We’ve made it to the second-to-last month of the year! What type of book will you want to read to celebrate? How about robust and diverse nonfiction books, perfect way to begin your “Nonfiction November”? Or maybe you want to get a jumpstart on your holiday reading with a locked room mystery that takes place in a gift shop? This November brings the necessary reads that will most certainly take your mind off the craziness of closing out a year. Take a chance on these new books…you won’t regret it!
Featured Book of the Month
The Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt by John Allison and illustrated by Max Sarin
Expected Publication Date: November 25
A new cozy mystery graphic novel from Giant Days’ John Allison and Max Sarin, following up to their hit baking murder mystery The Great British Bump-Off.
When wildcat arson hits her new employer right where she lives, Shauna Wickle is drawn into the brutal and vindictive world of quilting, as sisterhood and community needlecraft deteriorate into internecine strife. With the promise of an end to all her financial worries, Shauna must cross enemy lines and infiltrate a cadre of “monsters in human skin”. But they seem…so nice? (Credit: Dark Horse Comics)
The Bridesmaid by Cate Quinn
The Kensingtons invite you to the society wedding of the decade. There’s just one hitch. You might not make it out alive.
When a celebrity bridesmaid is murdered weeks before an exclusive society wedding, forensic attorney Holly Stone is drafted as an unlikely undercover replacement. As she works to unpick the lives of the notoriously private Kensington family, glamour-averse Holly discovers a new worst enemy in bridezilla Adrianna. Heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, Adrianna is set on throwing the event of the decade, and she won’t let anything get in her way.
But beneath the veneer of poise and sophistication, Adrianna and her bridesmaids have secrets worth killing for.
As the wedding day gets closer, it’s clear that one of the five hand-picked bridesmaids has committed murder – and a destination wedding is a perfect place to strike again. Soon, Holly finds herself on the playground of the rich and famous, but if she wants to find answers, she’ll have to make it out alive. (Credit: Sourcebooks Landmark)
Eternal Ruin by Tigest Girma
Like all ruinous things, he came from the abyss.
Kidan Adane has finally embraced her darkness. She’s killed without remorse, lied, and broken Uxlay University’s most sacred law by inviting elusive rogue vampires, the Nefrasi, into Uxlay.
Trapped with a violently unstable vampire, and reeling from her sister’s return, Kidan wields her anger like a weapon. She vows to master her house and protect the sacred artifact hidden inside, even if it means forging an alliance with the depraved leader of the Nefrasi, Samson Sagad–and betraying Susenyos.
A dangerous new philosophical text seems to hold the answers and promises the very thing Kidan has lost: control. Even as the dark pages consume her, Kidan knows no soul at Uxlay is trustworthy–least of all Susenyos. For Kidan and Susenyos, the lines of loathing and attraction may blur, but the quest for power rules them both. And neither is willing to surrender.
As devastating secrets resurface from the past, Kidan and her sister, June, must finally confront each other and take their rightful places in the looming war. (Credit: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage by Julie Dobrow
Like any set of star-crossed lovers, Elaine and Charles came from different worlds. Elaine, an acclaimed childhood poet from a remote corner of the Massachusetts Berkshires, traveled to the Dakota Territories to teach Native American students, undaunted by society’s admonitions. Charles, a Dakota Sioux from Minnesota, educated at Dartmouth and Boston University Medical School, was considered by his Euro-American mentors the epitome of an assimilated Indian. But when they met just ahead of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, the magnetic pull of love brought them together despite the tremendous odds stacked against them.
Love and Loss After Wounded Knee offers a dual biography of Elaine Goodale and Ohíye’Sa, (Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman), exploring their individual lives as well as their highly publicized interracial marriage. Both well-known in their own time– Elaine as a poet, journalist, and advocate for Indian education and Charles as writer, public speaker, and ardent activist for Indian rights– their marriage started with a shared vision to work on behalf of Indians. In the face of extreme prejudice, financial burden, and personal tragedy however, the marriage began to unravel.
