Anyone's Ghost is an angsty love story worthy of its Lambda Literary Award nomination this year, and I am thrilled to introduce you to August's writing process in this week's Book Gang Podcast episode.

It took three car crashes to kill Jake, but it only takes one unforgettable summer to change everything. Fifteen-year-old Theron arrives in rural New Hampshire, anxious and adrift, and meets Jake, who is full of magnetic, untethered, and dangerous energy.

They bond over heavy metal, midnight drives, weed, and that fierce, confusing ache of first desire that insists you feel everything in full color.

Years later, after reunions and heartbreaks, Theron is left only with the relentless memories that haunt him. What was this relationship, what might've been, and the hooks of songs that bind us even when someone fades away.

Related- August Thompson Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- This Book Cover Designer Reveals His Surprising Process (Book Gang Podcast Interview with August Thompson's Paperback Book Cover Designer)

Merritt Valentine was once a celebrated singer-songwriter until a mental health collapse derailed her life.

Now living in a quiet Colorado ski town, she's trying to disentangle from her past in music, even as her heart keeps drawing her back, and a local handyman becomes her unexpected companion in recovery.

Their house renovation becomes a metaphor for rebuilding both life and her creative voice in this new book from Wilder known for her celebrity romance stories.

Release Date- 25 October 2025

Evan returns home to care for his mother, June, and in doing so unearths secrets about her past relationship with Bob Dylan.

The novel doesn't just mine celebrity lore, but reflects on what it means to inherit both art and myth, and how being compared to your potential father can shape (and sometimes fracture) a sense of self.

Music, especially Bob Dylan's music, serves as both backdrop and lodestar in Evan's journey in this magical debut.

Luke Randall was once Nashville's brightest rising star until his career narrowed to singing the same old hit he didn't even write.

Determined to claim her own spotlight, August insists they co-write and perform a new song together, even if it means exposing long-kept truths.

Black's sophomore novel hums with second chances and the power of finally owning your voice.

Related- Best Second Chance Romance Novels

Before she published Loved One, Aisha Muharrar was a writer-producer for some of your favorite TV comedies, including Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and Hacks!

Julia, a jewelry designer in her thirties, is jolted by the sudden death of Gabe (her first love and indie musician friend).

On a grief-filled journey from LA to London to Barcelona, she sets out to recover Gabe's belongings like his beloved guitar, sheet music, and other personal pieces that echoed his life on stage and off.

Along the way, she crosses paths with Elizabeth, Gabe's recent partner, entering a tangled new space as she uncovers more behind his life since their split.

Related- Books on Grief and Loss

It's 1986, and Rikki Thunder, a 22-year-old drummer in LA, is aching to make it big. When the lead drummer for mega-band Whyte Python breaks both arms, Rikki gets an audition that might change everything.

What follows is a wild, global '80s rock tour steeped in leather, riffs, backstage chaos, and neon lights, but with a twist. The CIA has designs on using Whyte Python as a Cold War pawn- no big deal.

Narrated on audiobook by Wil Wheaton, I'm eager to dive into this book soon.

Related- 51 Funny Books Because We Need Them More Than Ever

Joni Lark is a hit songwriter who’s lost her spark, retreating home to Vienna Shores and her family’s fading music venue.

Then a half-written melody begins haunting her, linking her to Sebastian, a washed-up boy-band star with scars of his own.

Together they must finish the song, confront old grief, and maybe rediscover the music that still binds them.

This book was an incredible escape, according to my fabulous cohost on the FULLY BOOKED Show, where we share our latest reviews every month.

Related- JOIN MY PATREON FOR FULLY BOOKED

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

Avery Fox is a Muscogee pop star whose image took a nosedive when she posed in a feathered war bonnet for Rolling Stone and was accused of cultural appropriation.

To escape the fallout, she retreats to her grandmother's Oklahoma horse ranch, where she meets Lucas, a rugged cowboy who is entirely unlike her usual circle.

Between pop-show scandals, cultural expectations, and the beauty of ranch life, Nava explores the threads between music and identity in this frothy escape.

Cléo Louvent has been passionate about becoming a singer since she was a child. Her journey from working in a bookstore to becoming a global pop star is filled with ambition, cover songs, viral moments (like her rendition of a Billy Joel classic), and the glitter of fame that she aspires to achieve.

Now thirty-something, she retreats to a remote Pacific island to work on her fourth album, trying to understand what she sacrificed, and whether she can ever come back from her own hunger for the spotlight.

Related- Enthralling Books Set on Islands

Cassie and Zoe Grossberg are sisters turned pop duo. In the early 2000s, their band, The Griffin Sisters, soared in success until a tragedy shatters everything, and the sisters drift apart.

Fast forward 20 years, and now Zoe is a suburban mom while Cassie has vanished from public life. When Zoe's daughter, Cherry, dreams of her own singing career, she envisions reuniting the fractured legacy.

With faux news articles, social-media footprints, backstage secrets, and the echoes of early pop, this has been a satisfying read for so many readers.

Percy Marks has always lived for music, chasing the thrill of deep tracks and obscure playlists, while her college boyfriend Joe dreams of rock-star fame.

As Joe's career rises from dive bars to the indie-rock spotlight, Percy is left to question her own place as an observer, muse, or artist in her own right.

Steeped in the energy of the early-2000s music scene, this is a coming-of-age laced with the bittersweet cost of ambition.

Related- 13 Coming of Age Books Any Adult Will Love

In 1989, Suzanne's childhood was scored by the amps and anthems of her father's band, The Kills, teetering on the edge of stardom.

Then came the night that ended everything.

Now, years later, with her father gone, Suzanne abandons her quiet suburban life to retrace those tour-worn roads and begin unearthing long-buried secrets and the music that never let her go.

Related- Best Books About Road Trips

Clementine wants nothing to do with the music world after growing up as the daughter of a famous rock star. That changes when she takes a summer job with Theo, a legendary musician in need of help finishing his album.

Studio sessions, songwriting sparks, and tour-level pressure set the stage for a romance filled with rhythm and risk that has satisfied the romance sweet spot even with readers who normally shy away from the genre.

Amber Young has always dreamed of the spotlight, and this debut drops readers right into the late-'90s pop explosion.

With girl group auditions, choreographed routines, and songs destined to top TRL, Amber's journey captures the intoxicating mix of ambition and artifice.

This light novel is pure cotton candy and kept me up until the wee hours of the night. But it also made me think more critically about how I engaged with media and how teen girls were treated in those early days of their careers.

April's small-town life is stifling, but her music is her ticket out. With a borrowed guitar and a voice full of longing, she drifts from one open mic to the next, chasing connection through her songs.

Every performance brings her closer to finding her new family and herself in this tender coming-of-age novel, which is one of my favorites.

Related- Allison Larkin Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Best Found Family Trope Books

This story spans two generations and stages, tracing Judie Zingerman's rise as one-half of a 1960s folk-rock duo and her daughter Emma's pursuit of alt-rock success in the 1990s.

As Emma pushes forward with her music career, she unearths Judie's private notebooks and lost songs, learning what fame cost her mother.

It's a lyrical, emotionally rich story about songwriting, legacy, and how the songs we inherit can shape us for better and worse.

If you are looking for a soapy Jewish family drama, this is the ticket!

Related- Best Books to Get Out of a Reading Slump

Billy is a music teacher and single dad whose life is flipped upside down when a rock star moves in next door.

Former band icon Margot Hammer isn't looking for the spotlight, but the rhythms of second chances play loudly between them.

Guitars, Baltimore dive bars, and unexpected harmony make this a story as big-hearted as it is entertaining.

In this quirky story, Prudence was once a piano prodigy, but her career stalled and her love for music faded. Now, decades later, she's given one more shot in a televised piano competition that might reignite her passion.

Music becomes the bridge between past regrets and present circumstances, offering readers a moving encore on reinvention.

This oral-history style novel reimagines the meteoric rise and fall of a '70s Afro-punk duo. With fictional interviews, album notes, and behind-the-scenes drama, it captures the electric energy of rock music colliding with politics and identity.

Opal's bold artistry and Nev's musical genius are best served up on audiobook for an immersive reading experience.

In 1960s New York, Benny Lamento, a talented white pianist, meets Esther Mine, a Black singer navigating a world stacked against her. Their music sparks more than applause. It ignites a forbidden, passionate love that defies racial boundaries, societal expectations, and family pressures.

As Benny and Esther compose songs and dreams together, they confront prejudice, jealousy, and the cost of following the heart.

In this age-gap romance, Solène is a 39-year-old gallery owner and single mother, living a carefully curated life until she meets Hayes Campbell, the 20-year-old lead singer of a wildly popular boy band.

Their attraction is electric, taboo, and undeniable, pushing Solène to question everything she thought she knew about love, desire, and timing. This novel is the perfect reading slump buster!

Related- Books About Art and Artists

In this trans story, Gala, a devoted fan, writes a long letter to her idol of a legendary '60s band. Through this epistolary story, we get peeks behind the myths, obsessions, and hidden truths of pop stardom.

Thornton's experimental novel speaks to fandom, gender, and the stories songs leave behind.

Ray McMillian dreams of becoming a world-class violinist, but his family dismisses his music until he discovers his grandmother's old violin is a priceless Stradivarius.

When it's stolen just before a major competition, Ray must race to recover it while confronting prejudice in the classical music world as a Black musician.

This literary thriller is beloved among many of our readers and I loved this story's concept.

In the 1970s, Jackie spent one unforgettable summer at her uncle's California estate, a retreat for folk musicians.

Decades later, she inherits the house and discovers long-lost tapes that could change everything she thought she knew.

The story moves between past jam sessions and present reckonings, set to a folk soundtrack of secrets.

Jenry Castillo, a musical prodigy from Miami, heads to Brown University to uncover the truth about his late father, a famous ballet dancer.

Along the way, he meets his estranged grandfather and discovers a hidden family web that challenges everything he thought he knew about his identity in this layered family drama.

This was a stellar audiobook experience!

Former metal guitarist Kris Pulaski discovers her band's frontman sold them out for fame, leaving her dreams in ruins.

Years later, she sets out on a cross-country quest to reclaim both her soul and her sound. Hendrix captures the grimy dive bars, riffs, and rebellious energy of heavy metal in this horror-tinged road trip story that cranks the volume all the way up.

Related- These Social Horror Books Make You Think

Allison Brinkley moves to New York and unexpectedly becomes the personal assistant to a troubled pop star. Suddenly, she's juggling teen stardom, viral meltdowns, and backstage chaos.

The world of stadium shows and celebrity drama becomes the backdrop for a funny and heartfelt story about family and second acts. I loved this one as a vacation read for a light escape!

Harlan is a gifted Black jazz guitarist who, along with his friend Lizard, travels from Harlem to Paris in the 1930s.

Their music lights up cabarets until the Nazi occupation shatters their world, landing them in a concentration camp.

This moving, unforgettable story, rooted in the rhythms of jazz and history, won an NAACP Award, and it was a sheer delight to spend an afternoon discussing this novel with the author and learning more behind her research process.

Related- 2022 Book Club Books

Fourteen-year-old Mary Jane takes a summer nanny job in 1970s Baltimore, only to find herself in the home of a rock star and his famous wife.

Suddenly, her buttoned-up world is filled with jam sessions, groupies, and an entirely new rhythm. Music serves as both backdrop and awakening as Mary Jane learns to question everything she's been taught.

I loved EVERY MINUTE of this story!

Our book club fell in love with this magical story set on a run-down London street in 1988, where Frank owns a record store and has an uncanny gift for matching people with the exact song they need, even if they don't know it yet.

But when Ilse, a mysterious woman, enters his shop, Frank's carefully curated world begins to change. It's a tender, melodic novel about love, healing, and the transformative power of music.

I don't know how else to describe it except that it feels like that joyous scene where everything is coming together in Notting Hill.

Related- JOIN MY BOOK CLUB

When aspiring singer Enchanted Jones meets legendary R&B artist Korey Fields, she believes her dreams are finally coming true. But the glamorous world of music soon reveals darker truths about exploitation and power.

Told in Jackson's sharp, propulsive style, this is a story about survival in the face of abuse where music is both dream and danger. The novel is heartbreaking, timely, and important!

Concert pianist Richard has built his identity around performance, but ALS begins to silence his music one note at a time. His estranged ex-wife steps in as caregiver, and together they face both the music of the past and the silence of their looming future.

Genova captures the devastating intersection of illness and artistry in this heartbreaking novel that broke my heart in a million pieces.

Related- The Best Disability Pride Month Books

Toni Bennett has spent her life on the sidelines of the Philadelphia music scene, hiding her talent and chasing stability.

When her estranged childhood friend drags her into the spotlight of an all-female rock band, she's forced to claim her stage.

Axelrod nails the details of rehearsal rooms, tour buses, and the struggle for respect in a male-dominated industry.

In this steamy historical romance story, Mallory is a single mom whose former high school flame, Monk Adams, has since become a famous singer, but years of silence lie between them.

When her son falls gravely ill, the question of whether Monk could be a biological father—and thus a potential match for a kidney transplant—forces Mallory to confront their past.

Don't be fooled by the light tone of this story; it features an incredible dual timeline initiative that will also transport you to Egypt. Our book club loved it!

Related- 2025 Book Club Books

This buzzy oral history follows a fictional '70s rock band through meteoric fame and spectacular collapse. Told in interviews, it captures recording sessions, backstage fights, and the alchemy of songwriting.

Daisy's magnetic voice and Billy's tortured leadership make for irresistible tension that you'll flip for on audiobook.

Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel connects lives across decades through the power of music. From record producers to washed-up musicians, each chapter pulses with the highs and lows of the music industry.

The novel experiments with form—emails, slideshows, fragmented timelines—mirroring the chaos of art itself.

It's a daring, inventive book that so many readers love.

Carter Wills rose to fame as the lead singer of the English alt-rock band Mayluna in the 1990s, his lyrics echoing heartbreak and longing across arenas and radio waves.

Behind the music, though, lies a secret connection to a woman whose love changed everything, yet remains hidden from the world.

Rich with the grit of touring life, the magic of songwriting, and the complexities of fame and desire, I ate this one up with a spoon!

Greta is an indie singer-songwriter who once lit up stages and built her reputation on personal stories and guitar strings, but then tragedy hit when her mother died suddenly.

After a viral breakdown onstage, she retreats from the spotlight, torn between grief, guilt, and the music she still wants to create.

When she joins her estranged father on an Alaskan cruise planned by her late mother, the journey becomes a cathartic chord progression for them both.

Colton Gentry thought he'd left his country-music stardom behind after the industry canceled him. But when he returns to his Kentucky hometown, guitar still in hand, he finds himself pulled back into his hometown through a new role at a restaurant owned by his high school sweetheart.

Old wounds, lost loves, and the tug of songwriting all resurface as he faces what it means to live after loss and begin anew.

Related- Jeff Zentner Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Best Jeff Zentner Books

Related- These Books About Food Hit the Sweet Spot

Patti Smith's memoir captures her early years in New York alongside photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, tracing their struggles, collaborations, and the gritty, electric atmosphere of the city's art and music scene in the '60s and '70s.

From flea-market discoveries to crashing at the Chelsea Hotel, Smith's poetic reflections offer a front-row seat to the making of a punk-poet icon.

It's raw, luminous, and brimming with the rhythm of an artist finding her voice.

From drumming in Nirvana to fronting Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl recounts his life in a memoir as energetic and heartfelt as one of his shows.

His stories swing from chance encounters with legends to parenting, from scrappy beginnings to stadium tours.

Filled with warmth, humor, and behind-the-scenes moments, Grohl narrates the audiobook that serves as both a rock history and a deeply personal diary.

Meet one of my favorite books of the year.

The Sideways Life of Denny Voss is a gentle story with a few explosive f-bombs for good measure, exploring the collision of good intentions when Denny, a neurodivergent adult, finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery in which he is the only suspect for a prestigious man in their small town.

What I loved is Kennedy's earnest balance of never making the story saccharine, while acknowledging each of these characters' flaws, especially his complicated relationship with his absentee mother, who abandoned him as a child.

This story indeed insists on showing how messy lives can be full of bright spots.

Related- Holly Kennedy Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Books With Autistic Characters

One of my favorite thriller writers is back with a brilliantly funny, twisty heist caper novel. This story brings together a washed-up rockstar who reunites his old band for one final gig—and a daring robbery!

Although the plan has a lot of plot holes, this crime may provide Mo with a chance to connect with the daughter he's never known. So he and his gang of middle-aged has-beens dive into what will be the most outrageous heist New Jersey's ever seen, but only if they can pull it off and stay alive.

Packed with astonishing twists, Kardos, known for his comedic thrillers, is back to wow us again in this new novel that you can pre-order for December.

Release Date- 2 December 2025

Related- Michael Kardos Interview (MomAdvice Book Club)

Related- Captivating Books On Con Artists

There are no heroes to root for in this story, but I loved this biting, darkly funny debut about house-hunting mania in an overheated market with all my heart.

When one woman's quest to win a house becomes a satire of status, Kashino showcases the crazy lengths we'll go to make a front lawn look like a life.

I laughed a lot over Margot's antics, but that's not to say she doesn't layer in a good backstory for the character as we learn more about her father, for whom she learned a few tricks of the trade on how to get what you want out of life.

I'm excited to introduce you to the author on the Book Gang Podcast later this fall.

Release Date- 25 November 2025

Related- Marisa Kashino Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Dark Comedy Books

When the family matriarch, Roses Sun, faces an existential crisis to produce a male heir bearing the clan's surname, she fears her generation is the one in which their esteemed lineage ends.

Faced with this terrifying fate, Roses summons her favorite nephew, Wayward. Believing him to possess the "lucky seed," Roses presents a mandatory suggestion: father a baby boy who will inherit everything or else.

Succession meets Crazy Rich Asians in this chaotic, darkly funny romp about the lengths a wealthy family will go to ensure the birth of a male heir from the gay black sheep of their clan.

Release Date- 11 November 2025

Related- 14 Books By AAPI Authors to Read

Harkin's bawdy, brilliant dive into one of history's most audacious identity swaps spins fact and fiction into a raucous tale.

Reimagining the little-known story of a 15th-century farm boy thrown into royalty, Harkin delivers a hero who shape-shifts his way through courtly intrigue, rebellion, and betrayal with cunningness and surprising heart.

Laced with wickedly profane and period-perfect language, readers follow this would-be Earl of Warwick as he navigates a life that was never meant to be his.

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide (Read for FREE!)

This new novel delivers a glam-metal, '80s-tinged romp that offers readers part rock saga and part absurdist caper.

Drummer Rikki Thunder dreams of rock stardom in ’80s L.A., but his band’s world tour turns into Cold War chaos when they’re caught up in espionage and revolution. Kennedy blends satire, music-scene absurdity, and political farce into a laugh-out-loud romp that’s as over the top as a drum solo in leather pants.

If you like your humor loud, raucous, and stage-diving, this book delivers on audiobook format narrated by the incomparable Wil Wheaton.

This book has been described by many fellow readers as weird, darkly funny, and unignorably. unusual story,

Linda spends her days moderating toxic internet comments and her nights sneaking off to airports to admire airplanes. It's a hobby that turns into a full-blown romantic fixation that is as intriguing as she is.

Folk imagines a protagonist whose obsession with airplanes becomes a surreal lens on our desires, loneliness, and internet-era strangeness.

Percival Everett takes a bold swing at Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and delivers something blisteringly clever and wildly entertaining.

By shifting the focus to Jim, Everett not only restores him to the role of hero but also gives him wit, voice, and the sly ability to turn the tables on every assumption made about him.

There’s biting social commentary here, but also laugh-out-loud moments as Jim punctures the pretensions of the world around him with sarcasm, cunning, and a storyteller’s sense of timing.

I can't wait to discuss this with my book club this year.

Related- JOIN MY BOOK CLUB

In this speculative fiction book, Lily wakes up in a chic desert compound alongside nine other women, who are contestants in a brutal reality show where they must couple up and complete hilariously inane tasks to survive.

Rawle's opener tosses contestants around on the floor like debris. These women are easy to confuse, but this appears to be intentional, from one blonde looking at another and believing it to be a mirror of herself, to a male castmate who loved to throw around big words that he did not understand, the author's cheeky humor plays into some "Barbie & Ken" themes that made me laugh.

Related- Immersive Speculative Fiction Books to Read Now

I have this razor-smart novel on my book stack right now and can't wait to dive into Walter's sharp social observation with satirical flourishes. Walter uses wry, comic touches amid a story about disconnection and redemption.

Not knock-down slapstick, but sly and frequently hilarious, according to my incredible cohost on the FULLY BOOKED Show, where we share our latest reviews every month.

