Contemporary & Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Romance | Thrillers & Mysteries | Horror & Gothic Fiction | Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism | Short Stories & Essays | Memoirs & Biographies | Nonfiction
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Contemporary & Literary Fiction
Gulf
Mo Ogrodnik
Told through a prism of female voices, this cinematic debut follows five women with vastly different origins—from the Philippines to Ethiopia to New York City—whose lives bring them to the Arabian Gulf, where they collide with devastating and profound consequences.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Summit Books
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I Will Blossom Anyway
Disha Bose
A romantic coming-of-age story about one woman’s inspiring journey to find self-love, reconnect with family, and forge a new path for her future, from the author of Dirty Laundry. Modern, thought-provoking, and mirthful, I Will Blossom Anyway is a story about what it means to be caught between opposing worlds and the pressures and freedoms of millennial life, and what it really means to be a modern woman today—anywhere.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Ballantine
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Home of the American Circus
Allison Larkin
The acclaimed author of the “lyrical coming-of-age novel” (Good Morning America) The People We Keep returns with a luminous new story of redemption, breaking generational curses, and the power of family in its truest form.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Gallery Books
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My Friends
Fredrik Backman
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Atria Books
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The Names
Florence Knapp
The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life? With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the “one . . . precious life” we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Pamela Dorman
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The Original Daughter
Jemimah Wei
In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Doubleday
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Old School Indian
Aaron John Curtis
A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home and what it takes to heal. Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Zando
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The Ones We Loved
Tarisai Ngangura
A wrenching love story and literary debut following two strangers whose paths converge in a series of seemingly chance encounters and shared histories, perfect for readers of Jesmyn Ward, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Yaa Gyasi.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Park Row
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All the Mothers
Domenica Ruta
From New York Times bestselling author Domenica Ruta comes a heartfelt, hilarious novel about a single mom reimagining what the perfect family can look like. In this winning story of family both born and chosen, Sandy is about to discover that when nothing goes as planned, the best things become possible.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Random House
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Awake in the Floating City
Susanna Kwan
An utterly transporting debut novel about the unexpected relationship between an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for—two of the last people living in a flooded San Francisco of the future, the home neither is ready to leave.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Pantheon
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The Emperor of Gladness
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Penguin Press
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Make Me Famous
Maud Ventura
Daisy Jones and the Six meets Patricia Highsmith in this addictive, intense novel about the brutal and ferocious road to glory, from the award-winning author of My Husband.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: HarperVia
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Run for the Hills
Kevin Wilson
Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, an unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Ecco
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Sleep
Honor Jones
From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Riverhead Books
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Speak to Me of Home
Jeanine Cummins
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story. A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: How can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where they come from?
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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State Champ
Hilary Plum
The story of a woman risking her life and finding her own way to protest the end of abortion rights. Lucid, strange, and deeply metal, State Champ cuts through the political rhetoric to explore the relationship between bodily autonomy and real freedom. Angela’s story is about what abortion access means day-to-day and how much we are-in ways that can transform us-responsible for one another.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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The Book of Records
Madeleine Thien
Lina and her father arrive at an enclave called The Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions. In this mysterious and shape-shifting place, a building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbors: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: W.W. Norton
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Heart, Be at Peace
Donal ryan
From one of the most acclaimed Irish writers today, a new novel about smalltown Ireland that explores a community on the mend and the power of love and trauma to both bring people together and divide them.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Viking
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Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride
Will Leitch
From the Alex Award-winning and Edgar-nominated author of How Lucky, this twisty, funny, and ultimately uplifting novel follows a father in a race against time to provide for his child.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Harper
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What Will People Think?
