Peregrine Seas by R.C. Ballad (July 1st)
Prince Peregrine couldn’t be happier to be kidnapped by pirates.
Peregrine wasn’t cut out for the restrictive life of a nobleman – he’s hungry for adventure, prone to duelling, and his family refuse to believe he’s any kind of man at all. Despite his royal origins, he has more in common with the outcasts and rebels aboard the Cygnus that anyone onshore.
He just needs to convince the captain of that before his ransom’s paid.
Captain Alastar Macdara knows better than to trust an English prince. He has his hands full keeping his ragged crew together, and the last thing he needs is to be burdened with some foppish dandy—however charming. This particular hostage is more trouble than Alastar planned for: used to getting his own way, as stubborn as Alastar and not afraid to tell him when he’s wrong. But Alastar knows a thing or two about being an outcast, and his honourable streak refuses to let him send Peregrine back to a life of misery.
The ransom might be off, but that doesn’t mean Peregrine is part of the crew. Now he must prove he’s courageous and quick-witted enough to earn his place on the Cygnus before Alastar dumps him at the next safe harbour.
It won’t be easy for Peregrine to prove himself amidst the many dangers of life at sea: navy patrols, sea serpents—and the grim, handsome Alastar. The more time they spend together the more he fears he’s falling for his captain, and honourable or not … a pirate is a pirate.
Can they chart a course to being together, or will Alastar’s secrets and Peregrine’s reckless drive to prove himself steer the Cygnus into perilous waters?
Buy it: Amazon
Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna (July 2nd)
London, 2019. It’s the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames River. In the streets of the city, three old acquaintances’ lives are about to change forever…
Maggie is 30, pregnant, and broke. Faced with a future in the home town she once fought to escape, she’s beginning to wonder if having a baby will be the last spontaneous act of her life.
Ed, a barely competent bike courier, can’t wait to settle down with Maggie. But she doesn’t know that he has a secret history with Maggie’s best friend Phil.
Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekends. He lives in an illegal warehouse commune and is falling for his housemate, Keith. There’s just one problem: Keith already has a boyfriend, and Phil doesn’t know if there’s room for one more person in the relationship.
As the temperature continues to climb, the three will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together.
The Hades Calculus by Maria Ying (July 2nd)
For centuries, colossi have besieged the gates of Elysium. Each day, the city’s fall looms closer.
As one of Elysium’s rulers, Hades has long sought to break this stalemate. In Persephone, a cyborg tailor-made to kill, she finds the key to victory and the perfect pilot for her war machine. She will acquire Persephone at any cost.
Born to wield violence and with the bloodthirst to match, Persephone chafes under her mother’s control. At the first opportunity, she brutally breaks free and seeks sanctuary with the unlikeliest of patrons: the Lord of the Machine Dead, the Master of the Underworld.
All Hades and Persephone have to do to realize their goals is to navigate the city’s treacherous politics—and survive the coming war.
Buy it: Amazon
The Gilded Crown by Marianne Gordon (July 2nd)
The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old…
Since she was a little girl, Hellevir has been able to raise the dead. Every creature can be saved for a price, a price demanded by the shrouded figure who rules the afterlife, who takes a little more from Hellevir with each soul she resurrects.
Such a gift can rarely remain a secret. When Princess Sullivain, sole heir to the kingdom’s throne, is assassinated, the Queen summons Hellevir to demand she bring her granddaughter back to life. But once is not enough; the killers might strike again. The Princess’s death would cause a civil war, so the Queen commands that Hellevir remain by her side.
But Sullivain is no easy woman to be bound to, even as Hellevir begins to fall in love with her. With the threat of war looming, Hellevir must trade more and more of herself to keep the Princess alive.
But Death will always take what he is owed.
Cash Delgado is Living the Dream by Tehlor Kay Mejia (July 2nd)
Cash Delgado has a good life in the quaint town of Ridley Falls. She has Joyce’s Bar, where she manages a familiar group of regulars and emcees the ever-popular Karaoke Thursday. She has her six-year-old daughter, Parker, whose spunky attitude always keeps life interesting. And she has her best friend, Inez O’Conner, who improves Cash’s sometimes overly responsible outlook with one full of joy and potential.
But change is on the horizon when Chase Stanton, the former bar manager at Joyce’s (not to mention Cash’s last hookup), returns to town with business prospects that could threaten the local institution and all of Cash’s plans to someday bring new life to the place. And if that isn’t enough, Cash starts having very intimate dreams of Inez. Dreams that could threaten the foundation of her well-ordered life.
As Cash embarks on a reluctant journey of self-discovery, she’s forced to confront all the ways she’s been hiding in her own life. But will she choose to remain the same, or will the desire for love (even a love that looks different than she ever imagined) prove worth the risk?
The Night of Baba Yaga by Akiro Otani, trans. by Sam Bett (2nd)
Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to escape, Shindo is only permitted to live under one condition: that she will become the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki, the obsessively sheltered daughter of the gang’s boss.
Eighteen-year-old Shoko, pretty and silent as a doll, has no friends, wears strangely old-fashioned clothes, and is completely naive in all matters of life. Originally disdaining her ward, Shindo soon finds herself far more invested in Shoko’s well-being than she ever expected. But every man around them is bloodthirsty and trigger-happy. Shindo doubts she and Shoko will survive much longer if nothing changes. Could there ever be a different life for two women like them?
Misrecognition by Madison Newbound (July 2nd)
Elsa is struggling. Her formative, exhilarating relationship—with a couple—has abruptly ended, leaving her depressed and directionless in her childhood bedroom. The man and the woman were her bosses, lovers, and cultural guideposts. In the relationship’s wake, Elsa scrolls aimlessly through the internet in search of meaning.
Faithfully, her screen provides a new obsession: a charismatic young actor whose latest feature is a gay love story that illuminates Elsa’s crisis. And then, as if she had conjured him, Elsa sees the actor in the flesh; he and an entourage of actors, writers, and directors have descended upon her hometown for the annual theater festival. When she is hired as a hostess at the one upscale restaurant in town, Elsa finds herself in frequent contact with the actor and his collaborators. But her obsession shifts from the actor to his frequent dinner companion—an alluring, androgynous person called Sam. As this confusing connection develops, Elsa is forced to grapple with her sexuality, the uncomfortable truths about the dramatic end of her last relationship, and the patterns that may be playing out once again.
Making It by Laura Kay (July 2nd)
Isobel’s life is small: just her, her mum, and her pet chinchilla, Abigail, in their council flat on the Kentish coast. After mental health troubles in her teens, Issy, now twenty-eight, has kept things that way on purpose, only deviating from routine when her part-time job at a paint-your-own pottery studio demands it, or when she’s inspired to create art of Abigail: knitted Abigails, sculptural Abigails, delicately rendered paintings of Abigail.
When the Abigails earn the attention of famous artist and reality TV star Elizabeth Staggs, Issy is awestruck and a little alarmed. These emotions compound when Elizabeth makes Issy an unexpected offer: move to London and work for a year shadowing Elizabeth as she produces her hit arts documentary series. Terrified but determined, Issy agrees, and soon finds herself sharing a flat with a crew of boisterous roommates who welcome her into their queer enclave and attempt to mentor her in the city’s wide world of romantic possibilities. Issy can’t help but wish that one roommate—gorgeous and cool aspiring actress, Robin—might make her mentorship a bit more hands on…even while, at work, she struggles under the guidance of Elizabeth’s harsh and exacting young producer, Aubrey.
But when Elizabeth seizes on Issy’s idea to structure the upcoming season around a group of outsider artists, Issy finds both her work and love lives growing more complicated by the day, whether she’s ready or not.
Daughters of Chaos by Jen Fawkes (July 9th)
In 1862, after a tragedy at home, twenty-two-year-old Sylvie Swift parts ways with her twin brother to trace the origins of an enigmatic playscript that’s landed on their doorstep. This text leads her to Nashville, an occupied city bustling with soldiers, saboteurs, partisans, powerful men–and powerful women. Sylvie trans lates the playscript by day, but at night, drawn into the work by the chief of the Union Army’s Secret Service, she acts as a spy.
Both endeavors acquaint her with a sisterhood whose members—including Hannah, a fiery revolutionary to whom Sylvie is increasingly drawn—possess potentially monstrous powers. Sylvie soon becomes entangled in the Cult of Chaos, a feminist society steadfast in its ancient mission to eradicate the violence of men.
Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and the true story of Nashville’s attempt to exile its prostitutes during the American Civil War, Daughters of Chaos weaves together “found” texts, fabulism, and queer themes to question familiar notions of history and family, warfare and power.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (July 9th)
Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale―”for the algorithm“―Misha discovers that it’s not that simple.
As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what’s right―before it’s too late.
Anyone’s Ghost by August Thompson (July 9th)
It took three car crashes to kill Jake.
Theron David Alden is there for the first two: the summer they meet in rural New Hampshire, when he’s fifteen and anxious, and Jake’s seventeen and a natural; then six years later in New York City, those too-short, ecstatic, painful nights that change both their lives forever—the end of the dream and the longing for the dream and the dream itself, all at once.
Theron is not there for the third crash.
And yet, their story contains so much joy and self-discovery: the glorious, stupid simplicity of a boyhood joke; the devastation of insecurity; the way a great song can distill a universe; the limits of what we can know about each other; the mysterious, porous, ungraspable fault line between yourself and the person you love better than yourself; the beautiful, toxic elixir of need and hope and want.
The Black Bird of Chernobyl by Ann McMan (July 9th)
Everything about Lilah Stohler is dark: her clothes, mood, and outlook on life and death. That last part is important because Lilah’s father has just retired and left her in charge of the family funeral home. But Abel Stohler knows his daughter’s comfort level rests “downstairs,” so he hires one Sparkle Lee Sink, to help Lilah manage the living part of the business of death.
Sparkle is everything that Lilah isn’t—an empathetic marketing whiz who is a true people person.
Lilah isn’t happy about this new arrangement. Still, when business starts booming because of Sparkle’s bright personality, delicious baked goods, and knack for funereal commerce, Lilah thinks things might work out. But joy is fleeting in the funeral home business, and Lilah’s world is turned upside down when an unwitting Instagram post featuring one of her moods goes viral—and now, sightings of “The Black Bird of Chernobyl” have become an obsession across the Instaverse.
Lilah knows that Sparkle needs to go, but before she can give her the send-off she deserves, Lilah must first find a way to deal with the inconvenient attraction she’s developed for the nemesis whose unconventional methods are single-handedly transforming the death trade—and quite possibly the Black Bird, herself.
Toward Eternity by Anton Hur (July 9th)
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites—robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun—himself a recipient of nanotherapy—mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore?
When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human—and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki (July 9th)
Ayukta is finally sitting down with her wife Nadya to respond to a question she’s long avoided: Should they have a child? The decision is complicated by a secret her family has kept for centuries, one that Ayukta will be the first to share with someone outside their bloodline: the women in her family inherit a mysterious tapestry, through which each generation can experience the memories of those who came before her.
