March Madness: New Releases to Add to Your TBR
- BirdieMama
- Feb 19
- 41 min read
Updated: Feb 26
Alright friends, with the longest and shortest months of the year nearly behind us, we find the month of March is within our grasps, a month that often brings with it a sense of renewal and excitement. I know everyone is eager to jump into March and enjoy what seems like a long-awaited break from the winter chill that has had us in its hold for far too long. The days are beginning to lengthen, and the promise of spring is just around the corner, filling us with anticipation for warmer weather and blooming flowers. While some might be thrilled about the literal March Madness, for those of us less interested in the world of basketball, March Madness transforms into another exciting opportunity. It is a golden opportunity for avid readers to explore a plethora of genres and authors, to seek out new treasures to add to our ever-expanding TBR (To Be Read) lists. Whether it’s the latest gripping thriller that promises to keep us on the edge of our seats, a heartwarming romance that tugs at our heartstrings, or an enlightening non-fiction work that expands our horizons, the options are endless.
As we look forward to the upcoming releases, we can take the time to reflect on our reading goals for the year. Perhaps we can challenge ourselves to step outside our comfort zones and pick up books that we might not typically choose. This could be the perfect moment to explore diverse voices and stories that offer fresh perspectives and experiences. Additionally, many authors take advantage of this month to launch their much-anticipated sequels or debut novels, making it an exhilarating time for book enthusiasts to engage with new narratives and characters or catch up on stories we love. You'll find that readers often come alive during this season, with book clubs, online discussions, and social media platforms buzzing with recommendations and reviews. It’s an excellent opportunity to connect with fellow bibliophiles, share our thoughts on the latest reads, and perhaps even discover hidden gems that we might have overlooked. So, as we prepare to embrace March and all its literary offerings, let's embrace the opportunity to broaden our literary horizons and delight in the pleasure of reading. Happy reading, everyone!
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-Collection of Short Fiction-
Trespassers by Áine Greaney
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
A woman travels from her Massachusetts home to her native Irish village to care for her estranged and sick father. Back in her childhood home, she comes face-to-face with previously unspoken losses.A wealthy couple travels to Cape Cod to spend their 52nd summer on the wife's ancestral estate. On their private beach above Nantucket Sound, the husband must confront the realities of their long marriage and its social-class tensions. A widow agrees to sell her west-of-Ireland farm to move to an in-law apartment attached to her daughter--and the daughter's American family's--Dublin house. In her new urban home, Grandma must confront the family's abusive past and her adult daughter's refusal to forgive or forget. An Irish immigrant takes her American-born teen to a raucous Boston house party. At that party, the teenager discovers that her mother had lied about her child's birth father--a lie that will permanently divide the mother and daughter. As these 11 stories zig zag back and forth between coastal Massachusetts and rural Ireland, "Trespassers" brims with each character's attempt to reconcile past and present, place and displacement and loss and hope.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Trespassers, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781961864207>.
-Historical Romance-
The Trouble With Anna by Rachel Griffiths
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
“A witty, charming, delight of a book!” —Evie Dunmore, USA TODAY bestselling author
A tart young woman and an arrogant lord collide in this flirty, sexy, and remarkably modern historical romance, perfect for fans of Bridgerton.
Anna didn’t intend to ride in a high-stakes horse race or start up a betting ring. She certainly didn’t mean to find herself in so many darkened corners with Lord Julian Ramsay, quarreling and kissing. But when her grandfather’s strange will stipulates that Anna must marry or she’ll be left broke, there’s nothing she won’t do to win her fight for independence. Even go head-to-head with Lord Ramsay, with her own heart as the prize.
Fans of the slow burn will devour this frenemies-to-lovers story perfect for fans of Sarah MacLean and Evie Dunmore.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Trouble With Anna, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668052945>.
-Saga / Domestic Fiction-
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
A darkly funny, life-affirming debut novel following five women from a once illustrious Iranian family as they grapple with revolutions personal and political.
Meet the Valiat family. In Iran, they were somebodies. In America, they’re nobodies.
First there is Elizabeth, the regal matriarch with the famously large nose, who remained in Tehran despite the revolution. She lives alone but is sometimes visited by Niaz, her Islamic-law-breaking granddaughter, who takes her partying with a side of purpose and yet manages to survive. Elizabeth’s daughters wound up in America: Shirin, a charismatic and flamboyantly high-flying event planner in Houston, who considers herself the family’s future, and Seema, a dreamy idealist turned housewife languishing in the chaparral-filled hills of Los Angeles. And then there’s the other granddaughter, Bita, a disillusioned law student in New York City trying to find deeper meaning by quietly giving away her belongings.
When an annual vacation in Aspen goes wildly awry and Shirin ends up in jail, the family’s upper-class veneer is cracked open. Shirin embarks upon a quest to restore the family name to its former glory, but what does that mean in a country where the Valiats never mattered? Can they bring their old inheritance into a new tomorrow?
