LibraryAware August 2025

Adult Fiction

El Dorado Drive
by Megan Abbott

In Megan Abbott’s latest noir-tinged thriller, three Detroit sisters entangle themselves in the Wheel, a secretive, women-led investment group promising financial salvation. As debts mount and loyalties fray, what began as a sisterhood of support spirals into manipulation, secrets, and escalating danger. El Dorado Drive is a sharp, suspenseful exploration of desperation, power, and betrayal.

Writing Mr. Wrong
by Kelley Armstrong

Debut author Gemma Stanton's run-in with professional hockey player Mason Moretti, her high school crush and muse for her romance novel, goes viral, spurring the pair to fake a relationship to boost their careers. Try this next: Just Our Luck by Denise Williams.

Death at the White Hart
by Chris Chibnall

Leaving Liverpool for her sleepy coastal hometown, DS Nicola Bridge wants to work less and save her marriage. But when the local pub owner is tied to a chair, killed, and left in the road, Nicola puts in long hours with her new team to solve the case. This "spectacular" (Library Journal) debut by the creator of TV's Broadchurch features well-drawn characters and will please fans of Ann Cleeves.

How to Dodge A Cannonball
by Dennard Dayle

Volunteering for the Union Army to escape his abusive mother, wily 15-year-old flag bearer Anders changes sides when he's captured. But after surviving the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, the white teen passes as biracial and joins an all-Black Union regiment. Satirical and offbeat, this debut novel is "an American Candide...[and] channels the absurdity of Catch-22" (Publishers Weekly). For fans of: The Good Lord Bird by James McBride.

The human scale
by Lawrence Wright

FBI agent Tony Malik travels to Gaza for a family wedding but becomes entangled in a complex murder investigation with an Israeli officer, navigating deeply rooted tensions, personal discoveries, and a volatile political landscape as they work together to uncover the truth amidst corruption and violence.

I'll be right here : a novel
by Amy Bloom

"Immigrating alone from Paris to New York after the crucible of World War II, Gazala Benamar, still a teenager, becomes fast friends with two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala's lost, beloved brother, Samir, finally joins her in Manhattan, this contentious, inseparable foursome, will last into the twenty-first century, becoming the beating heart of a multigenerational found family. These decades are marked by the business of everyday life and the inevitable surprises of erupting passions, great and small waves of joy and despair, from the beginning of life, to its end. Gazala and Samir make a home together, Alma loses a baby, Anne leaves her husband for his sister, and Anne's restless daughter grows up to raise a child on her own and join a throuple, becoming who she wanted to be. Through it all, and the history of the these decades, the four friends, and their best beloveds, stand by one another, protecting, annoying and celebrating each other, steadfastly unapologetic about their authentic desires and the unorthodox family they have created. As the next generation falls in and out of love, experiencing life's triumphs, mistakes and disappointments, the central pillars of their lives are the indomitable, hilarious people they call "the Greats". In I'll Be Right Here, Amy Bloom embraces the complexity and richness of humanity, the lawlessness of love, bringing her trademark voice, wry humor, and compassionate eye to the many, often mysterious ways we evolve as we love-and as we hope to be loved in return"

These Summer Storms
by Sarah MacLean

After 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.

The Last Illusion of Paige White
by Vanessa McCausland

When influencer Paige White is found dead in a lake near her idyllic Australian home, her childhood friend Jane, now a Sydney journalist, returns to investigate. As Jane digs into Paige’s polished online life, long-buried secrets and past tragedies resurface in this haunting, slow-burn mystery about image, memory, and betrayal.

The Bewitching
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A 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.

The Girls Who Grew Big
by Leila Mottley

In 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.

A Murder for Miss Hortense
by Mel Pennant

In the suburbs of 1960s Birmingham, England, Jamaican immigrant Miss Hortense co-founded a cooperative group to lend money and solve crimes for people who were ignored by officials. Pushed out of the group in the 1970s, she's roped back in when a old member is murdered as a new millennium dawns. This debut novel from a British playwright introduces an appealing older sleuth and includes recipes. For fans of: Uzma Jalaluddin's Detective Aunty.

When Javi Dumped Mari
by Mia Sosa

In college, best friends Javier Báez and Marisol Campos promised they wouldn't date someone the other didn't approve of, until one night of passion between them torpedoed their relationship. Years later, Javier's finally ready to tell Marisol he loves her -- and then she introduces him to her fiancé, Alex. This feel-good homage to When Harry Met Sally and My Best Friend's Wedding will appeal to fans of Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell.

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame
by Neon Yang

Yeva, the masked guildknight, has a gift for slaying dragons. Now, she must travel to the kingdom of Quanbao where dragons are not slain, but revered, to kill a dragon for her emperor. As Yeva searches for the beast, she finds herself opening up to the kingdom -- and its queen, Lady Sookhee. This emotional and character-driven queer fantasy novella "will be a hit with fans of dragons and slow-burn romantasy" (Library Journal).

Adult Nonfiction

Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

National Book Award-nominated poet and novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois) makes her genre-defying nonfiction debut with this unflinching and insightful essay collection exploring various crossroads Black women have faced throughout history. For fans of: In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker; Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry.

When it all burns : fighting fire in a transformed world
by Jordan Thomas

"An anthropologist and hotshot firefighter's gripping firsthand account of a record-setting fire season. Eighteen of California's largest wildfires on record have burned in the past two decades. Scientists recently invented the term "megafire" to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction. Wildland firefighters must navigate these new scales of destruction in real time. In When It All Burns, Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots-the special forces of America's firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on Earth. Their training is as grueling as any Navy SEAL's, and the social induction is even tougher. As Thomas viscerally renders his crew's attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain, he uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires. He investigates how a social system that prioritizes profit over people and nature has turned humanity's symbiotic relationship with wildfire into a war-and what can be done to change it back. Thomas weaves ecology and the history of indigenous oppression, federal forestry, and the growth of the fire industrial complex into an expansive, riveting narrative of a new phase in the climate crisis. Above all, he immerses readers in a story of friendship and community in the most perilous of circumstances, told with humor, humility, and affection"

Murderland : crime and bloodlust in the time of serial killers
by Caroline Fraser

"A terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond--a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence"

JFK: Public, Private, Secret
by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Kennedy family biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli follows up his bestselling Jackie: Public, Private, Secret with a nuanced and well-researched portrait of America's 35th president, drawing upon interviews and previously unpublished materials to focus on his personal relationships. For more on John F. Kennedy's political life, check out the works of Robert Dallek.

Youth Fiction

The Tournament
by Rebecca Barrow

Unlike most boarding schools, Gardner-Bahnsen School for Girls teaches survival classes and hosts a wilderness competition for seniors. To win, scholarship student Max, her ex-best friend Nora, and new student Teddy will provoke each other and spill dangerous secrets. This intensifying thriller will draw in fans of dark academia.

The Day the Books Disappeared
by Joanna Ho and Caroline Kusin Pritchard; illustrated by Dan Santat

Arnold can’t understand why his classmates bother reading books about anything besides the best topic: PLANES. Discovering that he can wish away all the other books, Arnold is delighted...until his beloved plane books disappear as well. Curiosity and empathy set things right in this "seamless mix of magic and relatable classroom drama" (Publishers Weekly).

Murder is bad manners
by Robin Stevens

Forming a secret detective agency after discovering a shared talent for solving mysteries, two best friends at a 1930s boarding school tackle a first case when their science teacher dies and her body disappears. Simultaneous eBook.

Contact your librarian for more great books!