LibraryAware July 2025

Adult Fiction

Flashlight
by Susan Choi

Flashlight follows American Louisa Kang and her family across locations and years, but focuses on the night young Louisa and her ethnically Korean father walk on a Japanese beach. The next morning, she washes ashore, amnesiac and clinging to life, but her dad can’t be found. Covering family relationships and geopolitics, this slow burn novel is "never sentimental, never predictable" (Kirkus Reviews). Try this next: Kyung-Sook Shin's I Went To See My Father.

Old School Indian
by Aaron John Curtis

Dealing with a mysterious illness, middle-aged Miami bookseller Abe Jacobs returns home to New York's Mohawk reservation. Looking for relief, he sees family, a native healer, and doctors, while pondering his past mental health issues and troubled marriage. Meanwhile, his poet alter ego serves up poems and witty thoughts. Fans of Morgan Talty's Fire Exit should try this "electrifying debut" (Publishers Weekly).

Murder Takes A Vacation
by Laura Lippman

After winning the lottery, 68-year-old widow Mrs. Blossom goes on her first international trip, which finds her facing deceptive fellow travelers and a deadly mystery. Using skills she learned from working for PI Tess Monaghan, Mrs. Blossom sets things right while seeing Paris and going on a European river cruise. This cozyish tale by bestselling author Laura Lippman will interest fans of Nicholas George's A Deadly Walk in Devon.

The Girls of Good Fortune
by Kristina McMorris

Facing anti-Chinese sentiment in 1880s Oregon, half-Chinese Celia hides her heritage and works as a maid for Portland's mayor. His son, who knows Celia’s secret, loves her and proposes. But with him away at school, her father murdered, and her unexpectedly pregnant, Celia ends up housekeeping at a brothel, before other dangers surface. Recipes and an author's note add to this compelling tale. Read-alike: Jenny Tinghui Zhang's Four Treasures of the Sky.

Esperance
by Adam Oyebanji

Detective Ethan Krol needs to figure out how a man and his young son drowned in salt water in a Chicago high rise. Things get trickier when he learns of similar deaths in Nigeria and Rhode Island. Meanwhile, a women with strange powers appears in Bristol, England, asking about a slave ship from 1791. This novel will please fans of intricately plotted science fiction mysteries like Silvia Park's Luminous.

With A Vengeance
by Riley Sager

Anna Matheson lures six individuals responsible for her family’s ruin onto a luxury train, planning to confront them and force confessions. But when a passenger is murdered, Anna's carefully laid plans unravel. Now, she must risk her own life to protect her enemies as the situation spirals into deadly chaos.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by V.E. Schwab

This genre-defying novel follows three lesbian vampires, their lives connected across centuries as they come to terms with their affliction and face love, hunger, immortality, and grief. For fans of: LGBTQIA fantasy with intricately plotted narratives and complex supernatural characters such as Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu and Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell.

The Listeners
by Maggie Stiefvater

In January 1942, war comes to West Virginia when the United States government orders the luxury Avallon Hotel to house Axis Power diplomats. Balancing work, worry, and ethical questions, hotel manager June Porter Hudson also gets to know a handsome FBI agent. This atmospheric adult fiction debut by a bestselling YA fantasy novelist has hints of magic and is a "must-read for all historical fiction fans" (Library Journal). Read-alike: Melanie Benjamin's Mistress of the Ritz.

Kill Your Darlings
by Peter Swanson

Peter Swanson's twisty thriller follows Thom and Wendy Graves, a seemingly ordinary couple with a deadly secret. Told in reverse, the narrative reveals their shared dark past, Wendy's growing plan to murder Thom, and the slow unraveling of their marriage. This complex psychological tale is full of surprises and emotional tension.

So Far Gone
by Jess Walter

In a divided 2016 America, retired Rhys Kinnick hits his son-in-law Shane at Thanksgiving and then goes off-grid in Washington State. A few years later, his grandkids show up, brought by a neighbor at the request of Rhys' daughter. But then Shane sends members of his church militia after the kids, leading Rhys to team up with an eccentric group of old friends. Read-alike: The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem.

Upon A Starlit Tide
by Kell Woods

In 1758 Saint-Malo, Lucinde Leon, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy shipowner, rescues a drowning man. As she is drawn in by the stranger's unearthly charm, Lucinda falls into a world of faerie magic and secret desires. Combining elements of The Little Mermaid and Cinderella into an enticing historical fantasy, this vividly detailed and romantic tale will charm fans of Leslye Penelope's Daughter of the Merciful Deep and Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar.

Adult Nonfiction

Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
by Caroline Fraser

In her disturbing and well-researched true crime account, Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Fraser (Prairie Fires) examines the history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest from the 1940s to the 1980s. For fans of: The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.

Youth Fiction

The Midwatch Institute for Wayward Girls
by Judith Rossell

When she arrives at the Midwatch Institute, headstrong Maggie Fishbone discovers that the gloomy-seeming orphanage is actually a school that trains girls to “solve mysteries and do good deeds and fight bad guys.” Set in a 1920s-era world of airships and motorcars, this clever story offers plenty of intrigue and thrills.

Contact your librarian for more great books!