September 2025 Book of the Month Hints

September book titles are right here. They are hidden in the word search below. Three of them, to be exact.

It looks like books will drop on Wednesday, August 27th. Check out below to see what main selections will be available.


The image above shows the pages for September’s six BOTM main selections. We knew three from the hints below: All the Way to the River (pink cover, far left), Play Nice (purple cover), and Discontent (thin, blue cover). That means there are three other main selections shown in the photo: the sprayed edges with green cover, white cover, and yellow cover.

The sprayed edges belong to

Alchemy of Secrets

Stephanie Garber

Hollywood glitz and glam take on a murderous sheen in Stephanie Garber’s gripping adult debut. Old mysteries resurface as Holland St. James uncovers the truth about a decades-old murder, which leads her down an unexpected and dangerous path.

Early Release

The white cover likely belongs to

To the Moon and Back

Eliana Ramage

One young woman’s relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the people she loves most in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging, and family.

Debut

The yellow cover likely belongs to

The Heartbreak Hotel

Ellen O’Clover

A bed-and-breakfast for the brokenhearted might hold the key to another chance at love in this achingly hopeful debut romance.

Debut


Book #1

A word search puzzle featuring the word 'DISCONTENT' highlighted in blue among various letters.

Discontent

Beatriz Serrano

From a dazzling new international voice, an audacious, darkly funny novel about a young woman whose carefully crafted office persona threatens to crack when she’s forced to attend her company’s annual retreat.

On the surface, Marisa’s life looks enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the center of Madrid, she has a hot neighbor who is always around to sleep with her, and she’s quickly risen through the ranks at a successful advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office hiding from her coworkers, bingeing YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.

But Marisa’s dubious success, which is largely built on lies and work she’s stolen from other people, is in danger of being exposed when she’s forced to go on her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa finds herself acting on her wildest impulses and is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

Publication Date: September 2, 2025
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Vintage

Book #2

A word search puzzle with highlighted words 'NICE' and 'PLAY' in a grid format.

Play Nice

Rachel Harrison

A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Black Sheep and So Thirsty.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parents’ messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped her of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, a sinister presence in the house manifests, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.

Publication Date: September 9, 2025
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Berkley

Book #3

A word search puzzle featuring the words 'WAY', 'ALL', and 'RIVER' highlighted in pink against a grid of letters.

All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation

Elizabeth Gilbert

In her first nonfiction book in a decade, the #1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free.

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love—or to any other passion, substance, or craving – and who yearns, at long last, for liberation

Publication Date: September 9, 2025
Genre: Memoir/Self-Help
Publisher: Riverhead Books