Songwriter Joni Lark returns to her North Carolina hometown hoping the beach and her family’s music venue will break her creative block, but finds relationships strained and the venue in jeopardy. She begins hearing a mysterious melody and voice that turn out to belong to a gruff local musician who soon appears in person. They agree to finish the song that links them, hoping it will end their strange connection — and force them to face what it might mean for their hearts.

In late-1980s France, poet–psychologist Jon-Perse acquires an early computer and, with his Uzbek translation partner Abdulhamid Ismail, feeds it fragments of Persian poetry. The resulting program that both analyzes and generates text becomes the catalyst for a multilingual, postmodern meditation on authorship, translation, and how history, philosophy and longing are refracted through human and digital minds.

Unshrunk is Laura Delano’s memoir about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 14, spending years in psychiatric care and trying numerous medications, and ultimately deciding to stop treatment. Using her medical records, doctors’ notes, and research on psychiatric drugs, she reflects on how diagnoses and medication shaped her life and identity and questions the medicalized approach to emotional distress.

In 1959, Freda Gilroy arrives at Fisk University from Chicago and confronts Southern racism as she becomes involved in the early Civil Rights Movement, forced to choose how much to sacrifice for justice, love, and family expectations. In 1992 Chicago, her daughter Tulip is a driven public-relations professional shaken by the Rodney King verdict and workplace racism; she takes a risky stand that could upend her career. The novel traces both women’s parallel struggles to balance personal ambition, community responsibility, and the pursuit of racial equality.

In a near-future where most wildlife has disappeared, Camille cares for animals at the last zoo on Alcatraz Island. When a new keeper, Sailor, arrives they form a close bond and imagine a hidden sanctuary where animals can be free. Sailor proposes a risky plan to smuggle a prized animal off the island, forcing Camille to decide whether to risk everything for that hope. The story explores loss, connection, and the lengths people will go to protect the natural world.

A short, laugh-out-loud picture book that humorously warns readers never to trust fish. Using absurd examples— they live where we can’t see them, some are enormous, their “schools” are mysterious, and their behavior seems suspicious — it turns a nature guide into a playful, off-the-rails comedy.

As the Thursday Murder Club helps with a wedding, their quiet year is interrupted when a guest turns up in danger. The friends face kidnapping, a murder, and a plot to steal an uncrackable code, and must race to piece together clues and stop the villain before it’s too late.

Over seven days a woman named Kinga manifests as seven distinct personas—Kinga A–G—each with different habits, jobs and temperaments. When one persona finds a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas must confront suspicion and the possibility that one of them may be trying to harm the others. The book is an inventive, suspenseful exploration of identity, inner conflict and how many versions of oneself can coexist.

Two elderly sisters, Evelyn and Lily, live alone in a walled garden, keeping to daily tasks—tending bees, planting crops, and following the almanac left by their mother. When a nameless boy is discovered hiding in their home, their quiet, isolated lives are disrupted. His arrival breeds suspicion and forces the sisters to confront unsettling truths about themselves and the world beyond the garden.

Playwright Eve Ambroise retreats to the Tennessee mountains to regroup after a breakup and family estrangement, only to find her plans complicated by a charming—and guarded—neighbor. Jamie Gallagher, a single dad rebuilding his life after a custody battle, and Eve gradually draw closer as they confront their pasts and learn to trust again. The novel follows their slow-burning romance and personal reckonings without revealing how their choices play out.

In spring 2020, Rachel Bloomstein—a recently divorced mother of three in Brooklyn—finds herself confined at home while her renewed sexual desire and hunger for change lead her into online dating and new relationships. Hoping to synthesize the best parts of her romantic life, she programs an AI chatbot named Frankie, and the story uses that experiment to examine technology, identity, and the messy realities of midlife, family, and freedom.

A keenly observed collection of linked short stories that follows characters at emotional crossroads—neighbors, lovers and strangers—whose small betrayals, miscommunications and chance encounters expose longing, regret and the unexpected consequences of ordinary choices. With spare, wry prose, the pieces probe identity, desire and the fragile ties that bind people to one another and to place.