By turns satirical and philosophical, spanning from 1940s Iran to a splintered 2000s, The Persians upends the reader’s expectations while exploring questions about love, family, money, art, and how to find yourself and each other when your country is lost. Wry and witty, brazen and absurd, The Persians is a deeply moving reinvention of the American family saga.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Persians, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668015797>.
-Mystery / Thriller Crime-
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
An ENTHRALLING new novel from the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves
"A WILDLY TALENTED writer." ―Emily St. John Mandel
A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Wild Dark Shore, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250827951>.
-Coming-of-age Saga-
A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl by Nanda Reddy
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
A girl takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layers of secrets, until years later when she is forced to reckon with her past.
On an ordinary day in an upscale Atlanta suburb, Maya is making breakfast for her two sons, when her husband drops a red-and-blue striped envelope on the counter and asks a devastating question: Who is Sunny?
Maya is sent reeling back to her childhood in Guyana--a time when Sunny was her only name. Unbeknownst to her husband, Maya is not who she claims to be. The letter, from her long-lost sister Roshi, now threatens to expose her true identity and shatter the seemingly perfect existence Maya worked so hard to build.
As she frantically weighs the impact of the truth on her future, Maya relives the details of her childhood journey to America from Guyana-and the traumatic events that forced her to leave her past behind. Through the eyes of Maya's innocent and scared younger self, we discover the power of hope, empathy, and the possibility of beginning again.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798989532513>.
-Romance / Coming-of-age-
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Oprah Daily, Readers Digest, The Seattle Times, LitHub, The Chicago Review of Books, BET, and Radio Times
A publishing event ten years in the making—a searing, exquisite new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Dream Count, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593802724>.
-LGBTQ+ / Coming-of-age-
Woodworking by Emily St. James
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
"Big-hearted and hilarious, an ode to authenticity and a must-read in our current times." --Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
One of Them's 10 Most Anticipated Books of 2025 - One of Book Riot's and The Mary Sue's 15 Most Anticipated Queer Books of 2025 - One of The Millions', Kirkus's, and The AV Club's Most Anticipated Books of 2025
An unforgettable and heartwarming book-club debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.
Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced--and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.
Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High's resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It's a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty--and loneliness--that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn't the only one struggling to shed the weight of others' expectations.
As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women--and those closest to them--are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?
Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Woodworking, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781638931478>.
-Historical Mystery / Legal Thriller-
The Girl From Greenwich Street by Lauren Willig
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
Based on the true story of a famous trial, this novel is Law and Order: 1800, as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr investigate the shocking murder of a young woman who everyone—and no one—seemed to know.
At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows.
Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well.
Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma.
But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor….
Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double win: a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines.
Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life—and destroy each other.
Part murder mystery, part thriller, part true crime, The Girl From Greenwich Street revisits a dark corner of history—with a surprising twist ending that reveals the true story of the woman at the center of the tale.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Girl From Greenwich Street, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063306110>.
-Mystery / Thriller Suspense-
Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
“Much like fine wine, battle-hardened assassins grow better with age.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner
Four women assassins, senior in status—and in age—sharpen their knives for another bloody good adventure in this riotous follow-up to the New York Times bestselling sensation Killers of a Certain Age.
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their time off, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions without itching to strangle someone...literally. When they receive a summons from the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster with an iron fist, some serious criminal ambition, and a tendency to kill first and ask questions later. This new nemesis is murdering agents who got in the way of their power hungry plans and the aging quartet of killers is next.
Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster who seems to know their next move before they make it. Their enemy is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their killer experience to get out of this mission alive.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Kills Well With Others, Bookshop.org website, Accessed on 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593638514>.
-FANTASY / Romance-
Spells, Strings, and Forgotten Things by Breanna Randall
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
A cursed witch must team up with a rival coven leader to save her small town in this atmospheric tale of magic, love, and self-discovery—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic.
“Breanne Randall is a phenomenon!”—Sarah Addison Allen, New York Timesbestselling author of Garden Spells
“Absolutely irresistible . . . I was enthralled!”—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop
In the small town of Gold Springs, Calliope Petridi and her two sisters carefully guard the secret of their magic and the price they must pay to practice it: memories. Luckily, all Calliope wants to do is forget: the mother who left without a trace, the sisters from whom she feels increasingly distant, and most of all, the way the love of her life shattered her heart two years ago.
But when a mysterious evil awakens, the fragile thread that holds the sisters together breaks. As their magic slowly begins to fade, Calliope accidentally binds herself to the handsome leader of a rival coven infamous for their ruthless pursuit of power. Battling the sizzling chemistry with a man she can’t trust, Calliope must confront memories of her past, family secrets, and ancient magic in order to protect the town and all she loves. But will she have anything left of herself?
“As sweet and spicy as a freshly baked ginger biscuit drizzled with honey, Spells, Strings, and Forgotten Things is witchy romantasy at its finest.”—Bianca Marais, author of The Witches of Moonshyne Manor
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Spells, Strings, and Forgotten Things, Bookshop.org website, Accessed on 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593875001>.
