-turning entry in the Southern noir genre.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[At]ย once a gripping character study and a darkly compelling example of Southern noir… Cosby delves into the history, heart and hypocrisy of his home state of Virginia with anger and grace… a nerve-jangling, thought-provoking, often heartbreaking read, but also one that reminds readers ‘there was beauty in the world… if you knew where to look. It was there if you were brave enough or foolish enough to seek it.’โ – Linda M. Castelitto, BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu
fiction.
August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. He carries the weight of their lofty expectations, the shame of facing himself, and the haunting memory of a mother he never knew. Itโs his first semester and pressures aside, August is making friends, doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. Thereโs only one problem: he canโt stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafรฉ. Segun carries his own burdens and has been wounded in too many ways. When he meets August, their connection is undeniable, but Segun is reluctant to open himself up to August. He wants to love and be loved by a man who is comfortable in his own skin, who will see and hold and love Segun, exactly as he is.
Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world theyโve created together. And when a new, sweeping anti-gay law is passed, August and Segun must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them. A tale of rare bravery and profound beauty, And Then He Sang a Lullaby is an extraordinary debut that marks Ani as a voice to watch.
“This inaugural title in Roxane Gayโs new imprint with Grove Atlantic is a compelling, mature work of narrative grace.” – Sally Bissell, Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“And Then He Sang a Lullaby is driven by deeply drawn characters and a clear sense of place. The novel will resonate with readers in the current moment of rising anti-LGBTQ legislation and violence.” – Laura Chanoux, Booklist
โAnd Then He Sang a Lullaby interrogates love, secrecy, and a revolution in Nigeria… The novel shifts between [August and Segunโs] perspectives, revealing how religion, self-repression, colonialism, tradition and nonconventional relationships impact them both. August is pulled between his desire to be a good son, his pining for other men, and his fears of persecution and alienation; this leads to heart-wrenching scenes revealing longing, hesitance, and internalized shame. In the novel And Then He Sang a Lullaby, a man learns to love and accept himself despite dire circumstances and violent intolerance.โ – Aleena Ortiz, Foreword Reviews
At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich
fiction.
Laura lives alone in a cabin deep within the forest, making her living translating medical documents and tutoring the children of affluent locals. She spends her days climbing the mountains outside her door and roaming the woods, and soon begins a relationship with a waiter some years her junior, which brings new rhythms to her life. But late one night there is a knock on the door, and on the other side stands someone from her past who has finally found her.
As the mystery surrounding why she is there comes into focus, Laura is plagued by a fever, and starts to experience flashbacks to her youth, along with an eerie second sight that seems to lift the veil on reality while making astonishing new connections with the natural world around her. In beguiling, lyrical prose we begin to see how Lauraโs past informs her present and is a shackle she is desperately trying to shed. Before long though the villagers grow wary of the woman in the cabin and of her increasingly odd behavior, and a few decide to take matters into their own hands; to free themselves from the malevolent forces of the strega who lives amongst them.
At the Edge of the Woods is an evocative and unsettling story that grapples with themes of illness, infertility, and femininity to ask questions about how women have had to navigate or attempted to escape societal expectations both historically and today. Kathryn Bromwich is a spectacular, singular talent, and At the Edge of the Woods is a haunting, magnificent, spellbinding debut with the weight of an instant classic.
“Haunting, gorgeously descriptive, and spellbinding, Kathryn Bromwich has written an incredible gothic debut.” – Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books
“An accomplished, unsettling debut… At the Edge of the Woods is a novel that invites full immersion on the readerโs part; the reward is a deeply unsettling exploration of what it means to inhabit a female body but to reject femininity, and to feel a connection with the natural world that embodies both awe and terror. In this, its themes could not be more timely.” – Stephanie Merritt, The Guardian
“…mesmerizing… Much of the book is concerned with Lauraโs immediate experiences of the landscape, which creates a lulling effect, but as in the wilderness, one cannot let themselves become unwary; the beautiful descriptions are soon punctuated by a sharp sense of menace as Lauraโs reality begins to deteriorate. This is an unsettling fever dream of a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.” – Emily Temple, Literary Hub
August Blue by Deborah Levy โ
fiction.
At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Andersonโformer child prodigy, now in her thirtiesโwalks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance.
Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history.
