LibraryAware October 2025

Recent Releases

Saltcrop
by Yume Kitasei

In Earth's not too distant future, seas consume coastal cities, highways disintegrate underwater, and mutant fish lurk in pirate-controlled depths. Skipper, a skilled sailor and the youngest of three sisters, earns money skimming and reselling plastic from the ocean to care for her ailing grandmother. But then her eldest sister, Nora, goes missing. Nora left home a decade ago in pursuit of a cure for failing crops all over the world. When Skipper and her other sister, Carmen, receive a cryptic plea for help, they must put aside their differences and set out across the sea to find -- and save -- her. As they voyage through a dying world both beautiful and strange, encountering other travelers along the way, they learn more about their sister's work and the corporations that want what she discovered. But the farther they go, the more uncertain their mission becomes: What dangerous attention did Nora attract, and how well do they really know their sister -- or each other? Thus begins an epic journey spanning oceans and continents and a wistful rumination on sisterhood, friendship, and ecological disaster. For fans of: The Deluge: A Novel by Stephen Markley.

Meet Me at the Crossroads: A Novel
by Megan Giddings

Ayanna and Olivia, two Black Midwestern teens—and twin sisters—have different ideas of what may lie beyond the seven mysterious doors that suddenly appeared one ordinary summer morning, but when one twin goes missing, will her sister uncover what happened to her once constant companion and best friend? Try this next: Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez.

Unworld: A Novel
by Jayson Greene

In a near-future where digital and human consciousness blur, a grieving mother, a traumatized witness, an AI professor, and a rogue digital entity confront the mystery of a young man's death, unraveling questions of memory, identity, and what it means to be alive. For fans of: Recursion by Blake Crouch.

The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand
by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, eds.

Set during and after the events of Stephen King's highly acclaimed 1978 novel The Stand, this anthology collects new stories of human resilience after the apocalypse from authors like Poppy Z. Brite, Tananarive Due, Josh Malerman, and many more. Both a tribute to and an expansion of the original novel, fans of King's work will be delighted by the dedication on display from the contributors.

Orbital: A Novel
by Samantha Harvey

In an elegy to our humanity, environment and planet, six astronauts, selected for one of the last space station missions, leave their lives behind to travel at a speed of over 17,000 miles an hour to orbit Earth, witnessing the marks of civilization below. For fans of: Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight by Aliette de Bodard.

The Library at Hellebore
by Cassandra Khaw

Alessa Li has been forcibly enrolled at Hellebore Technical Institute, an elite academy for the dangerously powerful world-enders within its hallowed walls. On graduation day, Alessa is trapped in the library along with other students being forced to take part in the institute's grisly ritual: being devoured by the monstrous faculty. A harrowing and lore-rich tread into the darkest depth of dark academia fantasy, Khaw's latest is "a visceral symphony of body horror" (Booklist).

Infinite Archive
by Mur Lafferty

In this 3rd entry in the Midsolar Murders series, Mallory Viridian's relative peace (and boredom) is disrupted when she boards a data ship from Earth carrying a boatload of mystery convention-goers -- as well as the entire Internet. With all of these converging chaotic elements, Mallory must solve the murder of her agent before time runs out. For fans of: fast-paced and snappy science fiction crime novels such as Malka Older's Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti series or Constance Fay's Uncharted Hearts series.

Anji Kills a King
by Evan Leikam

Castle servant Anji is on the run after murdering the king, with a mysterious band of mercenaries known as the Menagerie hot on her heels. One of the Menagerie, a surly swordswoman named Hawk, has cause to keep Anji alive and the two form an uneasy alliance to evade death. Fast-paced and rich with character and world details, this debut series opener is a must for fans of Christopher Buehlman's The Blacktongue Thief and Sarah Rees Brennan's Long Live Evil.

Not That Kind of Good Guy
by John Ringo

Dark forces are at work, and we need a good guy, but what we get is Michael: The product of a broken childhood, raised in the foster system of a dangerous inner city, his wisdom comes from drug addicts and sex workers—not the hero we asked for, but the hero we need. Read-alike: Foreign Legions by David Drake.

What We Can Know: A Novel
by Ian McEwan

In a future drowned by climate disaster, solitary scholar Thomas Metcalfe uncovers a trail to a lost 2014 poem that once stirred scandal, unraveling a century-old mystery of love, betrayal and artistic legacy in a world longing for what it has lost. Read-alike: Foe: A Novel by Iain Reid.

Contact your librarian for more great books!