-Dystopian Horror-
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses (Translator)
Expected Release: March 4 , 2025
Description
The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.
From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.
But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?
A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Unworthy, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668051887>.
-Memoir / Nonfiction-
First Born Girls by Bernice L. McFadden
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
From award-winning author and creative writing professor at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.
On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girlstraces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.
Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of “messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.”
Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt.
A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, First Born Girls, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593184974>.
-Memoir / NonFiction-
Saving Five by Amanda Nguyen
Expected Release: March 4, 2025
Description
One of TIME and Oprah Daily's Most Anticipated Books of 2025
"Amanda’s story—innovatively told by versions of herself at different ages—underscores the lasting power of speaking your truth, building a movement, and never losing sight of your dreams.” —Melinda French Gates
"In Saving Five, Amanda Nguyen shows us how to reclaim the full spectrum of our lives, replete with pain, fury, creativity, and recovered dreams.” —Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name
A brave and imaginative memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, detailing her healing journey and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard.
In 2013, the trajectory of Amanda Nguyen’s life was changed forever when she was raped at Harvard
.Determined to not let her assault derail her goal of joining NASA after graduation, Nguyen opted for her rape kit to be filed under “Jane Doe.” But she was shocked to learn her choice to stay anonymous gave her only six months to take action before the state destroyed her kit, rendering any future legal action impossible. Nguyen knew then that she had two options: surrender to a law that effectively denied her justice, or fight for a change—not only for herself but for survivors everywhere
.A heart-wrenching memoir of survival and hope, Saving Five boldly braids the story of Nguyen’s activism—which resulted in Congress’s unanimous passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act in 2016—with a second, beautifully imagined adventure, of Nguyen's younger selves as they—at ages five, fifteen, twenty-two, and thirty—navigate through dramatic incarnations of the emotional stages of her path toward healing, not only from her rape but from the violent turmoil of her childhood. The result is a groundbreaking work that seamlessly blends memoir with a moving journey toward acceptance and hope, forging a path ahead that is as inspiring as it is instructive.
From one of the most influential activists (and now astronauts) of her time, Saving Five is at once a tribute to resilience, a celebration of healing through action, and a resounding cry to change the world.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Saving Five, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780374615918>.
-LGBTQ+ Mystery / Thriller Crime-
Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
The USA Today bestselling, Lambda Award–winning author of Dirt Creek is back with a woman’s story of the aftermath of the climbing incident that killed her girlfriend—and getting to the truth.
Torn between her girlfriend, Magdu, and her best friend, Daphne, Finn is looking forward to a day of rock climbing and bonding for the three women on the soaring cliffs near their Australian town. But nothing goes as she planned, and in a horrific accident, Magdu falls to her death.
Rocked by grief, Finn tries to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Did Magdu die because of Finn’s friendship with overbearing Daphne, who has never wanted Finn to change or leave her? Can Finn trace it all the way back to the tragic childhood loss of her sister? What about Magdu’s family, who would never have accepted their relationship?
When the police suspect foul play in Magdu’s death, Finn begins to search for the shocking truth about her relationships and what has been in front of her all along. Beautifully written by the #1 internationally bestselling, Lammy Award–winning Hayley Scrivenor, Girl Falling is a beautiful love story, a tender meditation on grief, and a searing tale of just how much our lies can cost us.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Girl Falling, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250362179>.
-Literary Fiction-
The Women on Platform Two by Laura Anthony
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
In 1970s Dublin, all forms of contraception are strictly forbidden, but an intrepid group of women will risk everything to change that in this sweeping, timely novel inspired by a remarkable and little-known true story.
Dublin, 1969: Maura has just married Dr. Christy Davenport and they look forward to growing their family. But as her husband’s vicious temper emerges, Maura worries that her home might never be safe for a child. Meanwhile, her close friend Bernie, a mother of three, learns the devastating news that if she conceives again, her health complications could prove fatal.
Dublin, 2023: A close call makes Saoirse realize that she may never want to be a mother. Little does she know that only a few decades ago, a group of women made this option possible for her. And she’s about to meet one of them…
The Women on Platform Two is a haunting, powerful story of feminine resistance and resilience that reminds us all of where we started—and how far we still have to go.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Women on Platform Two, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668047385>.
-LGBTQ+ Romance-
A Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
From the acclaimed author of Chef's Kiss, a groundbreaking trans Regency romance that's both delightfully witty and refreshingly iconoclastic.
“A Gentleman’s Gentleman is a thoroughly charming confection of a romance. If you’re looking for a tender, gentle slow burn, this is the book for you.” —Cat Sebastian, author of We Could Be So Good
The notoriously eccentric Lord Christopher Eden is a “man of unusual make” and even more unusual habits: he prefers to live far from the prying eyes and ears of the ton, and would rather have the comfortable company of his childhood cook and his aged butler than the swarm of servants and hangers-on befitting a man of his station. But Christopher’s pleasant, if occasionally lonely life is upended when he receives word from his lawyers that, according to his late father’s will, he must find a wife by the end of the Season if he intends to keep his family’s fortune and the Eden estate. Christopher cannot imagine a worse fate: as he isn’t attracted to women, his chances of making a wife happy are slim. Furthermore, if his quest to marry has any hope of succeeding, he must move to London posthaste and acquire some more suitable staff.