Ayukta invites Nadya into this lineage, carrying her through its past. She relives her grandmother Amla’s life: Once a happy child in Karachi, Amla migrates to Gujarat during Partition, witnessing violence and loss that forever shape her approach to marriage and motherhood. Amla’s daughter, Arni, bears this weight in her own blood in 1974, when gender equity and urban class distinctions divide the community as a bold student movement takes hold. As Ayukta unspools these generations of women—whole decades of love, loss, heartbreak, and revival—she reveals the tapestry’s second gift: the ability for each of these women to dramatically reshape their own worlds. Like all power, both fantastic and societal, this inheritance is more treacherous than it seems.
What would it mean, to impart an impossible burden? To withhold these incredible gifts?
Home Ice Advantage by Ari Baran (July 16th)
Two former hockey pros. One struggling team. And a battle of wills that might just turn two headstrong coaches from rivals into lovers…
Ryan “Sully” Sullivan is a winner. So when the former hockey great accepts a job coaching the bottom rung Boston Beacons, he’s ready to win it all—even if his new assistant coach isn’t exactly his #1 fan.
Eric Aronson’s wins have always come with a well-earned reputation for trouble—and were never quite enough to bring home championships. When the new guy skates in and takes the job he’s worked so hard for, he’s not about to fall short again.
Tensions rise as, no matter what they do, the Beacons can’t pull a W, and a heated argument between Sully and Eric over coaching tactics turns physical—only, not in any way they could have ever imagined.
That kiss changes everything. And suddenly, being able to find the back of the net isn’t Sully and Eric’s only challenge. It’s figuring out who and what they are to each other. And what winning it all might actually mean.
Buy it: Amazon
The Bright Sword: a Novel of King Arthur by Lev Grossman (July 16th)
A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.
But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.
The Duke at Hazard by KJ Charles (July 18th)
The Duke of Severn is one of the greatest men in Britain.
He’s also short, quiet, and unimpressive. And now he’s been robbed, after indulging in one rash night with a strange man who stole the heirloom Severn ring from his finger. The Duke has to get it back, and he can’t let anyone know how he lost it. So when his cousin bets that he couldn’t survive without his privilege and title, the Duke grasps the opportunity to hunt down his ring-incognito.
Life as an ordinary person is terrifying… until the anonymous Duke meets Daizell Charnage, a disgraced gentleman, and hires him to help. Racing across the country in search of the thief, the Duke and Daizell fall into scrapes, into trouble-and in love.
Daizell has been excluded from polite society, his name tainted by his father’s crimes and his own misbehaviour. Now he dares to dream of a life somewhere out of sight with the quiet gentleman who’s stolen his heart. He doesn’t know that his lover is a hugely rich public figure with half a dozen titles. And when he finds out, it will risk everything they have…
You Had Me at Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky (July 23rd)
Rivalry never tasted so good.
O’ little town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania—it may be charming, but Julien Boire can’t wait to get out of there. Soon he’ll be leaving to take an advanced wine course that will put him on track to become a master sommelier. Meantime, his OCD demands he keep clear of distractions, especially the hot new hire at his aunt and uncle’s restaurant, Martin’s Place.
Which should be easy, because Greg Harlow is as ill-suited to Julien as a bold cabernet is to a delicate salmon entrée. As charismatic and confident as Julien is tightly wound, Greg is a TikTok mixologist who could charm a paper bag. One thing they do have in common: neither wants a relationship.
Greg’s history with dating is…complicated. Yet working together isn’t. First, they’re teaming up to launch a series of happy hour events at Martin’s Place. Then they’re agreeing to a no-strings sex pact that involves new worlds of experimentation. Nothing is off-limits. Except a future.
It’s exactly how Julien wants it. Except for the little part of him that wonders if maybe he’s about to lose the kind of happy that could last much longer than an hour…
Charlotte Isles is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel (23rd)
This is the second book in the Not a Detective series
Mention “returning to the scene of a crime,” and people don’t usually picture a middle school. But that’s where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim—before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in . . .
Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she’s tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven’t forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who’s running for reelection to the Board of Education.
At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it’s a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago—just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it’s clear that untangling mysteries isn’t child’s play anymore . . .
Queen B by Juno Dawson (July 23rd)
This is the third book in the HMRC series
It’s 1536 and the Queen has been beheaded.
Lady Grace Fairfax, witch, knows that something foul is at play—that someone had betrayed Anne Boleyn and her coven. Wild with the loss of their leader—and her lover, a secret that if spilled could spell Grace’s own end— she will do anything in her power to track down the traitor. But there’s more at stake than revenge: it was one of their own, a witch, that betrayed them, and Grace isn’t the only one looking for her. King Henry VIII has sent witchfinders after them, and they’re organized like they’ve never been before under his new advisor, the impassioned Sir Ambrose Fulke, a cold man blinded by his faith. His cruel reign could mean the end of witchkind itself. If Grace wants to find her revenge and live, she will have to do more than disappear.
She will have to be reborn.
In this gripping, propulsive, sultry short novel, Juno Dawson takes us back to the bloody beginnings of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven to show us the strength, steel and sacrifice it takes to make a sisterhood.
A Lethal Lady by Nekesa Afia (July 30th)
This is the third book in the Harlem Renaissance Mystery series
Louise Lloyd’s time away in Paris is everything she was hoping it would be until a shocking murder turns her entire world upside down.
Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.The woman’s daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition—a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead—but would they murder one of their own? With the help of some friends from home, Louise must untangle a web of lies, jealousy, and betrayal to find out what really happened to Iris while fighting to keep her new life from crashing down around her.
The Sunforge by Sascha Stronach (August 6th)
This is the sequel to The Dawnhounds
The steel city of Radovan is consumed by fire, with survivors few and far between. Stranded in its harbor are Yat, Kiada, and Sen, whose Weaving powers are in a badly weakened state. Relying on only their wits, they must plot their way through the ruins of the capitol, which are patrolled by a hostile militia, and disable the technology that prevents them from escaping.
But to navigate the crew, Kiada will have to rely on her own history with Radovan—a place she first landed unwillingly, and one she only survived by falling in with Fort Tomorrow, a band of misfits and ne’er-do-wells led by Vanya, a charismatic pickpocket and a Weaver.
Vanya may hold the key not only to saving Radovan from complete annihilation, but an age-old fight between the gods that threatens their world.
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston (August 6th)
Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other’s lives once and for all.
Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but―yeah. It’s in the past.
All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.
It’s not until they board the tour bus that they discover they’ve both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they’re trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It’s fine. There’s nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?
But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can’t have.
Through the Midnight Door by Katrina Monroe (August 13th)
The Finch sisters once spent long, hot summers exploring the dozens of abandoned properties littering their dying town―until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors…and three keys left waiting for them. Curious, fearless, they stepped inside their chosen rooms, and experienced horrors they never dared speak of again.
Now, years later, youngest sister Claire has been discovered dead in that old, desiccated house. Haunted by their sister’s suicide and the memories of a past they’ve struggled to forget, Meg and Esther find themselves at bitter odds. As they navigate the tensions of their brittle relationship, they draw unsettling lines between Claire’s death, their own haunted memories, and a long-ago loss no one in their family has ever been able to face. With the house once again pulling them ever-closer, Meg and Esther must find the connection between their sister’s death and the shadow that has chased them across the years…before the darkness claims them, too.
The Palace of Eros by Caro de Robertis (August 13th)
Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. Secretly, she longs for a life away from the expectations and demands of men. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives.
When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Each night, Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness, where they both experience untold passion and love. But each morning, Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe.
Before long, Psyche’s nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros’s true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both—and transforms the very heavens.
Oath of Fire by K Arsenault Rivera (August 13th)
All Psyche ever wanted to do was help people, whether it’s in her job as a therapist or online as an influencer. So when a mysterious invitation arrives from the most captivating man she’s ever seen, asking for her assistance, she can’t refuse. But Psyche soon finds herself in a world of Courts, full of debauchery and treachery, where her only option for survival is to swear a strange oath to a mysterious masked woman named Eros.
Now Psyche has to figure out how to fulfill her end of her bargain with Eros, while trying to navigate having a flame-winged goddess show up in her tiny Brooklyn apartment. Uncanny vistas, a spacious mansion, and decadent experiences are all Psyche’s for the taking—so long as she helps Eros, and so long as she never looks under Eros’s mask.
But how long can she keep her curiosity at bay when Eros makes her heart tremble?
Key Lime Sky by Al Hess (August 13th)
An alien invasion hits the town of Muddy Gap, but a disgruntled pie aficionado is the only one who seems to remember it…
Denver Bryant’s passion for pie has sent him across Wyoming in search of the best slices. Though he dutifully posts reviews on his blog, he’s never been able to recreate his brief moment of viral popularity, and its trickling income isn’t enough to pay his rent next month.
Driving home from a roadside diner, Denver witnesses a UFO explode directly over his tiny town of Muddy Gap. When he questions his neighbors, it appears that Denver is the only person to have seen anything – or to care that the residents’ strange behavior, as well as a shower of seashell hail, might be evidence of something extraterrestrial. Being both non-binary and autistic, he’s convinced his reputation as the town eccentric is impeding his quest for answers. Frustrated, he documents the bizarre incidents on his failing pie blog, and his online popularity skyrockets. His readers want the truth, spurring him to get to the bottom of things.
The only person in town who takes him seriously is handsome bartender, Ezra. As the two investigate over pie and the possibility of romance, the alien presence does more than change the weather. People start disappearing. When Denver and Ezra make a run for it, the town refuses to let them leave. Reality is folding in on itself. It’s suddenly a race against time to find the extraterrestrial source and destroy it before it consumes not only Muddy Gap but everything beyond. Denver’s always been more outsider than hero, but he’s determined to ensure that a world with Ezra – and with pie – still exists tomorrow.
The Phoenix Keeper by S.A. MacLean (August 13th)
As head phoenix keeper at a world-renowned zoo for magical creatures, Aila’s childhood dream of conserving critically endangered firebirds seems closer than ever. There’s just one glaring caveat: her zoo’s breeding program hasn’t functioned for a decade. When a tragic phoenix heist sabotages the flagship initiative at a neighboring zoo, Aila must prove her derelict facilities are fit to take the reins.
But saving an entire species from extinction requires more than stellar animal handling skills. Carnivorous water horses, tempestuous thunderhawks, mischievous dragons… Aila has no problem wrangling beasts. But mustering the courage to ask for help from the hotshot griffin keeper at the zoo’s most popular exhibit? Virtually impossible.
Especially when that hotshot griffin keeper happens to be her arch-rival from college: Luciana, an annoyingly brooding and insufferable know-it-all with the face of a goddess who’s convinced that Aila’s beloved phoenix would serve their cause better as an active performer rather than as a passive conservation exhibit. With the world watching and the threat of poachers looming, Aila’s success is no longer merely a matter of keeping her job…
She is the keeper of the phoenix, and the future of a species– and her love life– now rests on her shoulders.
