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.

The Country Under Heaven
by Frederic S. Durbin

Former 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.

Angel Down
by Daniel Kraus

After 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.

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.

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

It Rhymes with Takei
by George Takei, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger; illustrated by Harmony Becker

In 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.

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

Blood in the Water
by Tiffany D. Jackson

Sharp-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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