Sara Hamdan
Mia’s secret comedy career, forbidden office crush, and a long-guarded family secret take center stage, threatening her newfound confidence and her one shot at fame in this hilarious, heartfelt coming-of-age story perfect for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld and Etaf Rum.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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Disappoint Me
Nicola Dinan
An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity. Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: The Dial Press
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The South
Tash Aw
A radiant, intimate novel of the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer―about family, desire, and what we inherit. At once sweeping and compressed, Tash Aw’s The South is a family novel of change and desire―a story of what happens when public and private lives collide, told with uncommon grace and beauty.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
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Historical Fiction
Austen at Sea
Natalie Jenner
Two pairs of siblings, devotees of Jane Austen, find their lives transformed by a visit to England and Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother and keeper of a long-suppressed, secret legacy.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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The Devil Three Times
Rickey Fayne
“A debut of enormous ambition” spanning eight generations of a Black family in West Tennessee as they are repeatedly visited by the Devil (Nathan Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water).
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co
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The Red House
Mary Morris
Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this lyrical novel of family, loss and, ultimately, love.
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Doubleday
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Where the Rivers Merge
Mary Alice Monroe
From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated Where the Rivers Merge, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman’s life across multiple generations in the American South.
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: William Morrow
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The Girls of Good Fortune
Kristina McMorris
The New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday and The Ways We Hide shines a light on shocking events surrounding Portland’s dark history in this gripping novel of love, lore, and betrayal.
Publication Date: May 20
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
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Martha’s Vineyard Beach & Book Club
Martha Hall Kelly
Two sisters living on Martha’s Vineyard during World War II find hope in the power of storytelling when they start a wartime book club for women in this spectacular novel inspired by true events, from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls.
Publication Date: May 27
Publisher: Ballantine
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Tyrant
Conn Iggulden
From New York Times bestselling author Conn Iggulden, the second novel in this new trilogy finds newly-crowned Emperor Nero fending off court rivals while embracing his fate as the most feared, notorious ruler in Roman history.
Publication Date: May 27
Publisher: Pegasus Books
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Shopgirls
Jessica Anya Blau
From the author of Mary Jane, a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco’s most exclusive department store, I. Magnin. Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco, Shopgirls is an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found.
Publication Date: May 27
Publisher: Mariner Books
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Romance
Friends with Benefits
Marisa Kanter
Besties Evie and Theo enter into a marriage of convenience so that Evie, who has Crohn’s disease, can share Theo’s health benefits while she pursues her Hollywood dreams.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: Celadon
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Kiss Me, Maybe
Gabriella Gamez
Asexual librarian Angela goes viral for posting a video about how she’s never been kissed. With the help of her longtime crush, bartender Krystal, she decides to host a scavenger hunt—with her first kiss as the prize.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: Forever
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One Golden Summer
Carley Fortune
A radiant escape to the lake from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and This Summer Will Be Different.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: Berkley
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Silver Elite
Dani Francis
In the first book of a sizzling dystopian romance series, psychic gifts are a death sentence and there are rules to survival: Trust no one. Lie to everyone. And whatever you do, don’t fall for your greatest enemy.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: Del Rey
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What Happens in Amsterdam
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Falling in love with your husband is anything but convenient in this steamy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Business or Pleasure. As the marriage of convenience pushes them together in unexpected ways, Dani must decide whether her new life is yet another mistake—or if it’s worth taking a risk on a second chance.
Publication Date: May 6
Publisher: Berkley
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32 Days in May
Betty Corrello
Return to the Jersey Shore with a new romance by Summertime Punchline author Betty Corrello in which a young woman recently diagnosed with lupus attempts a no-strings fling with a former television star.
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Avon
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Can’t Get Enough
Kennedy Ryan
Hendrix, a strong, intelligent Black woman, has big goals and no time for love. Then she meets billionaire Maverick, and everything changes. When Maverick gives chase—pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her—is it time to let herself have something more?
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Forever
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Dream On, Ramona Riley
Ashley Herring Blake
The bestselling author of Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date returns with a small-town romance featuring Ramona Riley, whose dreams have been shelved, and nepo baby Dylan Monroe. They once kissed, but that was years ago. Now, Dylan is back in their hometown to film the big-budget rom-com in which she’s starring. Dylan is also hoping to prove that she can still relate to “regular folks,” so she reconnects with Ramona.
