The intense heat got you down? Or are you looking for a break from all the excitement of the Olympics? Why not take a look at the book releases that are coming way this month?! August brings us new books from some of our favorite authors (a few releases I have been waiting for all year), while we have debut novels from exciting and budding new writers. We have a story in a decompression chamber, vampires, witches, and romance in a small town…August has something for everyone. It is a perfect way to celebrate this year’s National Book Lovers’ Day!
Featured Books of the Month
The Chamber by Will Dean
Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot, close quarters.
Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.
With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge. What…or who…is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all? (Credit: Atria Books)
The Kill List by Nadine Matheson
He will come for them, one by one…Five shocking murders
Twenty-five years ago, DCI Harry Rhimes arrested Andrew Streeter for the brutal murders of five young people. Streeter’s “kill list” of victims was found in his home, and he was convicted of all five crimes.
A legacy under threat
Now, Streeter’s convictions are being overturned, as new evidence implies the original investigation was corrupt. No one is more shocked than DI Henley. Because this case is personal; Rhimes was her old boss, and he’s no longer alive to defend himself. But when the killings start up again, Henley must face the truth: Rhimes got it wrong twenty-five years ago.
A hunt for a killer
Henley and her team reopen the original murder cases, but they must put their personal feelings to one side. Because the real killer is still out there, and he’s working his way through a new kill list… (Credit: Hanover Square Press)
I Want to Die But I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki: Further Conversations with My Psychiatrist by Baek Sehee
Whenever depression or emptiness came calling, I was all too eager to open the door of self-pity and go right inside.
Baek Sehee started recording her sessions with her psychiatrist because she hoped to create a guide for herself. She never imagined her reflections would reach so many people, especially young people. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki became a runaway bestseller in South Korea, then Indonesia, the U.K., and the U.S., drawing readers with its frank and vulnerable discussions of depression and anxiety.
Healing is an uneven process. In this second book, Baek’s sessions intensify as her inner conflicts become more complex and challenging. Through her dialogues with her psychiatrist and reflective micro-essays following each session, Baek traces the patterns of her anguish, makes progress, weathers setbacks, and shares the revelatory insights that come just when she has almost given up hope.
I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki offers itself to the social media generation as a book to hold close, a friend who knows that grappling with everyday despair is part of a lifelong journey. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings
It’s 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family’s thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise’s mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she’ll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can’t refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city’s underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike. (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
All The Little Liars by Victoria Selman
California 2003: Finn “Kat” Jackman is a 10-year-old girl living with her tween sister, father, and beloved housekeeper. When a 13-year-old girl disappears from a party at Turtle Lake, and the word LIAR written in blood is discovered on the trunk of a nearby tree, Kat’s life is turned upside down.
What we know: Three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend. But why? And did they act alone? And what was the involvement of the mysterious and alluring Manson-like figure Ryder Grady?
What REALLY happened at Turtle Lake?: You think you know. Think again. (Credit: Union Square & Co.)
The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden
All families have secrets. But some secrets are deadly.
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until, one quiet evening, two detectives show up at her front door.
“Mrs. Cass, we were hoping your son could answer a few questions about the girl who disappeared last night…”
A high school girl has vanished from their quiet neighborhood, and the police suspect the worst. Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.
Erika has always sensed something… different in her seemingly perfect oldest child. He’s charming, smart, and popular, but mothers have the best instincts, and Erika knows there’s more to her son than meets the eye. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales edited by Martin Edwards
“Ahoy, my lad!” he bellowed back.
“I didn’t expect you so early. Come for a dip! The water’s fine. Everything is–“
Then it happened.
Mystery and murder run amok amidst ominous peaks and icy lakes. In hushed valleys, venom flows through villages harboring grievances that span generations. The landscapes and locales of Wales (“Cymru,” in the Welsh language) have fired the imagination of some of the greatest writers in the field of crime and mystery fiction.
Presenting fourteen short stories first published in 1909 through the 1980s, this new anthology celebrates a selection of beloved Welsh authors Cardiff’s Roald Dahl and Abergavenny’s Ethel Lina White, as well as lesser-known yet highly skilled writers including Cledwyn Hughes and Jack Griffith. Alongside these home-grown tales, this collection also includes a handful of gems inspired by, or set in, the cities and wilds of Wales by treasured authors with an affinity for the country, such as Christianna Brand, Ianthe Jerrold, and Michael Gilbert. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The Rule of Three by Sam Ripley
That’s the one. That’s the girl who’s going to die.