Enter James Harding, Christopher’s new, distractingly handsome—if rigidly traditional—valet. After a rocky start, the two strike up a fragile friendship amid the throes of the London Season . . . a friendship that threatens to shatter under the looming shadow of Christopher’s impending nuptials—and the secrets both men are keeping. With its heady combination of dry wit, slow-burn romance, and a nuanced portrait of trans identity, A Gentleman’s Gentleman stands to transform the historical romance genre as we know it.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, A Gentleman's Gentleman, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593686201>.
-Mystery / Thriller Crime-
The Four Queens of Crime by Roseanne Limoncelli
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
LIBRARY JOURNAL'S DECEMBER DEBUT OF THE MONTH!
In this debut mystery, DCI Lilian Wyles, the first woman detective chief inspector in the CID, is determined to find a killer with the help of the four queens of crime, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham, perfect for fans of Elly Griffiths and Claudia Gray.
1938, London. The four queens of British crime fiction, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham, are hosting a gala to raise money for the Women’s Voluntary Service to help Britain prepare for war. Baronet Sir Henry Heathcote has loaned Hursley House for the event, and all the elites of London society are attending. The gala is a brilliant success, despite a few hiccups, but the next morning, Sir Henry is found dead in the library.
Detective Chief Inspectors Lilian Wyles and Richard Davidson from Scotland Yard are quickly summoned and discover a cluster of potential suspects among the guests, including an upset fiancée, a politically ambitious son, a reserved but protective brother, an irate son-in-law, a rebellious teenage daughter, and the deputy home secretary.
Quietly recruiting the four queens of crime, DCI Wyles must sort through the messy aftermath of Sir Henry’s death to solve the mystery and identify the killer.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Four Queens of Crime, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798892420600>.
-Science Fiction / Fantasy-
Idolfire by Grace Curtis
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
An epic sapphic fantasy roadtrip inspired by the fall of Rome, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Frontier and Floating Hotel
On one side of the world, Aleya Ana-Ulai is desperate for a chance. Her family have written her off as a mistake, but she's determined to prove every last one of them wrong.
On the other, Kirby of Wall's End is searching for redemption. An ancient curse tore her life apart, but to fix it, she'll have to leave everything behind.
Fate sets them both on the path to Nivela, a city once poised to conquer the world with the power of a thousand stolen gods. Now the gates are closed and the old magic slumbers. Dead — or waiting for a spark to light it anew…
A character-driven science-fantasy road trip book with sword fights and a slowburn romance, Idolfire delves into the vastness of history and the terrifying power of organized faith.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Idolfire, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780756419806>.
-Mystery / Suspense Humorous Fiction-
All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
"The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit."
Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever.
The only problem? Florence has no useful skills, let alone investigative ones, and all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and Florence has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe…
Hilarious and twisted, propulsive and furious, All the Other Mothers Hate Me is the must-read book of 2025.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, All the Other Mothers Hate Me, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593851463>.
-Horror / Suspense / Gothic Fiction-
Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
A haunted woman stalked by a serial killer confronts the horrors of fairy tales and the nightmares of real life in a breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by a Bram Stoker Award-winning author.
It started the night journalist Briar Thorne's mother died in their rambling old mansion on Chicago's South Side.
The nightmares of a woman in white pleading to come home, music switched on in locked rooms, and the panicked fear of being swallowed by the dark...Bri has almost convinced herself that these stirrings of dread are simply manifestations of grief and not the beyond-world of ghostly impossibilities her mother believed in. And more tangible terrors still lurk outside the decaying Victorian greystone.
A serial killer has claimed the lives of fifty-one women in the Chicago area. When Bri starts researching the murders, she meets a stranger who tells her there's more to her sleepless nights than bad dreams--they hold the key to putting ghosts to rest and stopping a killer. But the killer has caught on and is closing in, and if Bri doesn't answer the call of the dead soon, she'll be walking among them.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Vanishing Daughters, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781662513930>.
-Historical Fiction / Romance / Psychological Thriller-
The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.
Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.
And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy—but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Jackal's Mistress, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780385547642>.
-Historical Fiction-
The Antidote by Karen Russell
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town
The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Antidote, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593802250>.
-History / Social Sciences/Nonfiction-
A History of the World in Six Plagues by Edna Bonhomme
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
A deeply reported, insightful, and literary account of humankind’s battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines—in the vein of Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body.
Epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design.
With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health.
Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Based on in-depth research and cultural analysis, Bonhomme explores Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola, and COVID-19 amidst the backdrop of unequal public policy. But much more than a remarkable history, A History of the World in Six Plagues is also a rising call for change.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, A History of the World in Six Plagues, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781982197834>.