So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double. A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, Deborah Levyโs August Blue uncovers the ways in which we attempt to revise our oldest stories and make ourselves anew.
“[A] magnificent experiment in surrealism… This is a stunner.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
โLevy makes a metaphor of twinhood and doppelgangers to illustrate our alternate lives, she recycles phrases throughout the book in a kind of prayer of repetition, and she leaves us with absences, and gifts, and mirrors. Itโs a lovely and spare portrayal of coming to terms with the truth of our lives, our specific oneness.โ – Julia Hass, Literary Hub
“An economical, elliptical, but always entertaining novel of transformation by a highly skilled enigmatist.” – Kirkus Reviews
โ[August Blue] encompasses the cerebral and the sentimental, realism and surrealism, love and loss, the drive to create artโand the ambiguities of human relations… Her booksโlike love, and indeed, lifeโrequire, as a friend points out to Elsa in a wry aside about relationships, a willingness to tolerate a certain level of โconfusion and uncertainty.โ They are totally worth it.โ – Heller McAlpin, Wall Street Journal
A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality by Kate Khavari
fiction / mystery / historical fiction / suspense / romance.
1920s London isnโt the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffronโs assistance.
The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowersโ there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead.
Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought sheโd left behind forever.
Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own in Kate Khavariโs second intoxicating installment.
“An intriguing mystery with plenty of esoteric plant lore and a touch or two of romance.” – Kirkus Reviews
“A fun new adventure for tenacious detective Saffron Burrows, with interesting new characters and deadly flowers abound.” – Kate, The Library Ladies
“The novel sings when Saffron is searching fields and gardens, scrutinizing plants, and studying archaic floral meanings, and Khavari also gets in some gleeful jabs at snobbish academics. Historical mystery fans will want to see where Saffron goes from here.” – Publishers Weekly
A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao
fiction / mystery / historical fiction.
1914, Fiji: Akal Singh would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradiseโor, as he calls it, โthis godforsaken island.โ After a promising start to his police career in his native India and Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong.
When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fijiโs newspapers scream โkidnapping,โ the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case, giving him strict instructions to view this investigation as nothing more than cursory. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agreesโbut soon finds himself far more invested than he could have expected.
Now not only is he investigating a disappearance, but also confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workersโ existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fijiโalong with his own thorny notions of personhood and caste. Early interrogations of the white plantation owners, Indian indentured laborers, and native Fijians yield only one conclusion: there is far more to this case than meets the eye.
Nilima Raoโs sparkling debut mystery offers an unflinching look at the evils of colonialism, even as it brims with wit, vibrant characters, and fascinating historical detail.
โThe novel focuses on some wide societal issuesโwhite colonialism, systemic racism, indentured servitude, and corporate greedโin the context of an excellent story… Raoโs attention to detail makes for a vivid read… [Akal is] an endearing and iconic hero.โ – Fiona Alison, Historical Novel Society
“[A] lively, elegantly constructed debut… Rao skillfully weaves descriptions of the treatment and living conditions of Indian workers into the propulsive plot and draws a host of vibrant characters. This is an exceptionally promising debut.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Itโs fascinating to watch Singhโs uphill struggle to learn what happened to the young woman; the way he is thwarted at every turn speaks volumes about colonial rule. An insightful, determined main character, the unearthing of the wrongs of indentured servitude, and a compelling plot make this a promising start to a new series.” – Connie Fletcher, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
The Elissas: Three Girls, One Fate, and the Deadly Secrets of Suburbia by Samantha Leach
nonfiction / true crime / memoir.
Three suburban girls meet at a boarding school for troubled teens.
Eight years later, they were dead.
Bustle editor Samantha Leach and her childhood best friend, Elissa, met as infants in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island, where they attended nursery, elementary school, and temple together. As seventh graders, they would steal drinks from bar mitzvahs and have boys over in Samanthaโs basementโinnocent, early acts of rebellion. But after one of their shared acts, Samantha was given a disciplinary warning by their private school while Elissa was dismissed altogether, and later sent away. Samantha did not know then, but Elissa had just become one of the fifty-thousand-plus kids per year who enter the Troubled Teen Industry: a network of unregulated programs meant to reform wealthy, wayward youth.