I didn’t believe in the Rule of Three. Not at first. It was just one of those urban myths you hear about all the time. A story my boyfriend told me about a girl cursed by the number three. A girl whose parents had killed themselves after her sibling had died in an accident. Which meant that she was doomed to die too because that’s the Rule of Three.
Bad things always happen in threes, they say, and they are right. Because it’s happening again.
But this time the curse is coming for me. And worst of all?
It’s coming for you, too. (Credit: Atria Books)
Close Knit by Jenny Colgan
In the northernmost reaches of Scotland, where a string of little islands in the North Sea stretches towards Norway, lives Gertie MacIntyre, a proud island girl by birth. Her social circle is small but tight: family and friends, particularly the women in her knitting circle. In the whitewashed cottages of their hometown, everyone knows everyone, and the ladies of the knitting circle know more than most. In a place of long dark winters and geographic isolation, the knitting circle is a precious source of gossip, home, laughter, and comfort for them all. And while she knits, Gertie’s busily plotting what to do with the rest of her life.
When Gertie develops a crush on Callum Frost, who owns the local airline, she dares herself to take a job as an air stewardess on the little plane that serves the local islands. Terrifying at first, the sixteen-seat puddle jumper also offers the first taste of real freedom she’s ever known. Will Gertie’s future lie in the skies? Or will she need to go further afield to find the adventure she craves? (Credit: Avon Books)
Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
Expected Publication Date: August 13
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.
The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.
The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive.
But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.
She does not know this yet. But she will. (Credit: Del Rey Books)
Through the Midnight Door by Katrina Monroe
Expected Publication Date: August 13
Three sisters. Three keys. Three unspeakable horrors.
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. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald
Expected Publication Date: August 13
The best stories are the ones we didn’t know needed to be told
The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories–author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers… Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she’s just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn’t just want this story. She needs it.
Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village’s grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos. The residents of Great Diddling, each one more eccentric and interesting than any character Berit could have invented, rewrite their own narrative and transform the death of one of their own from a tragedy into a new beginning. Taking advantage of Great Diddling’s new notoriety, the villagers band together to start a book and murder festival designed to bring desperately-needed tourists to their town. What they couldn’t have predicted is how the new story they’ve begun to tell will change all their lives forever. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
No More Secrets by Lucy Score
Expected Publication Date: August 13
“Are you calling dibs?”
“She’s a woman, not the last piece of f**king pie. And yes, I’m calling dibs if it keeps your hands off her.”
Carter Pierce wants to spend his days tending the family farm he inherited, and that’s about it. After a tour of duty and a few bullet holes, he’s looking forward to some peace and quiet in his hometown. Unfortunately, Blue Moon doesn’t believe in peace and quiet. And his nosy neighbors sure as hell don’t know how to mind their own business.
As it turns out, neither does the big city journalist who arrives to interview him for a magazine article. Summer Lentz is out of place with her designer wardrobe and workaholic schedule. She asks too many questions and gets under his skin with her smart mouth and those denim-blue eyes. She’s also typing his family’s story a mile a minute at his kitchen table and sleeping in the bedroom across the hall. Carter’s only chance for peace is to scare her away from farm life so he can go back to his comfortable, solitary existence.
But Summer’s got a stubborn streak and secrets of her own. And once Carter starts pulling at those threads, he’s not so eager to send her packing. Will a nudge from the matchmaking Beautification Committee result in a happily ever after or a homegrown disaster? (Credit: Bloom Books)
Hera by Jennifer Saint
Expected Publication Date: August 13
When the immortal goddess Hera and her brother Zeus overthrow their tyrannical father, she dreams of ruling at his side. But as they establish their reign on Mount Olympus, Hera begins to see that Zeus is just as ruthless and cruel as the father they betrayed. While Zeus ascends, Hera is relegated to the role of wife and mother, a role she never wanted. She was always born to rule, but must she lose herself in perpetuating this cycle of violence and cruelty? Or can she find a way to forge a better world?
In this enthralling retelling, Greek mythology’s most famous and maligned goddess finally tells her own story, as power, passion, and divine strength collide in the heart of Olympus. (Credit: Flatiron Books)
I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell
Expected Publication Date: August 13
Her most important letter might be her last…
Years ago Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. Now, aside from trips to her regular diner for coffee, she keeps to herself, gets her perfectly normal copywriting job done, and doesn’t date. Her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column, Dear Constance, and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times.
