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Fiction A to Z August 2025 |
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Automatic Noodle
by Annalee Newitz
You don't have to eat food to know the way to a city's heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food-the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around-for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war. But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they'll have to call on their customers, their community, and each other-and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn't built for them.
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The Battle of the Bookshops
by Poppy Alexander
A charming literary-themed novel about a young woman determined to save her great-aunt’s beloved bookshop from extinction by the shiny new competition--which also happens to be run by the handsome son of her family’s rivals.
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Beautiful Nights
by Nina George
A respected professor begins a secret affair with her son's girlfriend one summer on the Brittany coast in this intense, poetic novel.
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The Break-In
by Katherine Faulkner
Alice, a professional mother of one, is hosting a playdate with friends at her upscale London home when a disturbed man breaks in. With her child in the next room, Alice panics and kills him—an act later ruled to have been in self-defense. Everyone tries to encourage Alice to move on with her life—but with strange comments appearing online, a mysterious phone call telling her all is not as it seems, and her husband, nanny, and friends behaving strangely, Alice finds herself drawn to the mystery of who her intruder really was.
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Departure 37
by Scott Carson
On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: do not fly today.
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Emma on Fire
by James Patterson
Everyone at Ridgemont Academy knows what to expect from Emma Caroline Blake. Perfect grades. Perfect record. Perfect life. Then she stands up in class and commits an act so shocking her reputationwill never recover. And that’s exactly what Emma wants. In a world where the path forward is uncertain, expectation is the enemy. Emma on Fire is the unforgettable story of one brave young woman—and her decision to live life as if everyone’s future depends on it. Because it does.
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Five Found Dead
by Sulari Gentill
After a brutal year battling what should have been a terminal cancer diagnosis, mystery author Joe Penvale and his twin sister Meredith decide to celebrate this new beginning with a holiday on the famed Orient Express. Joining them in carriage 16 are a medically retired French police detective, a female British detective inspector, a travel blogger and her husband, two true crime podcasters who are seeking an interview with Joe, a widowed duchess, two little old ladies from Lower Slaughter in pursuit of a thief they know is aboard, and an obnoxious man in a green plaid suit. And then a cabin is found soaked in blood, with no sign of a body anywhere.
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Flashout
by Alexis Soloski
New York, 1972. A cloistered college student slips out of the dorms to attend a performance by a legendary experimental performance troupe. Within months, she has left campus life behind and joined the company, infatuated by its charismatic leader and his promises of absolute freedom. California, 1997. A theater teacher at an exclusive private school receives an unsettling letter. With her job at risk and her past clawing at her carefully constructed present, what will she do to protect the life she has made?
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For Richer For Poorer
by Danielle Steel
A loving mother and successful fashion designer struggles to keep her family together and her business afloat.
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Forget Me Not
by Stacy Willingham
Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist...until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.
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The Game is Murder
by Hazell Ward
A fresh meta murder mystery that riffs on crime classics and puts the reader in the role of Great Detective, reinvestigating an infamous never-before-solved case. You are invited to a very special murder mystery party. The game is simple: Listen to the witnesses. Examine the evidence. Solve the case. Be careful. Trust no one. All might not be as it seems. If you agree to play the role of the Great Detective, you must undertake to provide a complete solution to the case. A verdict is not enough. We need to know who did it, how they did it, and why. Are you ready? Can you solve the ultimate murder mystery - and catch a killer? A word of warning: Unsolved mysteries are not permitted...
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Halloween Night Murder
by Leslie Meier
There’s usually a chill in the air when Halloween arrives—but in these three novellas by beloved cozy mystery authors Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Liz Ireland, the crimes are even colder than the haunted climate . . .
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Hemlock & Silver
by T. Kingfisher
Anja regularly drinks poison. Not to die, but to save- seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on. But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja's unorthodox methods can save her. Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick. Or it might be the thing that kills them all.
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I Know How This Ends
by Holly Smale
Margot Wayward is in manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a ten-year relationship, she’s wilfully derailing her successful career, joyfully taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos. Until one day, when Margot has a vision of herself with a man she’s never met before. She doesn’t believe in fate. But when Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she’d foreseen it. So Margot has to decide how to live, how to love again, and how to be herself… Because if you can’t change your destiny, how on earth do you live your present?
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Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
by Joy Fielding
A dementia patient reveals a deadly secret-and one woman must decide whether to believe her.
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Katabasis
by R. F. Kuang
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this dark academia fantasy, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul--perhaps at the cost of their own.
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Last Seen
by J. T. Ellison
Halley James knows her marriage is over. But she’s not prepared for the rest of her life to fall apart too. She just lost her job at the forensics lab. Her dad needs emergency surgery. But the biggest blow comes back home in Marchburg, Virginia, where she discovers her mother didn’t actually die in a car crash. Her mom was murdered—and her father lied about it all these years.
