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List: New Fiction in May 2025


A photo of Speak to Me of Home

Speak to Me of Home

On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. In the 1980s, Rafaela’s daughter, Ruth, wants only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits, and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It’s not until decades later when Ruth’s own daughter, Daisy, returns to San Juan that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.

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A photo of Fever Beach

Fever Beach

A dim-witted Proud Boys reject becomes entangled in a bizarre web of corruption and intrigue involving a hitchhiker, a con artist, an eccentric millionaire and a power-hungry politician in the new novel by the best-selling author of Bad Monkey.

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A photo of South of Nowhere

South of Nowhere

A small town in Northern California is at risk of being destroyed by a failing levee, and Colter Shaw has been hired to locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes or is someone sabotaging it? With the help of his sister, Dorion, the duo must save the citizens before the old town washes out at the hands of a secret conspirer.

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A photo of Marble Hall Murders

Marble Hall Murders

Back in England, editor Susan Ryeland is working on a continuation novel called P?nd's Last Case, in which writer Eliot Crace has concealed clues about his grandmother's death by poison, but when another murder follows, Susan becomes the number one suspect.

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A photo of Going Home in the Dark

Going Home in the Dark

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams—only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie’s obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

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A photo of River Is Waiting

River Is Waiting

Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible.

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A photo of The Doorman

The Doorman

Chicky Diaz, beloved doorman at the Bohemia - a world-famous apartment housing celebrities and elites - prepares for an eventful night as tensions rise across the city. In the penthouse, Emily Longworth grapples with her loathsome yet immensely wealthy husband and an ironclad prenup. In 2A, Julian Sonnenberg reflects on aging and loss after a life-changing call. Meanwhile, unrest brews among the Bohemia's working-class staff amidst citywide violence following a police killing. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, Chicky faces the chaos, breaking a cardinal rule by carrying a gun. Lives will be changed - and lost - tonight.

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A photo of The Children Of Eve

The Children Of Eve

When private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find Wyatt Riggins, who vanished after leaving behind a cryptic message, he uncovers a sinister web involving the abduction of four children linked to relentless killers, a cartel boss, and the chilling truth about the enigmatic Children of Eve.

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A photo of My Name is Emilie del Valle

My Name is Emilie del Valle

In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man's pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny.

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A photo of Where the Rivers Merge

Where the Rivers Merge

From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe, comes her highly anticipated epic and triumphant new novel-a celebration of the land and spirit of the early twentieth-century Lowcountry.

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A photo of Never Flinch

Never Flinch

When Detective Izzy Jaynes receives a letter threatening to “kill 13 innocents and one guilty” in “an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,” she has no idea what to think. As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes the letter writer is serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, women’s rights activist Kate McKay is on a multi-state lecture tour, but someone who opposes Kate’s message is disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate’s bodyguard - a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness.

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A photo of Hidden Nature

Hidden Nature

Surviving a near-fatal shooting, injured Maryland Natural Resources Police officer Sloan Cooper moves back to her quiet hometown and investigates a string of mysterious disappearances across three states with some help from the new man in her life.

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A photo of The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club

The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club

In 2016, grieving Mari Starwood visits Martha’s Vineyard and uncovers a surprising connection to the Smith sisters, who, during World War II, balanced family struggles, romance, and whispers of espionage while running a farm and forming a transformative book club.

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A photo of One Golden Summer

One Golden Summer

Good things happen at the lake. That's what Alice's grandmother says, and it's true....Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she's most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she's been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry's Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.

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A photo of Return To Sender

Return To Sender

When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest route in the country, goes missing, the Wyoming postal inspector tells Sheriff Longmire to investigate her disappearance; posing as a letter-carrier, the sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in an otherworldly cult.

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A photo of My Friends

My Friends

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, who "captures the messy essence of being human" (The Washington Post), returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger's life twenty-five years later. Most people don't even notice them-three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it's just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There's Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there's the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa's care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting's birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don't always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.

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A photo of Tom Clancy line of demarcation

Tom Clancy line of demarcation

It starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. But the USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of Guyana and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship, tragic as it is, won't stop that mission from continuing. So who would sacrifice twenty-two men and women just to slow down the plan? That's the question plaguing Jack Ryan Jr. He's in Guyana to work a deal to get his company, Hendley Associates, in on the ground floor of this new discovery, but the destruction of the Claiborne and the kidnapping of the Guyanese Interior Minister make it clear that there's a malignant force working to destroy Guyana's oil industry. It's up to Jack to identify the killers before they draw a bead on him, but how can he do that when the line of demarcation between friend and foe is constantly shifting?

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A photo of Parents Weekend

Parents Weekend

Five families gather for Parents Weekend at a small college in Northern California, but their kids—Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix, and Stella—never show up for dinner, and FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller must discover if the sins of their parents have caused them peril.

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A photo of The Missing Half

The Missing Half

Nicole “Nic” Monroe is in a rut. At twenty-four, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her Indiana hometown, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years—since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace. On the night Kasey went missing, her car was found over a hundred miles from home. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, a young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But one day, Jules’s sister Jenna walks into Nic’s life and offers her something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope.

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A photo of The Names

The Names

A dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life? In the wake of an enormous, history-making storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow his family tradition going back generations, and name the child Gordon. But on the journey there, Cora wonders if it's right to impose the burden of this name and its legacy onto her tiny newborn son. She herself has Julian in mind, and Maia offers up her own suggestion: Bear. What follows are three alternate and alternating versions of both Cora's life and her young son's life shaped by her brave, last-minute choice of name. Spanning thirty-five years, the novel draws us in from the first page, as we follow three unforgettable journeys of one young man, but also his mother, grandmother, and sister. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing. With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family told through a prism of what-ifs, and shows us what we each can do with the "one precious life" we are given. The Names's brilliantly imaginative structure and storytelling, and the emotional, gut-wrenching power of the book itself, are certain to make it a modern classic.

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A photo of Run for the Hills

Run for the Hills

Madeline Hill and her mom have lived alone on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee, since her dad left; one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and announces she’s his half-sister, and he wants Mad to join him for a crazy road trip to find their father and half siblings.

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A photo of The Love Haters

The Love Haters

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but pretends that she can. Plus, Cole and Hutch are brothers. And they don’t get along. Next stop: paradise! But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch along with his colorful aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

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A photo of The Emperor of Gladness

The Emperor of Gladness

In the struggling town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai is saved from despair by Grazina, an elderly widow with dementia, forging an unexpected bond that reshapes their lives and reveals dynamics of love, memory, and resilience on the margins of society.

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A photo of Whistle

Whistle

Evil has a one track mind... A woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.

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A photo of The Tenant

The Tenant

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired from his job and unable to make the payments on the new brownstone he shares with his fiancée, he's desperate to make ends meet. Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for - or is she? Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises wake him in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets. Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.

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A photo of The Last Ferry Out

The Last Ferry Out

Abby travels to the storm-ravaged Isla Colel seeking answers about her fiancée Eszter’s mysterious death, but as expats reveal chilling secrets and a key witness vanishes, she uncovers a web of lies that may put her own life in jeopardy.

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