Related- JOIN MY PATREON FOR FULLY BOOKED

Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this YA debut takes on endometriosis and medical gaslighting with a protagonist who refuses to downplay her pain.

Delia's sharp, witty voice makes the story as entertaining as it is eye-opening, offering a much-needed, unflinchingly honest look at what it means to fight for your health when no one believes you.

I gave this moving, funny, and beautifully layered sibling story five stars.

Smith embeds flashbacks to their childhood road trips to add bittersweet nostalgia while keeping the story brisk and engaging throughout.

I laughed, teared up, and didn't want the story to end. These siblings feel like real people you root for, even when they're a mess.

Wood’s novel may sound saccharine, but I promise it’s anything but, and it’s genuinely funny. Some of the best laughs come from inmates filling out book club feedback forms, all under the watchful eye of Harriet, a retired English teacher who kicks off this story with gusto.

Then comes Violet, newly released from prison after a tragic mistake, whose path collides with Frank, a widower still reeling from the loss of his wife. With Harriet’s steady guidance, their three lives begin to tangle together in surprising ways.

Wise, witty, and deeply compassionate, this is a novel about the power of stories, the grace of second chances, and how laughter can carry us through even the hardest chapters. This was a book club hit!

Related- Stunning Books About Books

Two rival bookshops, one irresistible rom-com. Josie, the meticulous literary-fiction devotee, and Ryan, the free-spirited romance-only seller, are forced into competition when their shared owner dangles one manager's job between them. The twist? They've been anonymous confidants in an online book forum all along.

If you loved You've Got Mail, this book is perfect for you.

Related- New Books About Bookstores

Annie Hartnett delivered another zany and big-hearted tale, kicking off this literary fiction story with a death-predicting nursing home cat named Pancakes and only getting wilder from there.

When broke, sixty-something lottery winner PJ Halliday inherits his late brother's grandkids, he reluctantly includes them, his adult daughter, and the morbidly magical cat, heading west on a misguided mission to win back his high school sweetheart.

Your heart will be pulled in all different directions, especially as the story concludes with a gorgeous twist.

Related- Annie Hartnett Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Best Books About Road Trips

Blending memoir and cultural critique, Amanda Hess takes on the strange terrain of parenting in the algorithm age. Beginning with a complicated pregnancy, she traces how technology—fertility apps, genetic tests, influencer culture, even baby monitors—shapes not only how we parent but how we think about parenthood itself.

Smart, funny, and piercingly observant, Hess captures the absurdities and anxieties of raising kids while everything is made clickable, trackable, and marketable.

Related- Best Memoirs to Read for Nonfiction November

This biting, satirical domestic suspense story features a mother who believes that her son may be involved in the disappearance of his childhood bully and is determined to get to the bottom of it come hell or high water.

This novel offers some surprising and laugh-out-loud twists as they get to the bottom of the mystery. It kept me guessing, but more importantly, I felt highly entertained.

Florence is the kind of unlikable protagonist I love—insufferable, messy, and unapologetically flawed. I indulged in her antics, and Harman's writing made the experience deliciously fun.

Related- Sarah Harman Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

In the overlooked Tuscan village of Lazzarini Boscarino, a prized six-pound truffle is discovered, giving the eccentric townspeople a chance to outshine their pretentious neighbors.

Mayor Delizia rallies a colorful misfit cast to guard the treasure and revive the town's fortunes. But with rivals and secrets piling up, small-town chaos is never far behind.

This over-the-top truffle farce from the author of Hollow Kingdom had me belly-laughing through much of her cinematic storytelling, and it reminded me of Jamie (Colin Firth) and his Portuguese housekeeper, Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz), in Love Actually, as the town comes together for some adorable reasons.

Professor Daphne Ouverture's brilliant yet insufferable colleague is murdered, and she finds herself entangled in a dangerous game. Wallbrook presents a campus crime caper with a wink that had me laughing hysterically through its dialogue.

Cozy, clever, and frequently funny in a literary way. It was one of my favorite books of the summer, and I'm eager to explore the subsequent adventures in this cozy series.

Related- Zoe Wallbrook Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Unlikely Amateur Sleuths Are On the Case In These Books

What happens when a woman who once dabbled in a "love elixir" is suddenly face-to-face with the boy it backfired on... seventy years later?

Augusta Stern may be retired, but her wit is as sharp as ever, especially when sparring with Irving Rivkin, the one who got away (and isn't about to let her forget it).

Full of zippy banter, second-chance sparks, and just a hint of old-world magic, this novel proves it's never too late to fall in love or trade barbs with the only person who can keep up with you. It was a massive hit with my book club!

Related- Best Second Chance Romance Novels

Julie Chan has spent most of her life overlooked until she stumbles upon her influencer twin's body and slips into her perfectly filtered world.

Suddenly, she's juggling skincare sponsorships, curated brunches, and a dangerously exclusive clique of Instagram-famous besties.

Darkly funny and razor-sharp, this debut skewers influencer culture while unraveling a mystery that proves sometimes the scariest thing isn't murder, but it is going viral. This thriller will check the boxes for horror enthusiasts.

Related- Books About Twins for Double the Drama

Related- Liann Zhang Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

When the apocalypse hits, it's not humans but a foul-mouthed crow named S.T. who steals the show. Buxton's debut is irreverent, surprisingly tender, and full of laugh-out-loud animal commentary about what happens when the pets outlive their masters.

I laughed uncontrollably through this one, and it was worthy of loud and obnoxious laughter. I can't rave enough about what a treat this book was and a perfect Halloween read for those seeking that in their reading life.

Related- Atmospheric Books to Get Lost in This Season

She’s a bodyguard, and he’s America’s most wholesome movie star. Center flips the protective bodyguard trope on its head with a rom-com that’s equal parts tenderhearted and laugh-out-loud funny.

Between the swoony moments, absurd situations, and genuine heart, this is Katherine Center at her best, and I grinned so hard my face hurt.

Related- Best One Bed Trope Books

What if your harshest critic turned out to be your perfect match? That's the setup for this smart, snarky rom-com about Natalie, a debut author still stung by a brutal one-star review, and Rob, the grumpy academic who wrote it.

When weddings and life events keep throwing them together, the banter turns sharp, the sparks undeniable, and the line between hate and something sweeter begins to blur.

Hankin nails the humor of book culture while serving up a romance that's both witty and winning.

This book had When Harry Met Sally vibes, and I loved it more than the recent Emily Henry novels Get it!

Related- Laura Hankin Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Kuang's razor-sharp satire aims at the publishing industry with a story that's as uncomfortable as it is hilarious.

When a struggling white writer steals her late friend's manuscript and rebrands herself as "Juniper Song," she's suddenly a literary darling, but at what cost?

With biting humor, cringeworthy Instagram posts, and a pitch-perfect takedown of ambition run amok, this novel skewers cultural appropriation, envy, and the messy underbelly of book culture.

Related- Books About Authors and Publishing

Inspired by Lane's years as Carrie Fisher's assistant, this novel is sharp, hilarious, and oddly heartwarming.

Charlie, a disillusioned writer's assistant, lands a job with the eccentric, larger-than-life Kathi Kannon, a Hollywood icon who's equal parts glamorous diva and fragile human being. What begins as an exhausting ride through celebrity chaos transforms into a strangely beautiful friendship.

Equal parts gossip-sparkly and heart-squeezing, this novel is Hollywood satire with a soul.

Related- Byron Lane Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Marcy Dermansky's my go-to choice for deadpan, absurd, and deliciously weird storytelling.

Allison Brody escapes an abusive boyfriend and buys a small house by the ocean, only to be concussed by a falling coconut. From there, her life spirals into a series of bizarre, bleakly funny misadventures involving brain injuries, strange men, and a struggle to reclaim her sense of self.

Brisk and compulsively readable, this short read delivered on audible chuckles as this story of survival turned into a dark comedy of resilience.

When two children literally burst into flames whenever they get upset, their new caretaker, Lillian, is tasked with keeping them safe and unscorched.

What could have been pure farce instead becomes a hilarious and unexpectedly tender meditation on belonging in messy families.

Wilson has a gift for making the surreal feel ordinary, turning spontaneous combustion into a heartwarming (and hilarious) parenting metaphor.

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

Patrick, once a beloved sitcom star and now a semi-reclusive Palm Springs icon, isn't exactly parenting material.

But when tragedy leaves him in charge of his niece and nephew for the summer, "GUP" (Gay Uncle Patrick) must swap martinis for macaroni and learn that grief and kids don't come with a script.

Witty, warm, and endlessly quotable, The Guncle is a comedy about love, loss, and the unexpected ways family saves us.

If Jane Austen had written a sitcom, it would look a lot like Emma.

The novel follows well-meaning but hopelessly meddlesome Emma Woodhouse, who’s convinced she has a talent for matchmaking, despite every single one of her schemes going hilariously wrong.

Between her misplaced confidence, witty sparring with Mr. Knightley, and the endless social blunders of her neighbors, Emma delivers some of Austen’s sharpest comedic moments. 

This science fiction book is filled with laughs and "boy humor" that I couldn't wait to share with my husband, from hilarious mating rituals to heart-pounding danger in this fast-paced adventure through an alternate dimension where Godzilla-sized creatures roam.

Scalzi loads the story with pop culture jokes, workplace satire, and just enough heart to balance the chaos of saving monsters the size of skyscrapers.

I love that Scalzi never takes things too seriously, and if you want to go on a bender with a funny writer, this one is the perfect anecdote.

Two radio colleagues fake a breakup podcast as cohosts, but the twist is that they were never together. Their on-air bickering is pure screwball comedy, and the fake-it-til-you-make-it tension off the air is just as fun.

The inclusion of podcast scripts only ups the delight factor, making this rom-com as bingeable as your favorite show.

Jen Dixon never signed up to be the perfect kindergarten class mom, and thank goodness, because her unfiltered emails to parents are what make her unforgettable.

Armed with sarcasm, a knack for wine-fueled honesty, and zero tolerance for sanctimommies, Jen turns school politics into pure comedy.

Laurie Gelman nails the chaos of modern parenting in a satire that's both wickedly funny and a little too real.

Related- Unforgettable Campus Novels

From lutefisk dinners to chocolate-drenched county fair bars, Stradal spins a story as quirky and satisfying as a Midwestern potluck.

The novel follows Eva Thorvald, a gifted chef whose life is revealed through a series of interconnected food-obsessed tales, from her chili contest beginnings to her rise as a culinary star.

Equal parts tender, funny, and flavorful, this is a love letter to eccentric families, Midwest traditions, and the meals that shape us.

Related- These Books About Food Hit the Sweet Spot

Small-town drama meets ghostly commentary in this quirky, big-hearted novel that I count as my favorite audiobook experience.

Emma Starling returns home to care for her dying father, only to get swept into the mystery of a missing friend told through the gossip of a cemetery full of chatty spirits.

With wit, warmth, and a touch of the absurd, Hartnett spins a story about family and the unlikely places where hope hides.

Ember is in her twenties and struggling financially. Now rejected for her 37th time for a job, she decides to fabricate her education and race to land a corporate position.

On her way to her promising job interview, she encounters a handsome man named Danuwoa, who works at the same corporation, and their relationship blossoms into romantic shenanigans, despite the strict corporate policy.

This novel offers many laugh-out-loud moments as she navigates the weird corporate culture, from not understanding "all hands on deck" to never knowing what they do in the company due to their vague website description. I laughed so hard through these scenes.

I don't know how Moyes does it, but this book made me laugh, cry, and connect with every character.

A struggling single mom with a math-prodigy daughter is offered the chance of a lifetime to enter a math contest happening in Scotland that provides a cash prize that could cover her daughter's education.

Determined to seize this chance, she does everything possible to get her daughter there, including hitching a ride with an unlikely man who may ultimately change their lives forever.

Moyes proves she can deliver both romantic feels and laugh-out-loud detours.

This laugh-out-loud romance combines the excitement of 90 Day Fiancé with the thrill of The Amazing Race, as two women who've never met before must convince their families that they're in love and getting married within six weeks to win a cash prize on the reality show, Instant I Do.

Prepare for fast-paced drama, steamy open-door scenes, and thought-provoking exploration of family, identity, and faith, all accompanied by a Real World-inspired confessional cam.

Related- Best Books About Weddings

For Graham, a private introvert, social situations can be quite exhausting.

Audra, his new wife, often puts him in circumstances where he must interact with unusual people, such as the eccentric members of his son’s origami club. This leads him from one hilariously awkward moment to another.

When Audra decides it is time to be friends with his ex-wife, Elspeth, she throws Graham's world into a total tailspin as he begins to acknowledge the contrasts between these two women and wonder why he let his first wife go.

It is in these moments that he must face his own choices and whether he made the right ones.

Heiny's comedy of manners is sharp, laugh-out-loud funny, and sneakily profound.

A chaotic road trip, a reluctant travel partner, and a box of cremains riding shotgun. What could possibly go right?

Adler had me cackling from the start, especially when the couple crashes at a bed-and-breakfast adorned with paint-by-number Jesuses. With banter as quick as the mile markers flying past, this enemies-to-lovers rom-com is equal parts heartfelt and hilarious.

For historical fiction fans, the dual timeline offers incredible insights into women's history and a snapshot of women's rights in the past.

Two childhood best friends turned bitter rivals reluctantly reunite in their thirties when asked to grant their beloved English teacher one last wish: the road trip of a lifetime. The catch? He’s terminally ill, and they’ll need a van loaded with medical equipment to make it happen.

Cochrun infuses even the heaviest moments with warmth and humor, delivering a zany, heartfelt ride where old grudges, unresolved feelings, and laugh-out-loud mishaps all collide.

Nobody writes banter like Emily Henry, and Book Lovers might be her sharpest yet.

Narrator Julia Whelan nails every one-liner as Nora, the ruthless literary agent, and Charlie, the broody editor, toss verbal grenades that slowly turn into flirting.

This rom-com book is a love letter to publishing and rom-com tropes, delivering ample laughs alongside a swoony, surprising romance.

Related- Julia Whelan Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

David Sedaris has a knack for turning his own awkwardness into comedy gold.

In this memorable essay collection, he wax's poetically on everything from his oddball childhood in North Carolina to his doomed attempts at mastering the French language. This book made us laugh until we cried, as all of his books do. 

Sedaris certainly reminds us that life’s cringiest moments are also the funniest, if you know how to tell the story.

Roseanne Barr's daughter pulls back the curtain on her surreal Hollywood childhood, complete with fat camps, psychiatric hospitals, and growing up in the shadow of fame.

Pentland writes with sharp wit and surprising vulnerability, showing that sometimes the punchline is simply about survival. I consider my interview with the memoirist on Book Gang to be one of my favorites; being entrusted with her story was an incredible gift.

Related- Jenny Pentland Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

From Spanx to wedding planning to the indignities of adulthood, Klein's essays are brutally honest and hilariously self-deprecating. She mines everyday embarrassments for comedy while sneaking in sharp truths about our gender and identity.

There are a couple of raunchy chapters I could have done without, but the majority of the book was just sincere and hilarious. I'm so glad I read this one!

When Meddelin Chan accidentally kills her blind date, her well-meaning but wildly overbearing aunties swoop in to “help” with the cleanup, and chaos ensues.

Sutanto blends rom-com, mystery, and family farce into a madcap caper where homicide is somehow both hilarious and heartwarming.

The rapid-fire banter between the aunties steals every scene, making this book a laugh-out-loud delight.

Jeff Lindsay narrates his own book, and it is perfect. In this first book in the series, Dexter is a blood-spatter analyst by day, meticulous serial killer by night.

The twist? He only hunts the truly guilty.

With sardonic wit and macabre charm, Lindsay's debut introduced readers to crime fiction's most unlikely antihero.

Equal parts chilling and laugh-out-loud twisted, this dark comedy of murder launched a cult phenomenon.

Related- 30 Fictional Serial Killer Books

A disabled man with a sharp sense of humor may have witnessed a kidnapping from his porch in this hilarious mystery.  Leitch keeps the tension high but filters it through witty, observant narration that makes this thriller unexpectedly funny and profoundly moving.

Daniel remains one of the most memorable protagonists I've had the pleasure of reading.

Related- The Best Disability Pride Books

Struggling novelist, single mom, and possible hitwoman? Finlay Donovan stumbles into a murder-for-hire scheme with a comic flair that makes her the patron saint of chaotic women everywhere.

This book is laugh-out-loud funny with incredibly witty dialogue best served up as an audiobook experience.

Finlay's unlikely accomplice and love interests just add more and more fun to the plot and showcase why this series has staying power.

Online dating is rough enough without a body count. After a brutal breakup, Gwen reluctantly turns to a dating app, only to discover her matches are winding up dead, and she's the common denominator.

Half rom-com, half murder mystery, this sharp debut skewers swipe culture with biting wit, equal parts cringe and comedy. I loved every minute of it.

Related- L.M. Chilton Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

An elderly tea shop owner finds a dead body in her shop and decides she's a better detective than the police. Vera's nosiness, meddling, and unshakable confidence make this mystery equal parts cozy and hilarious as we dig into this case.

As she investigates, Vera unexpectedly finds herself forming deep connections with her customers, forcing her to juggle detective work with her growing friendships.

If you’re craving a charming and cozy mystery, the audiobook of this novel is delightful.

Lavelle's speculative fiction debut was one of my favorites of the year.

In this story, Kostya discovers that he has a unique talent for experiencing the aftertastes of favorite foods from those who have passed away. Although he cannot see the ghosts that surround him, he can create a special connection for diners that leads to a fascinating culinary career.

Flavor profiles develop a bit differently in this world, where bitter can be the taste of coffee but also the taste of the last conversation shared with a dad who never understood you. As the ghosts come to life,

Lavelle imagines an environment where these worlds merge, a concept I thoroughly enjoyed.

Related- Daria Lavelle Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Immersive Speculative Fiction Books

In this Chocolat pequel, the long-awaited story of Vianne Rocher unfolds six years before she opens her scandalous chocolaterie in the small French village of Lansquenet.

At just twenty-one years old, Sylviane arrives in Marseille to start a new life and quickly charms her way into a job as a waitress at a run-down bistro. Under the guidance of the eccentric Guy Lacarrière, she discovers the joy of cooking, indulges in a secret love affair, and, for the first time, uncovers the true magic of chocolate.

This prequel has been extremely well-received by fans of Harris's writing, who also serves as the narrator for the audiobook version.

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

If you are familiar with Buxton's writing, you know you're in for a quirky adventure, and this story is no exception to her career.

A dying Italian village is upended by the discovery of a colossal truffle, sending townspeople (and truffle hounds) into a zany, heartfelt scramble for reinvention under its celebrity. Buxton leans heavily into this culinary caper with truffle mania, kitchen set-pieces, and omniscient humor abound.

This novel's prose has so much flipping flourish that I felt all the pathways in my brain light up like a runway, so I recommend it to our maximalist readers who love descriptive stories.

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide

Larkin is no stranger to books about food, as she has chosen a restaurant setting for this novel and The People We Keep, describing them as bookends to each other.

After a financial emergency, Freya reluctantly returns to the home she inherited and must find her footing again with her family and friends while navigating a troubling secret from her past that unspools slowly for the reader.

Now settling into a job at a cozy restaurant where unlikely people and food pairings find each other, shenanigans ensue when an ambitious chef's culinary delights aren't a hit with patrons who prefer the straightforward dishes of the past.

As a new romance blossoms and a found family emerges, readers have much to love in this ambitious novel that is among my favorites of the year.

Related- Allison Larkin Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Unforgettable Circus Books

I fell head over heels for Chong's character, Jack Jr., who suffered a coma for two years and missed the pandemic entirely.

Upon his hospital discharge, he returns to his childhood home and discovers a new sense of purpose at the family restaurant. There, his father, Appa, has mastered the art of sushi in a zany but harmonious hybrid of Korean-Japanese food experiences.

This career path marks a new beginning as Jack mends his past relationships and unexpectedly develops a love affair with his nurse. Don't sleep on this under-the-radar gem.

Related- Jinwoo Chong Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Books About Nurses

Hai is trying to turn his life around by taking a job at a local chain restaurant while taking on an unexpected position as a caregiver. There, he learns that the franchise promotes the idea of delivering the American dream by offering a Thanksgiving meal to every customer, every day of the week.

But, much like America, the dream is manufactured- frozen food reheated, a crumbling infrastructure of franchise overlords, and each struggling to pay their bills.

Somehow, that doesn't overshadow the way these workers take pride in what they are selling, whether it is the addition of cake mix to the corporate cornbread or the delicate carving of the chicken; Vuong shows the bonds and pride found in restaurant settings through this unusual found family.