When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies, never expecting to actually get the job. Against all odds, Alex is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But soon, she begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’s murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. Including her boss, editor-in-chief Howard Dimitri, who has a habit of staying late at the office and drinking too much.
As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface and Alex suddenly finds herself trapped in a dangerous and potentially deadly game of cat and mouse that takes her all the way from the power centers of Manhattan to Francis Keen’s summer house, where her body was found and where the killer may just be waiting for her. (Credit: Atria Books)
The Wayside by Caroline Wolff
Expected Publication Date: August 13
When Kate Cleary’s son, Jake, dies at his elite liberal arts college, she refuses to believe it was suicide. Something sinister is at play, and Kate becomes determined to retrace Jake’s steps during his final days. Descending into a spiral of obsession as she finds herself up against unknown forces at every turn, Kate falls further into a dangerous mystery that brings her closer to a terrifying truth even Jake himself wanted to keep hidden.
Combining elements of dark academia and domestic fiction with a modern twist, The Wayside is a sharply observed story of suspense, devotion, and the secrets we keep from those who love us most.(Credit: Blackstone Publishing)
The Story Collector by Evie Woods
Expected Publication Date: August 13
In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything…
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.
In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen. (Credit: One More Chapter)
The Four by Ellie Keel
Expected Publication Date: August 20
We were always The Four. From our very first day at High Realms.
The four scholarship pupils. Outsiders in a world of power and privilege. And, according to everyone else, we were dangerous.
It would have made our lives a lot easier if Marta had simply pushed our prefect Genevieve out of our bedroom window that day. Certainly, it would have been tragic. She would have died instantly.
But Marta didn’t push her then, or – if you choose to believe me – at any other time. If she had, all of what we went through would not have happened.
I’ve told this story as clearly as I could – as rationally as I’ve been able, in the circumstances, to achieve. I don’t regret what we did. And I would do it all again. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
Expected Publication Date: August 20
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? (Credit: Mira Books)
Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough by Ian Frazier
Expected Publication Date: August 20
For the past fifteen years, Ian Frazier has been walking the Bronx. Paradise Bronx reveals the amazingly rich and tumultuous history of this amazingly various piece of our greatest city. From Jonas Bronck, who bought land from the local Native Americans, to the formerly gang-wracked South Bronx that gave birth to hip-hop, Frazier’s loving exploration is a moving tour de force about the polyglot culture that is America today.
During the Revolution, when the Bronx was unclaimed territory known as the Neutral Ground, some of the war’s decisive battles were fought here by George Washington’s troops. Gouverneur Morris, one of the most colorful Founding Fathers, owned a huge swath of the Bronx, where he lived when he was not in Paris during the French Revolution or helping write the US Constitution.
Frazier shows us how the coming of the railroads and the subways drove the settling of the Bronx by various waves of immigration– Irish, Italian, Jewish (think the Grand Concourse), African American, Caribbean, Puerto Rican (J.Lo is one of the borough’s most famous citizens). The romance of the Yankees, the disaster of the Cross Bronx Expressway, the invention of rap and hip-hop, the resurgence of community as the borough’s communities learn mutual aid–all are investigated, recounted, and celebrated in Frazier’s inimitable voice.
This is a book like no other about a quintessential American city and the resilience and beauty of its citizens. (Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Storybook Ending by Poppy Alexander
Expected Publication Date: August 20
In her books she can write “happily ever after”– but real life? That’s another matter…
For children’s book author Imogen, an idyllic life in the English countryside seems like the perfect fit for her and her husband. But when tragedy strikes, Imogen is left widowed, and finds herself moving into Storybook Cottage alone with only her monstrously narcissistic cat for company.
After discovering she is pregnant, Imogen grows determined to embrace a new start in Middlemass, with its duckpond, cricket matches and village fêtes. The only thing Imogen can’t seem to shake is her neighbor–a brooding, artisan blacksmith named Gabriel–who she can’t quite decide is friend or foe. That is until she realizes, thanks to an arcane clause in her deeds, that Gabriel– not just an artist, but lord of the local manor house– has the power to take her home and leave her completely broke.
Devastatingly, he seems keen to do exactly that. Yet, Imogen finds herself drawn to him nonetheless. And in her darkest hour, Gabriel may just be the bright spot to save Imogen in more ways than one. (Credit: Avon Books)
The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins
Expected Publication Date: August 20
1820: Sophia Ashmore-Percy reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island, where he searches for rare biological specimens. Once there, however, she sets on her own voyage of discovery–stumbling across the very creature he is looking for, making an unexpected connection with a local woman, and ultimately reconsidering her marriage, life, and own desires.
