November 2025 list by Donalee Jacobs |
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And To All A Good Bite
by David Rosenfelt
When a heroic dog dad is arrested for murder, reluctant lawyer Andy pauses his holiday plans to clear his name and reunite him with his pup in the latest addition to the series following Dogged Pursuit.
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Bad Bad Girl
by Gish Jen
Spanning continents and generations, traces the turbulent bond between a brilliant Chinese immigrant mother and her headstrong American daughter, as they navigate a lifetime of love, ambition, and aching misunderstanding, in the new novel by the author of The Resisters.
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Bog Queen
by Anna North
When a body is found in a bog in England, Agnes, an American forensic anthropologist, is called to investigate. But this body is unlike any she's ever seen. Though its bones prove it was buried more than two thousand years ago, it is almost completely preserved. Soon Agnes is drawn into a mystery from the past, called to understand and avenge the death of an Iron Age woman. Along the way, she must contend with peat-cutters who want to profit from the bog and activists who demand that the land be left undisturbed. Then there's the moss itself, a complex repository of artifacts and remains, with its own dark stories to tell.
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The Bone Thief
by Vanessa Lillie
BIA archaeologist Syd Walker receives an call from a local summer camp: newly discovered skeletal remains have been stolen and a Native teen girl has disappeared near the camp. As Syd investigates both crimes, she's drawn into the world of the Founders Society — an exclusive club whose members trace their lineage to the first colonists and claim ancestral rights to the land. The deeper Syd digs, the more she realizes these aren't isolated incidents. A pattern of disappearances stretches back generations, all leading to the Founders Society's doorstep. But exposing the truth means confronting the town's most powerful families and a legacy of violence that refuses to stay buried.
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Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
by Mark Waddell
Colin, an employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like corporation solving the world's most difficult problems in the most questionable ways, is ready to start exerting his own power. The problem is he's pretty sure he's getting fired. Tough, since his bff just set him up with a great guy...maybe a little too great...and he likes corporate life. When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising his heart's desire if he agrees to a small favor, he can't resist the urge to fast-track his goals and asks for a promotion. But that favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing. The world might be ending and Management is starting to notice. The ladder to the top is never easy and now it's up to Colin to save the world.
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Cover Story
by Mhairi McFarlane
Thirtysomething Connor left his seemingly perfect life in London for a chance to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a reporter, but after a bad first impression with journalist Bel, his internship begins to feel like another in a series of poor decisions, except that she's the first bit of excitement he's felt in a very long time.
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The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah
by Jean Meltzer
When an accident on set lands workaholic Evelyn Schwartz in the medical bay with one of her chronic migraines, she's shocked to find her ex-husband, David Adler, filling in for the usual studio doctor, and David finds himself spending more time with her than he anticipated -- and trying to deny the chemistry between them.
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The Eleventh Hour
by Salman Rushdie
Rushdie turns his extraordinary imagination to life's final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work -- India, England, and America -- which feature an unforgettable cast of characters. Throughout, The Eleventh Hour ponders life and death, legacy and identity with the penetrating insight and boundless imagination that have made Salman Rushdie one of the most celebrated writers of our time.
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Fallen City
by Adrienne Young
In a Greco-Roman inspired fantasy, a glittering world, a political system built on lies and a forbidden romance come together as a Magistrate's daughter desperately attempts to escape a city under siege.
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Good Spirits
by B.k Borison
Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan Callahan haunts Harriet York who's not exactly Scrooge, but as she and Nolan begin to examine her past, they discover there are threads that bind them together -- and realize there might be more to moving on than expected.
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Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
by Matthew Norman
Nearly a year after losing their spouses, Grace and Henry form a quiet friendship over a Christmas movie marathon, together navigating their shared grief and unexpected feelings amidst their meddling mothers' matchmaking attempts.
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A Guardian and a Thief
by Megha Majumdar
In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her daughter, and her father are days from leaving to join Ma’s husband in Michigan. After procuring visas, they pack for the flight to America. But in the morning they discover that Ma’s purse, containing their immigration documents, has been stolen. Ma’s frantic search for her purse collides with Boomba's escalating crimes, whose consequences he cannot fathom. Over the course of one week, Megha Majumdar paints a portrait of two families, each operating from a place of love and hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.