Dobrow paints an intimate, emotional portrait of the Eastmans’ lives drawn from Elaine and Charles’s letters, papers, and hundreds of accounts of the Eastmans’ lives from newspapers. Along the way, she skillfully illuminates the shifting late 19th and early 20th century definitions of Indigenous identity, and reveals how the Eastmans’ legacies reflect changing American attitudes toward gender, interracial relationships and biracial children. The result is a compelling new history that weds the private and the political, and Native America and the United States of America– entwined yet separated, inextricable yet never fully joined, just like Elaine and Charles themselves. (Credit: NYU Press)
Ladies In Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters
Celebrate Jane Austen’s classic novels with this short story anthology starring forgotten characters as they experience their own happy endings.
In honor of her 250th birthday, eight authors have come together with wildly imaginative reboots of the lives of several of Jane Austen’s minor characters. Written with plenty of love and wit, these clever stories star everyone from Pride and Prejudice’s snobbish Caroline Bingley to the modern descendant of Sense and Sensibility’s Eliza Williams and much more. Blurring genres and taking us across the oceans, Ladies in Waiting is a heartfelt celebration of Jane Austen and her timeless masterpieces. (Credit: Gallery Books)
Helm by Sarah Hall
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.
Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm — and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm. (Credit: Mariner Books)
Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare
Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.
Harley, Róise, and Maggie have been friends for ages. After meeting in primary school years ago, the women are still together, spending their nights on the sticky dancefloors of Belfast’s grungiest pubs. Each woman is navigating her own tangle of entry-level jobs, messy romantic entanglements, and late nights, but they always find their way back to each other, and to the ramshackle house they share. And amidst the familiar chaos, the three are still grieving their fourth housemate, whose room remains untouched, their last big fight hanging heavily over their heads.
The girls’ house has witnessed the highs and lows of their roaring twenties—raucous parties, surprising (and sometimes regrettable) hook-ups, and hellish hangovers. But as they approach thirty, their home begins to crumble around them and the fault lines in their group become harder to ignore. In the wreckage, they must decide if their friendship will survive into a new decade—or if growing up sometimes means letting go.(Credit: Crown)
Murder at the Christmas Emporium by Andreina Cordani
It’s Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London’s winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights.
But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn’t long before they realize this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, someone will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped—and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa’s grotto . . .
For those that survive the night, it will be a Christmas to remember. (Credit: Pegasus Crime)
Girls Who Play Dead by Joelle Wellington
When Mikky Graves left his small, stifling hometown of Prophets Lake to live with his estranged mother, he thought nothing could ever make him return for good.
Until his sister Kyla’s best friend, Erin, is murdered.
Mikky never worried about leaving Kyla behind at their family-owned funeral home so long as she had Erin. But when Mikky heads home, determined to help Kyla grieve, the sister he encounters barely resembles the one he remembers. Mikky decides, then and there, to do the one thing that seems even more impossible than returning: stay.
As Kyla spirals further into her rage and secrets, Mikky realizes the only thing that can help his sister is finding the truth about who killed Erin. But the more he investigates, the further he’s pulled into other ugly mysteries of Prophets Lake and the beauty brand that is its lifeblood. The town’s rot runs deep, and everyone has something to hide. Perhaps no one more than Kyla herself. (Credit: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Under the London Sky by Anna Woltz
Without the Blitz, they never would have met.
Fourteen-year-old Ella walks with a limp. Some days, she feels like a laughing stock. Other days, like no one sees her at all. Quinn is fifteen, fancy and fearless. She’s run away from home with a bag of family jewels and big ideas about changing the world. Jack is sixteen and doesn’t care about anything anymore – he’s already lost it all. And then there’s Sebastian, Quinn’s older brother. He used to be her hero. Until he became a traitor…(Credit: Rock The Boat)
Days at the Torunka Café by Satoshi Yagisawa and translated by Eric Ozawa
Tucked away on a narrow side street in Tokyo is the Torunka Café, a neighborhood nook where the passersby are as likely to be local cats as tourists. Its regulars include Chinatsu Yukimura, a mysterious young woman who always leaves behind a napkin folded into the shape of a ballerina; Hiroyuki Numata, a middle-aged man who’s returned to the neighborhood searching for the happy life he once gave up; and Shizuku, the café owner’s teenage daughter, who is still coming to terms with her sister’s death as she falls in love for the first time.