How to Leave the House by Nathan Newman (August 13th)
It’s Natwest’s last day before he leaves for university, and there’s only one thing on his mind: the deeply embarrassing package he ordered to his house – which still hasn’t arrived. He won’t leave town without it. Any alternative is too distressing to consider …
This is the story of twenty-four hours in the life of Natwest, and his small-town odyssey in pursuit of the missing package. And yet it’s also the story of a middle-aged dentist who dreams of being a respected artist – but the only thing he can seem to paint is the human mouth. And it’s the story of a tortured imam involved in a quasi-romantic entanglement with the local vicar; and an octogenerian mourning the death of her secretive husband; and a troubled teenager whose nudes have leaked on the internet. It’s the story of Natwest’s obnoxious ex-boyfriend, and his class-traitor mother and her childhood boyfriend, and the life-changing secrets he knows about Natwest’s past.
Alternating between Natwest’s idiosyncratic inner world and the perspectives of the other characters – and dazzling in its energy, imagination and originality – this is an outrageously funny and tenderly moving story about being connected to everyone and everything at all times; about love, friendship, and the lies we tell ourselves; about unhappy endings, happy endings – and whether anything really is as simple as one or the other.
Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright (August 13th)
Fate is a cruel mistress.
The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.
Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he’s drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he’s worked so hard to avoid – and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.
Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Bloodworker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan’s plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.
Medusa of the Roses by Navid Sinaki (August 13th)
Anjir and Zal are childhood best friends turned adults in love. The only problem is they live in Iran, where being openly gay is criminalized, and the government’s apparent acceptance of trans people requires them to surgically transition and pass as cis straight people. When Zal is brutally attacked after being seen with another man in public, despite the betrayal, Anjir becomes even more determined to carry out their longstanding plan for the future: Anjir, who’s always identified with the mythical gender-changing Tiresias, will become a woman, and they’ll move to a new town for a fresh start as husband and wife.
Then Zal vanishes, leaving a cryptic note behind that sets Anjir on a quest to find the other man, hoping he will lead to Zal. Stalking and stealing his way through the streets, clubs, library stacks, hotel rooms, and museum halls of Tehran—where he encounters his troubled mother, addict brother, and the dynamic Leyli, a new friend who is undergoing a transition of her own—Anjir soon realizes that someone is tailing him too. It quickly becomes clear that more violence may be the fastest route to freedom, as Anjir’s morals and gender identity are pushed to new places in the pursuit of love, peace, and self-determination.
Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado (August 13th)
Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.
Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.
“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”
Archeologist Raquel and her wife Marlena once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.
Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.
Napalm in the Heart by Po Guash, translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem (August 13th)
In a near future devastated by war and unspecified natural disaster, a young man and his mother cling to survival at the edge of a forest. Society is militarized and dangerous, with men with shaved heads patrolling the land as families are uprooted and nature is all but decimated. The young man spends his days helping his mother, who is traumatized from her experience working in the ominous Factory, and exchanging letters with his lover, Boris, who lives in a city on the other side of the forest. It’s barely a life, but it’s life nonetheless.
After a brutal act of desperate violence and the arrival of armed men at their doorstep, the young man leaves his mother and finds Boris, who travels with him through the forest to the city. Escaping slavers and trekking through the empty landscape, the two find moments of intimacy despite their circumstances. But as their survival comes with increasingly violent demands, the young man is forced to confront whether, in his effort to stay alive, he’s become the very thing he’s fought to escape.
Rise and Divine by Lana Harper (August 20th)
Even in a family of chaotic necromancers, Daria “Dasha” Avramov has always been an outlier. An event planner at the Arcane Emporium occult megastore, Dasha is also a devil eater: a rare necromantic witch with an affinity for banishing demons and traversing the veil, the boundary between this realm and the next.
Still grieving the loss of both beloved parents years ago, and plagued by a dangerous obsession with the world beyond the veil, Dasha is fiery yet guarded, an expert at dodging commitment. Her worst regret is a devastating breakup with the wise, empathetic, and sensual Ivy Thorn, her event-planning counterpart at Honeycake Orchards, and probably the love of Dasha’s life. Dasha has managed to break Ivy’s heart not once, but twice, so things are more than a little tense between them.
When they’re thrown together to plan the Cavalcade—a month-long festival celebrating Thistle Grove’s ceremonial founding with dazzling spectacles held by the town’s witch families—Dasha hopes that the third time might be the charm, while Ivy refuses to let herself be hurt again. As they confront the pain and passion lingering between them, Dasha and Ivy must also stand against an otherworldly threat unlike anything Thistle Grove has faced before.
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White (August 20th)
For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor’s ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess’s Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.
All except one: Ganymedes Piscero—class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.
When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people and without a Blessing to protect him, Ganymedes’s odds of survival are slim.
But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their secret Blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?
Or will the empire as he knows it fall?
Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen (August 20th)
The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever.
But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation. Predictably, Joshua and Carlyle quickly warm to each other while Nick and Emilia are left to their own devices. Nick puts the time to good use and his flirtation with Emilia quickly blooms into romance. Though not long after the affair turns intimate, Nick begins to suspect that Emilia’s interest in him may have sinister, and possibly even ancient, motivations.
Punctuated by scenes from Nick’s adolescent years, when memories of a queer awakening and a shadowy presence stalking the farm altered the trajectory of his life forever, Sacrificial Animals explores the violent legacy of inherited trauma and the total collapse of a family in its wake.
Haunted to Death by Frank Polito (August 20th)
Kicking off season three of their hit reality TV show Domestic Partners is a home renovation project with an irresistible hook. Woods Hall is a lavish 1913 manor home in the Detroit suburb of Pleasant Woods, once belonging to the town’s founding family. It also comes with its own ghost.
Twenty-five years ago during a Halloween night party, automotive heiress and beauty queen Emma Wheeler-Woods, wearing a white Princess Diana wedding gown as a costume, fell from a third-floor balcony to her death. Or was she pushed?
Fiona Forrest recently inherited the home after learning she was Emma’s daughter, and she and her fiancé have hired the Domestic Partners to restore the family property to its original splendor. But ghostly sightings, injured crew, secret passageways, locked rooms, and sabotage beg the question: Is the place actually haunted? And perhaps more practically, was Fiona’s mother murdered?
Hustling to have work finished in time to shoot the finale on Halloween—the anniversary of Emma’s mysterious death—do Peter and JP have a ghost of a chance of also solving a cold case from a quarter of a century ago before someone else takes a fall?
I’ll Have What He’s Having by Adib Khorram (August 27th)
When it comes to love, Farzan Alavi is a disaster. After his most recent heartbreak, he’s drowning his sorrows at Kansas City’s newest wine bar. Only instead of being crowded between strangers, he’s escorted to a VIP table for one. There, the hot sommelier does more than treat him to the meal of his life. The way he flirts with Farzan ignites instant sparks.
There’s just one problem: David Curtis thinks Farzan is Frank Allen, Kansas City’s most influential food critic. The truth only comes out after the two spend an unforgettably hot night together. Good news—both think the mix-up is hilarious. Bad news—David is studying to become a master sommelier and has no interest in a relationship.
Neither expects their paths to cross again . . . until Farzan inherits his family’s bistro and needs David’s restaurant knowledge. The two agree to an exchange: David will answer Farzan’s questions, and Farzan will help David study for his test. Only business turns to pleasure when neither can ignore the attraction still sizzling between them. But with David set on moving after his test, and Farzan committed to his family’s restaurant, how can their relationship last past the expiration date?
Hers For the Weekend by Helena Greer (August 27th)
No-nonsense lawyer Tara Sloane Chadwick is perfectly fine with going to her ex’s wedding—the break-up was congenial, and Tara is nothing if not well-mannered. But after one too many reminders of her dismal dating track, Tara panics when asked if she’ll need a plus-one and declares she’s bringing her new girlfriend. One issue: Tara is seriously single. Thankfully, Holly, the waitress she’s been crushing on, happily offers to be her fake date . . .
Only Holly’s offer isn’t quite selfless—she’s been lusting over Tara for ages, but Tara only dates women she can marry. And Holly has no interest in settling down with anyone or in any one place. A temporary arrangement is the perfect solution: Holly and Tara can enjoy a no-strings fling for the wedding and part ways after. However, between sharing kisses and hotel beds and cuddling under the mistletoe, Tara begins to dream of a life with Holly in Charleston . . . just as Holly starts wishing she could travel with Tara by her side. Soon, neither can see a future without the other, but can they find a path forward where they both can thrive?
You’re the Problem, It’s You by Emma R. Alban (August 27th)
“That man is, without a doubt, the absolute most obnoxious…
Bobby Mason is sick of being second best: born the spare, never trusted with family responsibility, never expected to amount to much. He’s hungry to contribute something that matters, while all around him his peers are squandering their political and financial power, coasting through life. Which is exactly why he can’t stand the new Viscount Demeroven.
…insufferable…
James Demeroven, just come of age and into the Viscountcy, knows that he’s a disappointment. Keeping his head down and never raising anyone’s expectations is how he’s survived life with his stepfather. To quiet, careful James, Bobby Mason is a blazing comet in his endless night, even more alive than he was at Oxford when James crushed on him from afar. But Mason is also brash and recklessly unapologetic, destined to shatter the fragile safety of James’s world. Worst of all, he keeps rubbing James’s failures in his face.
…hottest man to ever walk the ton.”
They can barely get through a single conversation without tensions boiling over. Neither Bobby nor James has ever met a more intriguing, infuriating, infatuating man.
If only they could avoid each other entirely. Bad enough their (wonderful but determined) cousins Beth and Gwen keep conveniently setting up group outings. But when an extortionist starts targeting their families, threatening their reputations, Bobby and James must find a way to work together, without pushing each other’s buttons (or tearing them off) in the process…
We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado (September 3rd)
Where beauty lies, secrets are held…ugly ones.
Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren’t helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day—and all-bottle—event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove.
However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol’s opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Association, their bizarrely detailed contract, or their never-ending microaggressions. But Alice simply attributes their pursuit to the community motto: “Invest in a neighborly spirit”…which only serves to irritate Sol more.
Suddenly, a number of strange occurrences—doors and stairs disappearing, roots growing inside the house—cause Sol to wonder if her social paranoia isn’t built on something more sinister. Yet Sol’s fears are dismissed as Alice embraces their new home and becomes increasingly worried instead about Sol’s drinking and manic behavior. When Sol finds a journal in the property from a resident that went missing a few years ago, she realizes why they were able to buy the house so easily…
Through Sol’s razor-sharp tongue and macabre sense of humor, Tirado explores the very real pressures to assimilate with one’s surroundings to “survive,” while also asking the question: Is it survival when you’re no longer your true self? Because in Maneless Grove, either you become a good neighbor—or you die.
Fall For Him by Andie Burke (September 3rd)
Dylan Gallagher’s hot neighbor loathed him from the second he moved in, and causing a flood, falling through the floor, and landing directly onto that same neighbor’s bed probably means that’s unlikely to change. The poorly timed “It’s Raining Men” joke didn’t help.
Meanwhile, ER nurse Derek Chang’s life is a literal when-rains-it-pours nightmare. A man he hates dropped into his life along with an astronomically expensive problem originating from Derek’s own apartment’s plumbing. Also, the local HOA tyrant has been sniffing around trying to fine him for his extended, illicit banned breed dog-sitting.