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The Locked Ward
by Sarah Pekkanen
It's the Crime of the Decade when glamorous Georgia Cartwright, who was adopted as a newborn, is accused of killing the biological daughter of her wealthy, Southern family. Georgia is locked in a psychiatric institution where the most violent offenders are held while she awaits trial. The only words she whispers when her estranged twin sister Amanda visits are, “I didn’t do it. You’ve got to get me out of here.” Is Georgia the victim of a powerful family that's so depraved murder is the least of their crimes? Or is Amanda being led down a path of madness into the web of a master manipulator?
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Loved One
by Aisha Muharrar
A warm, witty, and wise novel about a woman who goes looking for answers after her first love turned best friend dies unexpectedly, and winds up finding herself.
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Lucky Day
by Chuck Tingle
Four years ago, in what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, eight million people were killed in one day, each of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of it all. When Special Agent Layne shows up at her door, she learns he's investigating a suspiciously lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino’s success is connected to the deaths. Because what's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and she's the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability.
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The Magician of Tiger Castle
by Louis Sachar
In the kingdom of Esquaveta, Princess Tullia is in trouble. Esquaveta desperately needs to forge an alliance, and to that end, Tullia's father has arranged a marriage between her and an odious prince. However, one month before the wedding, Tullia falls in love with a lowly apprentice scribe. The king turns to Anatole, his much-maligned magician. When Anatole first came to the castle, he was regarded as something of a prodigy. But after a long series of failures, he has become the object of contempt and ridicule. When the king orders Anatole to brew a potion that will ensure Tullia agrees to the wedding, Anatole is faced with an impossible choice.
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Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
by Rhys Bowen
Blindsided by betrayal in pre-WWII England, a woman charts a daring new course in this captivating tale of resilience, friendship, and new love.
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A New New Me
by Helen Oyeyemi
Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day: On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life—between them is a matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion, and bossiness. It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges, and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.
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People Like Us
by Jason Mott
The latest semi-autobiographical novel by National Book Award winner Mott follows two Black authors' adventures in Minnesota and Europe.
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The possession of Alba Dâiaz
by Isabel Caänas
"When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn't trust... from bestselling author Isabel Caänas. In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancâe, Carlos, to his family's isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something coldlurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elâias, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family's legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin's betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can't help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them... and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon's thirst for blood grows stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elâias become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and one another... not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom"
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Mean Moms
by Emma Rosenblum
Meet Frost, Morgan, and Belle—a wealthy, gorgeous group of New York City moms, the queen bees of downtown Manhattan. Their children attend Atherton Academy, the top private school in the city, and their social lives revolve around elaborate themed parties. On the first day of school, the arrival of a new mom and mysterious beauty from Miami named Sofia shakes up their world. When Sofia quickly integrates herself into their clique, inexplicably bad things start to happen to the women. Is someone at school out to get them?
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Silvercloak
by L. K. Steven
Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron Killoran’s parents. Hell-bent on revenge, she lies her way into Silvercloak Academy—the training ground for her city’s elite order of detectives—with a single goal: to bring the Bloodmoons to justice. But when Saff’s deception is exposed, rather than being cast out, she’s given a rare opportunity: to go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside. But her growing feelings for their kingpin’s tortured son, with his dark past and the curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saffron’s hand, are testing her loyalties ever further.
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Smuggler's Cove
by Fern Michaels
After inheriting a rundown marina in Smugglers Cove, estranged siblings Madison and Lincoln Taylor find their plans to sell it derailed when a body surfaces under their dock, forcing them to navigate small-town life, local legends, and a mysterious treasure map while uncovering long-buried secrets.
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Something to Look Forward To: Fictions
by Fannie Flagg
Fannie Flagg once said that what the world needs now is a good laugh. And that is what she gives us in these thirty warmhearted, often hilarious, always surprising stories about Americans finding clever ways of dealing with the curveballs life throws at us.
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The Surrogate Mother
by Freida Mcfadden
She was promised a miracle. She got more then she bargained for. Abby wants a baby more than anything. But after years of failed infertility treatments and adoptions that have fallen through, it seems like motherhood is not in her future. That is, until her personal assistant Monica makes a generous offer to serve as a surrogate. It's an offer that will make all of Abby's dreams come true. But soon, strange things start happening. And it turns out Monica isn't who she says she is. The woman now carrying Abby's child has an unspeakable secret. And she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
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These Memories Do Not Belong to Us
by Yiming Ma
In a far-off future ruled by the Qin Empire, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of recording and transmitting memories between minds. This technology gives birth to Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. After the sudden passing of his mother, an unnamed narrator inherits a collection of banned memories from her Mindbank so dangerous that even possessing them places his freedom in jeopardy.