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Berkley
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Maine Characters
Hannah Orenstein
From beloved author Hannah Orenstein, this love letter to lake life is “the Parent Trap for adults,” the story of two half-sisters who meet for the first time at their father’s cabin in Maine after his unexpected death.
Publication Date: May 13
Publisher: Dutton
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Courtroom Drama
Neely Tubati-Alexander
Legally Blonde and Jury Duty meet The Real Housewives in this high-stakes courtroom love story—a sexy and sweet but heartfelt novel about friendship, romance, and reality television from the acclaimed author of Love Buzz and In a Not So Perfect World.
Publication Date: May 20
Publisher: Harper Pereenial
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Left of Forever
Tarah DeWitt
An emotional, irresistible second-chance romance filled with sparkling humor, big feelings, and “melt your face off intimacy” (Jessica Joyce) from celebrated USA Today bestselling author Tarah DeWitt.
Publication Date: May 20
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
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The Love Haters
Katherine Center
A new rom-com where Katie pretends to be the girlfriend of one brother to line up a career-making gig profiling the other, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson. She ends up falling for Hutch, but he thinks that she’s the one woman he can’t touch.
Publication Date: May 20
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
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Ride with Me
Simone Soltani
Bestselling Soltani (Cross the Line) offers her second Formula 1 romance, in which a marriage of convenience begins during a fling in Vegas and ends up with rings on fingers and something a bit different than regret. What if bride (Stella Baldwin, feeling a bit battered by life) and groom (race car driver Thomas Maxwell-Brown, who needs a break) have actually, accidentally found the perfect match?
Publication Date: May 20
Publisher: Berkley
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Thrillers & Mysteries
Parents Weekend
Alex Finlay
A thriller set in Northern California at a small private college, where families are visiting for parents’ weekend. When five students inexplicably go missing, the police are called in. Told from each family’s point of view, Parents Weekend explores the weight of expectation, family dysfunction, and those exhilarating first days in the dorms when friends become family.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Minotaur Books
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The Retirement Plan
Sue Hincebergs
Three best friends turn to murder to collect on their husbands’ life insurance policies… But the husbands have a plan of their own in this darkly funny debut that will delight readers from the first laugh to the final twist.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: William Morrow
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A Thousand Natural Shocks
Omar Hussain
Omar Hussain’s dazzling debut, A Thousand Natural Shocks, is a mesmerizing meditation on trauma, memory, and identity wrapped in a high-octane thriller.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
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The Dark Maestro
Brendan Slocumb
Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy, growing up in the Southeast D.C. projects with a drug dealer for a father. But through determination and talent, and the loving support of his father’s girlfriend, Larissa, Curtis claws his way out of his challenging circumstances and rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world. And then, suddenly, his life disintegrates.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Doubleday
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The Language of Birds
K.A. Merson
A brilliant but solitary teenager must unlock ciphers, unearth buried clues, and reckon with the outside world as she pursues an ancient secret in this brainteasing, puzzle-filled mystery.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Ballantine
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The Man Made of Smoke
Alex North
Dan Garvie’s life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child―narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer. He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, to seek justice for victims. When his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small community, determined to uncover the truth about his death. Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmares has returned after all these years?