-LGBTQ+ Humor / Memoir-
Self-Sabotage by Jeffery Self
Expected Release: March 11, 2025
Description
In the vein of works by Gary Janetti and Danny Pellegrino, an honest, funny, and heartfelt memoir-in-essays about chasing your dreams, making big messes, and finding yourself along the way.
In in his debut book for adults, Jeffery Self invites readers into his world, taking them through the usual foibles of gay adolescence, amplified in the vast wasteland of the American South and the odd characters who peopled it, from shoddy community theater productions to underage drinking with Broadway stars, from downtown comedy rooms to adventure-filled bedrooms. Along the way, he shares his experiences of acting in TV and film, touring live comedy around the world, getting booed off gay cruise ships, a tenure in the “oldest profession,” meeting his heroes, falling in love, getting his heart broken, breaking other people’s hearts, being hated, hating himself, and on the best of days, finding stuff to like about himself, too.
Self-Sabotage is a deeply personal and intimate exploration of Self’s life, filled with humor, heartache, and a hearty dose of bipolar disorder. It asks the profound question of how you become the person you want to be when so much of yourself is a secret—and how you learn to accept yourself when it’s not. It is also, of course, side-splittingly funny.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Self-Sabotage Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063328778>.
-Romance-
Like Home by Megan Bowen
Expected Release: March 17, 2025
Description
What happens when a woman who reads “too many” romance novels decides she deserves better? She just might get it.
Summer Evans is a certified romance novel enthusiast. What started as a way to pass the time when she was a new mother turns into an epiphany. She doesn’t know if romance like that exists outside of her books, but she intends to find out. She’s ready for something new, but the child she has with her newly minted ex complicates things.
In the small town of Lakeland, the dating pool is decidedly shallow. That is until Ryan Garrett returns to set down roots in his old hometown. When Ryan and Summer meet, their chemistry feels straight out of a book, but Summer has to decide that she’s worthy of a man who worships the ground she walks on, and Ryan has to weather the storm and battle his own fears.
While Summer and Ryan’s relationship heats up alongside the climbing temperatures of a California summer, her ex, Jared, has different plans for them. He didn’t realize what he had until it was gone, and he’s willing to do anything to get her back – even if that means leveraging their six-year-old daughter, Emma, against her. Will Summer and Ryan’s love catch flame, or will Jared’s scheming snuff out the spark?
Join Summer and Ryan on their journey to find a love that feels like coming home. Like Home is perfect for fans of swoon-worthy romance with a touch of heat and plus-sized heroines where the story is about finding true love, not just a perfect figure.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Like Home, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798991877701>.
-Mystery / Thriller Crime-
The Writer by James Patterson & J.D. Barker
Expected Release: March 17, 2025
Description
"Consider blocking out a few hours of uninterrupted reading time" for The Writer, #1 New York Times bestselling author James Patterson's "Excellent... perfectly executed ... genuinely suspenseful" (Booklist) thriller about a true-crime author swept up in a murder plot.
NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets a call: How fast can you get to the Beresford building on Central Park West?
In the tower apartment, Shaw finds a woman waiting for him. She's covered in blood. A body is lying dead on the floor of the luxurious living room.
Every book in the apartment's floor-to-ceiling shelves is by the same author: bestselling true-crime writer Denise Morrow.
"This is you?" Shaw asks the woman. "You're a writer?" Only one person knows the ending to this story. Is it the victim or the killer?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Writer, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780316570008>.
-Literary Fiction-
Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
When the star players on a high school football team are accused of violence by another student, their secrets—and the secrets of their parents—threaten to shatter their entire community in a gripping novel of race, class, and privilege from the author of Members Only.
Vikram Shastri has always been a good kid. He’s got a 4.6 GPA, listens to his parents, barely hits the parties, and is on track for a fancy college. But when he gets the chance to play on his high school football team, his world suddenly starts to shift. Basking in their recent victory, Vikram and his teammates Diego and MJ attend a party at an abandoned house in the Southern California foothills, located right below three ancient caves. They find themselves lost in the dark of night in one of the caves, carried away by male bravado, with a classmate who has annoyed them for years.
But when the kid emerges with injuries that prove to be more serious than the all-star boys intended, they are suspended for the rest of the season, and the boys’ parents are brought in to manage the situation. As the parents try to protect their boys, they are also managing their own complicated family and professional lives. While the parents work with, and against, one another to figure out the truth about that night, the boys must come to terms with how much of their own secrets they’re willing to reveal to clear their names.
Insightful and deeply human, Our Beautiful Boys is about race and class, parents trying to raise good boys in our fraught times, and the conflict we find when all of these slam together. It’s about the kids inside each parent and the games the world makes each of us play.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Our Beautiful Boys, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593726167>.
-Literary Fiction-
Everybody Says It's Everything by Xhenet Aliu
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
In this unforgettable novel from the award-winning author of Brass, twins growing up in the United States in the nineties unravel larger truths about identity and sibling bonds when one of them gets wrapped up in the war in Kosovo.