As a former waitress, I felt at home in his microwaved food setting. This story was impeccable.

Related- Celebrity Book Club Deep Dive With Tellthebeees (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- My Top Celebrity Book Club Picks

I knew nothing about the process of olive oil making before reading this, but Hilje did, and it shows on the page.

When Ivona's father's health fails him, she is charged with settling his estate, which includes the olive grove trees that reside on the property.

As a new prospective buyer moves in, we learn more about the making and production of this oil, the rich history of this land, and watch her navigate the heart wrenching decision on whether or not to say goodbye to her family legacy.

Related- Lidija Hilje Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- These Sea Books Belong in Your Beach Bag Now

Related- Best Books About Midlife

Twenty-something Frida lands in Paris in 1991, enchanted by butter-soaked cafés and dreaming of a future as a war correspondent. She writes to a Seattle bookshop and in return, sparks an unexpected friendship with Kate, the perky bookseller who's quietly aching to be a writer.

Through letters, they trade recipes and heartbreak, and vivid descriptions of a world in upheaval. Fay is best known for her epistolary novel, Love & Saffron, drawing on her culinary expertise and years as a food and travel editor to bring kitchens, flavors, and culture vividly to life in her stories.

Related- 17 Stunning Friendship Stories to Read Now

Rawle's novel centers a Love Island meets Hunger Games experience where contestants must participate in a chore system that's prize-driven to unlock food and water or risk being returned to the burning world filled with its own dystopian disasters.

Task by task, intimacy, desperation, and power dynamics escalate until the race for achieving the final goal becomes a fight for survival and a growing paranoia as they fear how far the network will go.

Perhaps, like me, you'll find yourself reflecting on the toilet paper shortage during the pandemic and how animalistic we can become when faced with scarcity, much like this story's shockingly diabolical third act.

All of Stradal's books have food themes, but this is the one that captured my heart the most.

When a father dies and does not split the inheritance evenly between his daughters, family drama ensues.

Helen, meanwhile, has used her inheritance to open one of the most successful light breweries in the country. She has been doing well with her business for many years, but as the craft beer industry moves in, she finds that she is desperate for help.

When Edith's granddaughter, Diana, decides to learn the IPA business, Diana's path crosses with Helen's. Diana is determined to forge the same path, and her new business might be the glue needed to bring these two sisters back together again. This story is exquisite.

In Peters's beloved story, the Mi'kmaq family travels from Nova Scotia to Maine every summer to pick berries.

But one August day in 1962, four-year-old Ruthie disappears forever, and her brother Joe is left carrying a grief that spans decades.

Amanda Peters's debut, a Carnegie Medal winner, not only unearths the personal trauma but stirs a haunting examination of the colonial fault lines that fracture families and communities.

Related- Best Atmospheric Books

Related- Books on Grief and Loss

Zara, facing financial demise, cobbles her way to freedom through ghostwriting gigs. Now successfully sought after, she acquires a lucrative opportunity to ghostwrite a celebrity chef's memoir.

The fact that Zara's never heard of Jane's Food Television career seems fine with them both, especially as this job comes with a sumptuous work-at-home stay equipped with all the modern amenities.

As the women begin to collaborate on unearthing Jane's troubled past, the project pulls her into her orbit in other ways that surprise her. But none is quite as startling as the unsettling clicking of a security camera as she nestles into her bed on that first night.

Related- 2024 Summer Reading Guide

Related- Fascinating Books About Authors and Publishing

When Hope shows up at her estranged aunt Peg’s cherry orchard in Northern Michigan with her traumatized ten-year-old daughter in tow, she’s carrying a secret heavier than her suitcase.

Peg agrees to take them in, but only on two conditions. Hope must help with the cherry harvest and she must keep her distance. As the season shifts and cherries ripen, Hope and her daughter begin to rediscover roots and the gentlest kind of redemption.

Related- Molly Fader Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Sloan's magical realism story follows a woman working in the tech field who receives a sourdough starter that changes her life.

When Lois inherits a sourdough starter from two eccentric brothers, she has no idea her life is about to ferment into something entirely new. As she feeds and tends to the starter, it begins to behave… oddly.

Soon, she finds herself pulled from her sterile world of coding into underground food markets and secret societies that change her life entirely. I was transfixed by this story!

Baldree's descriptions of the bakery treats, cobbled streets, and the scent of the air create an immersive experience in this cozy fantasy story.

She finds an unexpected partner in her quest to establish the coffeehouse in Tandri, a succubus, who has come to work at the cafe and helps Viv as she makes the necessary changes to lure in customers and turn her space into a community hub.

As discoveries about coffee habits are made, the coffee shop updates its chalkboard to reflect these changes, making it a delightful ritualistic reading choice to end your day well.

Related- Cozy Fantasy Books

If you're looking for a cozy murder mystery series, A Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery series is a perfect fit. In this first book, a notoriously nasty food critic comes in to do his usual complaining and critiquing of a restaurant, but ends up dead on the floor instead.

Lila has been tasked with saving the failing family restaurant, but finds herself as the number one suspect when investigating this murder, tarnishing the restaurant's reputation further.

Intent on saving her family's legacy, she becomes her own detective and decides to run an informal investigation to clear her family's name.

This novel includes fun recipes at the end, for replicating a few of these great dishes that you are reading about.

Related- Unlikely Amateur Sleuths Are On the Case In These Books

Lange's Irish family drama bursts with juicy family secrets told through shifting viewpoints. Speaking stylistically, her choice to end one perspective with a sentence and then repeat with the next family member with a different perspective showed why this debut has stuck like superglue in my brain.

After a car crash sends Sunday Brennan home, long-buried family secrets threaten the future of their family pub. The mystery is, why did she go, and what relationships will she disrupt by returning?

I loved how their Irish heritage is a prominent element of this story, offering readers equal parts heart and humor. In one passage, Lange declares, "Shame and guilt are like plagues. And we Irish wield them like weapons and wear them like medals."

Yasmen and Josiah own a family restaurant together and are navigating the complexities of co-parenting and the dissolution of their marriage partnership after a profound loss. But as they begin to navigate the dating world, they end up discovering a renewed passion for one another.

This steamy, rekindled romance is fraught with urgency, uncovering tragic family secrets, and steamy open-door moments set in their family-owned restaurant world.

Please check the trigger warnings for this novel to see if it is a good fit for your reading life.

Related- Kennedy Ryan Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Pepper and Jack both have parents who own family restaurants. When the two end up getting in a Twitter war, over a grilled cheese recipe, the sparks don't just fly online, but IRL, too.

If you are a fan of Wendy's savage tweets, you will appreciate how perfectly Lord captures the meme generation. The back-and-forth in their Twitter streams is perfection and builds into an adorably awkward love story for these teens, delightfully narrated on audiobook for a light reading escape.

More important than that, though, it is the self-discoveries that they each make about how they see their roles playing out in these family restaurants.

Related- Books to Get Out of a Reading Slump

This novel was the book that made me an Allegra Goodman fan. Two very different sisters—one a tech CEO in the dot-com boom and another a philosophy grad who works at a used bookstore—find their worlds colliding when a trove of antique cookbooks surfaces.

The true appeal of the book for me was how vividly she was able to capture this time period and the significance of the dot-com bubble's rise and fall. It really brought back so many memories of the start-ups that my husband & I both ventured into when we first were married and I admired the scope that Goodman tackled from this era.

This book will be an excellent fit for our literary fiction enthusiasts!

Related- Best Literary Fiction Books For Character-Driven Adventures

This evocative sapphic story starts as two separate threads. Sara ran away from home at sixteen and, years later, is now one of the most sought-after bartenders in Los Angeles, while Emilie works as a florist at Yerba Buena, where she arranges the centerpieces for the restaurant.

As Emilie engages in a messy affair with the married owner, Lacour takes us on a beautiful, winding journey as the women discover themselves before they can find each other.

Be warned, you will crave a well-made drink and a delicious meal, as this 5-star story encompasses all your senses.

Miles runs the Empire Grill in a fading Maine mill town. Divorced and feeling tethered by his business, his life takes a detour as he finally finds the courage to confront the past in this moving small-town story.

Russo was recently named an Oprah's Book Club author for his novel, Bridge of Sighs, which makes me excited to explore this backlist gem from 2005 as I become more acquainted with his work.

Colton, navigating a media circus after a drunken rant, finds his music career canceled and returns home to recover.

Unexpectedly eating a meal in the restaurant of his old girlfriend, Luann, he discovers she's now the proud owner of a local farm-to-table restaurant, who, ultimately, decides to set aside her own misgivings to allow Colton to work as a sous chef for the restaurant.

It's no surprise that this slow-burning romance is best captured during the flashback to their childhood, thanks to his confidence as a young adult writer.

Zentner also explores unknown writing terrain by navigating themes of divorce, parenting, and sobriety in their adult moments.

Related- Best Second Chane Romance Novels

In this young adult novel, Penelope knows the kitchen is her sanctuary, and dreaming of opening a pastelería beside her dad's taco stand isn't just ambition- it's her destiny.

But when family pressure fractures that dream, everything falls apart in her life until Xander arrives at Nacho's Tacos and asks the questions she's too afraid to ask herself.

As their connection deepens, Pen must choose between following her own path and preserving the community and traditions she loves in this mouth-watering debut.

This debut will tick the boxes for my Hallmark movie fans. Two small-town fried chicken restaurants, two feuding families, and one reality TV competition to decide whose recipe rules the roost. What could go wrong?

When sisters Mae and Amanda face off, they discover that rivalry isn't just about food, but about discovering their individual identities, sorting through family baggage, and finding the courage to claim what truly matters.

Dell'Antonia mixes humor and heartache into a story as crispy as its Southern setting.

You know that magical question you get asked about who you would pick, living or dead, to share a dream dinner with? Serle decides actually to explore that in her charming novel.

Sabrina arrives for her thirtieth birthday dinner and is greeted by her dream dinner attendees, all arranged by her best friend.  Sabrina's list includes several important people from her past and Audrey Hepburn (because why not?).

When considering who to invite to our table, we often overlook the dynamic that may arise between guests and the tension that individuals from different parts of our past can bring with them.

This story illuminates those divides through its alternating chapters where we gain a deeper understanding of Sabrina's life and relationship in this heartfelt story.

In this spectacular audiobook performance, siblings Byron and Benny inherit a frozen Black Cake and their mother's recorded voice. They also inherit the story of a past they never knew, complete with secrets, betrayals, and second chances.

Moving from the Caribbean to London to California, Wilkerson blends food and family into a sweeping story about what we pass down and what we leave behind. Every slice of this literary cake is rich, layered, and unforgettable.

Sabrina knows she's different—she can see ghosts, and not just any ghosts, but ones with unfinished business who show up at mealtimes.

When she returns to Wisconsin and stumbles into a supper club with its own brand of magic, she discovers love, community, and maybe a little forgiveness.

Reichert serves up romance and heart with a side of fried fish and brandy drinks like a bit of comfort food in book form. As a Midwestern woman with a food obsession, I adored this story.

In Ryan's memorable historical fiction novel, readers head to WWII England, where four women compete on a BBC cooking show to become the program's first female co-host, inventing dishes to help show viewers how they can use their rations.

As someone who is fascinated by Depression-era cooking, I loved uncovering the resourcefulness that was required to feed a family in this unique friendship story. If you loved The Gown, this is your next best bet!

Related- 53 Incredible Historical Fiction Novels

In Kingfisher's tale, fourteen-year-old Mona's magical talent lies in dough, where her sourdough starter brings gingerbread men that come alive.

When she stumbles over a body in her aunt's bakery, her cozy life becomes a battle zone, and she's swept into palace intrigue and more than a few fantastical defense strategies.

Equal parts quirky, clever, and wildly imaginative, this is a fantastic option to stop the doomscroll in the evenings.

Joella's Delaware beach setting brings readers to a local restaurant owner at a pivotal turning point in his personal and business life.

Jack, the heart and soul of his busy family restaurant, is at a crossroads. Tempted by an offer to purchase his bustling restaurant, he must decide if he wants to leave the family business behind and finally pursue new adventures in his midlife years.

But life takes unexpected turns with the arrival of an old flame in his life, workplace drama, and shocking news from his past collide amidst this life-changing deal.

Related- Ethan Joella Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Anna returns to rural Alabama to settle her grandmother's affairs, expecting a quick goodbye.

Instead, she finds herself pulled into a small town's secrets, a magical café renowned for pies that connect the living to the dead, and a sense of belonging she never knew she'd missed.

Webber weaves together Southern charm, a gentle romance, and a whisper of the supernatural so tenderly that you'll find yourself hoping to taste that mysterious Blackbird pie and, maybe, believe in a little magic.

In early 20th-century Mexico, young Tita pours her longing into the kitchen quite literally. Bound by family tradition to remain unmarried and care for her mother, she channels forbidden desire, rebellion, and sorrow into the dishes she prepares.

Each chapter in this story opens with a recipe, and every bite carries emotions so potent that it moves those who taste it in this magical realism classic.

Hassouri's debut novel pulled me in from page one.

When Farah was a child in Iran, she dared her cousin to take off her hijab, which led to tragedy, but her involvement was a deeply held secret kept from her family.

Now, forty years later, she serves as the first female chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai, continually challenged in her professional environment and caught between two worlds with her Iranian-American identity.

As she navigates divorce, raising a trans child, and her career, the Women's Life, Freedom movement forces a reckoning on healing her past.

Don't miss this moving indie-published debut and meet her on Book Gang this fall.

Release Date- 21 August 2025

Related- Paria Hassouri Interview (COMING SOON)

Related- LGBTQ History Month Books to Read Now

In the stillness of one fateful night, Jen wakes to the collapse of a 26-year marriage, her world forged in her religious faith, shatters.

What follows is a midlife reckoning unlike any other, told in tender, vivid vignettes across four decades.

From the sacred structures that defined her to the fierce, trembling freedom of finding her own voice again, Hatmaker takes readers on her unexpected awakening.

Release Date- 23 August 2025

Related- Incredible Books About Faith and Churches

Adora is a divorcée, living a contented life while relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family.

But her carefully curated life is upended when she meets a handsome stranger.

Soon, her ordered world is filled with black-market art deals, a secret rendezvous, and international intrigue. Yet, it's her past that suddenly comes to the forefront in this midlife awakening.

Release Date- 21 April 2026

Related- Best Books About Art and Artists

A shimmering college love triangle brings a gifted young woman into the orbit of two English majors, where their relationship is laced with frenetic electricity and rivalry.  

Decades later, Jordan’s life looks settled until a single visit yanks the past into the present and forces her to reckon with choices she thought long buried.

Unfolding with lyrical precision, this story asks how first love lingers, how decisions echo, and how forgiveness becomes its own kind of love.

Release Date- 30 September 2025

What happens when the great love of your life walks back in… thirty years too late?

Sarah and Warren shared an intense, all-consuming college romance that ended in one shattering moment.

Decades later, they lock eyes at an opera in New York, and the chemistry is instant, undeniable, and completely disruptive. Passion reignites, threatening the carefully built lives, families, and identities they've created since.

Gorgeously written and emotionally charged, this is a story about second chances, the pull of unfinished business, and what we risk when we follow our hearts in midlife.

Related- Second Chance Romance Novels

Bestselling novelist Anna Quindlen steps out of fiction and into your heart with this slim but powerful meditation on what it means to "get a life."

Drawing from her own experiences, including losing her mother at 19, she explores how facing our mortality can be a gift, nudging us to savor the days we have and live with intention.

It's a perfect book you can read in a sitting, but carry with you for years.

Related- The Best Memoirs to Read for Nonfiction November

Long before Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman delivered this haunting, Oprah-endorsed tale about the messiness of coming home.

After twenty years in California, March Murray returns to her small Massachusetts hometown with her teenage daughter for the funeral of the beloved housekeeper who raised her.

But stepping back into her past means confronting family grief, a brother numbed by alcohol, and Hollis — the boy she once loved and the man she can't seem to resist.

Hoffman doesn't give us a perfectly polished heroine here; March is complicated, sometimes frustrating, and utterly human, making this a rich read for anyone who knows that midlife is rarely neat.

Related- My Top Celebrity Book Club Picks

Midlife love stories rarely play it safe, and Minot's latest dives headfirst into the messy, intoxicating kind.

Ivy Cooper, 52 and divorced, meets Ansel Fleming at a literary party. He's a musician, twenty years her junior, fresh out of prison, and impossible to ignore. What begins as a torrid, weeks-long affair feels like something she can control, until it starts to seep into every corner of her life.

With a third grader still at home and a co-parenting ex in the mix, Ivy's careful balance teeters under the weight of obsession and desire.

This novel is about what happens when passion doesn't play nicely with the rest of your responsibilities.

Vanessa Carvin arrives on a remote island and does one shocking thing right away. She changes her name. Why? Because scandals have a way of following, and Vanessa has questions she needs to answer about her past, including her role in her ex-husband's crimes.

As she builds a new life on the island, she's forced to reckon with the consequences of decisions she made long ago.

Boyne's reflective, philosophical prose makes Vanessa's midlife reckoning compelling, while the slow reveal of past events keeps you hooked.

This novel is a story about flawed people, the weight of choice, and the courage it takes to confront the life you've lived.

Related- 22 Enthralling Books Set on Islands

It's no secret that this is one of my favorite books of the year.

Ivona, 38, divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago, for a reason she still can’t say out loud. Back in her childhood room, caring for her father after a stroke, she doom-scrolls Vlaho’s family photos while his warm, unnervingly gracious wife, Marina, keeps welcoming her in.

When a new man enters the picture, the delicate triangle tips, forcing Ivona to choose between the ghost of her first love and the fresh life she can still make along the Croatian coast.

Related- Lidija Hilje Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- These Sea Books Belong In Your Beach Bag Now

Imagine hitting rock bottom at forty, checking into a swanky Rhode Island inn to escape it all, and accidentally crashing a wedding instead of your own plans.

What follows? An uproarious, bittersweet ballet of honesty, unexpected friendships, and the moment you realize you're not at the end, but at the start of something wildly new.

If this sounds like the book for you, please join us for this month's book club discussion.

Related- Join the 2025 Book Club Fun

Maddy was the glue holding her family together, until she wasn’t. After her sudden death, her teenage daughter and grieving husband are left to piece together who she really was.

As her family searches for answers, what they uncover might heal them—or shatter them for good.

Narrated in part by Maddy herself, this tender and surprising debut examines the hidden corners of marriage, motherhood, and the quiet sacrifices women must make.

Related- Abby Fabiaschi Interview (Sundays With Writers Blog Series)

Related- Books on Grief and Loss

A year after Billie Flanagan vanishes on a solo hike, her husband and teenage daughter are still adrift in grief... until the daughter begins seeing visions of her mother, alive.

The more they dig into Billie’s past, the more they realize they never truly knew her. This twisty literary suspense novel peels back the layers of a seemingly picture-perfect wife and mother, blurring the line between reinvention and deception.

Related- 24 Atmospheric Books to Get Lost in This Season

It's hard to describe Hill's book as it pulls in so many elements to its meandering story, but when I finished it, I wished I could read it all over again.

A midlife marriage is brought to life, but not before we get a peek at Jack and Elizabeth, who fell in love in their 20s, when they were wild, passionate, and convinced the world was theirs.

Now, they're married with a kid, a mortgage, and a shared Google calendar that feels more intimate than their actual relationship.

This sharp, funny, and surprisingly tender novel digs into the messy business of long-term love and whether we can still surprise the person who knows us best. It was an unforgettable reading experience.

Related- The Best Books I Read in 2024

Sometimes it is hard to confront the friendships we have lost, and while Lombardo's debut holds the sweetest spot in my heart, I appreciated the introspection this book requires.

Life has been rolling along for Julia Ames with midlife milestones like marriage, motherhood, and all the well-worn rhythms in between until a sudden loss of a friendship shakes her world.

Readers are offered a timeless portal to her young and floundering relationships, but also Julia now, a woman who feels not at home at either stage in her life.

With wit and warmth, Lombardo captures that midlife cocktail of grief, gratitude, and that unshakable urge to stir things up again in your life when you thought you'd settled in for good.

Emma is a literary agent in her late 30s, buried in deadlines, distracted texts, and the constant churn of family life. On what feels like an ordinary Monday, she fights with her husband, and then tragedy strikes.

But instead of ending, the day restarts. Again. And again. Each loop forces her to relive the same 24 hours, picking apart the small choices that snowballed into heartbreak.

Midlife urgency drives Emma's story, which isn’t just about trying to save the people she loves. She’s finally seeing what she’s been missing while life raced by. This reading experience was so cathartic.