While Café Torunka serves up a perfect cup of coffee, it provides these sundry souls with nourishment far more lasting. Satoshi Yagisawa brilliantly illuminates the periods in our lives where we feel lost—and how we find our way again. (Credit: Harper Perennial)
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.
There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace…” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.
When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember? (Credit: Doubleday)
Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore by Char Adams
In Black-Owned, Char Adams celebrates the living history of Black bookstores. Packed with stories of activism, espionage, violence, community, and perseverance, Black-Owned starts with the first Black-owned bookstore, which an abolitionist opened in New York in 1834, and after the bookshop’s violent demise, Black book-lovers carried on its cause. In the twentieth century, civil rights and Black Power activists started a Black bookstore boom nationwide. Malcolm X gave speeches in front of the National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem—a place dubbed “Speakers’ Corner”—and later, Black bookstores became targets of FBI agents, police, and racist vigilantes. Still, stores continued to fuel Black political movements.
Amid these struggles, bookshops were also places of celebration: Eartha Kitt and Langston Hughes held autograph parties at their local Black-owned bookstores. Maya Angelou became the face of National Black Bookstore Week. And today a new generation of Black activists is joining the radical bookstore tradition, with rapper Noname opening her Radical Hood Library in Los Angeles and several stores making national headlines when they were overwhelmed with demand in the Black Lives Matter era. As Adams makes clear, in an time of increasing repression, Black bookstores are needed now more than ever.
Full of vibrant characters and written with cinematic flair, Black-Owned is an enlightening story of community, resistance, and joy. (Credit: Tiny Reparations Books)
The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit, and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty by Tracy Borman
In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ended the Tudor dynasty and launched the Stuart in March 1603. At her death, Elizabeth I had reigned for 44 turbulent years, facing many threats, whether external from Spain or internal from her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. But no danger was greater than the uncertainty over who would succeed her, which only intensified as her reign lengthened. Her unwillingness to marry or name a successor gave rise to fierce rivalry between blood claimants to the throne–Mary and her son, James VI of Scotland, Arbella Stuart, Lady Katherine Grey, Henry Hastings, and more–which threatened to destabilize the monarchy.
As acclaimed Tudor historian Tracy Borman reveals in The Stolen Crown, according to Elizabeth’s earliest biographer, William Camden, in his history of her reign, on her deathbed the queen indicated James was her chosen heir, and indeed he did become king soon after she died. That endorsement has been accepted as fact for more than four centuries. However, recent analysis of Camden’s original manuscript shows key passages were pasted over and rewritten to burnish James’ legacy. The newly-uncovered pages make clear not only that Elizabeth’s naming of James never happened, but that James, uncertain he would ever gain the British throne, was even suspected of sending an assassin to London to kill the queen. Had all this been known at the time, the English people–bitter enemies with Scotland for centuries–might well not have accepted James as their king, with unimagined ramifications.
Inspired by the revelations over Camden’s manuscript, Borman sheds rare new light on Elizabeth’s historic reign, chronicling it through the lens of the various claimants who, over decades, sought the throne of the only English monarch not to make provision for her successor. The consequences were immense. Not only did James upend Elizabeth’s glittering court, but the illegitimacy of his claim to the throne, which Camden suppressed, found full expression in the catastrophic reign of James’ son and successor, Charles I. His execution in 1649 shocked the world and destroyed the monarchy fewer than 50 years after Elizabeth died, changing the course of British and world history. (Credit: Atlantic Monthly Press)
Introducing Mrs. Collins by Rachel Parris
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman deserves to be the heroine of her own story.
Charlotte Lucas has never been a romantic. Practical to a fault, she accepted Mr. Collins’s proposal with clear eyes and a steady heart, trading passion for security. Life at Hunsford Parsonage may be quiet and predictable, but it is hers to manage–and she’s determined to make the best of it, whatever her friend Elizabeth Bennet may think.
