Wellness

Nathan Hill

Wellness was published on September 19 and already has Oprah’s seal of approval. While Oprah’s previous pick was not a BOTM selection, it is looking like this one will be.

Synopsis: The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about marriage, the often baffling pursuit of health and happiness, and the stories that bind us together. From the gritty ’90s Chicago art scene to a suburbia of detox diets and home-renovation hysteria, Wellness reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart.

Everything Is Not Enough

Lola Akinmade Åkerström

Åkerström’s debut novel was a BOTM selection in June 2022. Because this is her second novel and her first was not a wildly popular BOTM pick, I am not confident we will see Everything Is Not Enough as a pick.

Synopsis: From Lola Akinmade Åkerström, international bestselling author of In Every Mirror She’s Black, comes the highly anticipated second novel, focusing on the lives of three Black women as they fight their own personal struggles in one of the most egalitarian societies, Sweden.

Repeat Author

Hold My Girl

Charlene Carr

This new novel combines a few subjects that BOTM likes books about. In addition to the storyline and themes, this book has been blurbed by two recent BOTM authors.

Synopsis: Two women. Two eggs. One life-changing switch. With themes of racial identity, loss, and betrayal, Hold My Girl is an emotional novel that will leave you contemplating: What makes a mother?

Family Meal

Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington’s previous two books have been BOTM selections. I was still hesitant to add Family Meal to my predictions because this novel follows two men; however, I realized that it is similar to Memorial in that way.

Synopsis: Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai’s ghost won’t leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ’s family bakery. TJ’s not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said – and left unsaid – to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?

Repeat Author

The Sun Sets in Singapore

Kehinde Fadipe

This novel has been blurbed by several past BOTM authors. I could see BOTM labeling it as contemporary fiction or romance. It is slated for a very late October publication, so it may end up being a November selection.

Synopsis: Basking in Singapore’s nonstop sunshine, Dara, Amaka, and Lillian are living the glamorous expat dream–until a mysterious (not to mention handsome) new arrival infiltrates their tight-knit community and ruins everything. In The Sun Sets in Singapore, Kehinde Fadipe captures the richness of this metropolis through the eyes of three tenacious women, who are about to learn that unfinished history can follow you anywhere, no matter how far you run from home.

Let Us Descend

Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward is an author I may not have otherwise found, if not for BOTM. She also happens to be one of my favorite authors. So I am hoping BOTM will continue selecting her novels.

Synopsis: From Jesmyn Ward comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War. Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Repeat Author

The Unsettled

Ayana Mathis

The Unsettled has a late September publication date. It sounds like a fascinating historical fiction novel that is not set during WWII. So maybe it is too much of a good thing for BOTM to pick. 😂

Synopsis: From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter’s squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there. A searing multi-generational novel—set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama—about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival.

Homeward

Angela Jackson-Brown

Despite not being released by a publisher BOTM frequently works with, I think Homeward has a shot as a selection. It is suggested for fans of several BOTM authors, including Jesmyn Ward.

Synopsis: Georgia, 1962. Rose Perkins Bourdon returns home to Parsons, GA, without her husband and pregnant with another man’s baby. After tragedy strikes her husband in the war overseas, a numb Rose is left with pieces of who she used to be and is forced to figure out what she is going to do with the rest of her life. Her sister introduces her to members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Feeling emotions for the first time in what feels like forever, the excited and frightened Rose finds herself becoming increasingly involved in the resistance efforts. Homeward follows Rose’s path toward self-discovery and growth as she becomes involved in the Civil Rights Movement, finally becoming the woman she has always dreamed of being.

The Reformatory

Tananarive Due

I really debated whether to include The Reformatory in my predictions. Since I can definitely see it being a pick, I decided to include it. But it will not be released until Oct. 31 – making it a toss up for October or November.

Synopsis: A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

The House of Doors

Tan Twan Eng

Of all the books in this predictions list, this may be the only I added mostly out of pure hope. While being released by a publisher BOTM rarely works with, I would love to see this 2023 Booker Prize longlist novel as a pick.

Synopsis: The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert’s, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.

Love Interest

Clare Gilmore

I would love to see a debut picked over a repeat or known author. This one checks all the boxes.

Synopsis: Love Interest is Clare Gilmore’s sparkling debut, a co-worker enemies-to-lovers rom-com that proves falling in love is the risk and the reward. Casey Maitland, a twenty-four-year-old finance expert working in Manhattan, wonders if the open project manager position at her company is a sign from the universe to pursue a career with a little more sparkle. That is, until she’s passed over for the job in favor of the board chairman’s son. Alex Harrison is handsome, Harvard-educated, and enigmatic. Everybody loves him—except for Casey.

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My Roommate Is A Vampire

Jenna Levine

My Roommate Is A Vampire was actually released at the end of August. But if BOTM is aiming for a Halloweenish romance, this is the obvious pick.