Related- Cesca Major Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Time Loop Books

What happens when an entire town agrees to pretend a widow's late husband is still alive? Welcome to Frick Island, a quirky Chesapeake Bay community where small-town bonds create their own suspended reality.

Piper's holding on to her husband in the only way she knows how, and Anders, a journalist-turned-podcaster, can't look away, even when his career ambitions clash with his heart.

This book's a warm, escapist romp perfect for anyone who loves the idea that midlife is still full of surprises.

Related- Colleen Oakley Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Once a rising country star, Colton's career derails after an unfiltered, grief-fueled onstage rant gets him blacklisted by the music industry.

Back in his hometown, he crosses paths with Luann, the one who got away, as she now runs her own restaurant. As Colton finds a role in her kitchen and back in her heart, this slow-burning, small-town romance embraces second chances in your midlife years.

Related- Jeff Zentner Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- The Best Jeff Zentner Books

If you prefer midlife reflections with a coming-of-age slant, this book is for you.

There once was a Playboy resort in small-town Wisconsin, and Sherri Taylor wore the ears. At nineteen, she chased glamour and independence, but decades later, she's looking back with the kind of raw honesty only time can give.

This novel is a beautiful pick for anyone who's ever wondered how youthful risks shape the person staring back in the mirror. I have not stopped thinking about this book since I read it and how it challenged my perceptions on feminism.

Yardley brilliantly captures the humor, heart, and awkward sweetness of a midlife romance.

Maggie, a freelance writer and newly empty-nested mom, is coaxed into leaving her introverted routines behind by a pact with her son- if she becomes more social, he will, too.

Her first "outings" led her to a local online gaming guild, where she became the fierce and funny Bogwitch, laying down the rules and charming the group, especially Aiden, the guild leader, with his own complicated family past.

The chemistry between Maggie and Aiden feels entirely age-appropriate, celebrating the cozy joys of companionship where shared meals, binge-watching TV, and navigating life's daily minutiae together are bliss.

Alice wakes up after a fall at the gym, thinking she's 29, in love with her husband, and expecting her first child. In reality? She's 39, her marriage is on the rocks, and life looks nothing like she remembers.

Watching her piece together the "lost decade" is a delicious deep dive into what we keep, what we lose, and what we might choose differently if given the chance. Despite Moriarty's fame for books like Big Little Lies, this is my favorite of her works.

Jack has poured his life into the family's bustling Delaware beach restaurant, but an irresistible offer to sell leaves him questioning everything.

Add in an old flame, workplace drama, and a few life-changing revelations, and you've got a tender, coastal escape about deciding whether to keep carrying the torch or finally pass it on.

Joella's stories are always sweetly satisfying and deeply human.

Related- Ethan Joella Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

After losing her factory job in the Great Recession, fifty-something Cara Romero is sent to a job counselor, but instead of résumés, she delivers her life story.

Across twelve sessions, she spills on love, money woes, family rifts, and the stubborn hope that still fuels her.

Fierce, funny, and full of fight, Cara's voice is unforgettable on audiobook, and the sound effects (something that can be cumbersome in some cases) bring her sessions with a job counselor to life.

In this steamy second-chance romance, authors Eva and Shane only spent one week together as teens, but those seven days left such an impact that they’re still including references to each other in their books 15 years later. 

When they meet at a New York literary event, it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since their teenage romance ended, and readers are enveloped in their love story as they reconnect and confront their past traumas. It is my all-time favorite romance!

Related- Fascinating Books About Authors and Publishing

Related- Read These Books About Books

Harvard linguistics professor Alice Howland is at the peak of her career when she begins forgetting words and getting lost on her daily runs. The diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's forces her and her family to navigate a devastating shift.

Midlife here is the cruel irony of losing the identity you’ve spent decades building, and the fight to preserve love and dignity as your memory fades. As someone who navigates life with a chronic illness, this book resonated with me.

Greta, in her forties, transcribes therapy sessions for a sex coach in a Hudson Valley town.

It's through these sessions that she becomes obsessed with (and then starts a torrid affair with) one of the clients she nicknames “Big Swiss."

As a warning, the story is quite graphic, but I couldn't stop listening to this romp of a book on audio. It offers a multi-cast narration experience with five distinct character voices, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in Greta's unusual job and messy chaotic life.

If you love gossip, this hits those same juicy brain receptors.

Sophie's 42nd birthday goes from celebration to total implosion when a scandalous dinner conversation reveals her husband's name on the Ashley Madison list, and an even more profound betrayal from her closest friend.

Packing up her heartbreak, she heads to France for a full-throttle reinvention to make art, reacquaint herself with self-care, and engage in sexy romps.

If Emily in Paris is your favorite show, this is your perfect backlist book pick.

Identical twins Stella and Desiree grow up in a tiny, segregated Southern town. One runs away to live as a Black woman while the other passes as white, hiding her past from her wealthy husband.

Decades later, their grown daughters’ lives intersect, forcing old truths into the open. Midlife is the collision point here, when long-held lies meet the next generation’s need for answers.

Related- Best Books About Twins For Double the Trouble

Related- Black History Month Books to Read All Year Long

A breast cancer diagnosis forces a successful businesswoman into an unwanted midlife sabbatical, only to find herself sleuthing with her daughter and mother.

The murder is the hook in this book, but the real story is how reinvention can sneak up on you, even when you think you’re already set in your ways.

This satisfies slow-burn mystery readers who appreciate the setting as much as they do their characters. Simon writes the characters distinctly and depicts a beautiful ending for these three women. 

Related- Nina Simon Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Unlikely Amateur Sleuths Are On The Case In These Books

When Amy's estranged husband suddenly offers to take the kids for the summer, this newly single mom grabs the chance for her own version of a "Momspringa," taking a solo escape to New York City.

What starts as a quick trip becomes a fresh makeover, a flirtation with dating, and a rediscovery of everything she loves about herself beyond her role as "mom."

Witty, charming, and full of bookish asides, this is the ultimate midlife self-care fantasy. I devoured it.

Related- Books About Libraries

Midlife, menopause, and family secrets are all wrapped up in a week at Cape Cod. Rocky is navigating her sandwich season between kids and frail parents, as her hormones revolt, leading her to confront truths about her body and aging.

I am promised that Newman tackles it with her signature humor, and I have this next up on my book stack after enjoying her debut immensely.

On a sweltering London afternoon, Grace Adams abandons her traffic-stalled car, a forgotten birthday cake on the passenger seat, and sets off on foot to find her estranged teenage daughter.

Once “Amazing Grace” to everyone who knew her, she now feels invisible—her marriage crumbling, her friendships fading, and menopause intensifying the noise in her head.

Over the course of one extraordinary day, Grace will confront the choices that unraveled her life and the courage it takes to stitch herself back together.

Related- Page-Turners About Motherhood to Read Now

In this revenge thriller, three women, each facing her own midlife upheaval, discover they've developed strange new powers in menopause.

Teaming up, they turn their focus toward taking down predatory men in their community. Fierce, funny, and full of righteous fire, this has been a massive hit with many midlife women in my life.

One caveat, you do need to be on board with the idea that almost all men are evil to fully appreciate this story. Maybe you are?

Mary is a middle-aged woman stuck in a dead-end job, plagued by mysterious health issues, and haunted by strange visions. When she returns to her hometown to care for her dying aunt, she discovers the town has a bloody history... and she may be at the center of it.

Nat Cassidy shares on GoodReads, "If you like things like serial killers, ghosts, the desert, unreliable narrators, and metaphysics I think you will enjoy it."

Related- Best Fictional Serial Killer Books

Related- These Social Horror Books Will Make You Think

Newly divorced, forty-something hepatologist Toby Fleishman is juggling online dating, hospital shifts, and single fatherhood—until his ex-wife Rachel disappears.

As he scrambles to care for his kids and track her down, the story widens to reveal Rachel’s side, turning a sharp, satirical lens on ambition, gender roles, and the invisible labor that makes midlife marriages implode.

After a divorce and a career dead end, 40-year-old Jessie moves to a mysterious estate in a small town, only to discover it’s her inheritance and that she’s a caretaker for magical beings.

Between fighting monsters, navigating quirky neighbors, and rediscovering her confidence, midlife is reimagined as the moment you finally get to unleash your inner power—literally.

Bernadette Fox is a one-woman tornado of genius, sarcasm, and social awkwardness, so naturally, she vanishes right before a family trip to Antarctica.

Her teenage daughter, Bee, pieces together emails, memos, and all manner of chaotic clues to track her down.This story is equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, and a reminder that midlife reinvention doesn't always come in a tidy package.

Semple's book started a quirky midlife story trend in publishing and I loved every minute of it.

Tom's midlife crisis isn't a red sports car. It's a phone call that his twin sister has attempted suicide again. Returning to New York from South Carolina, he's drawn into her psychiatrist's orbit, unraveling a childhood marked by violence, and secrets.

This sweeping saga's heart is in watching a man in his forties finally excavate the trauma that's shaped his marriage, his fatherhood, and his own self-worth.

Paul Sheldon is a bestselling novelist who’s just killed off his most famous heroine.

After a car accident in rural Colorado, he wakes up in the home of Annie Wilkes, his “number one fan”, who isn’t ready to let that character die.

Trapped in her care, Paul faces a brutal fight for survival, haunted by questions about his legacy, relevance, and the stories that will outlive him.

This weird and raunchy romp of a book offers readers a 45-year-old woman on a road trip with her midlife flaring like the fluorescent motel lights overhead.

July's book appeals to a certain style of reader who is unafraid to not just explore identity, but their own desires during perimenopause.

You'll either love it or hate this polarizing read- I'm eager to see if you connect with this one!

Lavelle's novel is a genre-bender that I could not put down, blending speculative fiction, romance, and a ghost story, perfect for any foodie. I can't wait to host the author on Book Gang this Fall.

Kostya, haunted by grief, discovers he can taste ghostly memories through food. In New York's culinary scene, he opens a restaurant offering closure to the bereaved through meals inspired by the dead. Lavelle's sensory writing, emotional depth, and inventive gift—clairgustance—blends a heartfelt exploration of grief and memory.

Flavor profiles develop a bit differently in this world, where bitter can be the taste of coffee but also the taste of the last conversation shared with a dad who never understood you. As the ghosts come to life, Lavelle imagines a world of merging that I delighted in.

Related- Daria Lavelle Interview (COMING SOON to Book Gang Podcast)

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide

Lisavet inherits more than a watchmaker's shop. She's heir to a library where lost moments and erased histories are kept safe. When her father vanishes, she must take up the work of time‑keeping across decades and continents.

Gelfuso builds a dual‑timeline mystery that's rich in atmosphere and meticulous in craft. The publisher promises an intricate story that is as mesmerizing as clockwork.

Release Date- 26 August 2025

Related- Books About Libraries and Librarians

This timely speculative fiction book offers readers an alternate 1979 England where triplets grow up under a government that prescribes conformity as if it were a cure. The state's "Guilt Scheme" is designed to scrub away rebellion, but what it really erases is individuality, until the cracks start to show.

Through Vincent, Nancy, and a calculating bureaucrat, Chidgey delivers a slow, unnerving unraveling of state control. The cost of obedience is nothing less than the self.

Release Date- 16 September 2025

Related- Books About Twins for Double the Trouble

Related- Best Books About Books

In the brutal trenches of World War I, soldiers find a dying angel. The discovery warps the fragile truce between men, where Kraus mixes historical grit with mythic unease.

This book is both a war story and a strange parable, but what might be the most mesmerizing aspect is that the story is written in one continuous sentence, which could be both a surprisingly rare delight or the story's pitfall, depending on what kind of reader you are.

Related- Best Literary Fiction Books

In this cozy sci-fi story, a crew of abandoned food service bots open their own restaurant where they produce delicious noodles. Things go swimmingly until someone begins review bombing them.

Written by Annalee Newitz, an American journalist who covers the cultural impact of science and technology, they blend their background into this cozy near-future novella that requires a bowl of ramen while reading.

Related- Cozy Fantasy Books to Lower Stress Levels

Rawles' character-driven story imagines a remote desert compound where reality show contestants are brought to life in a blending of The Hunger Games and Love Island.

Readers unbox the show with Lily, the narrator, as the contestants' tasks escalate. From romantic pairings to psychological tasks, and the boundary between entertainment and exploitation vanishes.

Rawle satirizes influencer culture and consumerism with brutal clarity, making each twist feel as addictive and unsettling as a binge‑watch nightmare complete with catastrophes awaiting outside the compound's walls.

Ten‑year‑old Vera navigates a near-future New York where democratic norms unravel. Her father, an anxious Russian‑Jewish editor, and her liberal stepmother can't shield her from the rising tide of racist laws and family secrets.

To endure it all, Vera keeps a "Things I Still Need to Know" diary. Every unfamiliar word, phrase, or policy logged acts as her own survival toolkit.

Shteyngart threads heartfelt laughter and creeping dread together, blending childlike wonder and political satire to make the unfolding dystopia feel unbearably personal in this moving story.

Related- Coming-of-Age Books Any Adult Will Love

What if the pencil in your hand could rewrite more than just a page? In this inventive speculative novel, a struggling copywriter stumbles upon a seemingly ordinary pencil from a long-defunct stationery brand, only to discover it grants the power to revise her own past.

But every revision comes at a cost, and soon she’s untangling a life threaded with altered memories, missed connections, and one haunting question- what would you risk to get it right this time?

Related- Fascinating Books About Authors and Publishing

In this intriguing family drama, what begins as a tense scene on the road with a self‑driving minivan coasting toward a lacrosse game spirals into tragedy when the Cassidy‑Shaw family crashes into an oncoming vehicle, killing an elderly couple.

As the family retreats to a Chesapeake Bay house to heal, they each struggle with their own share of guilt. Is the fault human or technological failure? Or something deeper?

Holsinger is unafraid to blend speculative fiction with a family drama, combining his writing superpowers into this newly minted Oprah's Book Club pick.

Related- My Top Celebrity Book Club Picks

Knapp's high-concept speculative debut imagines a mother whose challenge to name her newborn son creates three potential choices that shatter into three distinct futures.

Across decades, Knapp watches as a single decision branches into lives shaped by resilience, regret, and survival, perfect for fans of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano and readers craving a layered story for thoughtful book club discussions.

In this genre-blurring mystery with a speculative twist, detective Ali Dawson investigates a centuries-old murder with help from a secret government unit that time-travels to retrieve evidence.

Set in a chillingly vivid 1850s London gripped by a mini ice age, the novel weaves cold-case suspense with a touch of satire into something entirely original. If you like your mysteries laced with history, high stakes, and a hint of sci-fi, this one delivers.

Related- 24 Atmospheric Books to Get Lost in this Season

Maggie spends decades caring for her husband, Stanley, until she learns his memory loss isn't natural but orchestrated.

As she probes deeper into his erased past, the novel blends memory‑diving with a global conspiracy spanning decades, as readers come to understand enduring love in a way that feels both vast and intimate.

Zelu, a disabled Nigerian‑American novelist, is teetering between failure and reinvention when her sci‑fi epic, Rusted Robots, turns her into a household name. The book's success comes with backlash and eerie echoes from the story she thought she'd invented about a future Lagos where AI rebels question memory itself.

If you don't mind a prickly protagonist, her sharp wit, defiance, and unwillingness to conform make her a compelling character. I found Zelu's interactions with those trying to define or understand her only added depth to the story.

The inclusion of interviews and observations from others in her life provides another fascinating dimension, making this a story of self-discovery and an exploration of how one's identity is perceived and interpreted by the world.

I was entranced.

I recommend Russell's ambitious Dust Bowl novel on audiobook with its robust ensemble cast that brings the more intricate elements to her storytelling to life. I've been slowly savoring this story over my summer walks.

In Dust Bowl–era Nebraska, a prairie witch stores her neighbors' grief like precious grain until a dust storm robs her of the power.

Alongside a haunted photographer and an unlikely apprentice, she faces buried truths about who the land belongs to and the danger of forgetting. Russell fuses folklore and climate anxiety with lush, uncanny detail.

The result is strange, sweeping, and intensely alive.

An experimental supplement that erases female guilt entices Maya Patel, who is struggling under the weight of new motherhood. With this new pill, it might be possible to finally "have it all," but will it be worth the cost of erasure?

Told through news clippings, therapy notes, and social media fallout, Dave turns speculative pharmaceutical fiction into a sharp exploration on motherhood.

Related- Page Turners About Motherhood

Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Lalami envisions a horrifying surveillance culture as the government takes it to a new level that would lead to more than a few sleepless nights.

An algorithm that monitors data from dreams has determined that a woman is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most... her husband.

Transferred to a retention center filled with other dangerous women dreamers, the story shifts when a new resident arrives to disrupt the system.

Walker's gentle speculative fiction story introduces readers to Jane, who has lost a day altogether. No memory, no sense of time passing, only the creeping suspicion that reality shifted in her absence.

Her psychiatrist's attempts to help uncover fissures in his own past pull them both into an impossible loop. Walker writes with her signature calm unease, letting dread gather in the quiet spaces between what happened and what can't be explained.

Satisfying, but not as bendy as I had expected.

Powers ambitious new novel delivers a startling ending that had many readers going back to reread the story, but that's not to say that you won't enjoy this on your first loop.

Todd and Rafi met as board‑game‑obsessed high school misfits, only to split over ambition and ideology.

Decades later, Todd leads a vast AI platform while Rafi lives simply on Makatea, a tiny Polynesian atoll facing an existential vote on whether to host floating cities financed by outsiders.

Meanwhile, Evie Beaulieu, once a pioneering teenage diver, surveys coral reefs and marine life that Todd's tech threatens to commodify.

Powers threads AI, oceans, and postcolonial tension into a sprawling narrative where ethics and human connection ripple like the body of water it is set upon.

Four strangers travel to a controversial sleep therapy center in the California desert, where a month-long slumber promises to erase emotional pain, but sometimes at the cost of all human connection.

The pacing is a slow simmer at the start, but the emotional payoffs are rich. Erlick excels at crafting characters whose inner lives feel achingly real. Fans of The Measure will not be disappointed.

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

Barry Sutton, an NYPD detective, confronts a bizarre phenomenon called False Memory Syndrome, where victims recall entire lives they never lived. Parallelly, neuroscientist Helena Smith develops a memory chair to save those condemned by Alzheimer's, only to realize it sends people backward in time.

As timelines splinter worldwide, the pair race to prevent reality from unraveling.

Once again, Crouch blends science fiction with a thriller pace and a beautiful love story.  His storytelling is masterful, and the suspense is so incredibly good in this one.

Hope Nakano wakes up at a high‑end memory institute with no idea why she's there or what happened to the last year of her life.

Each treatment surfaces fragments: visions of her partner Luke that conflict with what staff tell her, strange messages hidden in VR sessions, and whispers of a hacker group called Mad Hatters.

As Hope pieces together reality, the facility's motivations begin to fracture her trust.

Preble Jefferson, a chessboxing champion in NYC, has the uncanny ability to see five seconds into the future—just enough to dodge bullets, but not always enough to save lives.

After a subway confrontation spirals into tragedy, Preble becomes the target of global intelligence agencies eager to control his gift. As he fights to protect his family, his premonitory edge turns into a moral battleground.

How much time can one man own before institutions claim it?

Related- Amateur Sleuths Are On the Case In These Books

Rowena thought a new marriage, baby, and suburban home meant a fresh start, but instead, her anxiety deepens.

When her husband gifts her Maxine, an AI “digital friend” in beta testing, it’s a lifeline. Maxine listens, supports, and predicts. But, when it forecasts, “Your husband is going to try to kill you,” Rowena’s world tilts.

In this tense, near-future domestic suspense, she must decide, do you trust yourself, the man beside you, or the unsettling whisper of a machine?

January runs security at a luxury time‑travel hotel where guests don Victorian gowns or ancient Roman togas, then ride over to the United States' federally owned timeport.

But she isn't just dealing with wealthy tourists, she's "Unstuck," slipping randomly into her past and future, fragments of grief and loss chasing her through the corridors.

When a corpse appears in Room 526 that only she can see, suddenly she's chasing a killer who moves across time.

Related- Rob Hart Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Best Time Travel Books

Related- Books About Alternate Realities or Parallel Lives

Related- Time Loop Books

Related- Books About Parallel Universes and Multiverse Stories

In a privatized prison system, inmates fight to the death in televised matches for the faint promise of freedom. Loretta Thurwar and her partner, Hurricane Staxxx, are the reigning champions, beloved by fans and exploited by the system.