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Celadon Books
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The Missing Half
Ashley Flowers & Alex Kiester
Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Bantam
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The Doorman
Chris Pavone
A pulse-pounding novel of class, privilege, sex, and murder, from the New York Times bestselling author of Two Nights in Lisbon and The Expats. The doorman at a ritzy New York City apartment building bridges the divide between its residents and staff when violent protests erupt across the city. Before the end of his shift, someone will die.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: MCD
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Marguerite by the Lake
Mary Dixie Carter
From Mary Dixie Carter comes an atmospheric, tense novel about the death of a glamorous garden designer, a widower trying to keep his secrets buried, and the beautiful young gardener who finds herself entangled in their lives.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Minotaur Books
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The Busybody Book Club
Freya Sampson
Sampson sets her newest within a dysfunctional book club that meets in a small Cornish village community center. The five members disagree on everything, but when someone steals the center’s money and suspicion lands on one of their own, the other members have their own book-inflected theories—and secrets.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Berkley
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Summerhouse: A Gay Thriller
Yiğit Karaahmet
A gay couple’s 40-year relationship is imperiled by a new arrival to their sleepy island paradise: The Birdcage as done by Highsmith. Dishy, suspenseful, and boiling over with black humor, Yiğit Karaahmet’s debut makes a fierce political statement about supporting “gay wrongs” while also introducing a shockingly lovable pair of antiheroes who could be Tom Ripley’s grandfathers.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Minotaur Books
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Horror & Gothic Fiction
The Manor of Dreams
Christina Li
Mexican Gothic meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.
Publication date: May
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
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The Night Birds
Christopher Golden
The next gripping, atmospheric horror novel from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden, set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, TX.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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We Live Here Now
Sarah Pinborough
Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house―and a marriage―gone terribly wrong.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Flatiron Books
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The Starving Saints
Caitlin Starling
From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Harper Voyager
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Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism
Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame
Neon Yang
With an armored, oath-bound hero reminiscent of The Mandalorian and the Asian-inspired epic fantasy of She Who Became the Sun, Neon Yang’s Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is a stunning queer novella about a dragon hunter finding home with a dragon queen.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Tordotcom
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Disco Witches of Fire Island
Blair Fell
Hit the dance floor with a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Alcove Press
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The Devils
Joe Abercrombie
In an alternative medieval Europe, a young monk is tasked to lead a disparate group of supernatural beings on a holy quest using very unholy methods. Abercrombie’s endlessly quotable wit, deft character work, crackling dialog, and gift for large cinematic action set pieces are on full display.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Tor
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The Incandescent
Emily Tesh
Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Tor Books
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The Country Under Heaven
Frederic S. Durbin
Louis L’Amour meets H.P. Lovecraft in this thrilling western epic about a former Civil War soldier wracked by enigmatic visions after the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other worlds hidden in the spaces of his own mind, not to mention the dangers of the Wild West.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Melville House
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Behooved
M. Stevenson
A charming slow-burn fantasy featuring a duty-bound noblewoman with a chronic illness, a prince who would rather be in a library than on a throne, and a magical ride through a world of cozy enchantment.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Bramble
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Esperance
Adam Oyebanji
A whip-smart thriller in the vein of Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, and Neal Stephenson, Esperance plumbs the depths of a seemingly impossible crime rooted in racism, intergenerational trauma, and an inhuman concept of justice.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: DAW
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Sike
Fred Lunzer
A story of boy meets girl meets AI therapist, Sike explores our aching pursuit of love and self-control. For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and the modern love stories of Sally Rooney, Fred Lunzer’s debut novel brings us an incisive and intimate deep dive into the reach for clarity by a curious and ambitious, anxious and irresolute generation.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Celadon Books
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A Fate Forged in Fire
Hazel McBride
To become the first queen in centuries, a powerfully blessed blacksmith must use her wits and fire magic to overthrow the corrupt powers ruling her kingdom—while also fighting her growing desire for one of her dragon-riding adversaries—in the first book of a sizzling Celtic-inspired fantasy romance duology.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Delacorte Press
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Harmattan Season
Tochi Onyebuchi
Award-winning Onyebuchi (Goliath) pens a hard-boiled fantasy noir set in West Africa. Private investigator Boubacar is down on his luck, with bills to pay and no work. When a bleeding woman appears in his doorway and then vanishes, he finds himself pulled into a mystery that uncovers horrifying truths.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Tor Books
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Short Stories & Essays
Are You Happy?: Stories
Lori Ostlund
Nine exquisite stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence that looms daily over women and the LGBTQ+ community. In prose that is evocative and restrained, unpredictable and masterful, Lori Ostlund offers a darkly humorous and compassionate examination of America’s preoccupation with loneliness, happiness, guns, and violence.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Astra House
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Twelve Post-War Tales
Graham Swift