Less than a year after graduation from Ponca Pines Academy, Elissa died at eighteen years old. In Samanthaโs grief, she fixated on Elissaโs last years at the therapeutic boarding school, eager to understand why their paths diverged. As she spoke to mutual friends and scoured social media pages, Samantha learned of Alyssa and Alissa, Elissaโs closest friends at the school who shared both her name and penchant for partying, where drugs and alcohol became their norm. The matching Save Our Souls tattoo all three girls also had further fueled Samanthaโs fixation, as she watched their lives play out online. Four years after Elissaโs death, Alyssa died, then Alissa at twenty-six.
In The Elissas, Samantha endeavors to understand why they ultimately met a shared, tragic fate that she was spared, in turn, offering a chilling account of the secret lives of young suburban women.
“…harrowing… a searing exposรฉ.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
โThe Elissas is elegiac and investigative in equal measure. Leach channels her grief from her early friendโs loss into compassionate, poignant reportingโand one of the best nonfiction books of the summer.โ – Halie LeSavage, Harper’s Bazaar
โLeach takes the reader through this harrowing, heartbreaking story… With great care, she reveals the paths that led these girlsโ deaths at 18, 23, and 26, when their lives should have just been beginning. The loss is enormous, and Leach painstakingly, lovingly, braids their stories into one indelible work.โ – Jenny Singer, Glamour
George: A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes
nonfiction / memoir / nature.
โHe was a hectic, unprincipled bird, but it was impossible not to love him.โ
When Frieda Hughes moved to the depths of the Welsh countryside, she was expecting to take on a few projects: planting a garden, painting, writing her poetry column for The Times (London), and possibly even breathing new life into her ailing marriage. But instead, she found herself rescuing a baby magpie, the sole survivor of a nest destroyed in a stormโand embarking on an obsession that would change the course of her life.
As the magpie, George, grows from a shrieking scrap of feathers and bones into an intelligent, unruly companion, Frieda finds herself captivatedโand apprehensive of what will happen when the time comes to finally set him free.
With irresistible humor and heart, Frieda invites us along on her unlikely journey toward joy and connection in the wake of sadness and loss; a journey that began with saving a tiny wild creature and ended with her being saved in return.
“This captivating memoir of life with an unruly magpie had me hooked from the very first page… Hughes recounts his impish antics โ which include daily games of hide-and-seek with multiple household objects โ with affection and wry, exasperated humor.” – Jude Burke-Lewis, The Southern Bookseller Review
“[A] lovely chronicle of setting aside lifeโs usual demands to meet the immediate needs of an orphaned magpie chick… In lyrical prose full of introspection and humor, Hughes describes George being washed by her dogs, his learning to fly, and his curiosity about everything… Enlivened with Hughesโ drawings, this portrait of a bird mirrors how each of us maneuvers through our own existence.” – Nancy Bent, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Illustrated throughout with pen-and-ink drawings, this charming memoir about the authorโs accidental adventures in avian rescue offers tantalizing insights into her struggle to fly free of the difficult emotional legacy bequeathed by her literary-icon parents, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.ย A poignantly heartwarming delight.” – Kirkus Reviews
Girls and Their Horses by Eliza Jane Brazier
fiction / suspense / mystery.
When the nouveau riche Parker family moves to an exclusive community in the heart of Southern California, they believe itโs their chance at a fresh start. Heather Parker is determined to give her daughters the life she never hadโstarting with horses.
She signs them up for riding lessons at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, where horses are a lifestyle. Heather becomes a โBarn Mom,โ part of a group of wealthy women who hang at the stables, drink wine, and prepare their daughters for competition.
Itโs not long before the Parker family is fully enmeshed in the horse worldโfrom mean girl cliques to barn romance and dark secrets. With the end of summer horse show fast approaching, the pressure is on, and these mothers will stop at nothing to give their daughters everything they deserve.
Before the summer is over, lies will turn lethal, accidents will happen, and someone will end up dead.
โThe thriller of the summer.โ – Elena Nicolau, Today
โBig Little Lies goes equestrian in this lacerating, steamy thriller.โ – Oprah Daily
“Horse mothers put stage mothers to shame in this wildly entertaining thriller… This is a sparkling addition to Brazierโs impressive career.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Hedge by Jane Delury
fiction.
Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mom to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reignite her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush, 19th century estate in the Hudson Valley. Reveling in her work and temporary independence, Maud relishes her days in the sun. While waiting for her daughters to join her at the end of their school year, she strikes up a friendship with a coworker, archeologist Gabriel Crews. As the two share nightly dinners, their relationship grows more intimate, and Maud starts to imagine a future outside of her sti๏ฌing marriage. Once Ella and Louise arrive, however, she is torn by her desire for Gabriel, her obligations to her daughters, and her growing concern for Ellaโs dark moods. Is Ella acting out because she senses that Maud and Gabriel have fallen in love?
What happens next is a seismic shock that profoundly changes Maud’s life, as well as the lives of everyone she cares about. Deeply moving and impossible to put down, Hedge is an unforgettable portrait of a womanโs longing to be a good mother while still answering the call of her soul and mind.
โAs lush and inviting as the gardens created by its heroine, this novelโฆ will wrap you in captivating, high-stakes drama.โ – People
โWith language as lush as the setting, Delury pulls readers into a thicket of lust, responsibility, and betrayal that they wonโt want to escape.โ – Oprah Daily
โA great portion of [Hedgeโs] magic lies in how it turns a radical corner, gaining speed and burning urgencyโthen slowly becoming something else: deeper, denser, wiser. Readers will (and should) trust it to take us where we need to goโeven if not where we expected.โ – Joan Frank, Washington Post
Hot Pot Murder by Jennifer J. Chow
fiction / mystery.
Yale and Celine Yeeโs food stall business is going so well that theyโve been invited to join an exclusive dinner with the local restaurant owners association. The members gather together for a relaxing hot pot feastโฆ until Jeffery Vue, president of the group, receives a literal shock to his system and dies.
Everyone at the meal is a suspect, but the authorities are homing in on family friend Ai Ho, owner of the restaurant where Jeffery was killedโand Yaleโs dad is a close second on their list. Yale and Celine step up to the plate and investigate the dinner attendees: the associationโs ambitious VP, a familiar frenemy, a ramen king, a snacks shopkeeper, and a second-generation restaurateur. Itโs up to the detecting duo to figure out what really happened before their friends and family have to close their businesses for good.
“Great characters and a delightful mystery filled with luscious descriptions of food.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…charming and delightful… Spending time with these characters is a treat, butโfull warningโthis book will make you hungry.” – Parade
House Woman by Adorah Nworah
fiction / suspense / mystery.
When Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos to Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion in Sugar Land, pizza parlors, and dance classes.
Desperate to please, she’ll happily cater to her family’s needs. But Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson grow urgent as her every move comes under scrutiny. As Ikemefuna finds thereโs no way out, her new husband grapples with the influence of his parents against his own increasing affection for her.
As family secrets boil to the surface, Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation: a marriage succumbing to generational cycles of pain and silence. In the end, she may be carrying the greatest secret of all.
An unforgettably delicious thriller, House Woman is about a woman trapped in a dangerous web of conflicting desires, melting in the Texas heat.
“House Woman is a chilling domestic thriller about a womanโs life-or-death fight for bodily autonomy.” – Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“The novel teems with menace… A modern successor to Gaslight: disorienting and disturbing.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Nworah is a gifted writer. House Woman is a compelling and thought-provoking book. It hits all the right notes: a fast-paced, heart-thumping thriller that tackles timely issues and explores Igbo cosmology and storytelling. The uniqueness of her voices shine through the entire book and positions her as a talent to watch.” – Brittle Paper
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See โ
fiction / historical fiction.
According to Confucius, โan educated woman is a worthless woman,โ but Tan Yunxianโborn into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and lonelinessโis being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinationsโlooking, listening, touching, and askingโsomething a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about womenโs illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purposeโdespite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with itโand they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each otherโs joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wifeโembroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tanโs Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
“In the sumptuous, illuminating Lady Tanโs Circle of Women, Lisa See brings to light the real-life tale of one of Chinaโs earliest documented female physicians… I couldnโt conceive of a more wonderful protagonist to root for… Through deft prose and vivid imagery, See makes us feel like weโre living alongside her characters, and it is this painstaking attention to detail that truly elevates her writing into another class.” – Amita Parikh, Book of the Month
“[An] engrossing novel… Womenโs friendships in a world where they have little freedom shape a quietly moving book.” – Kirkus Reviews
“See creates a cultural smorgasbord as she adeptly depicts the strict delineation and separation of the sexes and the minute details of the social hierarchy… [this] accomplished novel immerses readers in a fascinating life lived within a fascinating culture.” – Bethany Latham, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“I loved [it] from cover to cover… Lisa See completely transports you to this era and shows you what it’s like to be a mother, daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, and friend. She shows you the harshness of some relationships and the beauty of others.” – Princeton Book Review
A Little Ray of Sunshine by Kristan Higgins
fiction / romance.