Since Dylan also wants to keep the catastrophe quiet, he offers to fix the damage himself. Dylan’s sure he’s not Derek’s type, so he focuses all his ADHD hyper fixation energy on getting the repair job done as quickly as possible―avoiding doing anything stupid like acting on his very inconvenient crush. Meanwhile Derek tries to ignore that the tattooed nerd sleeping on the couch is surprisingly witty, smart, and kind, despite the long-term grudge Derek’s been holding against him. But will squeezing all their emotional baggage plus a dog into a tiny one-bedroom apartment be a major disaster…or just prove they’re made for each other?
The Dating Countdown by N.G. Peltier (September 3rd)
Remi Daniels knows what she wants. Maxine King. She screwed up when they were teenagers allowing them to part on bad terms, but now that Maxine is divorced and back on the island their chemistry can’t be denied. And Remi is ready to pick up right where they left off.
Maxine King has only ever fooled around with one woman, Remi Daniels and being back in each other’s orbits they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Maxine has enough to deal with in her daily life: her daughter and trying to prove herself at work. She can’t add lusting after Remi to that list. To prove that their relationship can be more than just sex, Maxine suggests they keep things casual and go on 10 friend dates. After all if they can do that it would mean they’re serious about each other right?
But their dates keep getting reset as they keep breaking their pact. Remi’s getting restless because not making it to the 10 days by their imposed deadline means failure which sucks because each date just shows her how much more she wants Maxine. As the two women try to navigate this budding relationship the both have to combat their fears: Maxine’s of falling for a woman and Remi’s of worrying that Maxine will reject her at the end of their deal.
Buy it: Amazon
Where the Forest Meets the River by Shannon Bowring (September 3rd)
It’s been five years since Bridget Theroux’s death shocked the small town of Dalton, Maine, leaving behind husband Nate and daughter Sophie, now a vibrant young child. Nate doesn’t always know how to answer her questions, but he is intent on raising her with joy—and shielding her from her grandmother, Annette, who remains dangerously locked away in her grief.
After his first year away at college, Greg Fortin is back in town for the summer to work at the family store. It’s expected he’ll take over the hardware business eventually, but finding the words to tell them no—and the truth about who he is—has become his own Everest. Rose’s abusive ex, Tommy finally disappeared a few years ago, though sometimes his presence in the eyes of her oldest son unnerves her. She and Nate are finding themselves drawn together by their children’s playdates, and into a delicate balance between friendship and the possibility of more.
And Trudy and Bev, always so sure of their love for each other, find themselves rocked when Trudy’s husband Richard suffers a heart attack, bringing into focus all the guilt she has felt about their empty marriage for years.
The View From the Top by Rachel Lacey (September 3rd)
When a driven businesswoman from Boston collides with a free-spirited artist on a Vermont mountainside, they share a memorable—and steamy—night, but life soon pits them against each other over the fate of a family business.
Emily Janssen prefers to play it safe. At thirty-five, she’s still working at the inn her grandmothers own while dreaming of a day when she’s able to support herself fully with her art. And while her friends have all hiked to the summit of the mountain in their hometown of Crescent Falls, Vermont, something has always held Emily back.
Diana Devlin has already made it to the top. Well, almost. She’s this close to securing the promotion that will put her in line to take over as CEO of her family’s hotel chain when her father retires. Everything is going to plan until an unexpected run-in with an alluring artist on a mountainside throws Diana off course, resulting in one of the hottest nights either she or Emily have ever experienced.
Emily walks away from their rendezvous feeling inspired to channel some of Diana’s confidence and finally chase her dreams. For Diana, it’s a reminder that with the right woman, she is capable of wanting more than one night.
But their growing passion threatens to burn them both when they learn that the hotel Diana’s in town to buy is none other than Emily’s grandmothers’ beloved inn. It’s Emily’s home, and no big city outsider—not even Diana—is going to take it away from her.
Will the view from the top be worth the climb, or will they both have farther to fall?
Buy it: Amazon
Lucy Undying by Kiersten White (September 10th)
Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.
But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.
Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.
Lucy has long believed she would never love again. But she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more.
Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?
Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke (September 10th)
Everything in Edith’s life is approaching disaster. Her writing career is stagnant. Her love life is a mess. Her ex, Tessa, is marrying a man. Her teeth are rotting in her skull. And her best friend, Val, is dead.
Still Life volleys between the present and recent past. Edith was a bumbling college “boy,” pre-transition, in love with Tessa, enamored by Val, and drowning in Boston. She and Tessa called each other Joni and Joan, an homage to fledgling adulthood’s musical backdrop. Now, Edith is wracked with guilt over Val. A sometimes-lover, trans mentor, purveyor of estrogen pills and wisdom from a life on the fringe, Val was everything Tessa wasn’t and everything Edith needed. Was Valerie’s fatal car crash Edith’s fault? Would she have stayed put if Edith had loved her better?
Infused with pop culture, cigarettes, and Sondheim, Katherine Packert Burke traces the lives of three women, trans and cis, here and gone, to craft a tableau of modern womanhood.
Negative Girl by Libby Cudmore (September 10th)
Martin Wade lived hard in his youth, but unlike many of his former bandmates and roadie friends, he didn’t die young. Instead he hit the recovery path, cleaned up his life, and became a private investigator in a dying city in upstate New York.When his heavily tattooed and scarred assistant Valerie sets up an appointment with a young woman who needs help keeping her biological father away from her, none of the three realize that the father is Martin’s old bandmate, still using, and on a destructive path that will soon be headed straight for Martin’s clean life. As Martin struggles, Valerie becomes increasingly obsessed with their new client’s life.Then the client is found dead in a riverbank, and duty, nostalgia, and lifetimes of regret find Martin and Valerie on the case for the young woman’s killer. As Martin struggles to hold onto his sobriety, Valerie becomes increasingly obsessed with their dead client.Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune (September 10th)
A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.
Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.
He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.
Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.
But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.
And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.
Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
The World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (September 10th)
After fleeing her controlling and murderous family with her fiancée Vinh, Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, along with her childhood friend, Jesse.
The planet, beautiful and lethal, produces the Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that New Belaforme’s scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves until a rival colony wakes the Gray.
As Amara, Vinh, and Jesse work to carve out a new life together, each is haunted by past betrayals that surface, expounded by the need to survive the rival colony and the planet itself.
There’s more than one way to be eaten alive.
The Ending Fire by Saara El-Arifi (September 10th)
This is the third book of the Ending Fire trilogy
The Wardens’ Empire is falling. A vigilante known only as the Truthsayer is raising an army against the wardens. Sylah and Hassa must navigate the politics of this new world, all the while searching for Anoor.
Across the sea, the Blood Forged prepare for war, requesting aid from other governments. Jond’s role as major general sees him training soldiers for combat, but matters of the heart will prove to be the hardest battlefield.
The Zalaam celebrate the arrival of the Child of Fire, heralding the start of the final battle. Anoor’s doubts are eclipsed by the powers of her new god. Soon the Zalaam will set off on their last voyage—and few expect to return.
Do you feel it? Cresting the horizon? The darkness drawing in, the shadows elongating . . .
The Ending Fire comes.
Hunt of Her Own by Elena Abbott (September 10th)
Danaan Rias is a witch without a coven, forbidden from using her magic when her sister’s corrupt power led to unspeakable tragedy. When Danaan’s magic begins to act out of control, she can no longer stay hidden from the world and must learn to live her life as a magical being.
Ashly Mercer is a monster hunter. The youngest daughter of a proud family, she’s sacrificed most of her life to the whims of parents who believe she is all they have. While fighting for a life on her own terms, she meets Rias and discovers possibilities she never considered.
As fate brings Danaan and Ashly together, their fragile bond is put to the test. Falling in love with a witch will destroy Ashly’s life as a hunter. To embrace a future with Ashly means Dannan has to come to terms with her past.
Whenever You’re Ready by Rachel Runya Katz (September 10th)
Nia and Jade had been inseparable ever since their best friend, Michal, introduced them at her tenth birthday party. But now it’s been three years since Michal died of cancer— since the brutal fight Nia and Jade had in the weeks after— and they’re barely on speaking terms.
Until Nia reads a letter Michal wrote for her 29th birthday, asking her and Jade to go on the southern Jewish history road trip they’d planned before she died. To add to the complications, Michal’s then-boyfriend and Jade’s twin brother, Jonah, joins the trip. Despite the years apart and Jade and Jonah’s strained relationship, any awkwardness quickly disappears as it becomes clear how much Nia and Jade have missed each other.
Unfortunately, old issues soon arise. Nia has been in love with Jade since they were teenagers, and Jade has been so committed to their friendship that she never let herself consider something more. As the stops pass, tensions mount, running high until Nia and Jade are forced to confront what happened three years ago, their feelings for one another, and even their respective relationships with Jonah.
Karaoke Queen by Dominic Lim (September 17th)
For Rex Araneta, his college sweetheart Aaron Berry was always the one who got away. So when he finds out that Aaron is now living in the same town and needs help saving his karaoke bar, it’s Rex to the rescue. Or more like Regina Moon Dee, Rex’s internet-famous, drag queen alter ego. Even if no one can know the identity of the man behind the makeup.
As Regina’s popularity grows, Rex’s ruse becomes more difficult to keep under wraps. It even becomes a family affair with help from his mom and sister to keep his secret. It’s dawning on Rex that he’s hidden this side of himself away for far too long…and perhaps his real shot at love is to reveal his true self. And be loved for all that he is.
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft (September 17th)
Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. The magical spring promises untold power, which the king wants to harness in order to secure his reign over the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself and make her wildest, most impossible dream come true: to become a naturalist, able to travel freely to lands she’s only read about.
The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are the five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest.
But there are other dangers lurking in the dark: forests that rearrange themselves at night, rivers with slumbering dragons hiding beneath the water, and shapeshifting beasts out for blood.
As Lorelei and Sylvia grudgingly work together to uncover the truth—and resist their growing feelings for each other—they discover that their leader had secrets of her own. Secrets that make Lorelei question whether justice is worth pursuing, and if this kingdom is worth saving at all.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean by Ann Rose (September 17th)
It’s her wedding day and it’ll be the happiest day of her life…won’t it?
Amanda Dean would say she’s an okay artist and a loyal friend, but what she’s best at is falling in love. A self-proclaimed bi disaster who has had her heart broken more times than she cares to count, Amanda can’t help opening herself up. As she gets ready on the day she’s waited a lifetime for, memories of her past loves run through her mind, with one glaring red sign blinking above them—is this “the one”?
Will it be:
the fit water polo player,
the fashionista,
the dependable hedge fund manager,
or the one where the timing was never quite right.
Now, on the day of her wedding—a day where everything already seems to be going wrong—Mandy must decide if she’s willing to risk it all one last time or if she’ll escape while her whole heart is still intact.
