For an ambitious attorney and a rising-star chef, a cross-cultural fake romance takes an unexpected detour in a heartwarming and funny novel by the author of Much Ado About Nada and Ayesha at Last.

When Sameera Malik and Tom Cooke meet at a ho-hum holiday party, neither is looking for romance. Sameera's working ridiculous hours at her law firm and healing from heartache while navigating a recently resolved family estrangement. Tom's hustling to turn his social media stardom into a real career while fending off his family's demands to give up his chef dreams and move back home. The two share a few laughs and a samosa-making lesson and go their separate ways.

But when one of Tom's posts starts a viral rumor that they're a couple, he suggests they keep up the ruse for a few months. It's a good proposal, and a fauxmance will help Tom grow his popularity, and, in return, he can help Sameera land a wealthy client. The only problem? Their parents.

When Sameera's very Muslim parents insist on meeting Tom's very not Muslim family over Christmas in rural Alaska, the stage is set for misunderstandings, holiday hijinks, and an epic culture clash. As the Maliks and Cookes exchange holiday traditions and endless opinions on their children's lives, Sameera and Tom realize they have a lot in common--including an attraction that's starting to feel very real.

"Powerful, moving and wise - Val McDermid's books are always enthralling."--Harlan Coben

"A beautifully structured, witty and twisty novel."--Ann Cleeves

The new installment in the "relentlessly engrossing series" (Wall Street Journal) finds Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway--but was it his work or his private life that put him there?

Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt - it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built eleven years prior.

Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who'd been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he's reappeared, buried under the motorway. It's the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit. What was Nimmo investigating that was worth killing over? Or was it revenge for murdering his girlfriend? Meanwhile, an allegation of murder has surfaced over the supposedly accidental death of a hotel manager. It may have links to another accident on a remote Highland road. It's a series of puzzles that tests Karen and her team to their limits. And possibly beyond . . .

A darkly propulsive thriller of secrets hidden at the core of a Scottish Highlands town, Silent Bones reaffirms Val McDermid as a crime writer of inimitable power.

Available in paperback at last, Peter Heller’s masterful coming-of-age tale, the story of a mother and daughter living on a Vermont apple orchard, escaping ghosts of the past.

Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. A renowned translator of Tang dynasty poetry, Hayley walked away from her career and her addict husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese Mountain dog, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith— precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here.

Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door and upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Frith must come to terms with heartbreak for the very first time. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard reminds us that, even during the hardest of times, the enduring power of nature, love, and friendship will prevail.

Two wolf shifters reluctant to love discover there’s no fighting the call of the wild in this steamy romance by USA Today bestselling author Lana Ferguson.

Contractor Tess Covington has spent her entire life as a regular non-shifter human, so after she lands in the Denver ER with flu-like symptoms, it comes as a complete shock to be told that, no, she’s not sick—she’s actually a late-presenting omega wolf shifter. With her family in dire financial straits and a contract for her own television show on the line, she can’t afford not to complete the renovation job she came for. And given that her newly emerged wolf is in danger of going into heat, she’ll just have to do her best to follow the doctor’s advice to keep away from alpha shifters.

Alpha wolf Hunter Barrett has spent most of his adult life living by a routine, and a big part of that involves staying clear of omegas after having one stomp on his heart. So when the tiny contractor shows up at his place smelling like the one thing he’s determined to avoid, he thinks it must be some sort of cosmic joke. But with his lodge on the verge of failing and this sweet-smelling omega his only hope to turn things around . . . he’s left with few other options than to grin and bear it.

Set on avoiding each other as much as possible, they find things unexpectedly starting to heat up between them enough to thaw even the frostiest of hearts. Though even with the pair going head over paws for each other, there’s no changing that their fling has an expiration date. The more time they spend together, the more they realize they’re playing a dangerous game—one where the only thing on the line is their hearts.

In 1817, two German scientists traveled across Brazil and into the Amazon gathering flora and fauna to study and display in Europe. Among the collection they brought to the Bavarian court were two Indigenous children.



The children's images became widespread, satisfying European curiosity about the distant land they came from. But little was known about the children themselves. Despite the scientists' detailed records about many of the plant and animal specimens, they only noted the children's tribes: the girl was a Miranha, and the boy, a Juri. After a few months, the children died in Germany, far from anyone who knew their names.



The Jaguar's Roar, a spellbinding poetic novel told in many voices, imagines the children's journey and a modern Brazilian woman's effort to counter their disappearance from history.