A kid walks into your bookstore andโฆ Guess what? Heโs your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
And a huge surprise it is.
Itโs a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth motherโฆ without a word to either her or his dad.
Itโs also a surpriseโ to say the leastโto Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. Sheโs spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she canโt help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. Heโs moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But sheโs always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things.
When Matthew walks into Harlowโs store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptionsโabout what being a parent really meansโexplode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefinedโฆ and as both women learn that for them, thereโs no limit to a motherโs love.
“An uplifting story of love and gratitudeโnot to mention frustration, fear, and failureโin all forms of family.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Higgins deftly navigates her charactersโ complex emotions… The womenโs inner lives are presented authentically, allowing the reader to understand the mixed feelings of joy, fear, love, and guilt that both women experience… [A] comforting-as-a-cozy-sweater story. Hand this one to fans of Susan Wiggs and Jennifer Weiner.” – Nanette Donohue, Booklist
“Higgins returns with her signature writing style that will make readers laugh, possibly cry, and think deeply about the role of family and motherhood… a perfectly done novel. Higgins tackles what it means to be part of a family and how family can look very different from person to person. Her signature humor sprinkled into a heavy topic makes this a must-read.” – Brooke Bolton, Library Journal
Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
fiction / horror.
By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every childโs favorite ice princess.
By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.
But when Gideon Green – her best friendโs brother – moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.
Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, itโs Maeveโs turn with the knife.
“[A] cynically fun tribute to perverse literature, Halloween, music, and bizarro Los Angeles… You can see [Maeveโs] pain and stand aghast at her behavior all at once, making for that moralistic head trip every horror fan craves.โ – Fangoria
“Leedeโs bloody and gory debut will make readers clutch their metaphorical pearls in the best way possible.” – Verรณnica N. Rodrรญguez, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] gore-soaked love letter to Los Angeles that fans of American Psycho and Samantha Kolesnikโs True Crime wonโt want to miss.” – Publishers Weekly
My Murder by Katie Williams
fiction / mystery / suspense / science fiction.
What if the murder you had to solve was your own?
Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She’s also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.
Now it’s not enough to care for her child, love her husband, and work the job she’s always enjoyed–she must also figure out the circumstances of her death. Darkly comic, tautly paced, and full of surprises, My Murder is a devour-in-one-sitting, clever twist on the classic thriller.
“Smart, scary and full of twists.โ – Real Simple
โA singular voice and a winning narrative that will stay with you for days.โ – BookPage
โWilliams deftly swirls science fiction and domestic suspense plotlines into this fresh and unpredictable tale… Imbued with a sharp feminist consciousness, My Murder cheekily invokes and subverts the conventional serial-killer-stalking-terrified-women plot… Bringing together the futuristic visions of speculative fiction with the familiar tropes of domestic suspense and noir, My Murder shakes up the same-old, same-old conventions of every genre it touches and has a ton of fun doing so.โ – Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post
Open Throat by Henry Hoke
fiction.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanityโs foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. โI have so much language in my brain,โ our lion says, โand nowhere to put it.โ
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call โellay.โ As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one?
In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hokeโs Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.
“The premise alone makes Henry Hoke’s startling achievement worth the purchase… Philosophical and heartfelt, Open Throat is the ultimate immersion into the mind of an unlikely protagonist.” – Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle
“One of the most unique novels I’ve read in years… I didn’t know I would feel such attachment to a mountain lion when I started reading, but in Henry Hoke’s talented hands, they become an instantly memorable and endearing protagonist.” – David Vogel, BuzzFeed
“Give this sinewy prose poem a chance and you’ll fall under the spell of a forlorn voice trapped in the hellscape of modern America… it’s the combination of attention and naivetรฉ that charges his observations with unconscious profundity… Hoke coughs up little hairballs of comic misunderstanding throughout Open Throat, but it’s the pathos that sustains his novel. The mountain lion speaks for a lonely, alienated generation. ” – Ron Charles, Washington Post
Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page โ
nonfiction / memoir.
Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.
โCan I kiss you?โ It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression heโd carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.
With Junoโs massive success, Elliot became one of the worldโs most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare.
As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough.
The Oscar-nominated star who captivated the world with his performance in Juno finally shares his story in a groundbreaking and inspiring memoir about love, family, fame โ and stepping into who we truly are with strength, joy and connection.
“[A] vulnerable, sometimes wrenching but ultimately hopeful account of his life so far.” – Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today
“[A] brutally honest memoir… [Page] brings to life the visceral sense of gender dysphoria…” – Gina Chua, New York Times
“…eloquent and enthralling… [the book] charts the tremendous emotional and psychological effort it took for him to confront suffocating social messaging about gender and sexuality… an intense, emotional read, delivered in image-drenched prose.” – Brandon Tensley, Washington Post
“On the whole, reading Pageboy is like listening to a friend.ย And by the time you reach the end, when Page thanks people for their support, itโs impossible to miss the truth in his words: ‘I wouldnโt be typing this right now if it werenโt for you and your care.’โ – Donna Edwards, Associated Press
The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring
fiction.
Itโs 1990. In Dalton, Maine, life goes on. Rose goes to work at the diner every day, her bruises hidden from both the customers and her two young boys. At a table she waits, Dr. Richard Haskell looks back on the one choice thatโs charted his entire life, before his thoughts wander back to his wife, Trudy, and her best friend.
Trudy and Bev have been friends for longer than they can count, and something more than lovers to each other for some time nowโa fact both accepted and ignored by their husbands. Across town, new mother Bridget lives with her high school sweetheart Nate, and is struggling with postpartum after a traumatic birth. And nearer still is teenager Greg, trying to define the complicated feelings he has about himself and his two close friends.
The Road to Dalton offers valuable understandings of what it means to be alive in the worldโof pain and joy, conflict and love, and the endurance that comes from living.
“An impressive debut bursting with detail and love for the town it brings to life.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Bowring captures in her compassionate debut the rhythms of life in small-town Maine… Readers will want to take their time with this one.” – Publishers Weekly
โThis beautiful picture of life and love in rural Maine kept me engaged from the first page to the last. The sense of place was as strong as the charactersโ connections. A book you donโt want to finish because you donโt want to say goodbye.โ – Terri Schurz, Indie Next
Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan
fiction / romance.
Beach Rules:
Do take long walks on the sand.
Do put an umbrella in every cocktail.
Do NOT run into your first love.
Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancรฉe, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?
Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed–Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.
โThis just might be the ultimate beach read of 2023.โ – Country Living
“[A] masterful romance… a knockout.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“With likable, realistic characters, a breezy, beachy setting, and an ideal balance of humor and emotional depth, Same Time Next Summer is a moving love story about a woman finding her way back to herself.” – Susan Maguire, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
The Say So by Julia Franks
fiction / historical fiction.
Edie Carrigan didn’t plan to “get herself” pregnant, much less end up in a Home for Unwed Mothers. In 1950s North Carolina, illegitimate pregnancy is kept secret, wayward women require psychiatric cures, and adoption is always the best solution. Not even Edieโs closest friend, Luce Waddell, understands what Edie truly wants: to keep and raise the baby.
Twenty-five years later, Luce is a successful lawyer, and her daughter Meera now faces the same decision Edie once did. Like Luce, Meera is fiercely independent and plans to handle her unexpected pregnancy herself. Digging into her motherโs past, Meera finds troubling evidence of Edie, and also of her own motherโs secrets. As the three womenโs lives intertwine and collide, the story circles age-old questions about female awakening, reproductive choice, motherhood, adoption, sex, and missed connections.
For fans of Brit Bennett’s The Mothers and Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything, The Say So is a timely novel that asks: how do we contend with the rippling effects of the choices we’ve made? With precision and tenderness, Franks has crafted a sweeping epic about the coming of age of the womenโs movement that reverberates through the present day.
