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Must-Read Books August 2025 |
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| El Dorado Drive by Megan AbbottIn 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. |
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| Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley ArmstrongDebut 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. |
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| Death at the White Hart by Chris ChibnallLeaving 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. |
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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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| 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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| 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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| A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel PennantIn 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. |
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Fantastic Four Solve Everything
by Jonathan Hickman
Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman revamps and redefines Marvel’s First Family in a sweeping and epic saga that crosses time, space and reality — but still finds its themes in family. And it all begins when Mister Fantastic decides to solve everything! A series of amazing revelations come together in quick succession: The Old Kingdom of Atlantis is discovered under thick Antarctic ice. Alien “Inhumans” from throughout the galaxy converge on Earth. A race of super-intelligent underground dwellers takes possession of a high-tech laboratory. And a religious cult in Manhattan threatens to cause an inter-dimensional invasion. Fate will play an awful hand in tying these disparate events together in a gripping drama that tests the fortitude of Marvel’s First Family like never before.
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The incredible kindness of paper : a novel
by Evelyn Skye
Decades after a mysterious childhood bond is severed, Chloe and Oliver navigate adult loneliness and lingering trauma in New York City, until a trail of yellow origami roses rekindles memories, hope, and the possibility of reconnection.
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The dead husband cookbook
by Danielle Valentine
When Thea Woods is chosen to work with Maria Capello on her sure-to-be-infamous memoir, she finds that there might be something sinister lurking behind the Capello family.
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Love forms : a novel
by Claire Adam
For much of her life, Dawn has felt as if something had been missing. Now, at the age of fifty-eight, with a divorce behind her and her two grown-up sons busy with their own lives, she should be trying to settle into a new future for herself. But she keeps returning to the past and to the secret she's kept all these years. At just sixteen, Dawn found herself pregnant, and-as was common in Trinidad back then-her parents sent her away to have the baby and give her up for adoption. More than forty years later, Dawn yearns to reconnect with her lost daughter. But tracking down her child is not as easy as she had thought. It's an emotional journey that leads Dawn to retrace her steps back home and to question not only that fateful decision she'd made as a teenager but every turn in the road of her life since. Love Forms is a powerfully moving story of a woman in search of herself-a novel that rings with heartfelt empathy through the passages of a mother's life, depicting the enduring bonds of love, family, and home.
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Matchmaking for psychopaths
by Tasha Coryell
An unbelievably gripping, completely original novel about a woman working as a matchmaker for a very specific clientele-psychopaths-who finds herself in danger...from the bestselling author behind Love Letters to a Serial Killer. Lexie was expecting a nice evening with her fiance for her birthday. Instead, her best friend is sitting next to her man, and what's worse: They're in love. To escape her relationship troubles, Lexie throws herself into her job where she works as a matchmaker for psychopaths--a label that the clients themselves are unaware of--and finds herself entangled with two of her most recent clients, both of whom have mysterious pasts that inspire Lexie to breech work protocol and spend time with them outside of the office. One of the clients, Rebecca, becomes a candidate to take the role of new best friend, while the other, Cole, insists that the two of them are soul mates and meant to be together despite Lexie's insistence that her fiance is going to return in time for their scheduled wedding. When her ex-fiance goes missing and threatening packages begin arriving at her doorstep, Lexie has to figure out who is trying to target her and how it relates to her own dark past. Can she trust her instincts as a matchmaker or has she set herself up with her enemy?
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Ink ribbon red : a novel
by Alex Pavesi
Knives Out meets Saltburn in this wickedly plotted thriller where a group of friends play a deadly game that unwraps a motive for murder, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Alex Michaelides. Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention: Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: everyone chooses two players at random and imagines a scenario where one kills the other, then writes it down as a short story. Points are given for making the murders feel real, as Anatol explains to the group. Of course, when given this assignment, it's only natural to use what you know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs. But once you've put it in a story, that secret is out. It's not long before the game has reawakened old resentments and brought private matters into the light of day. So with each fictional murder, someone new gets a very real motive. Ink Ribbon Red ultimately asks: When a real murder is headed your way, will you be able to spot it in time?
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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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| JFK: Public, Private, Secret by J. Randy TaraborrelliKennedy 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. |
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The relaxed woman : reclaim rest and live an empowered, joy-filled life
by Nicola Jane Hobbs
"In The Relaxed Woman, psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs explores how stress negatively impacts our minds, bodies and relationships, and illuminates a path towards reclaiming relaxation as a form of liberation. Weaving together neuroscience and psychology with inspirational stories from women who are discovering the transformational power of rest for themselves, Nicola guides us on a journey to becoming relaxed women: women who have untangled their sense of worth from their productivity, who can rest without guilt and anxiety, who trust their intuitions, honor their needs, and live by their deepest values"
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Glorious rivals
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Players move into the next round of the Grandest Game, where millions of dollars in prize money are on the line-and new relationships, motivations, and threats come to light.
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| The Day the Books Disappeared by Joanna Ho and Caroline Kusin Pritchard; illustrated by Dan SantatArnold 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). |
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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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