In her award-winning fifth novel, Micheliny Verunschk inhabits the fictional perspective of the Miranha girl, of the jaguar she conjures for protection, of the German scientists who determine her fate, and of the two rivers that frame her life. Intertwined in this narrative is a story of Brazil's suppression of its Indigenous history, and of a young woman named Josefa, a newcomer unmoored in the megacity of São Paulo, who identifies with the girl after seeing her image in an exhibit and tries to recover the child's voice and story.



In Juliana Barbassa's vivid translation, Verunshuk's lyrical sentences carry the reader through a powerful exploration of memory, colonialism, and belonging, and make a lasting contribution to world literature.

In the lawlessness of post–World War II France, a resilient young woman fights to survive and make a living, no matter the cost—from the New York Times bestselling author of Three Hours in Paris and the Aimée Leduc series

After Libération, spring 1945: Seventeen-year-old Huguette Faure is a survivor. The war has taken everything from her—both her parents and her sense of safety. Now, pregnant and on the lam, she cannot return to her childhood home in Paris. Forced to reinvent herself, she must outrun her father’s enemies, who want her dead. After narrowly avoiding jail time—thanks to the help of a kindhearted police officer named Claude Leduc—Huguette lands a job assisting a legendary film director. As her role develops from helping him with chores to cooking his books, she sees an opportunity to break free from the ghosts of her past once and for all.

In this big-hearted story of resilience, New York Times bestselling author Cara Black offers a wholly original depiction of postwar France as well as introduces Claude Leduc—the man who decades later inspired his granddaughter, Aimée, to become a private investigator.

“Bewitching … Tokarczuk is an excellent storyteller.” —The New York Times

A novel about the rich stories of small places, from the Nobel Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Books of Jacob and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

A woman settles in a remote Polish village where she knows no one. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of the living and the dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death – with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech—was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history, but a cosmology.

Another brilliant “constellation novel” in the mode of Tokarczuk’s International Booker Prize-winning Flights, House of Day, House of Night reminds us that the story of any place, no matter how humble, is boundless.

An irresistible modern fairy tale about a British princess who must decide between her duty to her family--or to her own heart.



It's New Year's Day in Australia and the life Lexi Villiers has carefully built is working out nicely: she's in the second year of her medical residency, she lives on a beautiful farm with her two best friends Finn and Jack, and she's about to finally become more-than-friendly with Jack--when a helicopter abruptly lands.



Out steps her grandmother's right-hand-man, with the tragic news that her father and older brother have been killed in a skiing accident. Lexi's grandmother happens to be the Queen of England, and in addition to the shock and grief, Lexi must now accept the reality that she is suddenly next in line for the throne--a role she has publicly disavowed.



Returning to London as the heir apparent Princess Alexandrina, Lexi is greeted by a skeptical public not ready to forgive her defection, a grieving sister-in-law harboring an explosive secret, and a scheming uncle determined to claim the throne himself.



Her recent life--and Jack--grow ever more distant as she feels the tug of tradition, of love for her grandmother, and of obligation. When her grandmother grants her one year to decide, Lexi must choose her own destiny: will it be determined by an accident of birth--or by love?



"One of the best books I've read all year." --Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress

A LIBRARY READS PICK!

When a determined killer targets her brother, a grim reaper risks everything to save him in this delightful cozy mystery.

Nora Bird works for S.C.Y.T.H.E., which might seem odd for someone as terrified of death as she is. But ever since her parents died in an accident when she was six, she's been obsessed with avoiding risk, and what better place to learn how to cheat death than the company that employs the nation's grim reapers?

The work enables Nora to learn all about the myriad ways you can kick the bucket, which is comforting...until one day, a file crosses her desk with a name she recognizes. Her twin brother’s.

The twins haven’t spoken in six months, but Charlie is all Nora has left. Completely against her cautious nature, Nora steals the file and flees, racing to her brother’s house. She begs him to trust her that his death is imminent, and they hit the road (with his parrot, Jessica, who has plenty to say) in an attempt to evade both death and S.C.Y.T.H.E., whose sole mission of collecting souls has been disrupted by Charlie’s continued existence.

Alas, every time Nora saves him, a new cause of death appears in his file. Someone is determined to take Charlie out, and Nora will have to use everything she's ever learned about death to discover the culprit.

GOODREADS READERS' MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL

A masterful debut novel following a spirited young woman's explorations of faith, agency, and love in thirteenth-century Bruges.

Aleys is sixteen years old and unusual: stubborn, bright, and prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, Finn, a young scholar, have been learning Latin together in secret--but just as she thinks their connection might become something more, everything unravels. When her father promises her in marriage to a merchant she doesn't love, she runs away from home, finding shelter among the beguines, a fiercely independent community of religious women who refuse to answer to the Church.