Synopsis: True love is at stake in this charming, debut romantic comedy. Cassie Greenberg loves being an artist, but it’s a tough way to make a living. On the brink of eviction, she’s desperate when she finds a too-good-to-be-true apartment in a beautiful Chicago neighborhood. Cassie knows there has to be a catch—only someone with a secret to hide would rent out a room for that price. Of course, her new roommate Frederick J. Fitzwilliam is far from normal. Cassie’s sexy new roommate is a vampire. And he has a proposition for her.

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The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch

Melinda Taub

I maintain that BOTM loves retellings. Add in some witchy themes and I think we have a solid prediction.

Synopsis: A witty, magical, and romantic reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the troublesome and—according to her—much-maligned youngest Bennet sister, Lydia. Full of enchantment, intrigue, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice—while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

Alison Rose Greenberg

Maybe Once, Maybe Twice sounds similar to some past BOTM selections. Otherwise, the book has no blurbs or anything else to go off of.

Synopsis: You know that old saying, “if we are still single when we’re 35, we should get married?” Well, Maggie Vine made that vow with two different people, at two very different stages of her life. And they both showed up. Filled with the romance and angst that defines the years you come to know yourself, with a shifting timeline covering two decades and ratcheting up the tension, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice is a novel of second chances and finding your own way.

My Darling Girl

Jennifer McMahon

Surprisingly, Jennifer McMahon is not a past BOTM author. Her newest thriller, My Darling Girl, sounds like a very topical novel for October.

Synopsis: The New York Times bestselling author of the otherworldly treat The Drowning Kind and The Children on the Hill returns with a spine-tingling psychological thriller about a woman who, after taking in her dying, alcoholic mother, begins to suspect demonic possession is haunting her family.

What We Kept to Ourselves

Nancy Jooyoun Kim

The author of The Last Story of Mina Lee returns with a book about family secrets. I think this is a shoe in for a selection.

Synopsis: A timely and surprising new novel about a family’s search for answers following the disappearance of their mother. What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives. It is the story of one unforgettable family’s search for home when all seems lost, and a powerful meditation on identity, migration, and what it means to dream in America.

Repeat Author

The List

Yomi Adegoke

The List is blurbed by Abi Dare, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice. It is recommended for fans of Luster and My Dark Vanessa, two past BOTM selections. Because it also has to line culture as a central themes, it screams BOTM to me.

Synopsis: In this sensational, page-turning debut novel, a high-profile female journalist’s world is upended when her fiancé’s name turns up in a viral social media post—a nuanced, daring, and timely exploration of the real-world impact of online life, from award-winning journalist and internationally bestselling author Yomi Adegoke.

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The Leftover Woman

Jean Kwok

This is another new mystery/thriller novel blurbed by a bunch of past BOTM authors. I have heard good things about it as well.

Synopsis: An evocative family drama and a riveting mystery about the ferocious pull of motherhood for two very different women, who end up on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it’s a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city—separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.

Land of Milk and Honey

C. Pam Zhang

This dystopian novel has a late September release. Although I am including it in my predictions, I am not particularly hopeful about it being selected. I think it will be a popular book either way.

Synopsis: The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world. Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.

Starling House

Alix E. Harrow

It has been a long time since BOTM has selected an Alix Harrow novel. While this book does not scream obvious BOTM selection, but the second app hint implies this will be a pick.

Synopsis: A grim and gothic new tale from Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, about a small town haunted by secrets that can’t stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all. A character-driven gothic tale about money, power, small town secrets, older sisters having to grow up too fast, and environmental damage in middle America.

Repeat Author

And Then She Fell

Alicia Elliott

This horror novel is another late September release. I am not particularly hopeful about it being selected, but I would love to see a Indigenous horror pick.

Synopsis: A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences. Told in Alice’s raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching exploration of inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable—and surreal—climax.

A Haunting on the Hill

Elizabeth Hand

Based on the publisher, I am not very confident we will see this one. There is a slim chance though since it is a modern retelling of a classic, an unexpected one at that.

Synopsis: Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play Witching Night, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play. From award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever novel authorized to return to the world of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House—a new story of isolation and longing perfect for our present time.

The Unmaking of June Farrow

Adrienne Young

Spells for Forgetting was a super popular pick last year, so I would be surprised if BOTM does not select Young’s newest novel. It also seems that the first app crossword hint alludes to this title.

Synopsis: A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting. Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.

Repeat Author

Lilith

Nikki Marmery

It has been quite a while since BOTM has featured a book based on mythology. Because BOTM has seemingly avoid these types of books as of lately, I am not confident Lilith will be a pick. But I think this will be a fascinating novel.

Synopsis: A triumphantly feminist retelling of ancient creation myths in the tradition of Madeline Miller and Claire North. Lyrically rendered, this epic debut tells the story of the woman known as Adam’s first wife and her fall from Paradise and quest for revenge. Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine.

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The Fragile Threads of Power

V.E. Schwab

I cannot remember a time when BOTM has emailed members to tell them about an upcoming add-on. But that is exactly what BOTM did to announce The Fragile Threads of Power. I assume this was because V.E. Schwab is such a popular author and this book’s publication date is September 26, before BOTM’s October selections become available.