Booker Prize winner Swift (Here We Are) presents a collection of new and previously published stories about lives shaped and haunted by war, from the aftermath of World War II to the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s and into the present. Scheduled to be published the week of the 80th anniversary of V-E Day.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Knopf
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The Words of Dr. L: And Other Stories
Graham Swift
National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with stunning speculative stories of parents and children, together and apart, surviving near-future dystopias that feel all-too-possible—and realities that can be even stranger.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Counterpoint
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The Fate of Others: Stories
Richard Bausch
A new collection of short stories examining the extraordinary shades of ordinary life, from the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausc. Throughout The Fate of Others, Bausch illuminates the tender, comic, and profound facets of the human condition, affirming once again his status as a modern master of the short story form.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Knopf
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Autocorrect: Stories
Etgar Keret
From one of the most acclaimed masters of the short story form whom the New York Times calls “Genius,” a darkly funny collection of stories explores themes of identity, reality, and meaning. These stories speak to our current moment in time: the uncertainty and fragility—full of misunderstandings and miscommunications—while looking for reasons and the strength to find hope.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Riverhead Books
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Memoirs & Biographies
Alive Day: A Memoir
Karie Fugett
A searing, unflinchingly intimate memoir about one young couple caught up in the machinery of America’s military system, learning to live and love through war and all that comes after.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: The Dial Press
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Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind
Nate Bargatze
From one of the hottest stand-up comedians, Nate Bargatze brings his everyman comedy to the page in this hilarious collection of personal stories, opinions, and confessions.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
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This Is Your Mother: A Memoir
Erika J. Simpson
From “a writer who’s absolutely going places” (Roxane Gay), a remarkable, inventive debut memoir about a mother-daughter relationship across cycles of poverty, separation, and illness, exploring how we forge identity in the face of imminent loss.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Scribner
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Mark Twain
Ron Chernow
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Penguin Press
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Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman
Harron Walker
A searing journey through the highs and lows of twenty-first century womanhood from an award-winning journalist beloved for her unflinchingly honest and often comedic appraisals of pop culture, identity, and disillusionment.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Random House
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Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson
Tourmaline
Black transgender luminary Tourmaline brings to life the first definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most important and remarkable figures in LGBTQIA+ history, revealing her story, her impact, and her legacy.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Tiny Reparations
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The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future
Keach Hagey
From an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: W.W. Norton
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Detained: A boy’s journal of survival and resilience
D. Esperanza and Gerardo Iván Morales
The first-ever memoir of a child’s experience in detention on the US/Mexico border under President Trump’s infamous family separation policy.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Primero Sueno Press
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I Regret Almost Everything
Keith McNally
The entertaining, irreverent, and surprisingly moving memoir by the visionary restaurateur behind such iconic New York institutions as Balthazar and Pastis.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Gallery Books
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Things In Nature Merely Grow
Yiyun Li
My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home. Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Nonfiction
Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures
Lizzie Wade
A richly imagined new view on the great human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, that defies conventional wisdom and long-held stories about our deep past to reveal how cataclysmic events are not irrevocable endings, but transformations.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Harper
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Ocean: Earth’s Last Wilderness
David Attenborough & Colin Butfield
Award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough and longtime collaborator Colin Butfield present a powerful call to action focused on our planet’s oceans, exploring how critical this habitat is for the survival of humanity and the earth’s future.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Grand Central
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Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Brilliant thoughts on modern African literature and postcolonial literary criticism from one of the giants of contemporary letters. Ngũgĩ gives us a series of essays that build on the revolutionary ideas about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity that he set out in his earlier work—illuminating the intrinsic importance of keeping intact and honoring these native languages throughout time.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: The New Press
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Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge
Ian Kumekawa
A stellar account of a complex offshore world and the rise of globalization and financialization as seen from a humble barge—one Swedish barge, to be exact, built in 1979. Empty Vessel is a jaw-dropping microhistory that speaks volumes about the global economy as a whole.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Knopf
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Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age
Amanda Hess
Second Life is a tender, perceptive account of pregnancy and early motherhood—and a stylish confrontation with the demented landscape of digital parenting content. At once funny, heartbreaking, and surreal, Second Life is a journey that spans a network of fertility apps, prenatal genetic tests, gender reveal videos, rare disease Facebook groups, “freebirth” influencers, and hospital reality shows.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Doubleday
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Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
Becky Aikman
The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the most dangerous aircraft of World War II through the treacherous skies of Britain.