Among these hardworking and strong-willed women, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging: a life of song, meaning, and friendship in the markets and along the canals of Bruges. But forces both mystical and political are at work. Illegal translations of scripture, the women's independence, and a sudden rash of miracles all draw the attention of an ambitious bishop--and bring Aleys and those around her into ever-increasing danger, a danger that will push Aleys to a new understanding of love and sacrifice.

Grounded in the little-told stories of medieval women--mystics, saints, anchoresses, and beguines--and introducing a major new talent, Canticle is a luminous work of historical fiction, vividly evoking a world on the verge of transformation.

A secret romance writer discovers that the hottest story of summer might just be the one happening between her and the Prime Minister’s bodyguard, from the international bestselling author of Set On You.

Andi Zeigler lives a double life. By day, she’s the no-nonsense, steadfast personal assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada’s wife. By night, she slips out of her heels and writes romance novels under a top-secret pen name. But when her steamiest book, The Prime Minister & Me, unexpectedly becomes a bestseller, rumors of a real-life affair between her and the PM start swirling out of control.

Enter Nolan Crosby, the PM’s new close protection officer (aka bodyguard) – and Andi’s failed one-night stand from three years ago. Nolan’s in town very temporarily to care for his mother, who’s battling early-onset Alzheimer’s. But when the scandal erupts, Andi ropes him into a fake-dating plan.

As loyal employees, they’ll pretend to date for the summer, just long enough to put the scandal to bed and save their boss’s reputation. In an unexpected plot twist, Andi and Nolan discover that keeping their romance strictly fictional might be easier said than done.

"The Award begins as a wryly funny satire of thwarted literary ambition, but it quickly evolves into something darker and more disturbing. Matthew Pearl's addictive and propulsive novel has the twisted nightmare logic of a Patricia Highsmith thriller."--Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can't Win and Mrs. Fletcher

"A propulsive and gripping novel about the literary world, ambition, deception and murder and the twisted corner where they all intersect. Matthew Pearl grabs you from the first sentence and doesn't let go."--Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Night We Lost Him

The author of Save Our Souls and The Dante Club makes his eagerly awaited return to fiction with this irreverent and propulsive novel about a young writer trying to make his way through a cutthroat literary scene that turns deadly.

David Trent is an aspiring novelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, trying to navigate his ambitions in a place that has writers around every corner.

He lives in an apartment above a Very Famous Author named Silas Hale who, beneath his celebrated image, is a bombastic, vindictive monster who refuses to allow his new neighbor even to make eye contact with him.

Until young David wins a prestigious award for his new book.

Suddenly Silas is interested--if intensely spiteful.

But soon, the administrator of the award comes to David with alarming news, forcing the writer into a desperate set of choices.

Fate intervenes--with shocking consequences. . . .

With the wit and psychological wisdom of The Plot and The Winner, The Award is a timely, razor-sharp, and unputdownable novel about writing groups, publishing, ambition, human foibles, and the dangerous things we will do to get ahead.

Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman.

Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia, is embarking on her second career, after her first one (acting) founders upon the metaphorical rocks. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend Gloria Coleman, the local Episcopal priest, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the old Victorian that houses the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months. 

When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence and, as she quickly finds out, there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. And the very expensive and rare first edition of a particular volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales—ordered by the victim and her sister is somehow tied to the grim death. With the help of her not-quite-boyfriend, a local lawman, and her deceased aunt's best friend, Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer—before she becomes the next victim.

A Zibby's Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2025!



From New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard comes a page-turning drama that explores the beauty of female friendship; the relationship between money, power, and sex; and the very human desire to protect the ones we love most.



When she is convicted of a double murder, Felicity Wild, a brilliant grad student turned high-priced escort, declares, "I may not be innocent, but I'm innocent of this."



Reenie Bigelow never doubted it. A jury may have given Felicity a life sentence, but Reenie knows that her childhood best friend is not capable of murder. And so Reenie, a journalist, decides to use her deep connections to Felicity's past to unravel the truth.



The more she uncovers, the more Reenie is convinced that the story the prosecution told is wrong, despite the puzzling fact that Felicity said not one single word in her own defense. But there's one thing Reenie knows for certain: Felicity would never lie.

 

When the original Presidential Agent is gunned down during a mass shooting, Pick McCoy swears a brutal revenge in this revival of W. E. B. Griffin's New York Times bestselling series.

Charley Castillo, the original Presidential Agent is in Virginia Beach to visit his son when two gunmen appear. Charley is able to thwart a deadly mass shooting, but he is hit and badly injured. 

Meanwhile Pick McCoy is at the Naval Academy catching up with some old friends. When the news of the attack reaches him, he senses that this is no random event. While Charley clings to life, Pick searches for the men responsible and in the process uncovers a deadly plot that threatens to strike deep at the heart of American democracy.