The Dishonest Miss Take by Faye Murphy (September 17th)
Clara Blakely has left her days as Miss Take, the notorious villain of Victorian London, behind her. She is a reformed, law-abiding citizen using the superpower given to her by industrial pollution to pay her debt to society. Or that’s what she would have the authorities believe. Clara has no intention of helping anyone but herself, and the last thing she wants is to be dragged into a fight against a new and murderous evil that’s stalking the streets.
Yet, despite the Hero Brigade thwarting her every move, she must take on the city’s powerful and corrupt elite by joining forces with a cheat, her hapless landlord, and a trio of trained killers, including an assassin whose skill with a knife is matched only by their skill at creeping into Clara’s heart. With stakes so high, Clara must become what no one, least of all herself, expects: a hero.
The Wildes by Louis Bayard (September 17th)
In September of 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, a stellar reputation as an advocate for progressive causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father, who is perhaps the most famous man in England. But as an assortment of houseguests arrive, including an aristocratic young wannabe poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually—and then all at once—comes to see that her husband’s heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives.
The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts revolves around that fateful summer: what happened, and what might have been. When it was exposed, Oscar’s affair with Lord Alfred Douglas—Bosie, as he was known—led to Wilde’s imprisonment for homosexuality, and the financial and emotional ruin of his family. In Act Two, Bayard reveals Constance and their sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, in exile, forced to sell their possessions, leave England, and hide their identities. Act Three, from the perspective of Cyril, brings readers into the French trenches of World War I, where Cyril must grapple with the kind of man he wants to become, while Act Four reveals Vyvyan in London, years after the war, searching for answers from those who knew his parents. And in a brilliant act of the imagination, Act Five brings the entire cast back together in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau.
I’ll Get Back to You by Becca Grischow (September 17th)
Murphy was supposed to be settling into her junior year at the University of Illinois with her best friend, Kat. Instead, she’s stuck in a hellish suburban holding pattern: living with her parents, failing the same class that kept her from graduating the first time around, and making minimum wage at the same coffee shop she’s worked at since she was sixteen. It doesn’t help that the dating pool for a twenty-one-year-old lesbian in the tiny town of Geneva, Illinois, is anemic at best.
When her and Kat’s long-awaited reunion is plagued by stuttering conversation and uninvited guests, Murphy’s resentment threatens to boil over. That is, until a miracle appears in the form of Ellie Meyers, a former classmate who is way cuter and not nearly as straight as Murphy remembers. Their heavy flirting holds the promise of something more… until Murphy learns that Ellie’s mom is the very professor preparing to flunk Murphy for a second semester in a row. Talk about killing the vibe.
Romance might be off the table, but Ellie could be Murphy’s key to getting into Professor Meyers’ good graces and finally getting out of Geneva. And Murphy—well-versed in defying parental expectations—might be Ellie’s chance to get her mother onboard with her own dreams. Together, they hatch a plot: fake a relationship for a holiday weekend at the Meyers’ house. If everything goes according to plan, Ellie will be living her dream halfway across the country, and Murphy will finally be able to graduate community college and start her life in earnest. So, the fact that Murphy can’t stop thinking about Ellie’s lips on hers isn’t relevant. It’s just a part played well.
Right?
The Beads by David McConnell (September 17th)
In David McConnell’s The Beads, members of a wealthy New York family begin to unravel after having wasted their incredible fortune over more than a century. The patriarch gets lost in a maze of his own neuroses. The mother luxuriates in a life of idle pleasure. The neglected son, Darius, nurses an obsession with his ultra-normal best friend, Barry. As if that weren’t enough, a teacher whom the boys share obliviously commits a shocking crime.
Years later, Darius has traded responsibility for an escape to Europe, where he gets a much-needed lesson in decency from a kind German aristocrat. Meanwhile, Barry stumbles into a father/son relationship with a philandering lawyer who may actually be his biological father.
Once shielded from the real world by privilege, McConnell’s fragile characters tally what they owe others and what they dream they’re owed themselves as time passes indifferently for everyone, beat by beat like the telling of a rosary. Set against a backdrop of late nineties’ Manhattan, The Beads boldly pierces the armor of old money and tries to locate love, if it even exists amid the tangled affectations of a great city.
Sunsets & Other Dangerous Things by Dani Frank (September 19th)
A sunshine vampire who can’t help falling in love, a grumpy grad student who’s followed by bad luck, and a cure that could bring them together or end them forever.
Ashley, a jobless millennial, thought becoming a vampire sounded romantic in the mid-aughts. Now she’s dodging vampire-hunting witches and student loans while trying to regain some of the security she lost years ago when her girlfriend vanished shortly after changing her. The solution: join an established vampire family. All they want is for Ashley to first complete one year of undergrad without giving away her undead status. This proves challenging as, despite her lack of heartbeat, Ashley’s romantic tendencies are alive and well as she finds herself falling head over feet for her class’s cute but prickly graduate assistant.
Buy it: Amazon
Countess by Suzan Palumbo (September 24th)
A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella in which a betrayed captain seeks revenge on the interplanetary empire that subjugated her people for generations
Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Æerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. After years of working hard to rise through the ranks of the empire’s merchant marine, she’s finally become first lieutenant on an interstellar cargo vessel. When her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, Virika is arrested for murder and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. Her conviction and subsequent imprisonment set her on a path of revenge, determined to take down the evil empire that wronged her, all while the fate of her people hangs in the balance.
Love and Sportsball by Meka James (September 24th)
Scoring was the easy part…
Hard work has Khadijah Upton starting her dream job as an athletic trainer for the Atlanta Cannons. Then an evening of celebratory letting loose turns into a one-night stand with a beautiful stranger. It’s a reckless, wildly sexy encounter that Khadijah intends to forget…until her first day on the job lands her face-to-face with Shae Harris again.
Shae is a major player in every sense of the word, and Khadijah doesn’t plan to be the latest in a long line of “Harris Honeys.” Personal and professional just don’t mix. But Shae, who’s all about living life to the fullest, keeps tempting Khadijah to blur the boundaries. And the more Shae reveals about herself, the harder it is for Khadijah to resist her.
In the bedroom, their tension sizzles. On the court, it’s a liability. But unless Khadijah’s willing to really let Shae in, it won’t be just the team championship on the line, but a body-and-soul connection that rewrites all the rules.
The Duke’s Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday (September 24th)
She’s supposed to wed a duke…
But it’s his sister she can’t keep her eyes off!
As the ton’s most in-demand debutante, it should be easy for Miss Loretta Linfield to find the perfect husband. So the reason why she is embarking on her third season unwed is a puzzle that nobody can solve. Not least Loretta! Until she meets Charlotte Sterlington… The sister of her new suitor, the Duke of Colchester, is everything that prim and proper Loretta isn’t—bold, daring and rakish! But Charlotte is also everything that Loretta finds herself desiring…
The Undead Complex by Courtney Smyth (September 24th)
This is the second book in the Undetectables series
Five months after the events of The Undetectables, business is booming – but finding cases that call for magical forensic investigators is not. So when Diana’s ex, Taylor, asks them to solve a murder – her own – Diana, Mallory and Cornelia can’t say no.
Called to investigate the set of Undead Complex, Diana re-enters the world of TV-show prop making – even in death, the show must go on – where the appearance of a genuine-article Francine Leon dollhouse can’t make up for the fact she’s being pulled down a path of crime-solving she maybe doesn’t want to walk forever.
Meanwhile, Theodore’s coming apart at the seams – literally – in the aftermath of their last case, and Mallory is running out of ways to help him. Especially as he seems to be keeping secrets from her.
As the clues – and the bodies – keep piling up, each one making less and less sense, the Undetectables find themselves in a new race against the clock to find out what, exactly, the killer is up to – before they strike again…
The Lovers by Rebekah Faubion (September 24th)
If Kit Larson believes one thing, it’s that the cards never lie. She’s seen it proven time and time again as a tarot reader and mystic influencer. But unfortunately the cards didn’t warn her about her most recent breakup or her parents’ divorce, so when Kit is offered a gig at another influencer’s boho-chic Joshua Tree wedding she accepts for the distraction. And distract it does when she finds out her high school crush, Julia, is the wedding planner.
Julia Kelley is her agency’s most sought-after wedding planner, and for a good reason—she’s a perfectionist. Control means never showing others the vulnerable, blobby mess she really is deep down inside. Having an ex-girlfriend in the bridal party is a problem, sure, but reconnecting with the beautiful tarot reader who broke her heart as a teenager is so much worse.
Kit’s cards once told her that she and Julia were Twin Flames, two halves of the same soul. With wedding events pushing them together, their spark reignites . . . and so does a chance at being lovers.
House of Crimson Kisses by Ruby Roe (September 26th)
Continue Octavia and Red’s journey in the sequel to House of Crimson Hearts.
Who will win the trials?
Who will reach the door first?
And what happens when their past catches up with them?
This is the sequel to House of Crimson Hearts. These books need to be read in order. This is a steamy 18+ adult lesbian vampire romance with mature themes and content.
Buy it: Amazon
Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake (October 1st)
It’s been five years since Charlotte Donovan was ditched at the altar by her ex-fiancée, and she’s doing more than okay. Sure, her single mother never checks in, but she has her strings ensemble, the Rosalind Quartet, and her life in New York is a dream come true. As the holidays draw near, her ensemble mate Sloane persuades Charlotte and the rest of the quartet to spend Christmas with her family in Colorado—it is much cozier and quieter than Manhattan, and it would guarantee more practice time for the quartet’s upcoming tour. But when Charlotte arrives, she discovers that Sloane’s sister Adele also brought a friend home—and that friend is none other than her ex, Brighton.
All Brighton Fairbrook wanted was to have the holliest, jolliest Christmas—and try to forget that her band kicked her out. But instead, she’s stuck pretending like she and her ex are strangers—which proves to be difficult when Sloane and Adele’s mom signs them all up for a series of Christmas dating events. Charlotte and Brighton are soon entrenched in horseback riding and cookie decorating, but Charlotte still won’t talk to her. Brighton can hardly blame her after what she did.
After a few days, however, things start to slip through. Memories. Music. The way they used to play together—Brighton on guitar, Charlotte on her violin—and it all feels painfully familiar. But it’s all in the past and nothing can melt the ice in their hearts…right?
Rough Pages by Lev A.C. Rosen (October 1st)
This is the third book in the Andy Mills series
Private Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has been drawn back to the Lavender House estate for a missing person case. Pat, the family butler, has been volunteering for a book service, one that specializes in mailing queer books to a carefully guarded list of subscribers. With bookseller Howard Salzberger gone suspiciously missing along with his address book, everyone on that list, including some of Andy’s closest friends, is now in danger.
A search of Howard’s bookstore reveals that someone wanted to stop him and his co-owner, Dorothea Lamb, from sending out their next book. The evidence points not just to the Feds, but to the Mafia, who would be happy to use the subscriber list for blackmail.
Andy has to maneuver through both the government and the criminal world, all while dealing with a nosy reporter who remembers him from his days as a police detective and wants to know why he’s no longer a cop. With his own secrets closing in on him, can Andy find the list before all the lives on it are at risk?