That is, until an unexpected guest at nearby Rosings Park turns Charlotte’s careful world on its head. He sees her, challenges her, and a spark is lit.
Torn between what she must do and what she truly desires, Charlotte finds herself at the center of a story she never expected to be hers. A tale of love, loss, and second chances, Introducing Mrs. Collins is for anyone who wondered if there was more to the sensible character we met in Pride and Prejudice. It is the story of a woman who had written herself out of her own life and is only now daring to want more.(Credit: Little Brown and Company)
The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex
Expected Publication Date: November 11
Birdie Keller wakes one freezing January morning to the news she’s been waiting eighteen years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail. She leaves for London with a pistol and a plan: to find this man and make him pay.
But every story has two sides. Jimmy can sense he’s being hunted. He knew Birdie a long time ago, in a life she’d sooner forget, and he isn’t the only one with something to hide. As the two circle each other in a heart-stopping game of cat and mouse, they plunge into a murky world of family secrets, betrayals, and unsolved mysteries. (Credit: Viking)
The Hero Complex by Helen Comerford
Expected Publication Date: November 11
It turns out that having superpowers doesn’t always make saving the world any easier. Jenna Ray has to sign up with the Hero and Powers Association to become a registered superhero. This means going back into the belly of the power-stealing, potentially murderous beast, and hiding the fact that her mother is involved with the Villains. Worst of all, it means she can’t be with Blaze–workplace relationships are strictly forbidden.
As Jenna tries to fix the HPA from the inside, she’s forced to make a choice: save the world or follow her heart? (Credit: Bloomsbury YA)
A Matter of Murder by Tirzah Price
Expected Publication Date: November 11
The thrilling conclusion to the Lizzie & Darcy Mysteries duology, following Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy from the Jane Austen Murder Mysteries series!
A Bingley family curse looms over Lizzie’s sister and Darcy’s best friend—but are the dark forces at work supernatural or human?
Lizzie Bennet’s beloved sister Jane has just married Darcy’s best friend, Bingley, and the Bennet family and Darcy are paying the newlyweds a visit at Bingley’s family home, Netherfield Park. It doesn’t take long for their country retreat to turn into an investigation, though, when a long-dead body is discovered stuffed up the parlor chimney.
The locals are convinced that Netherfield is cursed, but Lizzie and Darcy know better than to believe in such nonsense and are determined to uncover the truth about what happened to the mysterious man in the chimney. But as they dig deeper into the history of Netherfield Park, they find that danger is waiting for them around every corner. Soon enough, they’re forced to consider if the curse might have some merit to it, or if there’s something—or someone—far more sinister behind their near brushes with death. . . .
This duology closer is a daring and delightful conclusion to the chronicles of supersleuths Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy! (Credit: Storytide)
Goddesses: A Graphic History: A Journey to Discover the Most Sacred Female Deities by Monica Foggia and illustrated by Lisa Salsi
Expected Publication Date: November 11
From the series that brought Witchcraft: A Graphic History and Tarot: A Graphic History, comes Goddesses: A Graphic History. This latest volume reclaims goddess traditions from around the world, blending mythology, ritual, and feminist history.
With a foreword by poet and author Nikita Gill – who also makes a guest appearance in illustrated form as one of the novel’s characters – this graphic history guides readers on a transformative journey led by the mysterious figure of Lilith. Travelling across time and place, readers encounter powerful deities and rediscover long-lost rituals and symbols – from Celtic England to ancient Egypt and beyond – revealing how goddess figures continue to shape our understanding of power and identity.
Across its chapters, readers will explore:
- Sacred stories retold: timeless myths reinterpreted through a modern feminist lens.
- A global journey: deities, rituals, and symbols from cultures across the world.
- Seasonal cycles: each leg of Lilith’s journey tied to a season, representing growth, change, and transformation.
- Empowering themes: of matriarchy, self-love, and female friendship.
- Visual storytelling: striking artwork and lyrical narration that bring myth and meaning to life, from the same artist behind Witchcraft: A Graphic History.
