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Must-Read Books August 2025 |
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The Devils
by Joe Abercrombie
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
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The View from Lake Como
by Adriana Trigiani
After a painful divorce and family upheaval in working-class Lake Como, New Jersey, draftswoman Jess Capodimonte Baratta flees to Carrara, Italy, where artistic ambition, and new relationships reshape her understanding of love, loyalty, and personal fulfillment
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The Blue Horse
by Bruce Borgos
A controversial wild horse round-up in the high desert of Nevada results in two murders and too many suspects for Sheriff Porter Beck to deal with. A helicopter driving a controversial round-up of wild horses suddenly crashes and the pilot is found to have been shot. Then the person coordinating the round-up for the Bureau of Land Management is savagely murdered, buried up to her neck and then trampled to death by the very same wild horses. And there's no lack of suspects-with the wild horse advocacy group having sworn to protect the horse At Any Cost!
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I'll Be Right Here
by Amy Bloom
After immigrating to New York alone after World War II, Gazala builds an unbreakable bond with her brother and two spirited sisters, forming a fiercely loyal found family whose love, desires and unorthodox connections shape generations to come.
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| The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. DurbinFormer Union soldier Ovid Vesper, who acquired "the sight" from a dimension-tearing blast during the Battle of Antietam, travels the 1880s American West investigating -- and subduing -- supernatural threats. For fans of: cosmic horror/weird western mash-ups like Victor LaValle's Lone Women. |
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| Angel Down by Daniel KrausAfter intense fighting in France's Argonne Forest during World War I, American Cyril Bagger is ordered along with four other misfits to "silence" the soldier stuck in No Man's Land producing unearthly screams -- but what they find is an injured angel wrapped in barbed wire, whom they agree to protect. Compelling and innovative in both structure and story, this is the buzzy latest by the author of Whalefall. Try this next: Chigozie Obioma's The Road to the Country. |
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| These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLeanAfter their patriarch's death, the Storm family gather at their New England island. There, they are introduced to Jack, their father's right-hand man and daughter Alice's recent one-night-stand, who says they must all complete individual tasks or no one inherits anything. Bestselling historical romance author Sarah MacLean delivers a fun contemporary family novel that'll please fans of HBO's Succession. |
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Among Friends
by Hal Ebbott
At a New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host's fifty-second birthday, envy and resentment erupt into an unspeakable act; accusations, denials, and shattered illusions follow, driving wedges between friends, spouses, children and parents.
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| The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-GarciaA graduate student researching a mysterious horror author uncovers dark family secrets and a haunting past linked to witchcraft and disappearances spanning decades in this multi-timeline gothic novel rich with folklore, suspense, and power struggles, delivering a chilling tale of legacy, survival, and supernatural terror. For fans of: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. |
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| The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila MottleyIn the Florida Panhandle, young mothers support each other amid upheavals while others judge and put obstacles in their paths. Three of them narrate: de facto leader Simone, a 20-year-old mother of twins who's pregnant again; newcomer Adela, a champion teen swimmer in Indiana who's been sent to live with her grandmother; and determined Emory, who brings her infant to high school with her. Read-alikes: Sarai Johnson's Grown Women; Brit Bennett's The Mothers. |
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A Terribly Nasty Business
by Julia Seales
Beatrice Steele settles with chaperone Miss Bolton in the London neighborhood of Sweetbriar and opens D.S. Investigations with Inspector Drake, yet they lose all serious cases to her former crush Sir Huxley—until multiple murders thrust them into a scandal pitting the wealthiest residents against the arts community.
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A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
by Sangu Mandanna
After resurrecting her great-aunt and befriending a half-villainous talking fox, Sera Swan is exiled from the magical Guild and loses her magic, but an old spell book mentioned by a handsome historian may hold the key to restoring her power.
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A Curse Carved in Bone
by Danielle L. Jensen
Caught between divine heritage and a dark prophecy, Freya must navigate forbidden alliances and the clash of gods and mortals to save her people in the second novel of the series following A Fate Inked in Blood.
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The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
by John Seabrook
They say behind every great fortune there is a great crime. At Seabrook Farms, the troubling American histories of race, immigration, and exploitation arise like weeds from the soil. Great Migration Black laborers struck against the company for better wages in the 1930s, and Japanese Americans helped found a 'global village' on the farm after World War II. Revealing both C.F. and Jack Seabrook's corruption, The Spinach King undermines the 'great man' theory of industrial progress. It also shows how American farms evolved from Jeffersonian smallholdings to gigantic agribusinesses, and what such enormous firms do to the families whose fate is bound up in the land.
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| It Rhymes with Takei by George Takei, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger; illustrated by Harmony BeckerIn his moving and uplifting graphic memoir, iconic Star Trek actor and activist George Takei offers candid reflections on his early childhood spent in Japanese American internment camps, discovering a love of acting after initially studying to become an architect, coming out publicly at age 68, and more. For fans of: the 2014 documentary To Be Takei. |
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Snoop
by Gordon Korman
"If Carter hadn't been checking his phone, he might have seen his brother coming down the ski slopes in his direction. And if Carter had seen his brother in time and avoided the crash, he might not have two broken legs right now. Oops. Now Carter is stuck at home for weeks, with both his legs in casts. Bored, he starts checking out the live feeds from police cams around his town. Before he knows it, he's obsessed--watching his classmates when they don't know he's looking, and discovering some other very strange things going on that no one else is noticing. But what happens when Carter is found out... and the people he's watching know where he lives?"
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Wednesday is for Wiggling!
by Eva Wong Nava
When Grandma falls ill, a young girl pours her love, memories and worry into the meat and cabbage dumplings that Grandma taught her to make, in a book that includes an author's note about the importance of cultural foods
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| Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. JacksonSharp-minded 12-year-old Brooklynite Kaylani is stuck spending the summer with wealthy family friends in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. It’s okay at first, but after a local teenager is found dead, Kaylani’s instincts push her to investigate. The dangerous results will keep you turning pages in this gripping thriller. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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