Books

In her bold debut, Dietland, Sarai Walker took on the beauty industry, gender equality and America’s weight loss obsession, all in one deliciously funny, skewering bite. With her sophomore effort, The Cherry Robbers, Walker put a twisted feminist spin on gothic novels in a story about the lone survivor in a family of six cursed

Sparks fly in Talia Hibbert’s steamy The Princess Trap, in which an overworked and underappreciated HR staffer finds herself fake engaged to a hot prince with a bad reputation.  Too smart for both her HR job and the men she dates, Cherry has decided she’s only looking for a good time. So when she “bumps”

Historian and bestselling author of The Mapmakers Trilogy, S.E. Grove, uncovers the strongholds and corruptions of power within a mystifying dark academia world in her latest novel, Armor for Liars. In 1880s Salem, Massachusetts, Commonwealth University’s academic society longs for power to control both the living and the spirits beyond. Female “thew” spirits are captured

At this point in his career, Christopher Golden’s ability to spin an entertaining horror yarn is without question, but the bestselling titan (Snowblind, Dead Ringers) is still finding ways to surprise readers. His latest novel, Carry Me to My Grave, is a prime example, a book with a solid genre hook that takes flight via

After admiring the late Pat Conroy’s novels and memoirs for decades—and relating to the “father issues so boldly on display”—Matthew Quick began telling himself, “Your life has become a Pat Conroy book.” Quick and his wife had moved to Lady’s Island, South Carolina, to help care for his aging parents. Now, the author of The

You only need to glance at Textiles x Art: How Textiles Are Shaping Contemporary Art to see that it’s special. The cover is designed to look like a woven textile, and the motif continues across the book’s printed edges. Authors Ramona Barry and Beck Jobson have compellingly assembled 44 contemporary textile artists whose work expands

In the 1970s, an intensive program to eradicate drug addiction made waves. Synanon was at first seen as a positive force, endorsed by celebrities and politicians. Soon, however, darker truths were revealed about the group’s “healing” methodologies and the trauma it forced on innocent adults and children. Rowan Beaird’s sophomore novel, Tenderness, chronicles the 1976

As they approach the ends of their careers, writers, like criminals, often dream of one last big strike: the cherry on top of the sundae, the defining moment that will stand as the pinnacle of their craft. While we’re happy to report that Colson Whitehead has, by any reasonable measure, decades of writing ahead, his

Weirdness is currency in interior design, an area often crowded with boring disguised as tasteful. What sets This Must Be the Place: Homes With Atmosphere apart from the glut of interior design books is its weirdness. California-based designer Chloe Redmond Warner presents 11 homes and two showcase rooms. Each project begins with Warner and her

Don’t Go There: A Tour of the World’s Most Sinister Spots starts with a brilliant premise: It’s a travel book built entirely around places you should avoid. But like anyone schooled in the art of reverse psychology knows, the fastest way to get someone interested in something is to tell them to stay away from

A mediocre matrimonial scammer down to his last peso meets his match when he tries to con a hardened spinster in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Intrigue. In 1943 Mexico City, Ulises Linares is a floundering 29-year-old con man with silver just beginning to line his locks. Handsome and slick, but far less than savvy, he inherited

During swelling fascist tides, queer love subverts hegemonic power, creating new hierarchies of value altogether. Aruni Kashyap’s How to Date a Fanatic follows Rohit as he seeks love while Hindu nationalism is on the rise in Narendra Modi’s India. While this novel faces hatred and oppression head on, its most moving moments come in the

★ Just for the Season In Just for the Season, Rachel Griffiths offers up a read to treasure. Forced to marry to avoid social ruin, Lady Charlotte Aveton invites a succession of suitors to her family’s country home. One snag in her plan to find the best husband? Her brother’s friend, the Duke of Warrick,

Ice cream conjures up images of summer: cooling frozen pops from the ice cream truck, double scoop cones on the boardwalk or soft serve custard at a carnival. But ice cream and other frozen indulgences are delicious year-round and can be made in your own kitchen. In The Art of Frozen Desserts: Ice Cream, Sorbets,