As with the previous books in the series, Goddesses: A Graphic History combines meticulous research with artistic flair, offering readers a fresh and inclusive way to engage with ancient traditions.(Credit: Leaping Hare)
Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Expected Publication Date: November 11
Izzy Chen is dreading her family’s annual Chinese New Year celebration, where they all come together at a Michelin-starred restaurant to flaunt their status and successes in hopes to one up each other. So when her seventy-three-year-old glamorous and formidable grandmother walks in with a stunning woman on her arm and kisses her in front of everyone, it shakes Izzy to her core. She’d always considered herself the black sheep of the family for harboring similar feelings to the ones her Nainai just displayed.
Seeing herself in her teenage granddaughter’s struggles with identity and acceptance, Magnolia Chen tells Izzy her own story, of how as a teen she was sent by her Indo-Chinese parents from Jakarta to Los Angeles for her education and fell in love with someone completely forbidden to her by both culture and gender norms—Ellery, an American college student who became Magnolia’s best friend and the love of her life. Stretching across decades and continents, Magnolia’s star-crossed love story reveals how life can take unexpected turns but ultimately lead you to exactly who you’re meant to be.(Credit: Berkley)
The Forest of Missing Girls by Nichelle Giraldes
Expected Publication Date: November 11
The forest is hungry, and her family’s secrets are tangled in the trees…
Lia Gregg always hoped to outgrow her fear of the woods surrounding her childhood home. The dark, menacing trees have long been the site of whispered legends and disappearances of girls like her. But after a breakup sends her back to live with her family, the woods feel more sinister than ever.
When a teenage girl disappears from their backyard, Lia’s childhood fear becomes terrifyingly real. The missing girls are no longer just faces on the news. Now, the danger is closer than she imagined, and her younger sister could be next.
As Lia digs into the disappearances, she begins to suspect her mother knows more about the forest–and the horrors within–than she’s letting on. To save her sister and uncover the truth, Lia must confront the secrets lurking in the trees and the darkness they conceal…before it’s too late. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of King James VI and I by Clare Jackson
Expected Publication Date: November 11
History has not been kind to King James. A cradle king who was crowned in Scotland in 1567 and England and Ireland in 1603, James VI and I has long been eclipsed in fame and reputation by his predecessor and cousin, Elizabeth I, and his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Yet James, if often overlooked or, more often, cruelly stereotyped, presents an equally fascinating figure: a diplomat whose long reigns encompassed extraordinary dramas, “a passionate Protestant with a profound interest in witches and demons, a lover of young men, and the patron of both Shakespeare and the great version of the Bible that still bears his name” (Fintan O’Toole). James identified himself with the “Mirror of Great Britain,” a spectacular jewel commissioned upon his accession to the English throne, which not only furnished him with one of his favorite metaphors—that of the mirror, with its limitless capacity to magnify, illuminate, and distort—but gave symbolic endorsement to his vision of British union.
Now, four hundred years after his death, Wolfson History Prize–winning historian Clare Jackson finally reappraises the life and legacy of the “first king of Great Britain.” Beginning with the surprise assassination of his father, Lord Darnley, and the subsequent beheading of his mother, Jackson contextualizes James’s troubled childhood as well as the many attempts on his life, from his teenage detention by the Ruthven Raiders to the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. She reflects on the renewed creativity of the Jacobean era, culminating in the King James Bible, Macbeth, and King Lear, and demonstrates how the king’s keen interest in joining worlds old and new—establishing colonies overseas and, closer to home, uniting Scotland, England, and Ireland—set the geopolitical stage for centuries to come. In so doing, Jackson reveals King James as perhaps the most consequential monarch of the early modern era, whose impact, for better and for worse, still reverberates today.
Closely attentive to James’s own words in numerous publications, manuscript musings, verse, and private correspondence, The Mirror of Great Britain tells the story of this highly unusual, significant monarch with flair, insight, and empathy for the man who bore the crown. (Credit: Liveright)
The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee
Expected Publication Date: November 11
In The Burning Ghats of Calcutta, where the dead are laid to rest, a man is found murdered, his throat cut from ear to ear.