Decades later, audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness. But Henry, eager to escape a troubled past, quickly becomes obsessed with the fascinating nature of Sir Edward’s business: spinning silk with a rare and magical breed of spiders. The extraordinary silk shields sound, offering respite from bustling streets and noisy neighbors. The result is instant tranquility, as wearers experience a soothing calmness. Yet, those within earshot of the outward-facing silk are subjected to eerie murmurs that amplify with proximity. Bystanders suffer the consequences of this unnerving phenomenon, manifesting in physical and mental afflictions ranging from headaches and drowsiness to severe cases of madness.
As Henry becomes entangled in the allure of the silk and Sir Edward’s charm, he glimpses a more sinister family history. The closer he ventures into the inner circle of Carthmute House, the more he unravels the horrifying underbelly of the silk business.
With Bridget Collins’s signature, stunning prose, The Silence Factory is an equally enthralling and unsettling gothic story about complicity, desire, and corruption–a novel to lose yourself in. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
Drown Me With Dreams by Gabi Burton
Expected Publication Date: August 20
Wanted. Hunted. Banished.
Wanted: Now that everyone knows she’s both a siren and an assassin, Saoirse is the most wanted fugitive in Keirdre.
Hunted: Framed for the old king’s death, every powerful fae in the kingdom is calling for her execution.
Banished: To keep her safe, the newly crowned King Hayes asks her to cross the magical barrier that separates Keirdre from its enemies. There’s only one problem: if she doesn’t find a way to bring the barrier down, she can never come back
.As Hayes is forced to make compromises and Saoirse uncovers plots that threaten the entire kingdom, she’s forced to question: Is Hayes the best future for Keirdre? And if not…. is she willing to turn against him? (Credit: Bloomsbury YA)
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
Expected Publication Date: August 27
When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favorite fantasy series.
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she’s not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor’s tale.
So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they’re doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor’s fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.
THIS IS A TALE FOR EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN…(Credit: Orbit)
Red River Road by Anna Downes
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Katy Sweeney is looking for her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo vanlife trip, her free-spirited younger sister, Phoebe, vanished without a trace on the remote, achingly beautiful coastal highway in Western Australia. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNA evidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up on her.
Using Phoebe’s social media accounts as a map, Katy retraces her sister’s steps, searching for any clues the police may have missed. Was Phoebe being followed? Who had she met along the way, and how dangerous were they?
And then Katy’s path collides with that of Beth, who is on the run from her own dark past. Katy realizes that Beth might be her best–and only–chance of finding the truth, and the two women form an uneasy alliance to find out what really happened to Phoebe in this wild, beautiful, and perilous place.
Anna Downes takes us on a twist-filled journey into the dark side of solo female travel, in this gripping novel that explores what drives us to keep searching for those we have lost, the family bonds that can make or break us, and the deception of memory. (Credit: Minotaur Books)
Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Twelve-year-old Omar and his brothers and sisters were born and raised in the beautiful and bustling city of Bosra, Syria. Omar doesn’t care about politics – all he wants is to grow up to become a successful businessman who will take the world by storm. But when his clever older brother, Musa, gets mixed up with some young political activists, everything changes . . .Before long, bombs are falling, people are dying, and Omar and his family have no choice but to flee their home with only what they can carry. Yet no matter how far they run, the shadow of war follows them – until they have no other choice than to attempt the dangerous journey to escape their homeland altogether. But where do you go when you can’t go home? (Credit: Macmillan Children’s Books)
Marriage & Masti by Nisha Sharma
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Veera Mathur has been through a lot in the past year. Both of her friends found soul mates, the man she fell in love with got engaged to another woman, and her father fired her before selling the family company. When her twin sister, Sana, tells her there is no way of getting her old life back, Veera feels lost at sea: a single, unemployed mess with a bad tattoo and tons of talent, but nowhere to go.
Deepak Datta hasn’t had the best luck either. To secure enough board votes for the CEO position at his family’s company, Illyria Media, he’s ready to marry board member and famous beauty influencer, Olivia Gupta. That is until he wakes up to a get ready with me video announcing their separation. Despite his immediate relief, Deepak needs to do something fast to repair his image.
After a series of convenient mishaps bring them together again–including a literal shipwreck, way too many drinks, and a sunset elopement on the beach–Deepak and Veera realize their accidental wedding might be the solution to their career aspirations. Together, they plot against the very company that ruined their lives in the first place.