“A glowing work of art . . . Aliu has used her many talents to craft a wonderful, vibrant, must-read book.”—Jason Mott, National Book Award–winning author ofHell of a Book
Raised in Connecticut, adopted twins Drita and Petrit (aka Pete) had no connection to their Albanian heritage. Their lives were all about Barbie dolls, the mall, and roller skating at the local rink. Although they were inseparable during their childhood, their paths diverged once they became teenagers: Drita was a good girl with good manners who was going to attend a good college; Pete was a bad boy going nowhere fast. Even their twinhood was not enough to keep them together.
Fast-forward to their twenties. Drita has given up on her dreams for the future, abandoning her graduate studies to move back home and take care of their mother. She hasn’t heard from Pete in three years when his girlfriend and their son unexpectedly show up without him and in need of help. Realizing that Pete’s child may offer the siblings a second chance at being family, Drita becomes determined to find her brother. But what she ends up discovering—about their connection to their Albanian roots, the war in Kosovo, and the story of their adoption—will surprise everyone, and become what brings them together, or tears them apart for good.
In Everybody Says It’s Everything, critically acclaimed author Xhenet Aliu tells the story of a family both fractured and foundering, desperate to connect with the other and the world at large, but not knowing how.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Everyone Says It's Everything, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593732274>.
-Mystery / Thriller Crime-
Serial Killer Support Group by Saratoga Schaefer
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
After her sister is murdered, a woman infiltrates a support group for serial killers in this biting queer feminist debut thriller, perfect for fans of The Final Girl Support Group and My Sister, the Serial Killer.
When Cyra Griffin’s younger sister is murdered by a serial killer, Cyra knows better than to expect justice from the hands of the police department. With the investigation already dying its own slow death, Cyra follows the blood trail and finds her own way forward.
Using insider information (don’t ask), Cyra infiltrates a support group for serial killers by pretending to be one herself in the hopes of finding the person who ended her sister’s life. Proving herself to them comes at a cost, but it’s one Cyra is willing to pay in the name of revenge.
But the dangerous men in the group aren’t the only obstacle in Cyra’s path for vengeance, and the further Cyra descends into the deadly world of serial killers, the harder it becomes to hold on to her own humanity.
This dark, witty debut novel is a cunning homage to women’s wrongs that will have you wondering exactly how many monsters walk unseen among us.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Serial Killer Support Group, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798892422307>.
-LGBTQ+ Fantasy-
The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
Drawing on inspiration from the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India, debut author Maithree Wijesekara plunges readers into the first amazing book of the Obsidian Throne trilogy, a new fantasy series of hunted witches, romantic angst, and political intrigue. Perfect for fans of The Hurricane Wars and The Jasmine Throne.
A prince born into violence, seeking peace.
Prince Ashoka is the youngest son of the tyrannical Emperor Adil Maurya.
Considered an outcast by his father for his rejection of the emperor’s brutal onslaught against the witches of the empire, Ashoka longs for change. When the sudden and unexpected death of his father leaves the monarchy in disarray, Ashoka is sent to govern a tumultuous region annexed by Emperor Adil that is terrorized by nature spirits—a task many see as doomed to fail. Suspected by a disdainful governor and evaded by distrustful witches, Ashoka must question his rigid ideals and fight against becoming the one person he despises the most—his father.
A witch shackled by pacifism, seeking revenge.
Shakti is a mayakari: a witch bound by a pacifist code. After witnessing the murder of her aunt and village at the hands of the emperor, Shakti hurtles down a path of revenge, casting a curse with unexpected consequences. Posing as a maidservant in the famed palace of the Mauryas and armed with newfound powers beyond her imagination, Shakti attempts to dismantle the monarchy from within by having the royal progeny ruin themselves and turn their father’s legacy into nothing but ash.
In a world where nature spirits roam the land, and witches are hunted to extinction, Ashoka and Shakti will be forced to grapple with the consequences of power: to take it for themselves or risk losing it completely.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Prince Without Sorrow, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063420557>.
-Horror Fantasy-
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians is a chilling historical horror novel tracing the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668075081>.
-History / Social Sciences / Nonfiction-
Let Only Red Flowers Bloom by Emily Feng
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
An intimate, deeply reported investigation into the battle over identity in China, chronicling the state oppression of those who fail to conform to Xi Jinping's definition of who is "Chinese," from an award-winning NPR correspondent.
“Emily Feng’s focus on ordinary people—bravely determined to shape their own lives—captures the mood of the Xi Jinping era more essentially than reams of statistics ever can.”—Evan Osnos, National Book Award winner, author of Age of Ambition
The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there – and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression.
In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back. They include a Uyghur family, separated as China detains hundreds of thousands of their fellow Uyghurs in camps; human rights lawyers fighting to defend civil liberties in the face of mammoth odds; a teacher from Inner Mongolia, forced to make hard choices because of his support of his mother tongue; and a Hong Kong fugitive trying to find a new home and live in freedom.