The body is that of a popular philanthropist and patron of the arts. A man, who was, by all accounts, beloved by all. So what could possibly be the motive for murder? Though out of favour with the Imperial Police Force, Detective Sam Wyndham is assigned to the case, and finds himself thrust into the glamorous world of cinema when his investigation leads him to a film the victim was funding.
Meanwhile Sam’s former colleague, Surendranath Banerjee, recently returned from Europe after three years running from the fallout of his last case, is searching for a vanished photographer, one of the first women in the profession. When he discovers the missing woman is somehow linked to Sam’s murder investigation, the two men are forced to work together once again—but will Wyndham and Banerjee be able to put their differences aside to solve the case? (Credit: Pegasus Crime)
Revenge, Served Royal by Celeste Connally
Expected Publication Date: November 11
September, 1815. Autumn is in the air as Lady Petra Forsyth and some of the most illustrious members of the ton descend upon Windsor Castle for a week of royal celebrations, with the highlight being Queen Charlotte’s inaugural patisserie contest for the best bakers employed by England’s finest houses. Not only is Lady Petra’s own cook one of the contestants, but Her Majesty has requested that Petra herself serve as one of the judges.
Petra’s happiness at tasting delicious cakes and biscuits only increases at finding her beloved Aunt Ophelia in attendance at Windsor, as well as Sir Rufus Pomeroy. As England’s most famous former royal chef-turned-cookbook author, Sir Rufus is slated to present his best recipes to the Queen during the festivities, with Petra being granted an early viewing in the royal library.
Yet upon arrival, Petra instead encounters a frantic housemaid pointing to a body of one of Her Majesty’s guests—and to the valet still tugging at the silk ribbon used to strangle the victim. What’s more, the valet turns out to be Oliver Beecham, the ne’er-do-well brother of Petra’s own lady’s maid, Annie. But as Oliver is hauled away to the dungeons, he protests his innocence, claiming the late guest argued with several aristocrats, including the Prince Regent and Petra’s Aunt Ophelia, and boasted about hiding a potentially scandalous document within the vastness of Windsor Castle.
When some poisoned tea meant for Petra is consumed by one of her fellow judges, it’s clear the real killer is still walking the castle’s halls. Indeed, in order to prove the innocence of Annie’s brother and find the incriminating document, Petra will need to act like a lady, eat like a chef, and think like one of Her Majesty’s best spies before a murderer can turn the celebrations from sweet to royally deadly. (Credit: Minotaur Books)
A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith
Expected Publication Date: November 18
All is calm, all is bright . . . until reluctant sleuth barrister Gabriel Ward is tasked with finding the culprit of yet another grisly crime in the Inner Temple.
Christmas Eve, 1901. Gabriel Ward KC is hard at work on a thorny libel case involving London’s most famous music hall star, Topsy Tillotson, and its most notorious tabloid newspaper, the Nation’s Voice, but the Inner Temple remains as quiet and calm as ever. Quiet, that is, until a severed hand arrives in the post.
While the hand’s recipient, Temple Treasurer Sir William Waring, is rightfully shaken, Gabriel is filled with curiosity. Who would want to send such a thing? And why? But as more parcels arrive-one with fatal consequences-Gabriel realizes that it is not Sir William who is the target, but the Temple itself.
Someone is holding a grudge that has already led to at least one death. Now it’s up to Gabriel, and Constable Wright of the City of London Police, to find out who, before an old death leads to a new murder. (Credit: Raven Books)
Golden Rage: Mother Knows Best by Chrissy Williams and illustrated by Lauren Knight
Expected Publication Date: November 18
In a world where old and infertile women are deemed useless to society and abandoned on an island, GOLDEN RAGE documents their golden years of making friends, baking dessert, and fighting to the death.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST builds on the first GOLDEN RAGE volume for a glorious new adventure.
Created by writer CHRISSY WILLIAMS (editor of DIE, THE WICKED + THE DIVINE), artist LAUREN KNIGHT (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and colorist SOFIE DODGSON (BITTER ROOT, Tank Girl), this story pairs the survival combat of Battle Royale with the character dynamics of The Golden Girls.(Credit: Image Comics)
The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan
Expected Publication Date: November 18
A deadly rivalry.