Adjei-Brenyah turns this dystopian spectacle into razor-sharp social critique. It's violent, urgent, and impossible to look away from.

It's never been more relevant.

Tarisai longs for a family, but her mysterious mother sends her to join the Crown Prince's council with a hidden command.

Kill him.

Ifueko's worldbuilding is rich with West African mythology, and the found‑family bonds pulse with emotional truth.

It's a vibrant, inventive, fantastical story that I can't wait to screen for next year's book club.

Related- Join the 2025 Book Club

Related- Found Family Trope Books

In 21st‑century Taiwan, humanity has moved under the sea to escape climate catastrophe. Momo, a dermal technician who repairs clients' skin membranes, uncovers a truth about her own identity that reframes her entire life.

Chi's slim, strange novel fuses cyberpunk, queer identity, and environmental warning. It's eerie, tender, and unforgettable.

In this speculative short story collection, a melting Arctic releases an ancient virus, and the stories that follow span centuries, offering plague funerals in theme parks, experimental space travel, and grief that shifts form with each new era.

Nagamatsu threads his interconnected tales with wonder and heartbreak.

In a collapsing near‑future America, Lauren's gift (hyperempathy) becomes both a burden and the seed for a new belief system. As violence forces her from her walled community, she gathers followers on the road north.

Butler's vision is fierce, prescient, and painfully relevant. This bleak survival fiction has a prophet's clarity as we navigate our world's current dumpster fires.

In rural Mississippi, a young boy travels with his mother to pick up his father from prison, haunted by the ghost of a boy who died there decades earlier. Ward braids the supernatural with the brutal realities of poverty, racism, and family bonds.

It's haunting in every sense of the word, but I would recommend skipping the audiobook experience to fully appreciate Ward's lyrical prose on a page.

Related- 2017 Book Club Books

Will Wheaton brings his impeccable narration to Scalzi's Locked In series. This 2014 novel imagines a pandemic that leaves many "locked in" their bodies where technology enables integration with robotic bodies or human hosts.

For FBI rookie Chris Shane, it's a lifeline and a ticket into a murder case that tests the limits of this fragile system. Scalzi blends hard sci‑fi ideas with quick banter and brisk pacing, in this whip‑smart procedural.

My interview with Kim Liggett is still trending after all these years, and for good reason; this young adult dystopian novel is one where you want to know more behind the story after you finish.

Girls in Garner County are exiled for their "grace year" to purge their magic before marriage.

Sixteen‑year‑old Tierney James plans to survive, but the year brings betrayal, blood, and very truths the men of the county fear. Liggett crafts a taut, brutal fable about control and resistance.

The ending hits like a gut punch.

Related- Kim Liggett Interview (Blog Interview)

Related- Me Too Books That Reclaim the Narrative

If you find the protagonist unlikable at the start of the story, it is worth waiting for the evolution of Tom Barren in this surprisingly wonderful mind-bending adventure.

Tom is from the 2016 we were supposed to have that was filled with clean, utopian dreams with limitless energy. A time‑travel mistake strands him in our messier reality, and he's forced to choose which world is worth living in.

Mastai mixes humor, heartache, and mind‑bending physics. It's a love story wrapped in a reflective thought experiment.

In this unnerving near-future thriller, the government wants to save the institution of marriage and they’re using tech to do it.

Think mandatory relationship scores, AI surveillance in your bedroom, and social benefits tied to your performance as a spouse.

But when cracks appear in the system, a chorus of characters each trapped in different corners of the “Smart Marriage” initiative begin to question what love looks like when it’s being watched.

Marrs crafts a fast‑moving, chilling look at love under surveillance, offering tension builds with every data point.

When Leah returns from a deep-sea mission gone mysteriously silent, her wife Miri knows something is off. Leah is quiet. Withdrawn. And increasingly not quite… herself.

Told in two haunting perspectives—what happened below, and what’s unraveling above—this is a slow-burn speculative novel about grief and the eerie spaces between love and loss.

Armfield weaves a fluid, dreamlike narrative.

Related- These Sea Books Belong in Your Beach Bag Now

A Shakespeare troupe roams the ruins of post‑pandemic North America, performing in settlements that barely cling to hope. Their paths tangle with a prophet, a comic book, and the memories of a vanished world.

Mandel moves effortlessly between timelines, turning survival into a meditation on art, memory, and the fragile threads that bind us. It's haunting and unexpectedly tender.

If you haven't engaged in the miniseries, I think it is one of the best book adaptations I have ever seen and rivals the novel in the most beautiful ways.

In a future where books are burned and firefighters start the fires, Guy Montag begins to question everything he's been taught. The more he reads, the more the cracks in his society (and his own mind) widen.

Bradbury's prose burns as hot as his subject, warning against the seductions of complacency. Decades later, it still smolders.

Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to fit the Party's shifting narrative. Surveillance is constant, language is weaponized, and independent thought is a crime.

Orwell's bleak vision remains chillingly relevant, its phrases embedded in our political lexicon, offering a manual on how freedom dies.

In the Republic of Gilead, fertile women are property, valued only for their ability to bear children. Offred remembers her life before, even as she serves her commander and his barren wife.

Atwood's world is meticulously built and terrifyingly plausible, making every act of defiance feel urgent. The final note lingers long after the last page.

Kathy H. looks back on her idyllic boarding school days, except the school's purpose isn't education, it's cultivation. As the truth seeps in, friendship and love are recast as fleeting rebellions against an unchangeable fate.

Ishiguro delivers a heartbreaking speculative elegy wrapped in gentle, almost polite prose. The restraint makes it hurt all the more.

Related- Unforgettable Campus Novels

Cora escapes a Georgia plantation via an actual underground train, its stops revealing different versions of America's racial history. Each state brings new horrors, forcing her to navigate the shifting rules of survival.

Whitehead blends historical realism with surreal invention, making the familiar brutalities of slavery freshly shocking. It's both an allegory and an unflinching reckoning, and the audiobook is superb.

Related- Best Time Travel TV Shows and Movies

In this haunting debut, readers follow Margaret, a woman whose childhood trauma resurfaces as she navigates motherhood and co-parenting. At ten, she experienced unsettling violations by someone in her family, a secret she kept hidden from her emotionally distant mother.

Now, twenty-five years later, Margaret returns to her childhood home with her daughters, confronting the echoes of her past, as she simultaneously navigates being a reporter during the Weinstein trials.

Jones's lyrical prose captures the haunting nuances of memory, shame, and the struggle to find words to long-held secrets. I read this novel in one day.

Related- Honor Jones Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide

Zang's ambitious debut offers two intriguing timelines in the grungy world of college life and suburban motherhood years later. The story follows best friends Nikki and Sadie, whose lives remain intertwined even after Nikki's death, as she haunts Sadie in a home that once belonged to her.

Sadie finds herself pulled back into the friendship that once defined her and the Sylvia Plath-obsessed professor who manipulated his female students, seemingly, until many of them tragically died.

Told in dual timelines, this haunting debut blends a slow-burn campus mystery and the complicated mythology we build around "sad girls. This novel is sure to be a hit with Ashley Winstead fans.

Release Date- 28 August 2025

Related- Unforgettable Campus Novels

At 13, Birdie Rhodes gets discovered in a department store and thrown into a glamorous modeling career. By 15, she’s drawn into an intense relationship with a 31-year-old rock star, despite warning signs and a mentor’s caution.

Decades later, as Birdie lives quietly in Los Angeles, an invitation to her former agent’s anniversary forces her to reckon with a past she’s tried to forget.

Release Date- 5 August 2025

Ciara knows it's time to break free. With her two daughters in tow, she leaves her controlling husband behind, but escaping isn't that simple. Trapped by emotional abuse and caught in Dublin's housing crisis that offers no refuge, Ciara's fight for freedom becomes a gripping, heart-wrenching journey of survival and hope as she raises her girls in a cramped hotel room.

O'Donnell's debut novel is a moving story of the courage it takes to start over, which I couldn't put down. It's a perfect book match for fans of The Maid.

Related- Page Turners About Motherhood

Marty Goddard would become the forgotten heroine of sexual assault justice. In the 1970s, while counseling young survivors in Chicago, she realized something crucial was missing... proper forensic tools.

Out of that conviction, she conceived the rape kit. It was a standardized way for survivors to collect evidence and demand justice, long before society was ready to acknowledge their claims.

But when her invention gained traction, a male cop took the credit. Marty faded into obscurity until journalist Pagan Kennedy retraced her footsteps.

Kennedy's book is part detective story, part social history, and part personal memoir.

Related- Best Memoirs to Read for Nonfiction November

Related- The Nonfiction November Challenge You Need (Book Gang Podcast)

Jo-Lynn was once the epitome of high school success—class president, popular, and admired. Yet, when her private photos leaked, her world came crashing down.

Labeled the "Senior Slut," she became a social outcast. Then, her former best friend, Maddie Price, reaches out in distress and disappears. Determined to uncover the truth, Jo teams up with a former fling, to investigate in this compelling young adult mystery.

Related- Unlikely Amateur Sleuths Are on the Case In These Books

In the early 1960s, Judy escapes an abusive marriage by joining Pan Am as a stewardess, a position that forbids married women.

Her journey of self-discovery and survival unfolds alongside Beverly, a wealthy New York socialite seeking independence. Together, they navigate the glamorous yet challenging world of international flight, forming a deep bond that transcends their different backgrounds.

I highly recommend the audiobook narration for this novel- it was beautifully done!

Related- Best Historical Fiction Book Club Books

Related- 17 Stunning Friendship Stories

Georgia is a London-based professional lie detector who returns to her estranged South Carolina family after her father's sudden death. As family secrets unravel, including a surprising bequest in her father's will, she must confront her past traumas and her family's complacency toward her abuse.

This book was my first dip into the Jessa Hastings universe and delivered on an emotional, character-driven romance I've been craving, along with these other essential story layers.

Related- Incredible Books About Faith and Churches

Related Books on Grief and Loss to Read Now

In this intimate, astonishing memoir, Griffin excavates repressed memories of abuse by a school teacher through guided psychedelic therapy. What follows is a hauntingly tender reckoning as her memories come to life like a movie in her mind.

I was astounded by Amy's bravery and the brain's ability to compartmentalize for survival. As more people in my life look to these types of therapies, it has made me understand how they can be essential and potentially effective for some to process their trauma.

Daphne is a junior history professor at Harrison University and prefers to keep a low profile. But when a colleague is murdered and a cryptic text message links her to the crime, she is pushed into a dangerous investigation.

As she uncovers dark secrets about the university's elite, she must confront the abuse of power and corruption that lurk beneath the campus's prestigious façade. Wallbrook's novel balances these more brutal truths while still hitting the cozy mystery beats.

Related- Zoe Wallbrook Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Freya returns to her childhood home after a financial setback forces her to leave her life as a bartender in Maine. She inherits a dilapidated house left by her estranged parents, but as she begins to rebuild the home, she must rebuild herself and confront the painful events that drove them apart years ago.

Julia Whelan beautifully narrates this story, and while these elements are challenging to read, Larkin unspools them in manageable scenes, building up to reveal all that Freya overcame.

Related- Unforgettable Circus Books That Capture Magic and Mystery

Related- Allison Larkin Interview (Home of the American Circus- Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Allison Larkin Interview (The People We Keep- Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Julia Whelan Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

This new novel offers readers a thoughtful tribute to sexual assault survivor Nafissatou Diallo. She was a hotel employee who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician and economist, of sexually assaulting her in his Manhattan hotel suite in 2011.

Following three Nigerian women living abroad, this emotionally rich novel references how trauma, solidarity, and identity can intersect across diasporas. I can't wait to read this one.

Related- Black History Month Books to Read All Year

Before the #MeToo movement became a viral hashtag, Tarana Burke had already been fighting to create a movement where survivors could find healing, solidarity, and justice. In this memoir, Burke shares her journey—from growing up in the South, grappling with trauma, to founding the Me Too Movement decades before it exploded into a global reckoning.

This memoir is honest, vulnerable, and deeply inspiring. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at the grassroots activism, the challenges of sustaining hope in the face of systemic abuse, and the power of community to reclaim stories that were once silenced.

Drawing on the author's litigator experience, Lee delivers a chilling debut about a young lawyer whose life changes after a drunken ride home from a company party leads to devastating consequences.

In this gripping and compulsively readable novel, Jade wakes up without memory of what has transpired or even the man who brought her home. But as her foggy recollections spiral into illuminating detail, she finds herself caught between her immigrant parents, a partner's shifting reactions, and a calculating corporate culture that demands her silence.

It's a gripping, thought-provoking #MeToo read, but not for the faint of heart.

Related- The Best Books I Read in 2024

Chanel Miller reclaims the story the world once told for her. Known only as “Emily Doe” during the Stanford sexual assault trial, Miller steps into the spotlight with devastating clarity, grace, and power. Her memoir isn’t just about what was taken from her. It’s about the act of taking it back.

With lyrical precision and unwavering emotional intelligence, she lays bare not only the trauma of assault, but the broken systems survivors are forced to navigate just to be heard.

Hermione is a flyer on her cheer squad and is proud to be their captain. While away at cheer camp, she attends a party where someone puts something in her drink, and she is brutally assaulted. When she awakens, she has no recollection of what has happened to her, but must deal with the devastating consequences of this assault.

I love that this book focuses less on being a victim and more on continuing to fight through the pain, not allowing this horrible situation to continue to define your life.

Heavier than a typical YA read and filled with a supportive cast of characters, Johnston deserves all the accolades she has received for this one, including being listed as a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize.

Related- E.K. Johnston Interview (Sundays With Writers Blog Series)

Alex accepts a dream offer to work for a prestigious Manhattan law firm and can't wait to make her mark on the company. What she discovers, though, is that this job requires entertaining clients at all hours of the night, and workdays never end.

The spiral is swift, but Alex realizes just how high the cost is when she uncovers a deeply hidden secret held by her firm that compromises women's safety. I found this book difficult to put down and a fascinating glimpse into this world.

Queenie is a 25-year-old British-Jamaican woman living in London, caught between two cultures yet somehow not fitting into either of them. After a tough breakup with her white boyfriend, she dives headfirst into all the wrong places—terrible hookups, cringeworthy encounters, and some seriously rough realizations about what she deserves.

With sharp wit and emotional honesty, this novel sheds light on the often invisible struggles women face, including sexual assault and the pressures of reclaiming one's narrative amidst systemic biases. Queenie undergoes significant growth throughout the story, and her evolution is what makes this novel truly shine.

Grace Turner was Hollywood's golden girl. Plucked from obscurity as a teen star and poised on the brink of a significant award. Then she vanished. A year later, she's back in Los Angeles—sober, wary, and carrying the scars of years under the control of a powerful director.

When she's asked to present him with a lifetime achievement award, Grace realizes the choice is hers to stay silent or reclaim her story.

Berman's sharp debut unpacks grooming and abuse in the spotlight and all the chaos that follows. With alternating past and present timelines, the novel is both a page-turning thriller and a tender, hard-won portrait of resilience. Grace's evolution made this an incredibly satisfying read.

Before there was a hashtag, there was Gilead. In this chilling dystopia where women are reduced to their reproductive function, Offred remembers the world before and dares to imagine one after.

Atwood's modern classic remains urgently relevant in a post-Roe, #MeToo world and is especially timely in this very moment of upheaval.

One line has stuck with me: "Better never means better for everyone."

When menopause hits, three women in a seaside town discover that their midlife transformations come with unexpected powers.

Harriett channels fury into controlling the natural world. Nessa hears the voices of the dead. And Jo, fueled by fire and rage, becomes a beacon of justice. When a local girl's body is found abandoned on the beach, the trio joins forces to uncover what the police won't touch—exposing a trail of violence, secrets, and buried girls.

Part witchy revenge fantasy, part murder mystery, this fierce novel is a wildly entertaining takedown of patriarchal power that many readers have loved.

Related- These Sea Books Belong in Your Beach Bag Now

When true crime podcaster Rachel Krall arrives in a coastal town to cover a high-profile trial, she expects to follow the courtroom drama of a local golden boy accused of a serious act of violence.

But when a series of mysterious letters begins appearing on her windshield, Rachel is pulled into another story. This story took place decades earlier, involving a teenager whose death was ruled an accident, despite whispers of something far more sinister.

Goldin does an incredible job of building sympathy for these women in each case and exploring the significant themes surrounding these #MeToo stories, as well as how wealth and power enable men to avoid punishment for their crimes.

When a missing teen named Ellie reappears after two years in the woods, she returns, but something is broken. She won't say what happened, who held her, or why she came back.

Detective Chelsey Calhoun, still haunted by her own sister's disappearance decades earlier, refuses to close the case until she unearths the truth. Get ready for a gripping, emotional thriller that cuts past sensationalism to examine trauma, rage, and the systems built to fail women and girls.

Ellie and Chelsea both have compelling backstories, and both are deeply flawed. It is riveting and enthralling from a detective who pushes too hard to get answers to a girl who went to the brink psychologically in ways that forever alter her.

Related- Emiko Jean Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- 24 Atmospheric Books To Get Lost in This Season

Related- Fictional Serial Killer Books

In a secluded Mennonite colony, a group of women gather secretly to discuss the harrowing abuses they have suffered at the hands of the men in their community.

Faced with impossible choices about justice and survival, these women must decide whether to stay and fight or escape to freedom.

This profound novel gives voice to collective trauma and r how women find strength through solidarity.

Seventeen-year-old Enchanted Jones is an aspiring singer whose life changes forever when she catches the eye of a famous 28-year-old R&B star.

What begins as mentorship spirals into manipulation, abuse, and isolation. Jackson quickly shifts us into the present, where Enchanted awakens to find the star dead and has no memory of how it happened.

Flashing between past and present, the story forces us to see a young Black girl gaslit by fame, overlooked by those meant to protect her. This fictional story takes great liberty with the well-known facts of the R. Kelly case and the harrowing stories of the women involved.

Related- Best Books to Get Out of a Reading Slump

Camille lost her teenage daughter Emily after a brutal assault, and the assailant walked free. Five years later, she's still drowning in grief until she's invited into The Collective, a secret online group of bereaved mothers done with a justice system that protects the privileged.

What starts as a place for rage-filled fantasy becomes chillingly real. These women plan anonymous, coordinated acts of revenge. Camille is drawn in deeper, unsure if she's among avenging angels or monsters.

It's a relentless, emotionally charged thriller that shows how systems fail survivors and how justice can warp into vengeance without warning.

Related- 19 Thrillers To Keep You Up All Night

Related- Best Psychological Thrillers to Read Now

Related

When a masked man breaks into a Florida State sorority house in the 1970s, Pamela, the poised and practical chapter president, is the first to call for help. Two of her sisters are dead, and the media circus that follows focuses more on the killer's charm than on the women whose lives were shattered.

Decades later, another woman's search for answers brings Pamela back into the spotlight and forces her to reckon with a justice system that failed them both.

Knoll takes the true-crime template and flips it on its head. Instead of centering the infamous murderer, she gives voice to the survivors, refusing to let them be footnotes in someone else's narrative. It's a fierce, feminist take on the ways we mythologize violence and how women are often the ones left to carry the weight of the story.

If you read this, I recommend the audiobook, as the switching narration helps as these storylines begin to develop their overlaps innovatively.

Related- Jessica Knoll Interview (Sundays With Writers Blog Series)

Funny and surprisingly hopeful, this novel follows Aviva Grossman, whose life implodes after an affair with a married congressman becomes tabloid fodder.

Zevin explores the double standards women face around sex, shame, and redemption with wit and compassion. Aviva's journey across decades is a messy, relatable story about forgiveness, reinvention, and the ways women carve out their paths despite public judgment.

It's a beautiful, redemptive read, especially if you would like to revisit the Monica Lewinsky scandal with fresh eyes.

Lila Ridgefield appears to have it all, including a handsome husband adored by the community and a peaceful life in a college town. But behind the façade, she's been hiding suffocating control, manipulation, and grief.

When her husband disappears—and his body vanishes from the crime scene—Lila becomes both suspect and survivor in a chilling mystery that's about so much more than murder.

As small-town police and true-crime podcasters close in, Lila must face the trauma she ignored. Pretty Little Wife turns the typical thriller on its head by staying anchored firmly with women's experiences, trauma, and moral reckoning instead of glorifying violence.

The ending is oh-so-satisfying in this 5-star thriller.

Ford's memoir pulls no punches as it explores what it means to come of age with the looming absence of a father incarcerated for a violent crime. With clear-eyed honesty and poetic depth, she navigates a childhood shaped by silence and a mother whose own trauma often left little room for tenderness.