A compact, revealing life story of the Cuban-born musician and showman who rose from modest origins to help transform American television: it traces his childhood in Cuba, early musical success, immigration to the U.S., the passionate and tumultuous partnership and marriage with a comic star, their co-creation of a groundbreaking sitcom and Desilu Studios, his business savvy and production innovations (multi-camera shooting before live audiences, syndication), and the personal flaws—temper, infidelities, alcoholism—and professional ups and downs that complicated his legacy, concluding with an assessment of his lasting contributions to entertainment and the ambivalent remembrance of a charismatic but conflicted figure.

On Muscle is an engaging exploration of muscle—its biology, cultural meanings, and role in health and identity. Bonnie Tsui combines science, reporting, and personal narrative to examine cardiac, smooth, and skeletal muscle, and to explore themes of endurance, recovery, and the body–mind connection. The book traces historical and contemporary stories—from research labs to community practices—to show how muscle shapes movement and who we are.

In the 1970s, volunteer counselor Martha “Marty” Goddard pushed hospitals and police to collect evidence and treat sexual-assault survivors with dignity, helping to develop the standardized “rape kit.” Journalist Pagan Kennedy follows Goddard’s story, examines how this forensic innovation changed investigations, and reflects on the wider history of forensic practice and her own responses to sexual assault.

Nesi, an acolyte desperate to earn a divine patron, prays to T’sidaan, a trickster Fox god who flings her three hundred years into the past. Stranded in a homeland occupied by the brutal Wolfhounds of Zemin, she must learn a trickster’s guile and rally allies from the past to confront the Wolf of the Hunt and secure her future.

Childhood best friends Joni and Ren keep their bond alive by being each other’s annual wedding plus‑ones, even after Joni moves away. After a falling‑out, they must pretend to be close again at a family summer wedding, and old feelings and unresolved hurt resurface. The novel follows their reunion as they navigate friendship, second chances, and whether their relationship can become something more.

Seventeen-year-old Sebastian moves to the controlled community of New Gault to care for his ailing, difficult mother. At TECH, a school whose devices and rules limit speech to prevent bullying, he clashes with student ambassador Lu; as they form a bond, both teens must reckon with trauma, trust, and the costs of enforced safety while exploring a tender queer romance.

A graphic memoir about an immigrant woman who arrives in New York City after leaving an abusive relationship. As she pieces together fragmented memories and rebuilds her life, she finds unexpected belonging and a complicated love for the city. The book quietly explores trauma, healing, displacement, and the search for identity without revealing plot details.

Set in Renaissance Florence, Florenzer follows three ambitious young men whose lives intersect: a twelve-year-old Leonardo da Vinci who leaves the countryside to pursue painting, Francesco Salviati, a marginalized youth who turns to the Church for status, and the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, poised to become a powerful political and financial figure. Against a backdrop of artistic rivalry and political tension, the novel explores ambition, identity, and the dangers faced by gay men (called “florenzers”) in the city.

Viola and Wilmur, two orphans from the colorless town of Caveat, join Captain Cadence Chase and her eccentric pirate crew after striking a bargain that involves giving up a mysterious book. As they sail the dangerous Dickerson’s Sea, they search for their missing parents and uncover secrets that test their friendship and force them to decide what they’re willing to sacrifice.

Kelsey McKinney, drawing on her experience as the host of the Normal Gossip podcast, blends memoir, reporting, and cultural criticism to explore why we gossip, what we hope to get from it, and when it becomes harmful. Written with wit and personal anecdotes, the book questions how we define gossip, why we obsess over others’ private lives (including celebrities), and how gossip can be used to harm or control people.

An oral history of the atomic bomb’s development and deployment at the end of World War II, built from interviews, diaries, letters, and official records. It weaves together perspectives from political leaders, scientists, bomber crews, survivors, and rescuers to examine the scientific breakthroughs, military choices, and moral questions surrounding the weapon and its aftermath.

A collection of autobiographical essays in which Jeff Hiller traces his path from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas through work as a social worker to decades of struggling as a working actor. With sharp humor and candid reflection, he recounts bullying, odd jobs, failed auditions, and the small triumph that brought wider recognition, offering a warm, relatable look at aging, resilience, and chasing a dream.

After eating dumplings at a night market, workaholic Noelle Tom begins reliving the same Friday over and over: the same alarm, the same Wordle, and a proposal that never sticks. During the loop she keeps encountering Cam, a man who doesn’t seem to remember her, and must choose to step away from her routine and take risks to try to get unstuck. A gentle, romantic time-loop story about connection, change, and learning to live in the moment.