New Release Books for Fall 2024
Goodbye, Subject Matter Expert Reader Type.
Welcome, Dragon Slayer Reader Types!
This fall, we’re introducing a new reader type: the Dragon Slayer Reader. Once known as subject matter experts, these readers are defined by their deep love for the fantastical, venturing into realms filled with magic, mythical creatures, and supernatural forces. Dragon Slayers devour stories that sweep them into epic battles, swoon-worthy romances set in enchanted lands, and supernatural horrors that leave them breathless. October through December brings an impressive lineup of new releases that will appeal to every Dragon Slayer’s quest for adventure and intrigue.
Whether you're drawn to the fiery intensity of romantic fantasy or the dark, chilling twists of supernatural horror, this season's books offer everything from spellbinding love stories to terrifying encounters with the unknown. These new releases promise to transport you into worlds where the line between good and evil blurs, and the fate of realms rests in the hands of courageous heroes and heroines. For Dragon Slayer Reader Types, these books will satisfy your thirst for epic quests, heart-stopping action, and unforgettable characters.
December New Release Books
The Voyage Home
by Pat Barker
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy comes the powerful third installment to the Women of Troy series. - In The Voyage Home, Pat Barker skillfully reimagines Greek mythology, chronicling a perilous journey undertaken by the enslaved healer Ritsa and her cruel mistress Cassandra.
"One of contemporary literature's most thoughtful and compelling writers." --The Washington Post
I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to observe her ruthlessness than most. I was in her power, you see. I was her slave.
Pat Barker has crafted the latest in a brilliant reimagining of Greek mythology, and The Voyage Home is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. In this third outing, she follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people's belief in her abilities.
The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
by Chelsea Iversen
A lush, enchanting story of a woman who must use the magic of the fantastical plants that adorn her crumbling estate in Victorian London to thwart the dark plots of the men around her...
Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she'd rather keep buried. She doesn't often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she's been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. This solitary life suits her fine, though - because, in her garden, magic awaits.
Sister Snake
by Amanda Lee Koe
A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters--one in New York, one in Singapore--who are bound by an ancient secret
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.
A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her--but she soon begins to worry that Emerald's irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.
Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Reimagining the Chinese folktale "The Legend of the White Snake," this is a novel about being seen for who you are--and, ultimately, how to live free.
I Made It Out of Clay (Original)
by Beth Kander
In this darkly funny and surprisingly sweet novel, a woman creates a golem in a desperate attempt to pretend her life is a rom-com rather than a disaster.
Nothing's going well for Eve: she's single, turning forty, stressed at work and anxious about a recent series of increasingly creepy incidents. Most devastatingly, her beloved father died last year, and her family still won't acknowledge their sorrow.
With her younger sister's wedding rapidly approaching, Eve is on the verge of panic. She can't bear to attend the event alone. That's when she recalls a strange story her Yiddish grandmother once told her, about a protector forged of desperation...and Eve, to her own shock, manages to create a golem.
One Last Rainy Day
by Kate Stewart
"We love rainy days, don't we, baby?"
The deliciously steamy, internationally bestselling Robin Hood retelling that set Tiktok on fire continues with the first in The Ravenhood Legacy, an irresistibly edgy spin-off series shedding a new light on the secret, morally gray brotherhood - this time from the brooding and magnetic perspective of Dominic.
Dominic King doesn't want or need anything . . . except his freedom.
The key to his cage is tucked in the suit pocket of his overbearing, overprotective, older brother, Tobias--the leader of a secret vigilante group Dominic helps govern.
Their mission? Destroy Roman Horner. And what better way to start than with their target's daughter?
The problem is, the moment Cecelia Horner arrives in Triple Falls, plans and motivations change. For Dominic, she's a potent reminder that there's still good in the world. With Tobias away for the summer, things start to quickly heat up until she's not just a want, she's a need. With the Ravenhood's fate on his shoulders, Cecelia becomes Dom's only solace, and a light for his tortured soul. Because he knows, better than anyone, that a choice is coming. And once the decision is made, there'll be no coming back . . .
Mirror Me
by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
A psychiatric patient's desperate search for answers reveals peculiar memories and unexpected connections in a twisty and mind-bending novel of love, family, betrayal, and secrets.
Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother's fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can't imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn't been himself lately.
Eddie's anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he's too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär's increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie's best chance for piecing together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his inexplicable memories of another man's life. But Montgomery's methods trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can't contain, bringing Eddie closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.
November New Release Books
Apples Dipped in Gold
by Scarlett St Clair
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Touch of Darkness and King of Battle and Blood comes the second in a mini-series of novellas based on the grisly world of Grimm fairy tales.
This woman had carved her name in my heart long ago and I still bled from that open wound.
She was my curse and I wanted to be free.
Orphaned at a young age, Samara has been left under the care of her three horrible brothers for many long years. But just when she thinks she cannot take another day of their abuse, a handsome prince offers for her hand in marriage.
Samara's brothers agree to the wedding in exchange for a large dowry, but on her way to salvation in her new kingdom, her carriage is ambushed and she is rescued by Lore, the wicked Prince of Nightshade, who demands a favor in return. Samara believes that Lore's request is meant to punish her for her crimes against his kind...but punishment is only half of Lore's plan.
The truth is that the Elven Prince has pined after Samara for seven long years. His power over poisons rivals none in the Enchanted Forest, but Samara is a new kind of toxin in his blood, and all he can think about. Can the Prince of Nightshade manage to find a remedy, or will he succumb to her love?
Before We Forget Kindness (Original)
by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*
In the fifth book in the sensational, cozy Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests:
- The father who could not allow his daughter to get married
- A woman who couldn't give Valentine's Day chocolates to her loved one
- A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents
- A wife holding a child with no name . . .