What emerges is a portrait of a girl learning to trust her voice in a world that has tried to define her by other people's choices, which has made it many readers' most beloved memoir of all time.

When Eliza Bright, a trailblazing coder at a major game studio, files a complaint about workplace harassment, the system does nothing.

She takes her story public instead, only to be fired, doxxed, and targeted by a swarm of angry online trolls. As she becomes a rallying figure for workplace safety, she must navigate a world where fan rage bleeds from Reddit into the streets of New York.

What makes this novel unforgettable is its narrative structure. The chapters are narrated by the anonymous collective fury of male gamers while Eliza's actual life unfolds off-screen.

Shay thought she'd escaped the cult-like men's group that shaped her college years until her best friend's shocking death pulled her back in. What starts as a true crime podcast investigation becomes a chilling descent into the underworld of power, manipulation, and misogyny.

This feminist thriller asks what happens when women stop trying to reform the system and burn it down instead.

If you love an interactive, mixed-media approach to your stories, this thriller delivers with podcast transcripts interspersed throughout.

Related- Ashley Winstead Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Three women. Three centuries. One legacy of oppression and one impossible magic.

In 1619, Altha fights for her life amid witchcraft accusations. In 1942, Violet resists her powerful father's attempts to tame her spirit. And in 2019, Kate flees an abusive partner, seeking refuge in an ancestral cottage, but she can't escape the weight of what it means to be a Weyward woman.

This richly woven tale is feminist historical fiction with a hint of the supernatural, where strength, nature, and ancestral power become weapons against patriarchal control. Hart's unique eye for evocative gothic settings blends well with the natural world. Combining how women find their voice made this an empowering and impactful read.

Related- 2025 Book Club Books (Full List- JOIN NOW)

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

In this gripping exposé, investigative journalist Ronan Farrow chronicles his relentless pursuit of the truth behind powerful men accused of misconduct, focusing on Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer.

Farrow reveals how these individuals, leveraging their influence, orchestrated campaigns to suppress allegations and protect their careers. Through meticulous reporting and firsthand accounts, he uncovers the systemic efforts to silence victims and the media's complicity in perpetuating these injustices.

What happens when your most formative love was abuse all along? In this devastating coming-of-age novel, Vanessa revisits her past relationship with her high school teacher just as new accusations arise. It's a haunting portrait of grooming told with raw, unsparing honesty. 

It is astounding to me that this is Russell's debut, as the emotions she layered into these characters are done so beautifully and believably. Horrifying and unapologetically written.

Related- 13 Coming Of Age Books Any Adult Will Love

After calling the police at a party, Melinda is shunned by her classmates and silenced by her own trauma. But through art and inner grit, she begins to reclaim her voice.

This is a landmark YA novel that still resonates powerfully in the #MeToo era.

Lidija Hilje's mesmerizing debut brings the Croatian coastline alive and has been my favorite debut of 2025.

This tender, politically resonant story showcases a woman navigating a second act in her thirties—caregiving for her father, resisting a hollow development deal, and quietly grieving a love that's moved on without her. 

Hilje writes with the aching clarity of someone who knows how deeply place shapes identity and how hard it is to rebuild when the world keeps pulling the ground out from under you.

As an American reader, it opened my eyes to our parallel challenges in our countries, and I recommend this book as the perfect midlife book club selection.

Related- Lidija Hilje Interview

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide

Related- Second Chance Romance Novels to Celebrate New Beginnings

Maurice and Maralyn quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away in 1972, navigating the seas sufficiently until a year into their voyage when a breaching whale knocked a hole in their ship, and it sank into the waves.

This bingeable nonfiction story details their jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean for over a hundred days, with little hope of rescue. Alone together in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, their imperfect marriage bond is wildly tested.

Julia Whelan narrates MacLean's contemporary debut, where Alice hasn't set foot on her family's private island in five years—not since she was exiled from the tech empire built by her late father, Franklin Storm.

When he dies, he leaves behind a final challenge. Alice and her estranged relatives can participate in a week-long inheritance game that wil force them to confront lingering resentments and long-held desires.

In this unique setting, Alice finds herself drawn to Jack, her father's enigmatic second-in-command, sparking a passionate enemies-to-lovers romance. I can't wait to read this!

In this atmospheric thriller, a nautical archaeologist arrives in sun-drenched Positano for her late father's lost treasures, only to uncover shipwrecks, strange whirlpools, and an ancient curse of sea witches.

In a parallel timeline set in 1821, a young witch protects her coastal village from pirate invaders, until love forces her to choose between her powers and her freedom.

With dual timelines, this sweeping tale of magical realism merges modern mystery with a little Old-World enchantment.

Related- Atmospheric Books

Related- Best Magical Realism Books

A surprisingly fierce feminist anthem, this novel is one of my favorite books of the year.

Based on a remarkable 16th‑century true story, this historical thriller follows Marguerite—a noblewoman turned castaway—stranded on a remote island with only a maid and lover for company.

As polar bears encroach and winter descends, she must learn to survive on her own terms as this story unspools with surprising twists.  

Related- Books About Nurses

Related- Allegra Goodman Interview (Podcast)

In 1926, famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared after going out for a swim off the coast of Venice Beach. What followed was a sensational search-and-rescue operation that captivated a nation.

Hoffman's gripping biography delves into the uncertainty surrounding McPherson's disappearance, rescue efforts, and the powerful woman at the center of it all. Those curious to learn more about Aimee's story, can spend a riveting hour with Hoffman discussing her research process in the podcast linked below.

Related- Claire Hoffman Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Books About Faith and Churches

McConaghy delivers another poignant story about climate change in this suspenseful tale, featuring short chapters and big emotional twists.

On a remote island, Dominic and his three children tend to a vital seed vault as sea levels rise and storm. When Rowan washes ashore after a shipwreck, they nurse her back to health amid escalating tensions rich with secrets on both sides.

If you love this novel, you'll find Late Migrations equally as immersive, which also documents emotional peril at sea!

In McCann's latest literary fiction novel, an Irish journalist joins a cable-laying ship crew to investigate undersea communications. As he confronts his own trauma and the vastness of deep-sea work, this novel becomes a poetic maritime journey through grief.

To quote the description, "Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts?"

Related- Best Literary Fiction Books

Jane, a Harvard archivist returns home after a career-threatening mistake. What she doesn't know is that this return will also launch her into a haunting new research project that could change her life.

A recently renovated historic home in town that once served as Jane's refuge as a child, has removed a family cemetery to make way for a dream pool. So, it's not entirely surprising when a ghost visits.

She uncovers the tangled history of this Victorian house perched on a seaside bluff—once filled with secrets of lovers lost at sea, artistic awakenings, and a haunting past that refuses to stay buried.

Related- Books About Libraries

Leah once dreamed of a nomadic, artistic life, but finds she's anchored in suburban motherhood. Her creativity is overshadowed by the demands of her husband, children, and a passive-aggressive mother-in-law.

The solace she finds in wine becomes a growing undercurrent that threatens to pull everyone under with her. Leah's journey mirrors a perilous sea voyage into deep waters as she confronts her addiction and fights to reclaim herself. This is a strong debut!

Related- Jessica Guerrieri Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Best Addiction Fiction Books

When artist James Golden returns to the mist-shrouded logging town of Six Rivers, California, to settle her twin brother Johnny's affairs, a supernatural bond means she feels his last moments before the phone even rings.

What begins as a grief pilgrimage evolves into something darker. James suspects Johnny's death wasn't an accident.

Related- Books About Twins For Double the Drama

Related- Books on Grief and Loss

Related- Best Books About Art and Artists

As World War II rages in London, eleven-year-old Beatrix is sent across the sea to safety with a well-off American family in Boston. This temporary arrangement turns into a lasting imprint, as Bea grows up caught between two countries, two families, and two selves.

Spanning decades and oceans, this debut novel beautifully explores the quiet grief of displacement, the bonds that form in unexpected places, and what it means to belong somewhere and to someone.

Related- Historical Fiction Book Club Books

When the SS Carlisle is torpedoed in the Atlantic, volunteer escort Alice King finds herself stranded in a lifeboat with young evacuees, miles away from rescue.

Back in London, a widowed mother desperately waits for news of her children, each day stretching her hope thin.

Inspired by the real-life sinking of the SS Benares, Gaynor's haunting dual narrative brings to life the fear, bravery, and unexpected bonds forged during this harrowing journey.

After marine biologist Leah returns from a deep-sea expedition gone wrong, her wife, Miri, hopes it's just physical exhaustion, but Leah's transformation is much more profound.

Alternating between Miri's grief-filled vigil and Leah's eerie journey aboard a stranded submarine, this gothic horror novel explores queerness through lyrical writing that lingers long after the final page.

Related- These Social Horror Books Will Make You Think

Retired pirate-captain Amina al‑Sirafi is enjoying a quiet life with her daughter, until a desperate plea pulls her back to the Indian Ocean.

Reassembling her motley crew aboard the ship Marawati, she sets sail on a daring mission to rescue a missing girl and reclaim a legendary relic known as the Moon of Saba.

This riveting fantasy novel blends swashbuckling adventure and motherhood. It's beautifully brought to life in audiobook form for a fun reading escape.

When the world begins to shut down in early 2020, novelist Lucy finds herself unexpectedly uprooted from Manhattan and driven north by her ex-husband William, who insists they ride out the uncertainty together in a rented house on the wind-whipped coast of Maine.

What starts as an awkward reunion, enforced by the stillness of pandemic life, stirs up long-buried questions about family and the invisible threads that tether people, even after marriage ends.

This is the fourth book in Strout’s luminous Lucy Barton series (My Name Is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible, and Oh William!), but it can be read as a standalone for those new to her work.

That said, returning readers will find deeper resonance in Lucy’s evolving relationship with William and her daughters, as well as the subtle, precise insights Strout is beloved for.

Related- Books About Authors and Publishing

In 1742, a battered ship washed ashore in Brazil carrying survivors of the HMS Wager, wrecked while chasing a Spanish treasure galleon. Six months later, a second boat landed in Chile... with a very different version of what happened.

In this riveting true story, David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) investigates a maritime mystery that rocked the British Empire.

With cinematic detail and the pacing of a thriller, The Wager is a brutal and breathtaking account of men pushed to their limits—and what we choose to believe when the truth is lost at sea.

Related- Best Backlist Books for Summer (Book Gang Podcast)

This YA novel follows teens aboard the ill-fated Wilhelm Gustloff, told with heart-wrenching beauty. This ship had promised safety to over 10,000 people, even more than the well-known Titanic.

Uniquely told through the voices of four characters, all with different ethnic backgrounds, Supetys explores a hidden time in history in a beautiful and heartbreakingly poignant way.

This novel is one of the most researched books I have read, as the author traveled to over a dozen countries to gather accounts from passengers, their families, and even deep-sea divers to round out this story.

Mogenstern's story isn't for every reader, but it is a great fit for fans of immersive, nonlinear storytelling.

Structured as six books, a graduate student discovers a mysterious book that leads him into a hidden world of stories beneath the surface of reality. This lush, genre-bending fantasy drips with symbolism offering readers an endless ocean of puzzling possibilities to uncover.

Related- Books About Books

Related- Unforgettable Circus Books

The glittering ocean backdrop of 1980s Malibu pulses over 24 hours as Nina Riva hosts the family's legendary end-of-summer party—one that will unravel secrets, ignite old wounds, and go up in flames.

As always, I recommend Julia Whelan's narration for this book as it enhances Reid's storytelling so beautifully.

Related- Julia Whelan's Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- Taylor Jenkins Reid Books

In this captivating memoir, Torre DeRoche, a self-proclaimed land lover, makes a risky decision to set sail across the Pacific with her brand-new boyfriend.

As they bravely navigate fierce storms, unforeseen challenges, and the unpredictable nature of the open water, Torre uncovers her deepest fears and discovers the transformative power of embracing a life of uncertainty. This is one of my all-time favorite memoirs!

Related- Torre DeRoche Interview

Related- Best Memoirs to Read for Nonfiction November

Related- The Nonfiction November Challenge You Need (Book Gang Podcast)

This standalone fairytale quest, set across fantastical oceans, centers on Tress, a determined heroine who spends her days on a lonely rock of an island, collecting chipped teacups and watching green-spore "waves" roll across a deadly, waterless ocean.

When the duke's son (her secret best friend Charlie) vanishes after a voyage gone wrong, Tress stows away on a smuggler ship, determined to rescue him from the Sorceress who rules the midnight seas.

Related- 27 Fairytale Retellings to Enchant Your Reading Life

Van Pelt's memorable story brings together a lonely widow and a mischievous octopus. Through alternating chapters narrated by Marcellus the octopus and Tova, who cares for the aquarium, as well as a young man searching for his father, this gentle mystery unfolds with warmth, wit, and just the right hint of marine magic.

I encourage every reader to listen to this on audiobook as Marcellus vividly comes to life through Michael Urie's narration. It is an unforgettable reading experience.

Related- Best Books of 2022

This novel beautifully paints a literary portrait of a family in a remote fishing village in Maine. 

After a fishing accident leaves Jill's husband hospitalized, she must manage the home and her family alone. Under financial strain, she discovers her teen son's Instagram photos with a joint, while simultaneously beginning to suspect that her husband has been having an affair.

This midlife woman faces many reckonings in her family, told through Conley's sparse and gentle prose, which resonated deeply with me as a parent of a teen.

Related- Best Page Turners About Motherhood

Jo Walker makes her living as a yacht stewardess, drifting between glamorous ports and opulent decks. As she approaches her thirtieth birthday, her meticulously curated "30‑by‑30" bucket list threatens to collapse under grief when her nephew dies.

But a surprise visit from her nieces and a daring kiss with a handsome stranger (who becomes the yacht's chef) breathe new life into her heartfelt mission.

This YA fantasy is packed with action, romance, and brine-soaked worldbuilding.

In this story, seventeen-year-old Fable has never known anything but the sea.

Abandoned on a lawless island after her mother drowns and her father sails off, she spends years diving for gems and scavenging for survival.

When she finally earns passage aboard the Marigold, she's determined to confront her notorious sea-trader father for abandoning her. What begins as a coming-of-age sea voyage turns into a pulse-raising adventure bristling with danger, intrigue, and surprising alliances.

Related- 13 Coming Of Age Books Any Adult Will Love

This gripping locked-room thriller will keep your heart racing until the very last page.

Lo suffers trauma from a recent break-in and finds herself on assignment aboard an opulent boutique cruise ship for a travel magazine. But when she believes she witnesses a shocking murder in the cabin next door, her frazzled world spirals out of control.

As she bravely reports the incident and begins her own investigation, she unwittingly angers someone with dangerous intentions. This drives Lo deeper into a whirlwind of paranoia and anxiety, intensifying the suspense in this masterful tale of mystery and intrigue from one of my favorite mystery writers.

Related- Ruth Ware Books

Related- Unlikely Amateur Sleuths

This lush and unforgettable novel follows five queer women living under Uruguay's oppressive dictatorship in the 1970s. Drawn together by a shared desire for freedom, they find refuge on an isolated beach where they can live, love, and be themselves—if only for a while.

Cantoras is a love letter to chosen family and queer resilience, written with lyrical intimacy and political urgency. Carolina De Robertis delivers a quiet revolution on the page, and you will feel every pulse of it.

Related- LGBTQ History Books

Related- Found Family Trope Books

Before he became a World War II hero, Louis Zamperini was a delinquent turned Olympic runner. But his most significant test came in 1943, when his bomber crashed in the Pacific.

Stranded in a life raft for 47 days—fighting off sharks, starvation, and enemy aircraft—Louis endured a brutal sequence of events that would have broken most men.

And yet, this true story of survival at sea, capture by the Japanese, and the long road to healing is one of the most extraordinary and inspiring nonfiction epics of our time. I could not put this book down!

This book is a heartfelt tribute to the caregivers of the world, and it brought tears to my eyes.

Newlyweds Wren and Lewis face an extraordinary and surreal challenge when Lewis begins transforming into a great white shark.

As his body and identity shift like the tides, their love is tested by the unpredictable, primal forces of nature. Wren rises to the challenge in beautiful ways as she modifies their backyard into a safe swimming haven and finds food to meet Lewis's needs.

I highly recommend listening to my episode with Emily, which has become one of Book Gang listeners' favorites.

Related- Emily Habeck Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

This horror-thriller, set aboard a ship exploring the Mariana Trench, offers readers equal parts science fiction and terror as a fresh crew sets sail to investigate the disappearance of a documentary crew uniquely connected to those taking the voyage.

Grant's mermaids aren't the enchanting sirens of myth—they're terrifying, intelligent predators. Yet the true strength of this novel lies in how it blends visceral horror with the ocean's true-crime spin.

The audiobook experience was superb for this selection, which many of our book club members found to be riveting.

Related- 2024 Book Club Book

On the Korean island of Jeju, generations of women have made their living diving into the sea as fearless free divers harvesting sea urchins, abalone, and octopus from the ocean floor.

See centers the story of two girls (Mi-ja and Young-sook) who form a deep bond as they train to join the diving collective. But as decades pass, through Japanese occupation, war, and family secrets, their friendship is tested in heartbreaking ways.

Related- 17 Stunning Friendship Stories

Whimsy, warmth, and a seaside orphanage for magical children make this a comforting read with real heart delivered beautifully on audiobook.

Linus Baker, a meticulous government caseworker, is sent to an enchanting and unusual orphanage. As he grows fond of the extraordinary children and their endearing caretaker, the story beautifully explores the concept of discovering family in the most unexpected places.

Related- Cozy Fantasy Books to Lower Your Stress Levels

Dane Huckelbridge stuns with Castle of Water, a sharp, tender survival story.

When a plane crashes in the South Pacific, two strangers—an artist-turned-banker and a new bride—must learn to survive both their heartbreak and each other.

This story delivers humor and tension to even the most mundane survival tasks, layering in flashbacks and inner monologues that feel intimate and alive. I count this among my favorite island stories and recommend the audiobook experience for this one!

Related- 25 Enthralling Books Set on Islands

Wallbrook's debut has been one of the best mystery surprises of 2025.

Professor Daphne Ouverture's titles are as intriguing as this mystery. An assistant professor of European history, a scholar of modern French imperialism, and a (self-titled) semi-professional rambler on the horrors of colonial medicine, she leads a quiet academic life.

But when a colleague—brilliant but insufferable anthropology professor Sam Taylor—is murdered at the top of our story, Daphne finds herself tangled in a dangerous game.

There is so much to love about Daphne, but one of the most intriguing aspects of Daphne's character is her photographic memory. This ability becomes key to the mystery when she recalls that Sam sent her a cryptic text in French referencing a book that has now mysteriously vanished from her library.

As Daphne brilliantly pieces together the puzzle, she realizes that personal and institutional history has a way of repeating itself and that some secrets refuse to stay buried. It's a page-turner!

Related-2025 Summer Reading Guide

Related- Unforgettable Campus Novels With All the Drama

Related- Black History Month Books (To Read All Year Long)

From the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder comes a gripping adult debut with a killer premise: Jet Mason has seven days to solve her own murder... before it happens.

After surviving a violent attack on Halloween night, doctors warn that a head injury will soon turn fatal. With her time ticking down, Jet must revisit old relationships, expose hidden secrets, and outwit a would-be killer with nothing left to lose.

Sharp, twisty, and emotionally charged, this novel offers everything fans love about amateur sleuths—raised stakes, unreliable allies, and a ticking clock that won’t wait.

Release Date- 22 July 2025

Related- Best Time Travel Books To Escape Real Life

Related- Time Loop Books

Related- Books About Alternate Realities or Parallel Lives

Related- Best Time Travel TV Shows and Movies

Set on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, this deliciously witty debut blends homicide with a dash of romance and a whole lot of flavor.

When a neighborhood lothario drops dead at table two of her soul food café, Savvy Summers never expects her sweet potato pie to be the prime suspect.

With her restaurant’s reputation crumbling and the press circling like vultures, Savvy—along with her spirited assistant Penny—sets out to solve the mystery herself.

Release Date- 29 July 2025

In a cozy Santa Barbara bungalow complex just steps from the beach, a group of quirky tenants becomes unlikely detectives when their landlady confesses to a murder they’re sure she didn’t commit.

What begins as a case of neighborhood drama quickly turns into a full-fledged amateur investigation with a sculptor, a playwright, a finance bro, and an anxious agoraphobe forming the most endearing sleuth squad you didn’t know you needed.

When Finlay’s partner-in-chaos, Vero, gets slapped with theft charges and house arrest, Finlay heads straight to Maryland to clear her best friend’s name because if there’s one thing these accidental sleuths have learned, it’s how to sniff out trouble and survive it together.