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Too Old for This
by Samantha Downing
A retired serial killer’s quiet life is upended by an unexpected visitor. To protect her secret, there’s only one option left—what’s another murder?
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The Unseen
by Ania Ahlborn
Isla Hansen, a mother reeling from a devastating loss, is beside herself when a mysteriously orphaned child appears on the outskirts of the Hansens’ secluded Colorado property. Although strange and unexplainable, the child’s presence breathes new life into Isla. But as the child settles in, Isla’s husband, Luke, and their five children notice peculiarities that hint at something far beyond the ordinary—anomalies that challenge the very fabric of reality itself. The tension within the Hansen household grows, and with it, the sense that there is something very wrong with the new kid in the house.
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We Are All Guilty Here
by Karin Slaughter
Welcome to North Falls-a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it's personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help-and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?
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You Belong Here
by Megan Miranda
When her daughter enrolls at the college Beckett Bowery fled after a deadly scandal two decades earlier, Beckett is forced to return to Wyatt Valley, where buried truths and old suspicions threaten to resurface against the backdrop of the picturesque Virginia town.
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Continuing Series - New Releases
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Accomplice to the Villain
by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
Evie Sage didn’t mean to become the right-hand woman to the kingdom’s most terrifying villain. One minute, she was applying for an entry-level position that promised “light paperwork and occasional beheadings,” and the next, she was knee-deep in magical mayhem, murder plots, and an entirely inappropriate crush on her brooding, sharp-jawed, walking disaster of a boss. Now, with a magical prophecy unraveling, assassins showing up in the break room, and a suspicious amount of frogs wearing crowns, Evie has to figure out how to survive her job without setting the kingdom on fire—or her dignity, which is hanging by a very sarcastic thread.
Book 3 in the Assistant and the Villain series.
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The Fallen & the Kiss of Dusk
by Carissa Broadbent
Mische plunged the world into an eternal night. Now, imprisoned by the gods and obsessed with revenge, Asar is desperate to find her again. When a goddess offers them a final path to redemption -- and to each other -- Asar and Mische embark on an extraordinary mission. Together, they must seize the power of the god of death so Asar may do the impossible: ascend to true divinity. Their journey will take them through mortal and immortal realms, alongside both old friends and ruthless enemies. But as the underworld teeters on the brink of collapse and the gods prepare for war, Asar and Mische must decide what they are willing to sacrifice for the power to defy death.
Book 2 of the Crowns of Nyaxia series.
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For Duck's Sake
by Donna Andrews
Meg is in the backyard of the house her brother Rob, Delaney, and their new baby have moved into, supervising some workmen who are using a bulldozer to start digging out a duck pond. She wants to get away from her own house, which has become the staging site for Caerphilly's first Mutt March, which will be held the next day. Meg thinks it will be more peaceful at Rob's house--and it is until the bulldozers uncover a skeleton whose skull has a hole and a bullet rattling around inside. Meanwhile, Chief Burke begins searching the police records to see if he can identify any missing persons who would fit the bill. He doesn't turn down Meg's offer to help with his identification efforts, and she begins looking in the library and talking to old-timers. She's all the more eager to help because Iris Rafferty, who sold the house to Rob and Delaney and still lives in the mother-in-law suite, disappears the morning after the finding of the body... does her disappearance have anything to do with finding the body? Was it voluntary? Or was she kidnapped--possibly by the prowlers who are spotted lurking around the half-finished duck pond at night? Or do the prowlers have sinister designs on one or more of the dogs who will be marching in the parade?
Book 37 in the Meg Langslow series.
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The Pretender
by Wanda E. Brunstetter
Two years since Rosa Petersheim mysteriously disappeared from her Amish home, there has been no word from her. Her family and friends have suffered in the silence, though they have tried to move on with life. Then one day Rosa just as suddenly reappears at her parent’s home. . .with a husband in tow. Rosa is ashamed of the choices she made that caused her to leave home. And now that she is back, her father is not welcoming and her siblings and friends want explanations that she can’t give. Will Rosa’s family accept her and Anthony? Can the Big Valley ever be home again?
Book 3 in the Mifflin County series.
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Tomlinson's Wake
by Randy Wayne White
In the wake of a killer hurricane, Doc Ford’s best friend, Tomlinson, insists that he died when his beloved sailboat hit a reef off the Mosquito Coast of Honduras. He now lives to tell the tale, but only because he was brought back to life—temporarily—by a runaway orphan who is the direct descendent of the last king of the ancient Mayan people. Corrupt politicians want the child out of the picture before he catalyzes a revolution among the Indigenous population. But the boy has gone underground with the help of Tomlinson and a network of street urchins.
Book 28 of the Doc Ford series.
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