As they try to convince the world their friendship was a ruse for romance they’ve felt all along, the line between fake and real begins to blur. Now Veera and Deepak must ask themselves the terrifying question that has haunted them since the first time they met: will love ruin everything? (Credit: Avon Books)
My Life As A Chameleon by Diana Anyakwo
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Lily is a sixteen-year-old living in Manchester. It is nearly five years since her father’s death, and she is soon to return to her birthplace in Nigeria to reunite with her mother and siblings for the anniversary. As cold rain thunders on the streets of Moss Side she looks back over her young life and wonders . . . how did she get here?
As a young girl in Lagos, Lily is the baby of her large family. The daughter of a Nigerian father and Irish mother, she lives in a dual reality: one where moments of bright colour and tenderness exist alongside a sense of danger just beneath the surface of her apparently idyllic life. This is a tension that nobody dares speak out loud and it teaches Lily an early lesson: always blend in, always play the right part.
But the truth cannot stay hidden forever. Things in Lagos itself, and within her family, soon reach breaking point. As her city and her family implode into chaos around her, and at school her skin colour marks her out from the crowd, Lily struggles to know how to blend in. And when her mother sends her away to school in England, Lily’s sense of identity is challenged in even more painful ways.(Credit: Little, Brown Book Group)
The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves
Expected Publication Date: August 27
The man’s body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up.
DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home’s residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.
Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell, are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible. (Credit: Minotaur Books)
Caught Dead by S.J. Wills
Expected Publication Date: August 27
When you’ve already helped cause the end of the world, what’s left to be afraid of? Plenty.
After Sel Archer and his friends uncovered a conspiracy that turned the whole world upside down, people are struggling to live with the fact that almost all its adult population turn into Rippers once a month, and Sel is struggling with his newfound celebrity and the fact that Elena and Pedro have moved away from Tremorglade.
But bigger problems soon arise when Rippers start getting attacked on Howl Nights, turning up the following day, human but badly injured, with no idea how they were hurt. Rumors of a foul, unkillable beast begin to stir…someone or something is plotting to control the Rippers once and for all.
Can they stop what’s happening before all of Tremorglade is under the power of something unrelenting, unstoppable, and possibly…undead? (Credit: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
One House Left by Vincent Ralph
Expected Publication Date: August 27
“Ready or not. Whatever you do. The Hiding Boy is coming for you.”
Sixteen-year-old Nate Campbell grew up in the shadow of Murder Road – a street cursed by the vengeful spirit of the Hiding Boy.
Every few years, for nearly six decades, a different house on that street has been the scene of a tragedy.
Nate and his family move to a new town as they try to outrun the curse once and for all. But, when he is pulled into his new friends’ urban legend club, new ghost stories merge with old until there is nowhere left to run. (Credit: Wednesday Books)
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars.
One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person’s sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing.
Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and “Christian.” But Amanda Jones wouldn’t give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance.
Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
The Trials of Lila Dalton by L.J. Shepherd
Expected Publication Date: August 27
I look up to find twelve strangers staring back at me… and I realize I’m the one they’re waiting for.
Lila Dalton has no memory of how she came to be in this courtroom; no memory of how she got to the courthouse at all, or why she’s facing a jury who seems to be waiting for her. The man on trial is accused of mass murder, and she’s his lawyer, but she can’t remember any details of the case. She can’t remember anything… Stranded on an island in the Atlantic Ocean where the most serious crimes are tried, Lila has to prove her client’s innocence if she wants to go home. But how can she solve this case when she’s not sure she can trust anything around her, including her own memory?
The Trials of Lila Dalton is a twisty, unexpected locked-room mystery that follows one woman’s race against time to find a killer, clear her own name, and escape the island that threatens to keep her trapped forever. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
Then Things Went Dark by Bea Fitzgerald
Expected Publication Date: August 27
The first episode is waiting…are you ready to watch?
No murder has ever had more witnesses…
Six people land on a desert island ready to make their reality show debut. The contestants are suitably glamorous and dramatic – and they’re also hungry to prove themselves. The stakes are high and with millions of viewers watching, losing is not an option. But three weeks and eighteen episodes later, five of the six contestants sit in a Portuguese police station, and none of them are winners.
Because twelve million people were watching when Rhys Sutton died on camera, and someone must pay for the crime.
The best friend, the rival, the girlfriend, the lover, and the sworn enemy are left standing. And of course, no-one is talking. But how do you keep secrets when the world has been watching? Especially when, just a day before his murder, Rhys was the most hated man on television. (Credit: Sourcebooks Landmark)
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