Publication date: May 6
Publisher: Bloombury
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The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America
Mark Whitaker
Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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The Battle for the Black Mind
Karida L. Brown
From a NAACP award-winning historian and Fulbright scholar, a history of education in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the historic ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Legacy Lit
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Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land
Ross Halperin
This gripping account―unbelievable, were it not true―of the transformative work of a small, unassuming nonprofit tells the story of what happened in one of the most violent communities in the world when it asked a question that had escaped everybody from the Honduran government to the US Department of State to the United Nations: What if we make the institutions of justice actually work for the people?
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Liveright
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Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea
Marcus Rediker
A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave Ship.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Viking
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Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future
Emile Suotonye DeWeaver
A powerful personal investigation of the insidious ways white supremacy compromises criminal justice reform, from the award-winning, formerly incarcerated activist and Soros Justice Fellow.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: New Press
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The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story
Brandy Schillace
Set in interwar Germany, The Intermediaries tells the forgotten story of the Institute for Sexual Science, the world’s first center for homosexual and transgender rights. Through its unforgettable characters and immersive, urgent storytelling, The Intermediaries charts the relationships between nascent sexual science, queer civil rights, and the fight against fascism.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: W.W. Norton
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Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth
Karen G. Lloyd
A biologist’s firsthand account of the hunt for life beneath earth’s surface—and how new discoveries are challenging our most basic assumptions about the nature of life on Earth. Blending captivating storytelling with the latest science, Intraterrestrials reveals what microbes in Earth’s deep subsurface biosphere can tell us about the prospects for finding life on other planets—and the future of life on our own.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Princeton University Press
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So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color
Caro De Robertis
From the acclaimed novelist, a first-of-its-kind, deeply personal, and moving oral history of a generation of trans and gender nonconforming elders of color—from leading activists to artists to ordinary citizens—who tell their own stories of breathtaking courage, cultural innovations, and acts of resistance.
Publication date: May 13
Publisher: Algonquin Books
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By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine
Danielle Leavitt
Historian Danielle Leavitt goes beyond familiar portraits of wartime heroism and victimhood to reveal the human experience of the conflict. An American who grew up in Ukraine, Leavitt draws on her deep familiarity with the country and a unique trove of online diaries to track a diverse group of Ukrainians through the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Writing with closeness and compassion, Leavitt has given us an interior history of Europe’s largest land war in seventy-five years.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Is A River Alive?
Robert Macfarlane
From the best-selling author of Underland and “the great nature writer… of this generation” (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers―and life itself. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.
Publication date: May 20
Publisher: W. W. Norton
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Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, & Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie
Dave Hage & Joesphine Marcotty
A vivid portrait of the American prairie, which rivals the rainforest in its biological diversity and, with little notice, is disappearing even faster. Veteran journalists and midwesterners Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty reveal humanity’s relationship with this incredible land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Random House
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When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
Jordan Thomas
Wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal 6 month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
Publication date: May 27
Publisher: Riverhead Books
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