A chilling secret.
One woman who can decipher the truth.
On a frigid, windswept day in Scotland’s Western Isles, Eleanor Bruton’s body is discovered on the shore. To her family Eleanor was an ordinary middle-aged woman. She did flower arrangements and plumped kneeler cushions at church. Little did they know she was harboring a dark and all-consuming secret. A scrap of fraying embroidery that seems worthless at first glance.
For over a century, two rival organizations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure the valuable artifact in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. The Order of St. Katherine: devoted to the belief that women must pull strings in the shadows to exercise control. And the Fellowship of the Larks, determined to amass as many overt positions of power for women as possible…so long as their methods of doing so never come to light.
When Dr. Anya Brown garners international attention for her translation of the cryptic Folio 9, she is handpicked by Diana Cornish, a professor and high-ranking member of the Fellowship, to join the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies in St. Andrews. Unbeknownst to Anya she’s been recruited at great personal danger to translate ancient texts that the Fellowship believes critical to their mission.
Meanwhile at Scotland Yard, Detective Constable Clio Spicer begins a private investigation into the death of Eleanor Bruton.
As all the women grow further entangled in this ancient web, circumstances spin wildly out of control and their lives may be in grave danger. (Credit: William Morrow)
The Stranger Inside by Amanda Cassidy
Expected Publication Date: November 25
You’re behind bars, framed for a crime you didn’t commit.
Midwife Ciara Duffy goes to sleep and wakes in the small hours to find her husband beside her stabbed through the heart. Soon she is arrested and charged with his murder.
You get one chance to run.Ciara knows she is innocent. She has no one to rely on. Meanwhile, her young daughter is gravely ill. Ciara has to fight by any means necessary.
Do you take it?The day comes when getting out might be possible. But Ciara’s choices are bleak: hope justice prevails and she gets to her daughter in time. Or become a fugitive on the hunt for a killer. (Credit: Canelo)
Murder Among the Stacks: Book 1: Solve the Puzzles—and the Plot of a Cozy Bookstore Mystery! by Rosie A. Point and puzzles by Charles Timmerman
Expected Publication Date: November 25
A cozy mystery story combined with themed word search puzzles creates an interactive and charming whodunit experience in this fun new format that invites you to solve the case as you uncover clues.
Abby Jones has it all figured out: moving to Cranberry Creek will give her the fresh start she needs. From opening her brand-new bookstore on Main Street to learning to love her busybody landlady, Myrna, to spending her time on her favorite cozy hobby (word searches!), Abby has her hands full. But when a famous author is mysteriously murdered at her bookstore’s opening event, her new future is at stake. It’s up to Abby, with the help of some new friends, to solve the case. (Credit: Admas Media)
Murder At Donwell Abbey by Vanessa Kelly
Expected Publication Date: November 25
Emma’s spirits are elevated after she and husband George Knightley host a joyful holiday celebration at the Hartfield estate. But it’s instantly a bitter January when her father makes an unexpected announcement—he and Miss Hetty Bates have decided to marry. Not only must Emma relinquish her role as mistress of the household, but also accept the reality that the excitable Miss Bates will become her stepmother . . .
More unwanted news arrives during an extravagant betrothal ball at Donwell Abbey, the grand Knightley estate where Emma and George will soon permanently reside. Nearly every villager in Highbury revels in the dazzling affair—except Emma’s hardworking lady’s maid, Prudence Parr. To Emma’s horror, Prudence is found dead, sprawled across the stones of the library terrace . . .
The woman’s tragic fall is quickly ruled a terrible accident and whispers circulate around personal troubles leading up to her untimely demise. But Emma’s instincts tell her that something far more sinister is at play. Now, Highbury’s matchmaker-turned-sleuth vows to outwit a cunning criminal before an innocent man loses his freedom—or Donwell Abbey plunges into a darker mystery . . . (Credit: Kensington)
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