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Her One Regret
by Donna Freitas
When Rhode Island real estate agent Lucy Mendoza vanishes, leaving her baby behind in a grocery store parking lot, the news quickly makes national headlines. Lucy's best friend, Michelle, is devastated, and terrified that Lucy's life is at stake. But she knows something that could complicate the police investigation. Lucy had confessed something unspeakable: she regretted becoming a mother, so much that she'd fantasized about faking her own kidnapping. If the police and media were to find out, Lucy would become a monster in public opinion. Michelle is sure Lucy would never abandon her daughter. But could she be wrong? Could Lucy have been so desperate she chose to escape her life?
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Julia Song Is Undateable
by Susan Lee
Two Korean American young adults -- one successful, one not so much -- find dating in today's world nearly impossible under the weight of family expectations.
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The Keeper of Magical Things
by Julie Leong
Certainty Bulrush's tepid magic hasn't proven much use to anyone. So when the chance to earn her mage hood via a seemingly straightforward assignment comes up, she takes it. To do that she'll have to work with Mage Aurelia, the brilliant, attractive overachiever who has alienated everyone around her. The two must transport magical artifacts to the village of Shpelling, which has an uneasy relationship with the Guild. As mage and novice come to know Shpelling's residents -- and each other -- they realize the Guild's hoarded magic might do more good being shared. Friendships blossom while Certainty and Aurelia work to make Shpelling the haven it could be. But magic is fickle -- add attraction and it might spell trouble.
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Kill the Beast
by Serra Swift
When Lyssa Cadogan's brother was murdered by a monster known as the Beast, she promised him she would avenge his death. For thirteen years, she has been hunting, but the Beast has never resurfaced. Until she meets Alderic Casimir de Laurent. He has found the monster's lair, and retrieved one of its claws. A claw Lyssa needs to forge a sword that can kill the Beast. As the two search for the rest of the materials that will be the Beast's undoing, Alderic reveals hidden depths and dark secrets that he guards as carefully as Lyssa guards hers. Before long an unlikely friendship begins to bloom -- one that will either lead to the culmination of Lyssa's quest for vengeance, or spell doom for them both.
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Ladies in Waiting
by Adriana Trigiani, Sarah MacLean, etc.
Celebrate Jane Austen's classic novels with this short story anthology starring forgotten characters as they experience their own happy endings. In honor of her 250th birthday, eight authors have come together with wildly imaginative reboots of the lives of several of Jane Austen's minor characters.
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The Land of Sweet Forever
by Harper Lee
Spanning her early short stories and later nonfiction, this collection reveals the Harper Lee's evolving voice and sharp insights into childhood, creativity, justice, and Southern identity, offering a fuller portrait beyond her two landmark novels.
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The Mad Wife
by Meagan Church
In the 1950s, nothing is valued more than conformity, and Lulu Mayfield has spent years molding herself into the ideal housewife. But after the birth of her daughter, Lulu's carefully constructed life begins to teeter. Exhausted by expectations and haunted by tragic memories, Lulu looks to her new neighbor, Bitsy. Bitsy, the model of a perfect housewife, is not what she seems and Lulu knows something dark lurks beneath Bitsy's smile. Increasingly fixated on Bitsy and her perfectly crafted life, Lulu's mental state begins to fracture, and memories she had suppressed long ago begin to rise to the surface. Soon, Lulu is forced to confront the possibility that she might be headed down a path darker than she could ever foresee.
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Otherwise Engaged
by Susan Mallery
When Shannon gets engaged, her mom, Cindy is also engaged and wants a double wedding, so Shannon decides to keep her engagement a secret until Cindy's I-dos are done. Victoria has never been proper enough for her mother, Ava, so she stopped trying. Ava loves but doesn't understand her stuntwoman daughter. When a movie-set mishap brings Victoria home, Ava longs to finally connect. Chance brings the four women together at a wedding venue, where a shocking secret comes tumbling out. As Shannon and Victoria deal with the fallout from the decisions their mothers made, they wrestle with whether who they are is different than who they might have become.