“…beautiful… In one devastating plot turn after another, Franks injects bracing honesty into her depictions of the characters, always in gorgeous prose… This will stay with readers.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] gorgeously crafted tale, a powerful work of historical fiction, a gorgeous and tremulous story… delivered with profound delicacy and heart-wrenching grace.” – Leah Tyler, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This absorbing novel about teenage pregnancy in 1950s North Carolina and its legacy in the subsequent decades may feel eerily uncomfortable in our contemporary moment. Yet, in addition to its unfortunate relevancy, this tenderly rendered novel, framed through multiple narratives, is a complex examination of friendship, motherhood, and lost opportunities.” – Lauren LeBlanc, Boston Globe
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
fiction / romance / historical fiction.
Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy.
Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life–he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he’ll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it.
Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can’t deny. But what feels possible in secret–this fragile, tender thing between them–seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.
“…irresistible… Thereโs plenty of conflict to keep the pages flying, but itโs the scenes of Nick and Andyโs cozy domesticity that truly shine. This wonderful period romance will leave readers just as giddy as its leads.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Cat Sebastianโs midcentury romance is a tender, heartening stunner of a love story… With We Could Be So Good, Sebastian adds a tender, heartening stunner of a love story to her already-impressive body of work.” – Katie Garaby, BookPage
“Few authors have Sebastianโs flair for deftly exploring the intricate, often messy nature of human relationships, from moments of heartbreak to happiness, with such insight and compassion. While the vividly evoked 1950s setting is new for this author, everything else about this sublimely romantic love story, including the dryly witty writing and graceful characterization, is signature Sebastian.” – John Charles, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
The Whispers by Ashley Audrain โ
fiction / suspense / mystery.
The Loverlys sit by the hospital bed of their young son who is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night; his mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the warm, altruistic Parks who are the Loverlys’ best friends; the young, ambitious Goldsmiths who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the quiet, elderly Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability, and who pass the long days on the front porch, watching their neighbors go about their busy lives.
The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another. Set against the heartwrenching drama of what will happen to Xavier, who hangs between death and life, or a life changed forever, The Whispers is a novel about what happens when we put our needs ahead of our children’s. Exploring the quiet sacrifices of motherhood, the intuitions that we silence, the complexities of our closest friendships, and the danger of envy, this is a novel about the reverberations of life’s most difficult decisions.
“The Whispers is not to be missed… an absolute page turner. I could not put it down and when I did I could not stop thinking about it… The final line of the book is bound to make every reader audibly gasp. This is a must read summer suspense novel.” – Meredith, The Suburban
โIn The Whispers Ashley Audrain explores the combustibility of secrets and rage among mothers in a small communityโฆ expertly, subtly and powerfully renderedโฆ delivers a sucker-punch ending youโll have to read twice to believe.โ – Ivy Pochoda, New York Times
“[A] standout work of literary suspense… The novel soars via Audrainโs clever revelations of the ways her protagonistsโ lives are linked in ways they never suspected. Both artful and pulse pounding, this isnโt easily shaken.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“This is the proper way to do a slow burn psychological literary fiction… captivating… There are really difficult topics dealt with in the book and Audrain doesnโt pull any punches… so engaging you canโt stop reading until you find out what happens next… If you enjoyed the authorโs debut, The Push then do yourself a favour and read this one as well because Audrain manages the same magic in her sophomore release.” – Shelley, The Book Review Crew
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende; translated by Frances Riddle
fiction / historical fiction.
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnachtโthe night their family lost everything. Samuelโs mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.
Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.
Anitaโs case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Franciscoโs top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.
Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangersโand never stop dreaming.
“…powerful… The dual narrative structure gives historical weight to the contemporary story line, and Allende finds real depth in her characters, especially when portraying their sacrifices. This authentic and emotionally harrowing work is a triumphant return to form.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…touching and ambitious… lyrical in its empathy… The dual stories of Samuel and Anita are heartbreaking and eye-opening.” – Hannah E. Gadway, The Harvard Crimson
“One of Allendeโs many powers is creating intriguing, deeply sympathetic characters which she accomplishes with exceptional empathy in this incisive, gripping, and intricately plotted tale of genocide, femicide, exile, survival, compassion, and love.” – Donna Seaman, Booklist
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