Books

Desperate Measures

Those who have burned through Katee Robert’s viral Dark Olympus series will already know that there’s plenty more where that came from. The author has an extensive backlist of both traditionally and self-published titles, and one of her most infamous and popular self-published series is finally getting a traditional release. Taking inspiration from Disney’s iconic fairy-tale films, the Wicked Villains books are dark romances where characters such as Ursula, Captain Hook and Hades get a happy ending after all. Case in point: Desperate Measures stars Jafar . . . and a love interest clearly inspired by Princess Jasmine.

Death at the Sign of the Rook

By Kate Atkinson

A murder-mystery party blurs the lines between dramatic artifice and harsh reality in Kate Atkinson’s sixth Jackson Brodie mystery.

The Dark Wives

By Ann Cleeves

Ann Cleeves’ The Dark Wives is a standout entry in her Vera Stanhope series, a crackerjack mystery with a clear political conscience.

Creation Lake

By Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner has taken the bones of the traditional spy novel and spun it into something that is as thought-provoking as it is fun, an intellectual thriller that deviously suggests there could be another fate for our disaster-bound species.

Connie

By Connie Chung

With candor and humor, Connie Chung shares the highs and lows of her trailblazing career as a journalist in her invigorating memoir, Connie.

Colored Television

By Danzy Senna

Danzy Senna’s tale of a novelist’s venture into Hollywood is hilarious even as the reader senses the despair beneath the laughs. Colored Television is the perfect story for our times.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls

By Philip Gabriel, By Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami’s latest masterwork, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, is a moving meditation on the price of isolation, the nourishment of stories and how the most important things in our lives reach us in slow, unexpected ways.

Christmas Is All Around

By Martha Waters

A curmudgeon unearths her holiday spirit during a seasonal tour around London in Martha Waters’ Christmas Is All Around.

Bull Moon Rising

By Ruby Dixon

To certain adventurous readers (you know who you are), Ruby Dixon needs no introduction. But to those of you who haven’t ventured into romance’s wilder waters, Dixon is the author of Ice Planet Barbarians, a self-published, megaviral alien romance series. As you would expect, Ice Planet Barbarians took BookTok by storm and Dixon has now made the jump to traditional publishing. Bull Moon Rising is a fantasy romance starring Aspeth, a noblewoman who wants to join the Royal Artifactual Guild and rebuild her family’s fortune by hunting for rare magical artifacts, and her new husband-of-convenience: a minotaur.

The Bletchley Riddle

By Steve Sheinkin

Ruta Sepetys, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Salt to the Sea, has seen her books win a plethora of prizes as well as be adapted to film and translated in 40 languages. Meanwhile, Steve Sheinkin has received a Newbery Honor and thrice been a finalist for the National Book Award. The formidable pair is sure to mesmerize middle grade readers with The Bletchley Riddle, a historical novel that follows a pair of siblings at Bletchley Park in 1940, when it served as the center of British code breaking efforts in World War II.