Showmance by Chad Beguelin (1st)
Noah Adams’s career as a playwright is circling the drain, thanks to a scorching review of his first Broadway musical. So when a family emergency sends him back to his Podunk hometown of Plainview, Illinois, he figures he’ll hide out for a bit. But to Noah’s horror, his agent has secretly arranged for him to stage an amateur version of the career-ruining musical at the local community theater.As if trying to work with a bunch of artless amateurs wasn’t enough, Noah runs into Luke, the jerk from his high school years, everywhere he goes. Luke somehow grew up to be beloved by everyone in town…and undeniably gorgeous. As rehearsals begin, Noah is surprised by his cast’s insights, the warmth of the town he’d dismissed, and the reality of what happened with Luke all those years ago. Just how much has Noah misjudged?Model Home by Rivers Solomon (October 1st)
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.
As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents’ death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural” death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?
The Merriest Misters by Timothy Janovsky (October 1st)
Patrick Hargrave and Quinn Muller have been married for less than a year, but their passionate romance is cracking under the pressures of domestic life and a cumbersome mortgage. That’s until Christmas Eve when Patrick wakes Quinn up with: “I think I’ve killed a man.”
Quinn realizes the “burglar” Patrick knocked out is none other than Mr. Claus himself. Instructed by a harried elf to don the red suit and take the reins of the reindeer-guided sleigh up on the roof, Quinn and Patrick work together to save Christmas.
But as the sun rises on Christmas morning, the sleigh brings them back to the North Pole instead of New Jersey, and they’re in for a massive shock. The couple must assume the roles of Santa Claus and the first ever Merriest Mister or Christmas will be canceled… permanently.
With Christmas–and their marriage–on the line, Patrick and Quinn agree to stay together for one year. But can running a toy shop together save their relationship, or will Patrick and Quinn be stuffing coal in each other’s stockings come next Christmas?
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst (October 8th)
Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.
Dave Win, the son of a British dressmaker and a Burmese man he’s never met, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates, above all that of Giles Hadlow, whose worldly parents sponsored the scholarship and who find in Dave someone they can more easily nurture than their own brutish son.
Our Evenings follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.
Moving in and out of Dave’s orbit are the Hadlows. Estranged from his parents, who remain close to Dave, Giles directs his privilege into a career as a powerful right-wing politician, whose reactionary vision for England pokes perilous holes in Dave’s stability. As the story accelerates toward the present day, the two men’s lives and values will finally collide in a cruel shock of violence.
Buy it: Amazon
Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (October 8th)
Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family’s wealth, something that Matti has been trying―and failing―to do for the past ten years.
What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.
Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible―and inconveniently handsome―wool merchant like Matti.
However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti’s wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti’s house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca’s secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?
I’ll Be Gone for Christmas by Georgia K. Boone (October 8th)
Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still—especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.
Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.
Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…
The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (October 8th)
Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make-out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night.
But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.
Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.
It’s a fake competition between two holiday princes who can’t keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year.
Haunt Your Heart Out by Amber Roberts (8th)
(Lex is pan; James is bi.)
Homebody Lex McCall loves her sleepy Vermont town and quiet bookstore job. After her family, friends, and exes all moved away to seek futures elsewhere, Lex set one rule: no dating tourists, newcomers, or anyone else who is bound to leave her behind. When the bookshop owner, eager to off-load the supposedly haunted building, offers to sell the store to Lex at an unbeatable price, Lex jumps at the chance to further put down roots.
Then handsome stranger James stops by the bookstore. Lex assumes he’s just another tourist passing through, but it turns out he’s part of a ghost-hunting documentary crew that’s looking into the many “verified” ghost stories in town. Lex can’t resist getting involved—especially because these so-called ghosts are actually made-up stories from Haunted Happenings, her hobby vlog from a decade prior. Worried her ghost-faking secret will get out and ruin her chance to buy the store, she tampers with the ghosthunters’ research and skews the results. After all, James’s stay is only temporary, and her career dreams come first.
But as they spend more time together, Lex realizes she’s falling for James. Worse, there’s more at stake than her simply being found out and losing his affection: his mission isn’t as frivolous as it seems, and her interference may cost him much more than a spooky story.
If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens (October 15th)
(Pen and Neil are both bi.)
It’s been months since horror author Penelope Skinner threw a book at Neil Storm. But he was so infuriating, with his sparkling green eyes and his bestselling horror novels that claimed to break Native stereotypes. And now she’s a publishing pariah and hasn’t been able to write a word since. So when her friend invites her on a too-good-to-be-true writers retreat in a supposedly haunted Scottish castle, she seizes the opportunity. Of course, some things really are too good to be true.
Neil wants nothing less than to be trapped in a castle with the frustratingly adorable woman who threw a book at him. She drew blood! Worse still, she unleashed a serious case of self-doubt! Neil is terrified to write another bestselling “book without a soul,” as Pen called it. All Neil wants is to find inspiration, while completely avoiding her.
But as the retreat begins, Pen and Neil are stunned to find themselves trapped in a real-life ghost story. Even more horrifying, they’re stuck together and a truly shocking (extremely hot) almost-kiss has left them rethinking their feelings, and… maybe they shouldn’t have been enemies at all? But if they can’t stop the ghosts pursuing them, they may never have the chance to find out.
Long Time Gone by Hannah Martian (October 15th)
In the small town of Wonderland, Wyoming, the truth is whatever the Coldwater family says it is. When their prodigal daughter Jessica was murdered forty years ago, their truth was that Holly Prine killed her–regardless of Holly’s innocence.
But the Coldwaters aren’t the only reason private investigator Quinn Cuthridge hasn’t set foot in the town in nearly a decade. After her aunt sent her away when she was a teen, Quinn swore she’d never return. When she gets an unexpected call from her aunt’s ranch hand, Hunter, Quinn learns that her aunt has gone missing. Reluctantly, she returns to Wyoming to investigate and soon realizes that her aunt was getting dangerously close to long-buried Wonderland secrets, including who really murdered Jessica Coldwater.
As Hunter and Quinn dig into what lies in the Wyoming backcountry, attraction flares between the two women, complicating their investigation–and Quinn’s steadfast refusal to have any ties to Wonderland. With someone threatening Quinn and her own dark past echoing in the present, Quinn must struggle against her hometown and herself to find the truth.
Women’s Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery (October 15th)
The New York Times-bestselling author and advice columnist’s debut novel about the residents of a women’s hotel in 1960s New York City.
The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.
The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.
On Vicious Worlds by Bethany Jacobs (October 15th)
This is the sequel to These Burning Stars
The Jeveni have finally found freedom on the distant planet Capamame, delivered from Kindom oppression through their alliance with stoic Cleric Chono, intrepid caster Jun Ironway, and Six, the wildly unpredictable manipulator who has outwitted the Nightfoot family.
But when Six and Chono return to the Treble star systems, the dream of freedom meets a dangerous test. The Secretaries of the Kindom are intent on reclaiming power in the Treble, as well as control over the Jeveni. Meanwhile, Jun Ironway and Jeveni collector Masar Hawks struggle to protect Capamame from a population brimming with resentment, not to mention a faceless saboteur spreading mayhem and murder.
As the two groups struggle to outwit their enemies, divergent battles wend toward a climatic reunion that will spark a revolution. But over it all hangs the cruel legacy of Esek Nightfoot, whose rippling effects may prove impossible to survive.
Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (October 15th)
Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics. He can summon butterflies with a song or turn someone’s hair pink by snapping his fingers. Though such minor charms don’t earn him much respect, anything more elaborate always blows up in his face, and so Leo vowed long ago never to use powerful magic again.
That is, until a mishap with a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime rival, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite—respected, exceptionally talented, and absolutely insufferable. The only thing they can agree on is that revealing the curse between them would mean the end of their respective magical careers. They need a counterspell, and fast.
Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To break the curse, they will have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and—much to their horror—work together.
Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.
Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris (October 15th)
At the dawn of the twentieth century in Paris, Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, works as a researcher for the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. But no one realizes how abnormal she is. Sam is a channel into the minds of monsters: a power that could help her solve the gruesome deaths plaguing turn-of-the-century Paris—or have her thrown into an asylum.
Sam finds herself assigned to a case with Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the criminal mastermind and famed nemesis of Sherlock Holmes and a notorious detective whom no one wants to work with on account of her previous partners’ mysterious murders. Ranging from the elite clubs of Paris to the dark underbelly of the catacombs, their investigation sweeps them into a race to stop a Beast from its killing rampage, as Hel and Sam are pitted against men, monsters, and even each other. But beneath their tenuous trust, an unmistakable attraction brews. Is trusting Hel the key to solving the murder, or is Sam yet another pawn in Hel’s game?
The Hollow and the Haunted by Camilla Raines (October 22nd)
Miles Warren hails from a long line of psychics. Resigned to a life in the family business, Miles is perfectly happy, thank you very much—except that he’s constantly consumed by anxiety, hides his sexuality from almost everyone, and always feels exhausted from long nights spent wrangling angry ghosts. Perfectly happy.
Miles’ comfortable routine is interrupted when he starts to see the reflection of a strange boy in his mirror. He discovers the boy is none other than Gabriel Hawthorne, whose family have a mysterious, decades-long feud with Miles’ own—and that the visions are a premonition of his death. Gabriel is everything Miles expects from a Hawthorne—rude, snobbish, and irritatingly good-looking—but Miles isn’t just going to stand by and let someone murder him. (Even if he understands the impulse).
The two form an uneasy alliance, trying to work out who might want to kill Gabriel and prevent his death from taking place. As they uncover secrets about their families’ feud and dark magic swirls around them, Miles is horrified to realize that he doesn’t hate Gabrielas much as he’s supposed to. He might even like him.
Too bad Gabriel is almost certainly going to die.
Metal From Heaven by august clarke (October 22nd)
He who controls ichorite controls the world.
A malleable metal more durable than steel, ichorite is a toxic natural resource fueling national growth, and ambitious industrialist Yann Chauncey helms production of this miraculous ore. Working his foundry is an underclass of destitute workers, struggling to get better wages and proper medical treatment for those exposed to ichorite’s debilitating effects since birth.
One of those luster-touched victims, the child worker Marney Honeycutt, is picketing with her family and best friend when a bloody tragedy unfolds. Chauncey’s strikebreakers open fire.
Only Marney survives.
A decade later, as Yann Chauncey searches for a suitable political marriage for his ward, Marney sees the perfect opportunity for revenge. With the help of radical bandits and their stolen wealth, she must masquerade as an aristocrat to win over the calculating Gossamer Chauncey and kill the man who slaughtered her family and friends. But she is not the only suitor after Lady Gossamer’s hand, leading her to play twisted elitist games of intrigue. And Marney’s luster-touched connection to the mysterious resource and its foundry might put her in grave danger – or save her from it.
How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? by Anna Montague (October 22nd)
Most days, Magda is fine. She has her routines. She has her anxious therapy patients, who depend on her to cure their bad habits. She has her longtime colleagues, whose playful bickering she mediates. She’s mourning the recent loss of her best friend, Sara, but has brokered a tentative truce with Sara’s prickly widower as she helps him sort through the last of Sara’s possessions. She’s fine.