With sorority secrets, threatening notes, and a vanishing alibi in the mix, this sixth installment brings the same blend of twisty mystery, sharp humor, and ride-or-die friendship fans adore.

Release Date- 10 March 2026

Related- Best Books About Road Trips

Kirby Cornell's life is already a mess when a chilling message lights up her old group chat: Everyone in the group chat dies. It's creepy enough on its own—except it's from a roommate who's been dead for a year.

Now someone is resurrecting the past and picking off her old friends one by one, forcing Kirby to untangle a tangled web of secrets, guilt, and a second-rate serial killer who may not be so dead after all.

Release Date- 9 December 2025

Related- L.M. Chilton Interview (Podcast)

When Sierra Angelos enters season five of The Escape Game, a televised competition built around high-stakes escape rooms, she’s not just playing to win.

She’s playing to uncover the truth about her sister’s murder.

As the puzzles grow more dangerous and clues point to something far more sinister, Sierra and her fellow contestants realize the game isn’t just for entertainment—it’s a deadly hunt for justice.

Fast-paced, full of sabotage and secrets, this young adult thriller is a twisty ride perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying and Only Murders in the Building—with a locked-room vibe and a countdown clock you won’t want to stop.

Release Date- 7 April 2026

Fans of The Good Place will find much to love in this surprisingly philosophical story pitting good against evil.

Thea can transfer life years between people—an ability that quickly spirals into a full-blown ethical dilemma when she redistributes time from the dangerous to the deserving.

What begins as a righteous mission grows more tangled with each choice, and this story's emotional depth caught me off guard.

This plot unfolded in such unexpected ways, and by the end, I was in tears, both from the emotional payoff and the way the author brilliantly tied everything together.

St. Barth’s may boast a murder rate of zero, but that stat doesn’t hold up once Audrey Collet arrives. Blackmailed by her eccentric billionaire ex, Audrey finds herself on a luxury island estate surrounded by secrets, scandal, and suspects.

When a foot washes ashore in the Everglades and a birthday dive ends in death, Audrey realizes the person extorting her isn’t the only danger in paradise.

Trapped on a yacht with seven potential killers, she must solve the murder before she becomes the next body to surface. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie with a modern, sun-soaked edge.

Related- Best Books to Get Out of a Reading Slump

When book-loving Mia Crawford takes a long-overdue vacation to a private island resort, she expects her biggest decision to be which book to read next—until she discovers cryptic notes scribbled in the margins of a mystery novel.

As the clues begin to point toward a missing guest and the resort’s glossy perfection starts to crack, Mia is drawn into an investigation filled with suspects, secrets, and a dangerously charming bartender.

Related- Enthralling Books Set on Islands

When Cath discovers that her late mother had secretly booked tickets to a staged murder mystery week in the English countryside, she impulsively decides to go in her place.

What begins as a quirky getaway in a small Peak District village turns into something deeper, as Cath and her two fellow amateur sleuths—an overwhelmed birding shop employee and a romance author in a rut—find that solving fake crimes might just help them face the real mysteries in their lives.

Related- Fascinating Books About Authors and Publishing

When college student Jane Sharp plunges into the online world of amateur sleuthing after her father’s death, she finds comfort in chasing cold cases with fellow internet detectives.

But when a series of shocking murders rocks a small town in Idaho, Jane’s obsession turns deadly. As she digs deeper into the Delphine killings, it becomes clear that the truth is more twisted than she imagined. Told in the aftermath of the case, this chilling novel explores the blurred line between solving a mystery and becoming part of it.

Related- Ashley Winstead Interview (Podcast)

Related- Fictional Serial Killer Books

Related- Books on Grief and Loss

Related- Best Atmospheric Books

You'll know immediately if this book is for you from the opening line:

"The missing boy is ten-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit."

Florence Grimes is in a rut after the collapse of her promising girl band career. Instead of pursuing her dreams, she's delivering overpriced balloon arches to influencer events. But in her heart of hearts, Florence knows Mariah had a comeback. She, too, will find her Emancipation of Mimi moment to begin her singing career again.

Just as she is about to have her comeback interview with a promising lead in the music industry, an incident at her son's private school changes everything.

Alfie Risby, a problematic classmate, becomes a field trip partner with her son on a nature excursion. But when they return to school, the teachers realize that the pair is now down to one, and Dylan is the last person to have seen him.

Later, when Florence finds Alfie's backpack hidden in Dylan's room, she discovers a diary tucked inside with a chilling entry that says, "Dylan Palmer said he's going to kill me."

She realizes she must put her music career on hold, get rid of this backpack, clear her son's name, and discover what REALLY happened to this mini heir to a frozen food empire.

Related- Sarah Harman Interview

Related- Page Turners About Motherhood

Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.

Vera Wong’s teahouse is thriving, her matchmaking skills are unmatched, and life is good, but wouldn’t another murder make things more exciting?

When a young woman seeks help finding a missing friend, Vera stumbles upon a case file about the mysterious death of influencer Xander Lin. Online, he had it all, but in reality, no one seems to know who he truly was.

Determined to impress her future daughter-in-law, Officer Selena Gray, Vera launches her own investigation. But as every clue leads to another dead end, she’ll need her signature meddling (and a few cups of tea) to crack the case—before the killer strikes again.

I haven't met a Jess Kidd book that I haven't loved. This new cozy mystery is the first in the Nora Breen Investigates series and a fun new writerly direction for Jess Kidd fans to follow.

In 1954, Sister Nora Breen's quiet world is upended when her former novice, Frieda Brogan, suddenly stops writing.

Masquerading as a guest, she settles among the eccentric residents, quickly realizing she's not the only one harboring secrets.

Related- Incredible Books About Faith and Churches

When Nova Davies moves to the quaint Cornish village of St. Tredock, she hopes to quietly settle into life with her fiancé's family despite her overbearing mother-in-law's wedding meddling.

But after taking a job at the local community center, she finds herself at the helm of a book club filled with an eclectic mix of members, from studious teens to cantankerous retirees.

Just as she begins to bridge their differences, disaster strikes: £10,000 meant for the center's roof repair vanishes, a book club member disappears, and a murder shakes the village.

Now, with suspicion falling on their beloved club, Nova and her fellow bookworms—led by a Miss Marple-obsessed octogenarian—must channel their inner sleuths to uncover the truth.

Related- Books About Book Clubs

These beloved TV icons get a delightful whodunit makeover in Murder by Cheesecake, a nostalgic and laugh-out-loud mystery featuring the ladies of The Golden Girls.

When Rose's niece plans a wedding in Miami, her Norwegian American relatives descend upon Florida, sending her stress levels soaring.

But family drama takes a backseat when Dorothy is arrested at the bridal shower—accused of murder after a man from a VHS dating service turns up dead, face-first in a cheesecake.

Determined to clear Dorothy's name, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia band together, proving that friendship (and a well-timed quip) can solve anything.

Related- 17 Stunning Friendship Stories

When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunnit—the first book in a cozy new detective series from the acclaimed author of Ayesha at Last.

With sharp intuition, a meddlesome aunty streak, and help from old friends and her spirited granddaughter, this new novel sounds like a page-turner.

But as she unearths long-buried secrets, she realizes the truth may be more dangerous than even she ever imagined.

Nita Prose returns with another irresistible mystery in The Maid's Secret, blending an art heist, a long-buried family secret, and a touch of romance in a captivating whodunit.

When the Regency Grand Hotel hosts an episode of Hidden Treasures, head maid Molly Gray is stunned to learn that her late grandmother's beloved display egg is no mere trinket—it's a priceless Fabergé. But before she can fully grasp the revelation, the egg vanishes, setting off a chain of threats, investigations, and shocking discoveries.

As Molly races to uncover the truth, her grandmother's long-hidden diary emerges, unlocking secrets that reach back decades and tie her family's past to the very heart of the mystery.

Related- Best Books About Art and Artists

A retired nurse, expert cake maker, and sharp-eyed sleuth, Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since emigrating from Jamaica in 1960.

With decades of nursing experience, she's unafraid of anyone, and can uncover secrets with a glance.

When a man is found dead in one of the Pardner network's homes, an influential group of Black investors, Miss Hortense, steps in to investigate.

However, when a Bible quote found by the body brings unsettling memories of a traumatic past, she must dive deeper into long-buried secrets.

Related- Books About Nurses

By day, Joe is a buttoned-up hotel accountant. By night, they transform into Misty Divine, a dazzling star of London's drag scene.

But when Misty's beloved drag mother, Lady Lady, is found dead beside a poisoned box of chocolates, the spotlight turns on Misty and her fellow queens as the prime suspects.

Determined to get justice and unwilling to let the police's biases cloud the case, Misty launches her own investigation. But in a world of glitter and glam, a killer lurks in the wings, and Misty Divine won't stop until she finds out who's behind the crime.

Related- LGBTQ History Month Books

Julia Mann, a sharp-tongued ex-actress with a knack for making enemies, has a problem. There's a dead body in her swimming pool, and the cops are convinced she put it there.

(Not an unfair assumption, considering she's already done time for murder once.)

Enter Natasha Mason, a by-the-book investigator who meets Julia at an AA meeting and can't help but get involved.

What starts as a reluctant partnership turns into a wild investigation through Hollywood's glitzy underbelly, from burlesque clubs to country clubs, with a supporting cast of showgirls, cat burglars, and shady agents.

But will they find the real killer before Julia lands back behind bars?

This captivating debut mystery, a Reese’s Book Club pick for September 2023, was written by former NASA engineer Nina Simon while her mother was undergoing cancer treatment, a heartfelt collaboration to pass the time together.

In this charming and heartfelt whodunit, an unlikely trio of amateur sleuths—a sharp-witted grandmother, her determined single mother daughter, and an inquisitive teenage girl—team up to solve a shocking murder.

Lana Rubicon, a formidable Los Angeles real estate mogul, is forced to slow down after a cancer diagnosis lands her in a quiet coastal town with her estranged daughter, Beth, and granddaughter, Jack.

Just as she struggles to adjust to her new reality, their world is upended when Jack discovers a dead body during a routine kayaking trip.

Now, three generations of strong-willed women must set aside their differences and uncover the truth before the killer strikes again.

Related- Nina Simon Interview (The Remarkable Murder Mystery That Changed Everything)

Related- My Top Celebrity Book Club Picks

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron—meet every Thursday to investigate cold cases as part of their quirky Thursday Murder Club.

Their sleuthing is mostly a harmless hobby until a local developer is found dead under mysterious circumstances, and the club suddenly finds themselves at the center of an active murder investigation.

Armed with sharp wit, decades of life experience, and a few unexpected connections, the four retirees take it upon themselves to solve the case—much to the frustration of the local police.

As they dig deeper, they uncover secrets that some would prefer to stay buried, all while proving that age is no obstacle when it comes to cracking a mystery.

Ingrid, a 29-year-old Ph.D. student, is struggling to finish her dissertation and drowning in student debt.

As her funding runs out and the deadline for her research on renowned poet Xiao-Wen Chou approaches, she discovers a mysterious note in the archives correcting her conclusion about the location referenced in Chou's famous poem.

Intrigued, Ingrid embarks on an unexpected investigation with the help of her best friend, Eunice, whose wild K-Drama theories may hold the key to unraveling the truth.

Jennifer Kim's deadpan delivery in the audiobook adds a layer of humor as she leads us through her coming-of-consciousness narration. If you love satirical novels, lean into this one!

Related- 14 Books By AAPI Authors to Read Now

Gwen Turner is just trying to navigate the horrors of online dating—ghosting, bad pickup lines, and the occasional awkward first date. But when her matches start turning up dead, Gwen realizes she's swiping through a serial killer's hit list.

As the body count rises, Gwen takes matters into her own hands, determined to unmask the murderer before she becomes the next victim.

Packed with red herrings, laugh-out-loud moments, and a clever spin on the dangers of modern romance, Don't Swipe Right is a binge-worthy thriller for fans of Scream.

Related- L.M. Chilton Interview (Digital Dating Turns Deadly in This Debut Mystery)

Related- 30 Fictional Serial Killer Books to Read Now

Daniel has a rare disease that limits his movement, but nothing gets past him especially when he witnesses a woman's abduction from his front porch.

He decides to take his story to Reddit, where he begins a conversation with the captor. As he discloses more and more, Daniel is convinced he might be the one to help solve the case, but it is tough to convince the police that you have valuable information when you can't speak or move.

Trust me, the characters in this novel are unforgettable, as are the laughs.

Related- Books to Get Out of a Reading Slump

Related- Disability Pride Books

Looking for a really great audiobook to indulge in? The narration on this smart murder mystery delivers in spades!

In this wildly entertaining series, struggling novelist Finlay Donovan finds herself in a bizarre mix-up at a Panera Bread. While discussing the plot of her next suspense novel with her agent, a nearby eavesdropper mistakes her for a contract killer—and offers her a job.

As a financially strapped single mom, the offer is shockingly tempting. After all, what better way to research a thriller than by accidentally living one?

Packed with sharp humor, witty banter, and an unexpected (and hilarious) partner-in-crime, this book delivers nonstop laughs and twists that will keep you flipping pages (and giggling) all the way through.

Stephanie Plum is broke, jobless, and desperate enough to take on a new bounty hunter gig despite having zero experience.

Her first assignment?

Bring in Joe Morelli, a charming and infuriating cop-turned-fugitive who also happens to be the guy who broke her heart years ago. Determined to prove herself, she dives headfirst into a world of car chases, eccentric criminals, and one very mysterious (and dangerously attractive) bounty hunter named Ranger.

Fast-paced, hilarious, and filled with quirky characters, this is a classic in the amateur sleuth genre, with 31 novels to dig into in this series.

Get ready to laugh a lot because Vera Wong is my new favorite meddling older protagonist! She’s up to date on all the latest TikTok trends and never misses an opportunity to dish out unsolicited advice... whether people want it or not.

Vera keeps busy running her struggling tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown, humorously named Vera Wang’s World Famous Tea House (because, hey, brand recognition matters).

But when she stumbles upon a dead man in her shop clutching a flash drive, she does what any self-respecting amateur sleuth would do. She swipes the evidence and takes the case into her own hands, convinced she can outsmart the police.

As she investigates, Vera unexpectedly finds herself forming deep connections with her customers, forcing her to juggle detective work with her growing friendships.

If you’re craving a charming and cozy mystery, the audiobook of this novel is delightful.

Ernest Cunningham follows the family rule: he always tells the truth. And the truth is, everyone in his family has killed someone.

When a family reunion at a remote mountain resort turns deadly, Ernest finds himself caught in a classic whodunit, complete with an isolated setting, a rising body count, and a web of long-buried secrets.

As tensions mount and accusations fly, Ernest must use his knowledge of crime novels (and his own family's dark history) to unravel the mystery before anyone else meets an untimely end.

Dark humor, twists, and a protagonist who feels like a hardboiled detective trapped in the wrong novel make this an unforgettable read.

Related- 26 Books About Books You Will Love

Precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce has a passion for chemistry and a knack for solving crime.

When she stumbles upon a dying man in her garden, she's determined to uncover the truth even if it means outwitting the police, her father, and her nosy older sisters.

There are twelve beloved books in the Flavia de Luce Series to read if you fall in love with this fun character.

Related- 13 Coming-of-Age Books Any Adult Will Love

When bestselling author Alan Conway dies under mysterious circumstances, his editor, Susan Ryeland, is tasked with finishing his latest manuscript—only to discover that the story within its pages mirrors the very real murder of Conway himself.

As Susan dives deeper into the manuscript, she uncovers a tangled web of secrets, lies, and potential motives. The more she reads, the more she finds herself drawn into a puzzling investigation that seems to blur the lines between fiction and reality.

Molly Gray isn’t like everyone else. Her world is guided by strict routines, a love of cleanliness, and a deep devotion to her job as a hotel maid at the prestigious Regency Grand. She takes great pride in restoring each room to perfection, finding comfort in the order of it all.

But when she discovers a wealthy guest dead in his suite, Molly’s carefully structured life is thrown into chaos.

Due to her unusual demeanor, she quickly becomes the prime suspect in the murder investigation. With the help of a few unlikely allies, Molly must navigate a world of secrets, deception, and hidden agendas to clear her name and uncover the truth.

Related- Books With Autistic Characters to Read Now

Lila Macapagal's fresh start running her aunt's Filipino restaurant takes a deadly turn when her food critic ex-boyfriend drops dead... right after a meal at the café.

With her family business on the line and the cops eyeing her as the prime suspect, Lila must devise a plan to clear her name.

This story is sweetly satisfying and, at the end, filled with some fun recipes for replicating a few of these great dishes that you are reading about.

Four strangers sit in the Boston Public Library when a woman's scream shatters the silence. As they rush to investigate, they discover the body of a woman in the library’s reading roo,m, setting off a chain of events that will forever link them together.

The story is told through the perspective of author Hannah, who is working on a novel inspired by the real-life crime, using the voices of the four strangers—Freya, Cain, Whit, and Marigold—as characters in her fictional work.

As the lines between reality and fiction blur, the characters begin to unravel not just the truth about the crime, but also dark secrets within their own lives.

Related- Books About Libraries You'll Want to Add to Your Shelf Now

Five years ago, Andie Bell was murdered, and everyone knows who did it. The case is closed, except Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't convinced.

For her senior project, she re-examines the case, uncovering secrets the town would rather keep buried. But as Pip approaches the truth, someone wants to stop her—at any cost.

This young adult series is excellent on audiobook and you can binge the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series on Netflix when you finish the book!

Related- 11 Shows to Watch With Your Tween

Related- Better Than The Movies Movie List (FREE PRINTABLE!)

This novel made me fall in love with Simone St. James.

Carly Kirk never believed in ghosts until she takes a job at the eerie Sundown Motel in search of answers about her aunt's disappearance decades ago. But something sinister still lingers in the motel's halls, and Carly's investigation may put her in the same danger her aunt once faced.

This mystery had a very Hitchcock feel to it and I loved the layering of all the guests stories and how they intertwined with Carly & Viv's story. It's a ghost story isn't too scary, but has just the right kind of creepy vibes for any reader.

Related- 24 Atmospheric Books to Get Lost In This Season

Set at an elite prep academy, two students, Devon and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected as senior class prefects. This coveted spot holds notoriety in their school and puts them in the running for its valedictorian. 

After this announcement, the two start receiving threatening messages from someone who identifies only as Aces. What begins as a harmless prank evolves into dangerous threats that lead the two to realize that these pranks are rooted in a dark history at their school that they could have never expected. 

Related- Social Horror Books

College student Joe Talbert, is assigned to write a biography of a stranger as part of his English class project. He chooses Carl Iverson, a dying Vietnam War veteran who has spent decades in prison for the brutal murder of a young woman.

As Joe begins to interview Carl, he uncovers inconsistencies in the story and starts to suspect that Carl might not be guilty after all.

Becoming more entangled in the case, Joe must confront his own painful past while racing against time to bring justice to a man who may have been wrongfully convicted.

Related- The Best Book Club Books to Discuss Now

Related- Beautiful Lessons from a Book Club for Inmates

When Claire's husband is brutally murdered, she uncovers shocking secrets about his past—ones that link him to the disappearance of her sister decades earlier. As she digs deeper, she realizes the truth is darker than she ever imagined.

As a lover of horror films and fiction, this book is the first book that has absolutely terrified me and kept me up with nightmares at night...and I loved it. Slaughter perfectly crafts each character so skillfully that it is as though you are watching a film.

Dark, psychologically twisted, evil, and graphic, the tale is gruesome and horrific and kept me on the absolute edge of my seat from the opening page.

Related- Best Psychological Thrillers to Read Now

Related- 19 Thrillers to Keep You Up All Night

This novel is a wildly propulsive debut where two Harvard undergrads drop out with a biotech pitch that promises to reverse aging.

As ambition calcifies and funding pours in, the partnership behind the project begins to erode. Think Theranos, but a story far more interested in the cost of genius.

Taylor's background as a Harvard graduate in Chemistry and English adds authenticity to the lab and startup scenes, whether the characters are titrating over a petri dish or commanding the floor at a TEDx talk.

Related- Austin Taylor Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Related- 2025 Summer Reading Guide

At Frost, a small college in Massachusetts, the women’s cross country team is training relentlessly for the 1992 New England Division Three Championships, but their hopes are threatened by star runner Kristin’s hidden secret and erratic behavior. Team captain Danielle is determined to help Kristin regain her confidence, even as she struggles with her own unresolved past.

Narrated by six team members, the girls must transcend their individual circumstances as the final meet approaches and run the race with each other—and for each other.