Synopsis: V. E. Schwab, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, opens another door to a new fantasy series set in the dazzling world of Shades of Magic. Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. The few magicians who could still open the doors grew more rare as time passed and now, only three Antari are known in recent memory. Note: This novel is 656 pages long.

Repeat Author

Playing the Witch Card

KJ Dell’Antonia

This book was released in mid-September; however, I think it may be an October selection based on its witchy content. It would also be a novel by a repeat author.

Synopsis: Gilmore Girls meets Practical Magic in the latest novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Chicken Sisters. Flair Hardwicke knows three things: magic is real, love isn’t, and relying on either ends in disaster. So while she’s grateful for the chance to take over her grandmother’s Kansas bakery after she finally leaves her cheating husband, she won’t be embracing Nana’s fortune-telling side-hustle. Hers is a strictly no-magic operation—until the innocent batch of Tarot card cookies Flair bakes for the town’s Halloween celebration unleashes the power of the family deck, luring Flair’s unpredictable mother to town, tempting Flair’s magic-obsessed daughter, and bringing back Flair’s first love while ensnaring her ex in a curse she can’t break. 

Repeat Author

Foul Lady Huntsman

Chloe Gong

Foul Lady Huntsman is a follow up to Foul Lady Fortune. I, personally, think it would be in bad taste if BOTM does not include it this month.

Synopsis: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends comes the second book in the captivating Foul Lady Fortune duology following an immortal assassin in 1930s Shanghai as she races to save her country and her love.

Repeat Author

Curious Tides

Pascals Lacelle

This is the first book in a new magical duology and has been blurbed by several BOTM fantasy authors. It is also compared to a popular past pick.

Synopsis: Ninth House meets A Deadly Education in this gorgeous dark academia fantasy following a teen mage who must unravel the truth behind the secret society that may have been involved in her classmates’ deaths.

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What the River Knows

Isabel Ibañez

With the end of one duology comes the opportunity for another. Due to all the big title potential for this month. I think if we see this book, it would be as a November selection since it has a late October release.

Synopsis: The Mummy meets Death on the Nile in What the River Knows, Isabel Ibañez’s lush, immersive historical fantasy set in Egypt and filled with adventure, a rivals-to-lovers romance, and a dangerous race. What the River Knows is the first book in the thrilling Secrets of the Nile duology.

The Hive and the Honey: Stories

Paul Yoon

Synopsis: The Hive and the Honey is a bold and indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia?

House Gone Quiet: Stories

Kelsey Norris

Synopsis: An eerie, irresistible debut story collection about the bonds and bounds of community and what it means to call a place home. A group of women contemplate violence after they’re sent into foreign territory to make husbands of the enemy. A support network of traumatized joggers meets to discuss the bodies they’ve found on their runs. And a town replaces its Confederate monument with a rotating cast of local residents. Slippery but muscular, sly but electric, this stunning debut collection moves from horror to magical realism to satire with total authority. In these stories, characters build and remake their sense of home, be it with one another or within themselves.

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How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

Safiya Sinclair

Now that nonfiction is back among the BOTM selections, I anticipate BOTM choosing mostly memoirs and the occasional true crime book. How to Say Babylon seems like the obvious choice for this month.

Synopsis: With echoes of Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet.

In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America’s Child

Kim Cross

If BOTM chooses to go the way of true crime, I think this is the likely selection.

Synopsis: Paced like a thriller and full of insider information on the history and science of Crime Scene Investigation, In Light of All Darkness embeds readers in one of the most famous true-crime stories of our generation—the kidnapping of Polly Klaas—a case as pivotal in the history of the FBI as the Unabomber or Oklahoma City bombing. With unprecedented access to files, crime scene photos, a videotaped murder confession, and inside sources, In Light of All Darkness follows the investigators who pieced together the evidence that led to the arrest and conviction of the kidnapper—a man currently on death row—and made the victim a household name and a girl who will never be forgotten.

A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial

Viet Thanh Nguyen

After How to Say Babylon, this is the nonfiction I would most like to see as a pick. However, I feel like BOTM has largely stayed away from true literary fiction for the better part of a year. While this is obviously a memoir, Thanh Nguyen’s writing is more literary.

Synopsis: The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer. With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.

Repeat Author

Raising Hell, Living Well: Freedom from Influence in a World Where Everyone Wants Something from You (including me)

Safiya Sinclair

This is my wild card nonfiction pick for this month’s predictions. From the synopsis, it echos some past BOTM picks. However, since I haven’t read it, I am unsure if it is too self-helpy.

Synopsis: Part cultural criticism, part rueful confessional, a reformed brand strategist brings to light the impact of influence on us and our society and offers an escape in this ironically persuasive case for not being so easily influenced anymore. A high-spirited exploration through the troublesome influences of our world, Raising Hell, Living Well, Jessica Elefante’s eye-opening debut, follows one bullshit artist’s journey, from small-time salesperson to award-winning corporate strategist to founder of the digital wellbeing movement Folk Rebellion, in coming to terms with how she was wielding influence—and the forces she was under herself.

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