But in going through Sara’s old journal, Magda discovers her friend’s last directive: plans for a road trip they would take together in celebration of Magda’s upcoming seventieth birthday. So, with Sara’s urn in tow, Magda decides to hit the road, crossing the country and encountering a cast of memorable characters—including her sister, from whom she’s been keeping secrets. Along the way she stumbles upon a jazz funeral in New Orleans and a hilarious women’s retreat meant to “unleash one’s divine feminine energy” in Texas, and meets a woman who challenges her conceptions of herself—and the hidden truths about her friendship with Sara.
As the trip shakes up her careful routines, Magda finally faces longings she locked away years ago and confronts questions about her sexuality and identity she thought she had long put to rest. And as she soon learns, it’s never too late to start your next journey.
The Arizona Triangle by Sydney Graves (October 22nd)
In the vein of the bestselling California noirs of Sue Grafton and Sara Gran, a whodunnit about loyalty, love, and the legacy of trauma featuring a hardboiled, queer private eye whose latest case takes her deep into her own complicated past.
On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.
Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.
Ripcord by Nate Lippens (October 22nd)
A novel about escape and connection, class, sex, and queer intimacy in the American Midwest.
The oldest story: an insider pretends to be an outsider and receives praise for his empathy and imagination and intelligence. Maybe some asshole even says bravery. An outsider pretends to be an insider, is exposed as a fraud, a liar, and burned to the ground.
In Ripcord, Nate Lippens continues his meditations on escape and connection, class, sex, and intimacy. Stuck in Milwaukee, the narrator cobbles together a living by bartending and catering weddings, enmeshed in a semiaffair with a younger, married man. Cruising apps while tallying his youthful romantic failures, he fantasizes about disappearance but finds both solace and frustration in his friendships with Charlie, an aging punk who was prominent in the 1990s Chicago queercore scene, and Greer, a painter who never broke through but continues making work.
Masquerade by Mike Fu (October 29th)
Set between New York and Shanghai, Masquerade is a queer coming-of-age mystery about a lovelorn bartender and his complex friendship with a volatile artist.
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author’s name is the same as Meadow’s own in Chinese, Liu Tian―a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings. Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks, a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (October 29th)
In the valley at the intersection of three towering mountains sits Cadenze, an ugly, remote town with little to its name. It’s filled with tourists in the summer and dead the rest of the year, when most of its residents surrender to a sleepier existence. Except, that is, for whatever is lurking in the caves. . .
Angelina Sicco was born and raised in Cadenze, and for many generations, so was every member of her family. Determined to be content with her lot in life, she walks her mongrel dog, attends her brother’s heavy metal concerts, holds court in the local dive bar, and does everything she can to bait hot, queer women to her sleepy, conservative hometown. But on the night of a family party much like every other, Angelina runs into Patrick’s ex, the sternly handsome Jagvi, who’s back in town for a spell. Perhaps enticed by Jagvi’s arrival, an ancient evil lying dormant in those caves is awakened, and soon Angelina’s small, contained world begins to shatter.
As the monstrous force grows bolder, it infilitrates Angelina’s life. It talks with her dog’s mouth; it guzzles on her memories; it controls Angelina from the inside. Only Jagvi’s touch repels it — the final trigger for a secret, passionate romance. But this monster feasts on all the passion, heartbreak and mess that makes up a life, and Angelina Sicco’s life has never looked tastier. What will Angelina do to protect her future? And what will it cost her?
All the Painted Stars by Emma Denny (November 5th)
Oxfordshire 1362
When Lily Barden discovers her best friend Johanna’s hand in marriage is being awarded as the main prize at a tournament, she is determined to stop it. Disguised as a knight, she infiltrates the contest, preparing to fight for Jo’s hand. But her conduct ruffles feathers, and when a dangerous incident escalates out of Lily’s control, Jo must help her escape.
Finding safety with a local brewster, Lily and Jo soon settle into their new freedom, and amongst blackberry bushes and lakeside walks an unexpected relationship blossoms. But when Jo’s past catches up with her and Lily’s reckless behaviour threatens their newfound happiness, both women realise that choices must always come at a cost. The question they need to ask is if the cost is worth the price of love…
Wake Up, Nat & Darcy by Kate Cochrane (November 12th)
Ex-lovers. Ex-rivals. New cohosts. Oh, puck.
Cut from the US women’s hockey team right before her third chance at gold, Natalie Carpenter is scrambling for a plan that’ll help her avoid moving back home. The answer: a guest-hosting gig on Wake Up, USA’s winter games coverage. Her cohost: Darcy LaCroix, Nat’s ex-girlfriend, one-time college teammate turned adversary.
Since leaving Team Canada, Darcy has worked hard to make a name in broadcasting. If her big break requires sharing screen time with the former cocky freshman who turned her world upside down, so be it. At this point, there’s nothing between them except history.
But audiences disagree. #PuckingHotties is trending hard, and Nat and Darcy agree to lean into it—for ratings, obviously. It’s not like Nat can forget the way Darcy broke her heart or their bitter team rivalry.
Between working, traveling together and that irresistible spark, it’s getting hard to separate what’s real and what’s for the camera. Because somewhere underneath everything that went wrong is the sneaking suspicion that nothing will ever feel quite this right again.
Something Close to Nothing by Tom Pyun (November 12th)
Winston Kang and Jared Cahill are traveling to Cambodia to meet the surrogate of their baby girl and witness her birth. The egg donor is Korean American, just like Wynn, and Jared, who is white, can’t wait to meet his daughter and raise their beautiful, hip family. Named after Jared’s favorite star (more Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice, less Mamma Mia and Devil Wears Prada), Meryl will be a cool Bay Area kid. She will eat organic baby food, learn French, and attend Wellesley, Williams, or Wesleyan. But when Wynn bails on Jared and Meryl at the last minute to pursue his dream of becoming a hip-hop dancer, the master plan begins to crumble. Jared starts to panic that no one in his life can talk to Meryl about her period or what it’s like to grow up as an Asian American person. Oceans away, Wynn is figuring out what it means to put himself first—auditioning for Misty Espinoza’s comeback tour, organizing a Prince-themed flash mob, and reconnecting with his old friend, Nicole, in Nairobi, where they try to make sense of their weird but mostly single lives.
Everything’s amazing, right?
Told in alternating points of view, Wynn and Jared explore the dark side of the very American idea of following one’s dreams, whether it be pursuing a career in dance or having a biological child as a gay man, a la Andy Cohen, and Anderson Cooper. Along their messy tragi-comic journey, unresolved issues of race, identity, and privilege haunt them, pulling at the loose threads of their fantasies and raising the question of whether they will ultimately face themselves and grow up.
Time and Tide by J.M. Frey (November 12th)
Just a twenty-first century gal with nineteenth-century problems…
When Sam’s plane crashes catastrophically over the Atlantic, it defies all odds for Sam to be the sole survivor. But it seems impossible that she’s rescued by a warship in 1805. With a dashing sea captain as her guide, she begins to find her footing in a world she’d only seen in movies.
Then Sam is betrayed. At the mercy of the men and morals of the time, and without the means to survive on her own, she’s left with no choice but to throw herself on the charity of the captain’s sisters. She resigns herself to a quiet life of forever hiding her true self. What she doesn’t expect is that her new landlady is Margaret Goodenough—the world-famous author whose yet-to-be-completed novel will contain the first lesbian kiss in the history of British Literature, and a clever woman. Clever enough to know her new companion has a secret.
As the two women grow ever closer, Sam must tread the tenuous line between finding her own happiness in a place where she doesn’t think she’ll ever fit in, and possibly (accidentally) changing the course of history.
This Christmas by Georgia Beers (November 12th)
It’s Christmastime and everyone is in the holiday spirit at no-kill animal shelter Junebug Farms.
When Junebug sponsors the annual Christmas parade to raise money and awareness for their shelter, the staff have a plan: the king and queen of the parade will spend the holidays filming adorable Christmas vignettes to bring in donations and find forever homes for lovable pups before Santa comes.
What they don’t know is that Mia Sorenson, volunteer dog walker and superior matchmaker, is about to rig the voting so that her granddaughter, Samantha, and Sam’s friend Keegan, win queen and queen of the parade. Sam and Keegan have been dancing around each other for years, and if Mia doesn’t do something, they might never realize they’re meant to be together. But can Sam and Keegan ever forget the Big Embarrassing Thing that makes romance a nope?
It’ll be all paws on deck to bring them a miracle and make this Christmas one to remember.
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri (November 12th)
This is the final book in the Burning Kingdoms trilogy
Malini has claimed her rightful throne as the empress of Parijatdvipa, just as the nameless gods prophesied. Now, in order to gain the support of the priesthood who remain loyal to the fallen emperor, she must consider a terrible bargain: Claim her throne and burn in order to seal her legacy—or find another willing to take her place on the pyre.
Priya has survived the deathless waters and now their magic runs in her veins. But a mysterious yaksa with flowering eyes and a mouth of thorns lies beneath the waters. The yaksa promises protection for Ahiranya. But in exchange, she needs a sacrifice. And she’s chosen Priya as the one to offer it.
Two women once entwined by fate now stand against each other. But when an ancient enemy rises to threaten their world, Priya and Malini will find themselves fighting together once more – to prevent their kingdoms, and their futures, from burning to ash.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso (November 19th)
In the Deep Echoes, no one can save you.
Kembral Thorne has a few hours away from her newborn, and she’s determined to enjoy herself at the year-turning ball. But when guests start dropping dead, she can’t help sniffing out trouble—she’s a Hound, after all. Especially when her professional and personal nemesis, notorious burglar Rika Nonesuch, is also on the prowl.
Everyone knows you shouldn’t get involved with Echo games. Let alone one involving ancient Echo lords who can turn layers of reality into a gameboard with human lives for pieces. But as the ballroom grows stranger and more otherworldly with each strike of the hour, it’s clearly too late.
Kem knows the rules: One Echo down is no big deal. Stay alert for trouble.
Four Echoes down, there are things with eyes in their teeth, and walls that drip blood. Four is the limit.
As the party plunges through increasingly deadly realities, the rules can’t help Kem anymore. She’ll have to rely on her wits—and Rika—to unravel the most dangerous game of the century before it unleashes catastrophe on their world.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
And the Mighty Will Fall by K.B. Wagers (November 19th)
This is the third book in the NeoG series
With the fourth stand-alone NeoG novel, Die Hard meets A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this nail-biting, action-filled story that’s as much about found family as it is about survival when a peaceful transition of power in the Mars Orbital Station goes terribly wrong as rebels decide this is the moment to make their move, leaving two NeoG members stranded inside a ticking time bomb.
When you’re trapped in space, there’s no way out.
The mission of the Near-Earth Orbital Guard is to ensure the peace and security of the solar system. Commander Maxine Carmichael and Lieutenant Commander Saqib Vahid are at the Mars Orbital Station (MOS) to help facilitate the official handover from NeoG to Mars civilian control as part of the ongoing negotiations. Members of the extreme wings of the fight for Martian independence refuse to remain silent, and are willing to resort to violence to make their voices heard; Max and Saqib find themselves fighting for their lives. The attacks both on the MOS and the ground of Mars sets off a chain reaction that could destabilize the last few years of cautious peace.
