Must-Read BooksSeptember 2025
Adult Fiction
Katabasis
by R. F. Kuang

Alice has sacrificed everything to work with Professor Grimes at Cambridge, the world's greatest magician, but when he dies in a magical accident and is sent to Hell, she and rival Peter follow him, using only tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them. For fans of The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. 
We Are All Guilty Here
by Karin Slaughter

When two girls vanish on fireworks night in North Falls, Officer Emmy Clifton races to uncover their secrets and redeem her past failure, only to find the town—and those closest to her—harbor darker truths than she ever imagined. For fans of: Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie and The Deep, Deep Snow by Brian Freeman. 
My Other Heart
by Emma Nanami Strenner

Seventeen years after Mimi Truang's toddler daughter disappears in 1998 in Philadelphia, best friends Kit and Sabrina make plans in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, before starting college—but when Mimi, Kit and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are. For fans of: Banyan Moon by Thao Thai and When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley. 
Only Lovers in the Building
by Nadine Gonzalez

Looking for a fresh start after quitting her job in corporate law, New Yorker Lily Lyon books a summer rental at a gorgeous art deco apartment building in Miami, where she meets author Ben Romero, a fellow bibliophile who suggests they form a poolside book club. When their co-written book reviews go viral, they land a podcast deal -- but with summer’s end approaching, Lily’s afraid to make the jump from friendship to something more. For fans of: Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee.
The Codebreaker's Daughter
by Amy Lynn Green

Lillian Kendall becomes a codebreaker in Illinois during the Great War, working with talented Elizebeth Friedman (who's based on a real person). During World War II, Lillian's daughter Dinah gets an OSS job in Washington D.C., which leads to danger and asking for help from her mom and Elizebeth. This dual-timeline Christian story examines mother-daughter relationships and life on the home front in a “moving and timely must-read” (Booklist). For fans of: K.D. Alden’s Lady Codebreaker.
Too Old for This
by Samantha Downing

Retired and hidden under a new identity, Lottie Jones faces exposure when a persistent journalist starts digging into her murderous past, forcing her to confront old crimes and attempt one more cover-up before age—and curiosity—catch up with her. For fans of: This is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf and Funeral for a Friend by Brian Freeman. 
Audition
by Katie Kitamura

In a Manhattan restaurant, a celebrated middle-aged actress working on a new Broadway play meets a mysterious young man for lunch. But who are they to each other and what does their relationship mean for their futures? Presented in two disorienting parts, this sparsely written, unconventional novel defies reader expectations. Read-alike: Heidi Reimer's The Mother Act.
People Like Us
by Jason Mott

Jason Mott follows up his National Book Award-winning Hell of a Book with this funny, moving, and surreal tale of two Black writers pondering race, loss, and survival. One of them, who specializes in grief, is at a Minnesota college where a shooting recently occurred, and the other, who just won a big award, is on a book tour in Europe. Try this next: Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour.
Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
by Joy Fielding

While visiting a friend at memory care facility Legacy Place, Linda meets Jenny, a 92-year-old dementia patient who admits that she kills people; Linda dismisses her “secret” as the confusion of Jenny's ailing mind until a fellow patient dies. 
Greenteeth
by Molly O'Neill

When Temperance, falsely accused of witchcraft, is thrown into a lake, she is unexpectedly rescued by a sharp-toothed monster lurking within its depths. This monster, Jenny Greenteeth, forms an unlikely alliance with Temperance to save the town and Britain from an encroaching evil. For fans of: richly detailed fantasy laden with monsters who are more than their fangs, such as Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. 
Big Chief
by Jon Hickey

There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past. Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go-and what they will sacrifice-to win it all. But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence. Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging-to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance"
The Satisfaction Café
by Kathy Wang

Having left Taiwan in the 1970s to attend Stanford graduate school, Joan marries a fellow student, but that lasts mere weeks. She stays in California, unexpectedly drawn to a wealthy, thrice-divorced older man. They marry, and in this quietly powerful portrait, Joan becomes a stepmother, a mother, a widow, and the owner of café designed to combat loneliness. For fans of: The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin; Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum.
The Collector of Burned Books
by Roseanna M. White

The Nazis have been banning and burning books for years, and now they’re in 1940 Paris. Sorbonne professor Corrine Bastien works to save what she can, pitting her against Christian Bauer, the German Sonderführer in charge of “relocating” certain books. But he never wanted the job and is a man with his own secrets. For fans of: World War II-era Christian novels, like Sarah Sundin’s Until Leaves Fall in Paris or Renee Ryan’s The Paris Housekeeper.
Adult Nonfiction
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
by Scott Anderson

On New Year's Eve, 1977, on a state visit to Iran, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising Iran as "an island of stability" due to "your leadership and the respect and admiration and love which your people give to you." Iran had the world's fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Construction cranes dotted the skyline of its booming capital, Tehran. The regime's feared secret police force SAVAK had crushed communist opposition, and the Shah had bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. He seemed invulnerable, and invaluable to the United States as an ally in the Cold War. Fourteen months later the Shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. The ensuing hostage crisis forever damaged America's standing in the world. How could the United States, which had one of the largest CIA stations in the world and thousands of military personnel in Iran, have been so blind?
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought...
by Haley Cohen Gilliland

Yale Journalism Initiative director Haley Cohen Gilliland’s compelling debut spotlights the Argentinian grandmothers who founded the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo in 1977 and stood up to their government’s military dictatorship to help locate their kidnapped grandchildren. Further reading: The Disappeared by Rebecca J. Sanford, a historical fiction novel about the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.
10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir
by Jeff Lemire

Featuring his brilliant work from Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer, Descender, and so much more. Lemire takes the reader book-by-book, writing essays about the making of each project, showcasing artwork from all of them, details about his personal life during the creation of each book, sharing some never-before-seen process material on each book, and unpublished stories as well.
Coming Up Short: A Memoir of America
by Robert B. Reich

The former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton tracks decades of political, economic and cultural shifts and attacks rising inequality, corporate power and democratic decline while offering a hopeful vision for a more just and inclusive American future.
Youth Fiction
Greta Ever After
by Melissa Dassori

Twelve-year-old Greta, feeling invisible at her school newspaper, takes matters into her own hands to find the perfect story while also dealing with a magical cuckoo clock at home.
Fateless
by Julie Kagawa

Forced to steal an ancient artifact, skilled thief Sparrow accidentally releases a mythical Deathless King bent on destruction. Though she and assassin Raithe make an unlikely team, they may be able to challenge their fates and stop the devastation. Read-alikes: Tahereh Mafi’s This Woven Kingdom; Katy Rose Pool’s There Will Come a Darkness. 
Sundust
by Zeke Peña

Following a blazing pink streak of sundust into the desert outside their city, two siblings marvel at the wonders they find there. Illustrated in sun-soaked earth tones, this tale blends fantasy with real-life beauty to create a “surreal exploration of the way the natural world endures and transforms” (Publishers Weekly).
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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