They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before we forget kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to move on their present, finding closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future.
Meet more wonderful characters in the rest of the captivating Before the Coffee Gets Cold series:
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Book 1)
- Tales from the Cafe (Book 2)
- Before Your Memory Fades (Book 3)
- Before We Say Goodbye (Book 4)
- Before We Forget Kindness (Book 5)
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
by Haruki Murakami - Philip Gabriel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.
"Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction." --The New York Times - "More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world." --San Francisco Chronicle - "Murakami is masterful." --Los Angeles Times
We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.
Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world - a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he's been missing all along.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature's most important writers.
"Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?" --Haruki Murakami, from the afterword
The Mirror: The Lost Bride Trilogy, Book 2
by Nora Roberts
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts continues the hauntingly spectacular Lost Bride Trilogy with book two, The Mirror.
When Sonya MacTavish inherits the huge Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine, she has no idea that the house is haunted. The footsteps she hears at night, the doors slamming, the music playing, are not figments of her imagination. In her dreams she sees glimpses of the past. In the present she finds portraits of brides. And when she has visions of an antique mirror, she is drawn to it, sensing it holds dark family secrets.
Then one night the mirror appears and Sonya glides through this looking glass, into the past--and sees a bride murdered on her wedding day, the circle of gold torn from her finger. It is a scene that will play out again and again--a centuries-old curse that must be broken--and a puzzle she must solve if there is any hope of breaking the curse.
Raised by Wolves: From the Author of the Girl in the Castle
by James Patterson - Emily Raymond
Two strangers. One small town. And a choice that could change everything.
The police respond to the arrival of two teens at the grocery store. They don't speak English. They don't speak at all. They're brother and sister and, for all anybody can tell, they've been raised in the forest.
Two teens appear out of nowhere, ransacking a small-town grocery and attacking the police officers who come to investigate. Their clothes are torn and filthy, their hands and bare feet callused, they have fangs. They're sister and brother, alone against the world. Where did they come from? Raised by wolves, they say.
Kai and Holo are taken in by the police chief and his wife, and begin adjusting to life in a small town, attending school and going on dates. But humans, they find, are the most vicious animals. And the mystery of their upbringing brings dark and powerful forces to Kokanee Creek, tearing the town apart and threatening the lives of everyone they love. How will the wolves survive? How will Kai and Holo?
OCTOBER NEW RELEASE BOOKS
Throne of Secrets
by Kerri Maniscalco
Two rivals torn apart by a dark memory reunite on a deadly hunt--and in an irresistibly twisted fairy tale--in the next steamy standalone fantasy romance from New York Times bestselling sensation Kerri Maniscalco.
A wicked prince determined to save his kingdom.
Gabriel Axton--infamous as the Prince of Gluttony, the self-proclaimed rake of rakes--has always lived for indulgence: in delicious food, in tantalizing women, and most of all, in the thrill of the hunt, where his love of danger can take over. But when his favorite adventure takes a deadly turn, he realizes something is very wrong in his demon court. With the clock ticking, he must turn to the only one who might uncover the truth: a journalist he has spent a decade avoiding...
A reporter hell-bent on finding the truth.
The House at Watch Hill
by Karen Marie Moning
#1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning is back with a gripping, imaginative, and seductive new series in which a young woman moves to Divinity, Louisiana, to inherit a large fortune and a Gothic mansion full of mysteries and ominous secrets...
Zo Grey is reeling from the sudden death of her mother when she receives a surprising call from an attorney in Divinity, Louisiana, with the news she has been left an inheritance by a distant relative, the terms of which he will only discuss in person. Destitute and alone, with nothing left to lose, Zo heads to Divinity and discovers she is the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune and a monstrosity of a house that sits ominously at the peak of Watch Hill--but she must live in it, alone, for three years before the house, or the money, is hers.
Book of Witching
by C J Cooke
A mother must fight for her daughter's life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.
Clem gets a call that is every mother's worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn't recognize her mother. And she doesn't answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.
Clem travels the site of her daughter's accident, determined to find out what happened to her.
Model Home
by Rivers Solomon
Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things--the strange and the unexplainable--began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.
As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family's past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a "natural" death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?
Third Realm
by Karl Ove Knausgaard - Martin Aitken
From bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard, a kaleidoscopic novel about human nature in the face of enormous change--and the warring impulses between light and dark that live in all of us
For several days, a strange and bright new star in the sky above Norway has sown an unyielding sense of foreboding, of agitation, and of fear. Tove, a painter on holiday with her family, has spiraled into a psychosis that stirs her into a flurry of unbridled creativity. Geir, a policeman who has been investigating a grisly triple murder, comes to a sinister revelation he must keep to himself. Nineteen-year-old Line falls in love with the lead singer of a metal band and is lured into a secret and frightening world.
But most bewildering, and disquieting, is the discovery made by Syvert, an undertaker: since the star has appeared, no one has died.
The Wild Huntress
by Emily Lloyd-Jones
From the bestselling author of The Bone Houses and The Drowned Woods comes a thrilling fantasy about three unlikely allies bound together in a deadly, magical competition.
Every five years, two kingdoms take part in a Wild Hunt. Joining is a bloody risk, and even the most qualified hunters can suffer the deadliest fates. Still, hundreds gamble their lives to participate--all vying for the Hunt's life-changing prize: a magical wish granted by the Otherking.
BRANWEN possesses a gift no other human has: the ability to see and slay monsters. She's desperate to cure her mother's sickness, and the Wild Hunt is her only option.
GWYDION is the least impressive of his magically talented family, but with his ability to control plants and his sleight of hand, he'll do whatever it takes to keep his cruel older brother from becoming a tyrant.
PRYDERI is prince-born and monster-raised. Deep down, the royal crown doesn't interest him--all he wants is to know where he belongs.