The leader of Free Mars, Sylvia Moroz, knows better than anyone how fragile harmony is, having seen for decades the Coalition of Human Nations’ inability to negotiate for peace. Without any assurances—and knowing her splintered people all too well—anything less than complete liberation will only lead to more bloodshed. She’s not opposed to fighting, but when there’s an attempt on her life, she finds she must look for help from the NeoG and Commander D’Arcy Montaglione. The pair will have to overcome their past to figure out who they can trust and how to stop the attacks on the ground before more lives are lost.
Trapped inside the station, Carmichael and Vahid are scrambling to not only get to the bottom of the attackers’ motives, but also to simply survive. Because with the rest of the Zuma’s Ghost crew stuck down on Mars, it’s up to them to do what they can to keep the MOS from fully falling into the wrong hands…and keep Mars from descending into all-out war.
I Might Be in Trouble by Daniel Aleman (December 3rd)
A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book—a total flop—all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers, the entire publishing world…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.
But good ideas are hard to come by, and the mounting pressure of a near-empty bank account isn’t helping. When David connects with a sexy stranger on a dating app, he figures a wild night out in New York City may be just what he needs to find inspiration. Lucky for him, his date turns out to be handsome, confident, and wealthy, not to mention the perfect distraction from yet another evening staring at a blank screen.
After one of the best nights of his life, David wakes up hungover but giddy—only to find prince charming dead next to him in bed. Horrified, completely confused, and suddenly faced with the implausible-but-somehow-plausible idea that he may have actually killed his date, David calls the only person he can trust in a moment of crisis: his literary agent, Stacey.
Together, David and Stacey must untangle the events of the previous night, cover their tracks, and spin the entire misadventure into David’s career-defining novel—if only they can figure out what to do with the body first.
The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn (December 3rd)
The year is 2041, and it’s a dangerous time to be a woman driving across the United States alone. Deadly storms and uncontrollable wildfires are pummeling the country while political tensions are rising. But Kelly’s on the road anyway; she desperately needs to get back to her daughter, who she left seven years ago for a cause that she’s no longer sure she believes in.
Almost 40 years later, another mother, Ava, and her daughter Brook are on the run as well, from the climate change relief program known as The Inside Project, where they’ve spent the past 22 years being treated as lab rats. When they encounter a woman from Ava’s past on the side of the highway, the three continue on in a journey that will take them into the depths of what remains of humanity out in the wilderness.
At the same time, way up North, weather conditions continue to worsen and a settlement departs in search of greener pastures, leaving behind only two members, drawn together by a circumstance and a mystery they are destined to unravel together.
Set in the world of Gabrielle Korn’s Yours for the Taking, The Shutouts tells the captivating story of those who have been shut out from Inside, their fight to survive, and an interconnectedness larger than all of them.
Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet by Samantha Allen (December 3rd)
It’s the gig of a lifetime for this ghostwriter, except there’s a catch: the client, a closeted A-list actor finally ready to come out in his memoir, is an actual ghost.
Adam Gallagher has knocked on thousands of doors. An ex-Mormon and almost-famous memoirist, he is used to sharing his life story with strangers. But this day, this house, is different. For it belongs to none other than Roland Rogers: Hollywood Hunk, and soon to be author. Roland has a story to tell, a decades-old secret to spill, and he’s decided that Adam is just the guy to help him do it.
Except there’s a problem. Roland Rogers is dead. Not in the metaphysical realm―if he focuses, he can summon enough energy to communicate via the kitchen speaker―but certainly in the physical, and he needs Adam to pen his story before his body is found frozen beneath the avalanche of snow that squashed it. That means one month, a hundred thousand words, no breaks.
Ghostwriting is hard enough, let alone when you’re dealing with a real ghost, and so it isn’t long before Roland’s idea of what his book should be clashes with Adam’s vision for what it could be.But the clock is ticking, the ice melting. And as more truths are told, both men soon discover that this experience is less of a coming out, and more of a coming home . . .
Private Rites by Julia Armfield (December 3rd)
It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will.
More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams; Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling; and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.
Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe (December 3rd)
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.
A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.
Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye by Alex White (December 3rd)
This is the sequel to August Kitko and the Mechas from Space
Ultra-glam enby pop star Ardent Violet thought they could catch a break and enjoy some time with their new boyfriend August Kitko after defeating the giant mechas hellbent on humanity’s destruction. However, Ardent didn’t count on their mecha allies summoning a host of extraterrestrials to defend Earth.
Between the diplomatic entanglements of the newly-arrived alien Coalition, and a mysterious all-powerful AI establishing a base within their solar system, there’s no rest for the wicked.
When August makes a discovery that could turn the tide of the war, Ardent Violet finds themself back in the spotlight for an encore!
The Blessed by Anne Shade (December 10th)
Suri Daniels, a beautiful and troubled woman, is the descendant of a family of supernaturally gifted women, known as the Blessed, and literally holds keys to gateways between the earthly plane and seven powerful gods. A series of tragic losses and a stipulation in her grandmother’s will has her returning to the family’s home in New Orleans, unaware that she will need to step into the role of Orisha priestess and escape the attention of a powerful demon. To top it all off, she must accept the help of a Cambion—Lyla Jefferies, a dark supernatural being she has spent her life avoiding. What’s worse? She can’t help being drawn to Layla in ways she doesn’t understand.
Being the love child of a top-tier demon and a human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the past two hundred years, Layla Jefferies has lived a life of quietude. When an unknown force draws her out of seclusion, the pull is too strong to ignore. Layla is tasked to assist with protecting the gateways and saving Suri from becoming a vengeful demon’s avatar. Falling in love with her is definitely not part of the plan.
Layla and Suri are brought together by fate to defeat the darkness threatening to tear their world apart. What they don’t expect to discover is a love that might set them free.
Twisted Shadows by Allie Therin (December 10th)
This is the second book in the Sugar & Vice series
Empath hunter Evan Grayson is the Dead Man, transformed by a dark past into a perfect weapon against corrupted empaths. Nothing can distract him from stopping these superhuman killers—until he’s mired in a new battle, fighting a forbidden attraction to an empath on the verge of corruption.
For pacifist Reece Davies, every day is a struggle to keep his darker side in check. It’s only his complicated relationship with Evan that keeps him grounded—a relationship that, despite his growing feelings, must stay at arm’s length. But when an empath’s murder on the East Coast points to a treacherous plot back west, with Reece as the next potential target, Evan races across the country to be by his side.
Together, they search for missing empaths, their proximity heightening the chemistry they must resist. But corruption isn’t the only danger they face as sinister forces close in from the shadows, sights set on empath and empath hunter alike…
Something Extraodinary by Alexis Hall (December 17th)
From the author of Boyfriend Material comes the absurdist adventure of two friends determined to avoid marriage to unsuitable people as they race through Regency England to marry each other instead.
Sir Horley Comewithers isn’t particularly interested in getting married, especially when his match is a perfectly respectable young woman. Sir Horley is, after all, extravagantly gay. But he’s resigned to a fate there’s no point resisting—until a dear friend does it for him.
Arabella Tarleton has no interest in romance, but even she can see that Sir Horley’s nuptials are destined to end in a lifetime of misery. Well, not on her watch. And what are friends for, if not abducting you on your wedding night in an overdramatic attempt to save you from a terrible mistake?
Their journey to Gretna Green is a hodgepodge of colorful run-ins and near misses with questionable innkeepers, amateur highwaymen, overattentive writers, and scorned fiancées. Then again a bumpy road is better than an unhappy destination.
But when it comes to marriage, Belle and Sir Horley are about to discover that it’s not what you do or how you do it but the people who you choose to do it with that matter most.
The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap (December 24th)
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. A shining beacon of medical discovery in the age of New Enlightenment, the city’s university offers everything James desires—except the chance to work on a human cadaver. For that, he needs to join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square, at a cost he cannot afford. In desperation, he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye” MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist with an artist’s eye for anatomy and a reckless passion for knowledge. Nye promises to help him gain the surgical experience he craves—but it doesn’t take long for James to realize he’s made a devil’s bargain . . .
Nye is a body snatcher. And James has unwittingly become his accomplice. Intoxicated by Nye and his noble mission, James rapidly descends into the underground ranks of the Resurrectionists—the body snatchers infamous for stealing fresh corpses from churchyards to be used as anatomical specimens. Before he knows it, James is caught up in a life-or-death scheme as rival gangs of snatchers compete in a morbid race for power and prestige.
James and Nye soon find themselves in the crosshairs of a shady pair of unscrupulous opportunists known as Burke and Hare, who are dead set on cornering the market, no matter the cost. These unsavory characters will do anything to beat the competition for bodies. Even if it’s cold-blooded murder . . .
North is the Night by Emily Rath (December 24th)
In the Finnish wilderness, more than wolves roam the dark forests. For Siiri and her best friend Aina, summer’s fading light is a harbinger of unwelcome change. Land-hungry Swedes venture north, threatening the peace; a zealous Christian priest denounces the old ways; and young women have begun to disappear.
Bold and resilient, Siiri vows to protect Aina from danger. But even Siiri cannot stop a death goddess from dragging her friend to Tuonela, the mythical underworld. Determined to save Aina, Siiri braves a dangerous journey north to seek the greatest shaman of legend, the only person to venture to the realm of death and return alive.
In Tuonela, the cruel Witch Queen turns Aina’s every waking moment into a living nightmare. But armed with compassion and cleverness, Aina learns the truth of her capture: the king of the underworld himself has plans for her. To return home, Aina must make a costly bargain—even as Siiri plots a daring rescue.
A Sky of Emerald Stars by A.K. Mulford (December 24th)
A secret song. A hidden fortress. A world on the brink of war.
After the long, despotic reign under the evil sorceress, Sawyn, life in the Golden Court is finally rebuilding. New leadership means new beginnings, and Sadie Rauxtide—now a royal guard—has been grappling with how she’ll fit into her new home. But when a rival Wolf king, Nero, kidnaps the Queen’s friend and mentor Ora, any hopes for peace are lost.
The Golden Court springs into action, and Sadie is tasked with an important mission: travel with Navin and Maez to try to win new allies and uncover Nero’s hidden secrets. Yet Navin has secrets of his own, and Sadie is tasked with uncovering them while battling her growing attraction to the man who betrayed her. She has a mission, but the heart wants what it wants. And fate? Fate has its own magic, and it’s one more thing out of her control.
Meanwhile, Queen Calla is forced to seek help from the Ice Wolf pack in order to stop Nero’s prejudicial rule. However, the Queen of Taigos makes Calla’s objectives impossible with their capricious relationship standing in the way—completely unwilling to commit in helping Calla rescue Ora and repeatedly dismissing Calla’s new gender identity. With no true allyship from Taigos Court, Calla battles between diplomacy and being their true self as they realize coming out is only the beginning of their journey of self-discovery.
Tensions rise on both fronts as Sadie and Calla struggle to gain support for the brewing war and realize that the world of Aotreas is more than it seems.