Reporting despite the personal risks, journalist Emily Feng reveals dramatic human stories of resistance and survival in a country that is increasingly closing itself off to the world. Feng illustrates what it is like to run against the grain in China, and the myriad ways people are trying to survive, with dignity.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593594223>.
-Humor / Essays / Memoir-
In My Remaining Years by Jean Grae
Expected Release: March 18, 2025
Description
A collection of darkly humorous, intensely personal essays by cult fave and multi-hyphenate artist Jean Grae
In My Remaining Years, by creative juggernaut Jean Grae, debunks the myth that coming-of-age narratives should be reserved for the kids, providing a much-needed rallying cry for those of us still trying to figure it out in our forties. These laugh-out-loud essays cover everything from aging gracefully (with and without botox), what happens when you look for community and almost start a cult, befriending childhood demons (Hi Mumm-ra!), gender fluidity in middle age, the cost of being too fabulous, and the various gymnastics we do to avoid becoming our parents, taking us from her childhood in 1980s New York City to present-day Baltimore. In these pages, Jean captures magic in a bottle, distilling the feeling of hanging out with your smartest, funniest, and most brutally honest best friend.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, In My Remaining Years, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250857538>.
-Mystery / Thriller Crime-
Retreat by Krysten Ritter
Expected Release: March 25, 2025
Description
A beautiful con artist insinuates herself into a wealthy socialite’s life . . . with deadly consequences, in this serpentine thriller about identity and obsession, from actress, director and bestselling author Krysten Ritter.
Liz Dawson weaves through a crowd with the ease of a tropical breeze, moving seamlessly through elite circles, sparking instant connections and making every new acquaintance feel like an intimate friend. She’s clever, smooth, and confident—qualities that make her a brilliant serial con artist.
Isabelle Beresford is strikingly beautiful, obscenely wealthy, and the new owner of Casa Esmerelda, a fabulous villa on the Mexican coast—attributes that make her the perfect mark. When she offers Liz a job handling the installation of a piece of art in her otherwise vacant home, Liz can’t resist the allure of a beach retreat. She longs for a reset, a chance to finally shed the grip of her addiction to the conning game.
But when Liz, with her lush dark hair and intense green eyes, is mistaken for Isabelle herself, Liz can’t help effortlessly slipping into the socialite’s identity. The transition is so easeful, it almost feels like fate. But just who is Isabelle Beresford really, and why does she seem to have abandoned this stunning life of hers?
As Liz insinuates herself deeper into the dazzling—and deceptive—world of the Punta Mita resort community, she draws closer to the dangers surrounding the real Isabelle. Dangers that may have already ensnared Liz, too. This might not be the con of her life—but the con that ends it.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Retreat, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063334601>.
-Romance-
Just Our Luck by Denise Williams
Expected Release: March 25, 2025
Description
"I'm a forever fan."—Tarah DeWitt, USA Today Bestselling Author of Savor It
LibraryReads Pick
A lottery ticket + donuts = love in this steamy new fake dating romance from beloved author Denise Williams.
Sybil Sweet has always been lucky, but lately she can’t catch a break. After years of bouncing from job to job in search of something that feels right and from man to man in search of something special, Sybil is worried that she’s the directionless, floundering daughter her family thinks she is. All she really wants now is a little financial stability and carb comfort. Lucky for her, she’s got just enough in the bank to buy a lottery ticket, and the late-night donut store is open.
Kieran Anderson put his dreams of becoming a doctor on hold to take over running his family’s bakery, and after fighting a losing battle to save the place, he’s exhausted, broke, and no closer to getting back to school. But when a whirlwind of a woman sweeps in late one night, flirty energy gives way to more…until she runs out the next morning, leaving behind her winning lottery ticket.
Lucky for Kieran, his attempt to return the ticket looks like a grand romantic gesture and goes viral, sending sales through the roof. In an effort to keep the store afloat and to convince Sybil’s family she can make good relationship choices, they agree to fake a relationship for three months. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars, finding each other might end up being the sweetest bit of luck for both of them.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Just Our Luck, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593641439>.
-Fantasy-
Tideborn by Eliza Chan
Expected Release: March 25, 2025
Description
A dragon queen, a vengeful sea witch, and a mythical titan converge on the underwater city of Tiankawi in the sequel to the international bestselling epic fantasy Fathomfolk.
A tsunami and a dragon's wish have wrought changes upon the city of Tiankawi that have never been seen before. But shared experiences have not healed the rift between the city's fathomfolk and human citizens, and scars from years of oppression still remain.
Mira, a half-siren and activist, fights politicians and her own people to rebuild her city, and to uncover a deadly conspiracy. And Nami, the dragon princess, undertakes a daring ocean voyage alongside friend and foe, in order to convince a mythical Titan not to destroy Tiankawi for its crimes...
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Tideborn, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780316564946>.
-Horror / Mystery-
Gothictown by Emily Carpenter
Expected Release: March 25, 2025
Description
In an immersive Southern Gothic with echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, a restauranteur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic small town in Georgia, only to discover a darkness lurking beneath the Southern hospitality and sun-dappled streets...