Femme Feral Ellie is counting the days to her boss’s retirement, when he’ll finally hand over the reins of the meditation app company they built from the ground up. After all, she’s running the place already. And she deserves something positive after taking care of her older father-in-law and teenage daughter with little help from

Middle school can often feel like a fiery disaster, and that’s certainly the case for three students in Tae Keller’s marvelous new novel, When Tomorrow Burns. As with her Newbery Medal-winning When You Trap a Tiger, there’s a suggestion of magic. Years ago, the friends found an old book that seems to contain prophecies. Now,

Move over, Tony Soprano. Ron Currie’s unforgettable Babs Dionne is back. While his acclaimed The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne chronicled eight days in 2016, We Will See You Bleed—the second book of a projected trilogy—takes place in 1984, describing the pivotal succession of events that led the gritty Franco American Babs to become

Shannon Sanders’ first novel, The Great Wherever, is an ingenious meditation on inheritances material, spiritual and emotional, and a worthy successor to her much-lauded short story collection, Company. Aubrey Lamb has long felt like the underdog in her own story, the problematic black sheep of a successful Black family. A year after her father’s death,

Brigitte Knightley’s Dearly Beloathed duology comes to a close with The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy. Full of action, intrigue and a slow-burn romance that finally ignites, Osric and Aurienne’s adventure will leave readers breathless. Osric is part of the Fyren Order, a morally gray guild of assassins who only answer to money. When

Storm Tide Paul Doiron’s mysteries featuring Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch now number 16 with the release of his latest, Storm Tide. This time out, Bowditch is doing penance, demoted to patrol status after having overstepped both his job mandate and the Canadian border, a big no-no for U.S. law enforcement officers. As the novel

Shannon Sanders crafted her first novel, The Great Wherever—one of the most anticipated debuts of 2026—in the cracks between motherhood and a challenging day job. On the surface, Sanders’ path to publication seems charmed. Her lauded short story collection, Company, was published by the elite indie Graywolf Press, and won the Los Angeles Times’ Art

Haley Cohen Gilliland’s A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children is a spellbinding account of Argentina during the years of the military junta. Under the vicious regime, pregnant women were kidnapped and, after giving birth, murdered, their newborn children placed

The Marlow Murder Club trio take on twin mysteries, including their most personal case yet, in Robert Thorogood’s The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts. Judith, Becks and Suzie have just solved the murder of a local actor, but there’s no rest for the members of the Marlow Murder Club. Almost immediately, Detective Inspector Tanika Malik,

Wisdom Corner sees the return of amateur sleuth Virgil Wounded Horse, a former vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s previous novel, Winter Counts, Virgil had set his intention to walk the Red Road—leave his violent past behind and commit to a more spiritually healthy life—but in Wisdom

The first half of 2026 brought memoirs by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Ada Ferrar, biographies of Emily Brontë and Mary Todd Lincoln, and more. Originally published here.

What makes a toxic-relationship story so irresistible? Just as the characters can’t seem to stay away from each other despite knowing it’s a Very Bad Idea, we can’t stop turning the pages to see what happens next, even if we suspect that finding out will be both electrifying and aggravating—perhaps even disturbing.  Readers in search

The Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota—the setting for my novel Wisdom Corner—remains one of the most impoverished areas in the United States. More than half of the residents live below the federal poverty line, unemployment rates top 75% and many citizens live in substandard, overcrowded housing while battling food insecurity. However, as a young child

When Faye Heron flies from L.A. to her alma mater in New York’s Finger Lakes region, it’s a homecoming of the saddest kind: the funeral for her beloved film professor and mentor, Patrick Toner (PT for short). It’s been 12 years since Faye left New York and her then-boyfriend, Henry Spalding, to pursue a career

In early 2022, journalist Carlos Barragan arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, with an unusual goal: to find his mother’s scammer. Barragan’s mother, like countless others, fell for an online romance scheme, where an “American soldier” named “Brian” almost convinced her to send him money so he could ship her bars of gold. Online money-making schemes have

Irish author and journalist Sally Hayden became a foreign correspondent to make people care about what was happening in the world, and over the following decade, the world gave her plenty of opportunity to fulfill her mission. In media outlets like the New York Times, the Irish Times, CNN International and the BBC, Hayden covered