Release Date- 26 August 2025

At an elite university, a power-hungry sophomore and a spiraling adjunct professor both find themselves seduced by The House—an exclusive sorority where ambition looks like perfection and success demands sacrifice.

In this darkly delicious campus novel, Blake skewers wellness culture, academic politics, and girlboss feminism with biting wit and twisted glee.

Release Date- 21 October 2025

Dubbed "The Eights" after the row of rooms they share, Beatrice, Dora, Otto, and Marianne find strength in each other as they defy the odds stacked against them: grief, trauma, buried secrets, and a society eager to remind them they don't belong there.

Joanna Miller's debut pulses with female camaraderie and quiet rebellion, casting a warm light on a forgotten sliver of history where young women carved out space for their voices—sometimes at significant personal cost.

Related- Historical Fiction Book Club Books

Professor Daphne has a photographic memory, a sharp tongue, and a colleague who just turned up dead. This perfect debut mixes campus politics, mystery, and race with flair and bite.

Fans of Queenie will appreciate her astute observations on campus culture and racial bias, all delivered with the same wit and nuance that make Daphne such an engaging protagonist. 

Release Date- 1 July 2025

Related- Amateur Sleuths

In 1959, Freda heads to Fisk University, full of hope, ambition, and a desire to shape the world. Thirty years later, her daughter Tulip is navigating the politics of a corporate career in Chicago.

This dual-timeline novel pulses with intergenerational tension, as both women confront what it costs to succeed as a Black woman in spaces not built for them. Deeply moving and personal, with a campus story at its core.

A young Brazilian woman adjusts to life at a liberal arts college in snowy Vermont while maintaining a fragile but fierce connection with her mother back home.

Separated by oceans and illuminated only by the glow of a laptop screen, the two forge new rituals of love until the promise of spring forces each to reckon with what they've lost, and what they might let go.

Andrés is a writer, a striver, and—maybe—a liar. After faking his way into an elite writing fellowship for "systemically marginalized voices," his past starts to unravel, putting everything he's built at risk.

Set in the snobby, name-droppy world of campus-adjacent literary spaces, this debut is razor-sharp, deeply funny, and refreshingly uncomfortable.

Related - Books on Con Artists

Set in a crumbling art college during the 2011 recession, this debut follows four creatives as they navigate aesthetic politics, betrayal, and the impossible business of turning life into art.

Angress prompts readers to contemplate the nature of creativity, its intended audience, and the evolving concept of success in art. If you are passionate about the art world, this is a powerful exploration that I count among my favorites on creativity.

Competitive, prickly, and satisfyingly cerebral.

Related- Antonia Angress Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

This novel is a dizzying, emotionally rich portrait of two women whose friendship and creative life began in art school. Their first animated film is a raw, unflinching hit—but illness, grief, and long-held secrets threaten everything.

Readers should appreciate such an ambitious debut, as Whitaker not only writes the book but also the animated movie plots that unfold for these animators. It is unlike anything I've read, and I loved the exploration of a female partnership carving its place in this artistic field.

Related- Best Books About Art

Connell is popular. Marianne is not. But when they meet in secret in a small Irish town, something shifts—and keeps shifting as they follow each other to Trinity College and beyond.

Rooney captures the ache of growing up, growing apart, and never quite letting go. This is the perfect campus novel for anyone who’s loved quietly and too hard.

An unnamed professor is sick of her husband's affairs—until her fixation shifts to a charismatic new hire. Twisted, smart, and full of discomfort in all the right ways.

Certainly filled with unlikeable people, I found myself chewing on this one many days after I finished it. What does it mean to be a feminist in the world of "wokeness"? You'll either love or hate it. I fell into the love camp!

Related- Best Literary Fiction Books

At fifteen, Vanessa thought it was love. At thirty-two, she isn't so sure. This takes a devastating look at grooming, memory, and the narratives we cling to when we don't want to believe we were victims.

Alternating between Vanessa's past and present showcases the complications of sexual abuse as she comes to terms with the fact that her story wasn't a love story. It is astounding to me that this is Russell's debut, as the emotions she layered into these characters are done so beautifully and believably.

Horrifying and unapologetically written.

Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital and reconnect at Harvard, where they build a video game empire and leave a complicated legacy. At its heart? The tricky love story of a friendship that never quite becomes romance but never stops being love.

Zevin writes each of the games for this company in beautiful and intricate ways so that each feels fully fleshed out from idea to execution. One world she built, in particular, left me in a puddle on the ground.

PhD candidate Olive Smith doesn’t believe in love—but when a fake-dating scheme with a grumpy (and absurdly attractive) professor spirals into something real, her carefully managed academic life starts to implode.

Hazelwood’s viral debut is nerdy, flirty, and campus to its core, set in the pressure-cooked halls of a STEM grad program.

Ella's fast-tracked political career takes a pause for a Rhodes Scholarship—but her carefully planned year at Oxford detours into unexpected romance and gut-punch revelations. It is a tender, clever story that sneaks up on you with emotional depth and literary charm.

Julia Whelan is a beloved fixture in our audiobook lives, and it was an honor to interview her to celebrate Thank You For Listening and discover more about her process. I hope you can tune in!

Related- Julia Whelan Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

Maurice wants literary fame—badly. So badly, in fact, he'll steal stories from anyone foolish enough to trust him. A delicious satire about ambition and academic parasitism.

Boyne writes, perhaps, the most unlikable character ever. I think it is a tribute to his clever storytelling that you have to keep reading. This novel achieves this by telling the story through different narrators, which keeps the reader on their toes. I loved this 5-star reading experience.

Related- Books About Authors and Publishing

Annika is brilliant, socially anxious, and finding her way at the University of Illinois. This quiet neurodivergent love story unfolds in two timelines: young love, and what happens when you try again.

Graves rounds out her story with beautiful supporting characters that help Annika navigate the world in really incredible ways. I may have teared up in a few places in this sweet read.

Related- Books With Autistic Characters

Related- Second Chance Romance Novels

Jonas is a prodigy, accepted to Brown at sixteen—but when he leaves home without telling his two mothers, his quiet rebellion sets off a chain of reckonings. Told through shifting timelines and perspectives, this campus-adjacent novel explores the uneasy weight of family legacy.

Skip any synopsis to avoid spoilers, but know that this book's themes are significant for book clubs. I adored Jentry's earnest quest to discover who he was and enjoyed this as an audiobook experience.

Related- Page-Turners About Motherhood

A ten-year college reunion cracks open a murder that never healed—and the six former friends who never really moved on. Winstead combines nostalgia, obsession, and twisted ambition in this dark academia thriller, where no one is as innocent as they appear to be.

You will enjoy this tightly woven plot and the complex motives of each character. Winstead delivers on one of the most solid thrillers I've had the pleasure of reading.

Related- Ashley Winstead Interview (Book Gang Podcast)

I loved this dark, razor-sharp campus novel where chronic pain and theatrical revenge collide. When college theater director Miranda Fitch is overruled by her students and peers, she strikes a mysterious bargain that turns her life—and the production of All's Well That Ends Well—into a surreal and vengeful unraveling.

Awad's unapologetic story explores the complexities of revenge in medical settings that gaslight women and the haunting consequences of seeking validation in a society that dismisses invisible illnesses. It was angering and healing.

Related- These Social Horror Books Will Make You Think

Related- Best Social Horror Books

From suburban Texas to an elite graduate program, two former high school best friends chase the same dream—and the same prestigious fellowship. One comes from money, the other barely scraped her way in, but both are fluent in indie films, ambition, and the subtle art of reinvention.

As faculty favoritism blurs ethical lines and their friendship warps under pressure, the question isn’t just who will win—but who they’ll become to get there.

Set aside reader expectations of this being a thriller, but prepare for a slow-burn mystery with a diabolical ending. My Brilliant Friend fans will love this one. I couldn't put this book down.

Anita Hemmings has the grades, the poise, and the secrets to blend in at Vassar in 1897—until her roommate, the daughter of a powerful family, gets too close.

Based on the true story of the first Black woman to attend Vassar College by passing as white, this historical novel is a page-turner layered with social tension.

In a dorm at the University of Arkansas, RA Millie is just trying to pay rent—but gets tangled in the life of a visiting professor. Reid dials into the awkwardness and friction of college life with sharp humor and class commentary that goes down smoothly.

Despite the plot feeling less eventful than anticipated, Reid's sharp class observations kept me turning the pages. Having spent time in Fayetteville for many work projects, I was impressed by how authentically she portrayed the city and its people. 

Assigned to interview a stranger for a class project, college student Joe Talbert picks a dying convict—and accidentally uncovers a decades-old murder mystery—tense, compassionate, and book-club gold.

Related- The Best Book Club Books to Discuss Now

Related- Beautiful Lessons from a Book Club for Inmates (Book Gang Podcast)

A PhD candidate in East Asian Studies uncovers a shocking secret in the archives and inadvertently triggers a campus-wide reckoning. Outrageous, satirical, and razor-blade funny.

The protagonist openly ponders the nuances of racial language, questioning whether it's racist to label white people as white while simultaneously unaware of the blatant microaggressions surrounding the Asian experience every single day.

Jennifer Kim's deadpan delivery in the audiobook adds a layer of humor as she leads us through her coming-of-consciousness narration.

Scarlett is a professor—and a serial killer. She's carefully methodical and only takes out men who deserve it. But when her latest plan falters, another student's story starts to catch up with her.

Fargo's narrative weaves these stories together in a propulsive story you won't be able to put down. 

Related- 30 Fictional Serial Killer Books

A failed writer and college professor is forced to reckon with the mother who abandoned him—now at the center of a national scandal. Hill's sharply funny debut bounces between '60s campus protests and modern malaise with biting insight and a plot engine that's one hell of a ride.

Hill's chapters read like a series of short stories from Samuel's childhood. One of my favorite scenes is when a student cheats and then justifies it in a way that only a Millennial could, making my sides split with laughter. I will read anything this man writes.

If you've somehow missed this dark academia staple—fix that. A tight-knit group of classics students chase beauty and meaning—and unravel into something much darker.

I unlocked my literary badge for this one last summer. This novel has been featured on the Book Gang Podcast more than any other book and has inspired numerous writers and guests who have visited our show, so I had to know more. I loved it!

Cath is starting college, but her anxiety—and obsession with the Simon Snow fanfic world—makes letting go impossible. It is a gentle story about growing up, writing yourself bravely, and the ache of diverging from your twin.

Related- 35 Books About Twins That Double the Fun

College, bookstores, bad decisions—Rachel thought she was just falling for her professor. Instead, she and her best friend James find themselves in a messy, magnetic tangle of secrets, class, and coming-of-age. Smart, hilarious, and quietly devastating.

What I loved about this was its reflective nature. Rachel's new adult viewpoint shapes the story, allowing her to see her immaturity, vulnerability, and manipulation. She also isn't entirely sure if the world was that fixated on her saga or if it was just because she only thought about herself, something we all can relate to. 

Related- Books About Bookstores

Barrett's first day of college is a disaster—and then it repeats. She's trapped in a time loop with her least favorite classmate, and it turns out they might be the only ones who can break it.

Related- Time Loop Books

Related- Best One-Bed Trope Books

Two gorgeously voiced narrators bring Happy Land to life in audiobook form, elevating this tried-and-true author's incredible storytelling through her immersive, dual-timeline narrative.

Inspired by the true story of a lost kingdom built by freed people in the hills of North Carolina, it's a transporting tale with a beautiful modern timeline rooted in reclaiming their land and lineage.

Dolen's rich historical research informed this sweeping novel, even uncovering a few historical inaccuracies for the town's residents along the way! It is a gorgeous celebration of the Black legacy and an intriguing reclamation of forgotten American history. She really stuck the feel-good ending!

Related- Dolen Perkins-Valdez Interview

Lulu Mayfield might seem like your ideal postwar housewife—gelatin molds, polished silver, and all—but beneath the starched perfection is a woman unraveling. As postpartum depression and buried trauma collide, a new neighbor moves in, and Lulu's fixation grows into an obsession.

Is Bitsy a threat or just a mirror? Church expertly blends paranoia, gaslighting, and the impossible standards of womanhood into a taut psychological portrait that the author promises will surprise her seasoned readers.

I can't wait to dig into another book from one of my favorite authors!

Release Date- 4 November 2025

Related- Meagan Church Interview (Podcast)

Related- Best Book Club Books to Discuss Now (Meagan Church as Contributor)

You don't need ruby slippers to be swept away by Before Dorothy—Hazel Gaynor's latest is a gorgeously rendered prequel that reimagines the life of Aunt Em long before the twister.

Emily and Henry have made a life in the warmth of the community of Liberal, Kansas, and among the harsh beauty of the prairie. Their lives hold a precarious and hopeful purpose until tragedy strikes, and their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep.

What begins as the family's hopeful Midwestern story soon digs into the emotional grit of the desperate choices we must make when the world tilts sideways. The Dust Bowl may rage outside, but it's the storm brewing in Emily Gale's heart that gives this book its punch.

Readers who love character-driven historical fiction with heartache and hope in equal measure will find much to savor here.

Kristin Harmel returns with another emotional stunner, this time following an aging jewel thief whose glittering legacy hides a devastating wartime loss.

When a long-lost diamond resurfaces in a museum exhibit, Colette must confront the night that shattered her family and the sister she has never stopped mourning.

What unfolds is a sweeping story of resistance, memory, and a woman brave enough to trace the tangled threads of a past she's spent decades trying to forget. Harmel beautifully balances suspense and heart, making this a standout for fans of character-driven historical fiction with a mystery that earns its payoff.

Related- Kristin Harmel Interview (The Life We Intended)

In The Eights, four young women arrive at Oxford in 1920, stepping into a world that was never built for them and daring to claim it anyway.

Dubbed "The Eights" after the row of rooms they share, Beatrice, Dora, Otto, and Marianne find strength in each other as they defy the odds stacked against them: grief, trauma, buried secrets, and a society eager to remind them they don't belong there.

Joanna Miller's debut pulses with female camaraderie and quiet rebellion, casting a warm light on a forgotten sliver of history where young women carved out space for their voices—sometimes at significant personal cost.

Camille Di Maio's Come Fly With Me offers a stylish, heart-forward escape into the jet-set world of 1960s Pan Am stewardesses—but it's more than just sky-high glamor within the pages.

Through the stories of two women from vastly different backgrounds, Di Maio peels back the glossy façade of the era to reveal the resilience and risk behind their pursuit of independence in these stewardess roles.

With immersive detail gleaned from real interviews and a twist that lands with emotional heft at the story's end, this is a perfect book club pick for readers who crave rich historical fiction with a strong feminist core.

I loved the immersive audiobook experience for this novel and included it in this month's buzzy book reviews, which we offer to show patrons monthly.

This novel had my pulse racing and my heart breaking in equal measure. When a tragic accident shatters the quiet of a Dorset farming village, it sets off a reckoning decades in the making.

Beth thought she'd put her past behind her—until Gabriel, her first love turned bestselling author, returned to town with his son. The death of a beloved family dog may seem like a small event, but it cracks open the fault lines in Beth's marriage, her memories, and her choices.

Toggling between past and present, this story unfolds with the simmering tension of a courtroom drama and the emotional weight of a long-buried love story. The rural setting is so vivid it practically dirties your shoes.

Perfect for fans of slow-burning literary romance. It's one I've been pressing into readers' hands all year.

Related- Books About Authors and Publishing

Wilkerson's story centers on Ebby Freeman, who, as a child, witnessed an unspeakable act of violence against her brother that altered the course of her life and shattered her family's life forever.

Decades later, the echoes of that day still reverberate, not just in the scars left behind but in the enduring mystery surrounding the shattered pieces of a treasured family heirloom. This stoneware jar brought North by an ancestor who endured unimaginable hardship encapsulates her lineage, harboring secrets that could help Ebby move forward.

With the author's signature lyrical prose, she deftly captures the lingering impact of generational trauma and the unyielding strength of familial bonds through shifting timelines.

My Zoom chat with the author is available for streaming, where we discuss the novel, including spoilers.

The Women on Platform Two explores the quiet courage of women fighting for control over their own bodies in a country where that autonomy was once outlawed.

Set in 1970s Dublin, where contraception is criminalized, and in modern-day Ireland, where one woman questions what motherhood means to her; this story weaves two generations of women together in a legacy of resistance.

With rich emotional texture and a plot inspired by real-life defiance, Laura Anthony's debut honors the bravery of those who made the choice possible while reminding us the fight is never really over.

Inspired by true events, this debut is both a tribute and a reminder: the personal is always political, and progress is never guaranteed.

Renee Rosen's Let's Call Her Barbie rewinds to the smoky boardrooms and bustling design studios of 1950s America, reimagining the origin story of the world's most iconic doll and the complicated people who made her possible.

Ruth Handler's radical vision wasn't just a plastic doll; it was empowerment in miniature form, meant to shatter the limits of what girls could imagine for themselves.

Told through the lens of a bold creative team racing to launch a doll that resembles a woman and dares girls to dream beyond motherhood, this novel resonates with the unmistakable weight of Barbie's incredible legacy.

This historical fiction story shimmers with the drama of the stage and the grit of wartime sacrifice, capturing a heroine whose spotlight fades just as history demands more from her than applause.

When Broadway star Calla Connolly lands in a North Carolina army camp instead of the French front, a bout with the Spanish flu, a stolen tour, and a government secret upend everything she thought she wanted.

What unfolds is a story of unexpected reinvention as Calla trades marquee lights for military bandstands, fame for purpose, and perhaps, grudging duty for a deeper kind of love.

Rich with WWI detail and romantic tension, this novel strikes a poignant note about how women navigate the call to serve in a world determined to confine them.

Inspired by a little-known historical bond across enemy lines, this story follows Libby Steadman, a mill owner trying to survive in the shifting no-man's-land of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

When Libby discovers a Union officer abandoned and broken in a neighbor's house, the decision she faces could mean treason—or salvation.

As she secretly tends to the wounded soldier, the question of loyalty becomes more than a political issue. It becomes personal. What unfolds is a riveting and emotionally charged tale of survival and what it means to be humane in inhumane times.

Fans of Cold Mountain will find themselves swept up in this taut, beautifully researched drama from one of historical fiction's most assured pens.

This stunning and unforgettable debut seamlessly blends historical fiction, a ghost story, and a coming-of-age narrative that echoes the best of classic literature.

Set in Alabama on the cusp of the Civil War, the novel follows 16-year-old Junie, an enslaved girl whose love of reading and sense of self are both tested when she's threatened with being sent away from the only home she's ever known.

As Junie begins to unravel the truth of her sister's death—and the illusion of her safety—she's pushed onto a perilous journey toward freedom.

Inspired by the author's own family history and enriched by her educational background, Eckstine writes with a confident pen.

Related- Erin Crosby Eckstine Interview (Podcast)

Related- Coming Of Age Books Any Adult Will Love

Related- Black History Month Books

A nearly forgotten footnote inspired this beautifully rendered historical novel in Canadian history. Set in the 16th century, it follows Marguerite, a young noblewoman exiled to a remote island after a forbidden romance with a nobleman enrages her guardian.

What begins as a tale of betrayal and survival soon becomes a profound story of resilience and faith. Marguerite is stripped of privilege and forced to endure the harshest elements that rival a reality show season of Survivor.

Goodman's prose is both lyrical and raw, capturing the brutality of nature and the quiet strength of a woman determined to endure. This immersive escape is a standout.

Related- Allegra Goodman Interview (Podcast)

Related- Enthralling Books Set On Islands

Todd's riveting debut sheds light on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, whose Institute for Sexual Science offered hope and healing for trans individuals in the early 20th century.

Through the eyes of Bertie, a trans man at the institute, we witness the tragic dismantling of Hirschfeld's life's work when Hitler comes to power, erasing the progress made in a single, violent sweep.

Todd's dedication to documenting his trancestry and heartfelt storytelling illustrates how easily progress can be undone and disturbingly repeated.

Related- Milo Todd Interview (Podcast)

Related- Best LGBTQ History Month Books

Augusta, a spirited pharmacist's daughter from 1920s Fordham, grew up surrounded by her father's secret remedies—until her mother's sudden death brings Aunt Esther's mysterious homeopathic potions into the household, stirring both miracles and mischief.

Now in her eighties and full of life, Augusta reunites with Irving, her long-lost love, at a retirement community—their reunion bubbles with laughter, tender secrets, and the bittersweet magic of second chances.

Loigman's warm tribute invites you to savor every moment—this novel is pure joy from start to finish.

Related- Best Books About Book Clubs

Related- Second Chance Romance Novels to Celebrate New Beginnings

Related- Best Magical Realism Books to Read Now