Welcome to gentle Juliana, where you can have it all…if you pay the price.
The email that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true…or a devil’s bargain.
A Publishers Marketplace BUZZ BOOKS Selection
A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised—two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a “gentle jewel” with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs…
But Billie’s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana’s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.
There’s something about “Gentle Juliana”—something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and if, they’ll ever leave.
For readers of Stacy Willingham, Sarah Langan, Ashley Winstead, and Jess Lourey, a bewitchingly foreboding story about sacrifice, privilege, family, guilt, and the vengeful ghosts of a haunted past – from the bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Gothictown, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781496750549>.
-Literary Fiction-
Behind the Waterline by Kionna Walker Lemalle
Expected Release: March 25, 2025
Description
Winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize
Behind the Waterline takes readers to the home of a teenager and his grandmother in a New Orleans neighborhood on the eve of Katrina, where there are few resources and little warning of what is about to happen, in this novel that mixes magical realism with reality.
When Hurricane Katrina approaches New Orleans, teenaged Eric and his grandmother and many of their neighbors decide to ride out the storm. Kionna Walker LeMalle's masterful debut novel brings her readers, like the rising water, onto Eric's street in the Third Ward, where stranded dogs bark for a time, where neighbors are floating on doors, and where Eric and his grandmother must take refuge in his second floor bedroom. After days of heat, dwindling supplies, and relentless rising water, neighbors begin to disappear and Eric's grandmother, already known as an eccentric, begins to falter. It is then that Eric--in a dream, a hallucination, or something else--discovers a room beyond his closet wall, a place he has never seen. What he discovers inside will send him on a path to discover secrets to survival, bitter progress, and, ultimately, the history of his own people--those he sorely misses and those he never even knew.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Behind the Waterline, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781958888216>.
-Fantasy Romance-
The Stars of Ember by Genesis Batista
Expected Release: March 20, 2025
Description
A QUEEN. A VAMPIRE. A DEADLY ATTRACTION.
Queen Atreya thought surviving the arena was the hardest battle she’d ever face. She was wrong.
When the magical wards protecting Ember shatter and her husband threatens everything she loves, Atreya is forced to make an impossible choice: trust Ronan—a dangerous vampire who delights in tormenting her—or watch her kingdom burn.
Their mission is simple: cross the hellscape of Ferenz to find help from her greatest enemy, the notorious Rebel King. But nothing about Ronan is what it seems. Bound by a blood vow and promised a ring that could let him walk in daylight, he serves the very man Atreya has spent her life hating.
As they journey through the wasteland together, Atreya discovers that surviving the monsters isn’t her biggest challenge—it’s resisting her growing attraction to the vampire who holds both her fate and her heart in his deadly hands.
Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout, THE STARS OF EMBER is a dark fantasy romance filled with sizzling tension, dangerous magic, and enemies-to-lovers passion that burns hotter than dragonfire.
In a world where magic strikes like lightning and desire cuts deeper than steel, some temptations are worth dying for...
Source Citation:
Genesis Batista 2025, The Stars of Ember, Genesis Batista website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://authorgenesisbatista.com/books/the-stars-of-ember-the-night-lore-series-book-2>.
-Dark Romance-
Don't Hold Your Breath by L. Taylor
Expected Release: March 28, 2025
Description
Cat
All I’ve known my entire life is how to mask the pain. The pain of my abuse. The self-hatred that followed.
I was drowning in it until I learned how good it could feel to be in control.
Controlling calories, emotions, even the marks on my body. If I can just keep an iron grip on everything and everyone around me- and never let anyone get too close- everything will be just fine. Everything.
For years, my father had complete control over me, but now its my turn.
At least, that’s what I thought… because then came Tommy Easton.
Larger than life and sexier than sin, this man has set his sights on me.
I think I might love him. If only he felt the same.
Tommy
My heart was hijacked the very first time I heard her voice, and I’ve been fixated ever since.
Cat Baker. The fiercest little thing I’ve ever seen - at least until you manage to get her walls down. I’ve fought so hard to earn a place in her life. Sometimes in her bed.
If I could just get her to see that we are meant to be together. She’s so focused on the secrets she keeps - and hating that I know them - that she just can’t see the big picture.
The big picture being me and her.
What You Can Expect:
- He Falls First
- Friends-with-benefits to Lovers
- Fast Burn
- Kink Exploration
- Breath Play
- Pet Play
- Dark/Angst Filled Romance
- H.E.A.
- Dual P.O.V.
Triggers:
- Eating Disorder
- Detailed Self Harm & Attempted Suicide
- Struggles with Mental Health
- Alcohol Dependence
- Attempted SA
- Parental Harassment
- Mentions of childhood SA (Not graphic)
If you have any concerns about triggers please email the author at taylorhauthor@outlook.com.
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Don't Hold Your Breath, Amazon website, Accessed 18 February 2025, <https://a.co/d/g1gLnZL>.
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