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Palaver
by Bryan Washington
In Tokyo, a son works as an English tutor and drinks his nights away at a gay bar. He has built a family in Japan, but is estranged from his mother in Houston. Ten years after they last saw each other, the mother arrives on his doorstep. The two bristle at each other immediately. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own brother, works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. With understated humor, moving through past and present and across Houston, Jamaica, and Japan, Bryan Washington's Palaver is an intricate story of family, love, and the beauty of a life among others. Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.
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The Perfect Hosts
by Heather Gudenkauf
Madeline and Wes Drake have invited two hundred friends and family to their ranch for a "pistols and pearls" gender reveal party. But the party descends into chaos when the celebratory explosive misfires, leaving one woman dead and a trail of secrets. As the aftershocks of the party ripple across the small town, Agent Jamie Saldano is brought on the scene to investigate. Saldano unearths a web of deceit spun around the Drakes. As tensions mount, it becomes clear that the explosion wasn't an accident. But who was the target, and why? As the shadow of a killer looms, the happy parents-to-be must unravel the truth before it's too late.
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The Place Where They Buried Your Heart
by Christina Henry
On an ordinary street in Chicago, there is an abandoned house. Children are told by their parents to stay away from that house. But children don't listen and dare each other to go inside. Jessie Campanelli dared her little brother Paul, but unlike the other kids who went inside that house, Paul didn't return. His friends said the house ate Paul. The disappearance of her brother broke Jessie's family apart in ways that would never be repaired. Jessie grew up, had a child, and kept living on the same street where the house sat, crouched and waiting. And darkness seemed to spread out from that house, a darkness that was alive and hungry.
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Queen Esther
by John Irving
After forty years, John Irving returns to the world of his bestselling classic novel and Academy Award–winning film, The Cider House Rules, revisiting the orphanage in St. Cloud's, Maine, where Dr. Wilbur Larch takes in Esther—a Viennese-born Jew whose life is shaped by anti-Semitism.
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Red City
by Marie Lu
Among the skyscrapers and foothills of Angel City, alchemy is controlled by two rival syndicates, Grand Central and Lumines. When two childhood friends step into that delicate equation, the city -- and the paths of their lives -- will be irrevocably transformed. The daughter of a poor single mother, Sam would do anything to claw her way into the ranks of Grand Central in search of a better life. Plucked away from his family as a boy to become a Lumines apprentice, Ari is one of the syndicates' brightest rising stars. As the two alchemists face off across an the escalating conflict, ambition becomes power, loyalty becomes lies, and no transformation may be perfect enough for them both to survive the coming war.
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The Royal Artisan
by Tessa Afshar
In ancient Persia, Sazana creates exquisite pottery as Queen Esther's artisan but keeps her Jewish identity hidden from her tyrannical master, Haman, and his ten vengeful sons. When tragedy strikes, Sazana must join forces with Jadon, the man who broke her heart, to locate an ancient artifact and thwart the impending threat to their people.
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The Second Story Bookshop
by Denise Hunter
Shelby Thatcher inherits half of her grandmother's beloved bookstore after she dies but the other half is left to Gray Briggs, the man who broke Shelby's heart years ago. As the adversaries are forced to work together, Shelby's old feelings for Gray resurface -- and so do the problems that destroyed their relationship.
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The Wayfinder
by Adam Johnson
Relating the history of the Tongan people and evoking the lost art of oral storytelling, this epic tale is about a girl from a remote Tongan island who becomes her people's queen. Kōrero, chosen to save her people from the brink of starvation, leaves her remote island home on a daring seafaring journey across the ocean with a wayward stranger. They travel using outrigger canoes and celestial navigation, fighting for survival.. Throughout the author explores themes of indigeneity, ecological balance, and the resilience of humanity in the face of scarcity, marking the novel as a profound meditation on both individual and cultural legacy.
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The Widow
by John Grisham
Already struggling at work and at home, rural Virginia attorney Simon Latch finds himself accused of her murder after he secures wealthy widow Eleanor Barnett's secret inheritance only to see her fortunes unravel in the wake of a car crash.
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The Women of Wild Hill
by Kirsten Miller
Summoned back to their ancestral home on Wild Hill, three generations of Duncan women—estranged sisters and an unknowing daughter—must embrace their magical legacy and reconcile old grievances to stop a rising elemental force bent on reshaping humanity's future.
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