Hachette Library – Starred Reviews
★ THE WAR BEYOND
By: Andrea Stewart
Booklist- Starred Review
The Hollow Covenant series continues what The Gods Below (2024) started: an epic fantasy of terrifying gods and character-driven rebellion. In this sequel, sisters Hakara and Rasha are both smarting after their painful reunion. Hakara has a corestone in her gut, a magical gem of the gods that is changing her from within as she tries to lead the Unanointed forward. Rasha is trying to stay alive even as she begins to doubt whether the all-powerful Kluehnn can be trusted. Meanwhile, Mull tries to escape from underground to figure out once and for all what happened to the man who made a pact with the gods, one that changed their world, and Sheuan has to find out who the Sovereign really is if she wants to survive. As with many second volumes in a three book series, this one has a bit less action and a lot more revelation and politicking. Still, readers will be fully invested in the characters discovering these secrets and how they can help the Unanointed claw back a Restored world without submitting to Kluehnn’s greed for supremacy. Once again, Stewart delivers a vivid, complex fantasy reminiscent of N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy. Readers will be eager for the trilogy’s conclusion.
Little, Brown: November 4, 2025; ISBN: 9780316564830 Hardcover
★ INTRODUCING MRS. COLLINS
By: Rachel Parris
Booklist- Starred Review
Charlotte Lucas knew that accepting Mr. Collins as a husband would bring challenges but knew her inner strength well enough to feel confident in the decision. It was more difficult to face the reactions of family and friends. Arriving at her new husband’s living under the patronage of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Charlotte steps quickly into her new roles as lady of the house, benefactress of the parish, and guest at Lady de Bourgh’s table, making positive impressions all around. When Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwillam arrive to visit their aunt while Elizabeth Bennet is staying with Charlotte, old wounds are reopened with new misunderstandings, and not just for Darcy and Elizabeth. Growing familiar with the Colonel and his aunt, Charlotte begins to wonder: what if? Parris’ debut provides a new perspective on the overlooked and underappreciated Collinses, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Lady Catherine and Anne de Bourgh. It’s fascinating to reevaluate the accepted dismissal of these characters; new backstories and motivations create unforgettable relationships and add drama to the proceedings. There are plenty of backstage glimpses of the action of the original Pride and Prejudice, and fans, old and new, will want to discuss every page in depth.
Little, Brown: November 4, 2025; ISBN: 9780316602358 Hardcover
★ THE FIRST EIGHT
By: Jim Clyburn
Booklist- Starred Review
South Carolina Congressman Clyburn presents a vividly written account of the life and times of the first eight African Americans who represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. The first eight were Robert Smalls, Joseph Rainey, George Washington Murray, Robert DeLarge, Alonzo Ransier, Thomas Miller, Richard Harry Cain, and Robert Brown Elliott. They represented the state after the Civil War and served prominently in the state’s government and Republican Party. Whites opposing African American civil rights used legal chicanery, fraud, and violence to challenge the re-election of these eight men, but Smalls and Murray served several terms in Congress even after whites gutted Reconstruction. Clyburn expertly and concisely blends the history of Reconstruction and accounts of the differing backgrounds and lives of each of the first eight. Images of the time, including Thomas Nast cartoons, enrich the narrative. Clyburn acknowledges that these men sometimes undercut their efforts with needless disagreements, examines allegations of corruption against them, and details their efforts to battle corruption. Whether they advocated for civil rights or hurricane aid, the first eight served all South Carolinians with distinction. Clyburn, who learned he has many connections to Smalls’ descendants and may be related to Murray, compares the lives of the first eight to his personal and public experiences.
YA/C: YAs interested in or researching history and politics will appreciate Clyburn’s vibrant and accessible account of the first eight’s political coming of age and their careers.
Little, Brown: November 11, 2025; ISBN: 9780316572743 Hardcover
★ HISTORY HIDING BEHIND BROADWAY
By: Teale Dvornik
Booklist- Starred Review
When someone knows every nook and cranny of a city’s most iconic buildings and can recall arcane details about its most exciting industry faster than an AI search engine, then that person should write a book. Which is exactly what theater tour guide Dvornik, aka the Backstage Blonde, has done. Dvornik started amassing this wealth of knowledge when she began working at 24 on Broadway as a costumer for some of the theater’s biggest shows with actors who were both at the peak of their careers and others just climbing the ladder. Anyone who has ever taken a narrated tour—be it of museum, historic site, or architectural wonder—knows that the prowess and personality of the guide makes all the difference in the world. The best are informative without being pedantic, lively without being effusive. So it is with Dvornik’s behind-the proscenium- curtain view of Broadway. Adapted from her own tour scripts, Dvornik’s microhistory teases out the granular technicalities that make each of the 41 buildings in Manhattan’s theater district unique, while sidebars teem with fascinating factoids sure to delight even the most diehard theater buffs. Like Tony Award–winning plays themselves, Dvornik’s standing-ovation worthy history will leave readers shouting, “Brava!”
Little, Brown: November 11, 2025; ISBN: 9780762489107 Hardcover
★ BEASTS OF THE SEA
By: Iida Turpeinen
Translated by: David Hackston
Booklist- Starred Review
Turpeinen’s masterful debut, set over the course of two centuries, charts the tragic extinction of a magnificent mammal due entirely to human actions. In the middle of the eighteenth century, naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller joins a polar expedition. When the ship goes off course, stranding the crew, Steller makes a monumental discovery and records the existence of an incredible marine creature he dubs the sea cow. It isn’t long before the starving crew are hunting the sea cows for sustenance, but their clumsy methods cause them to slaughter and lose many of the creatures to the sea before they can reel them in. Over a century later, the governor of Alaska sends an expedition to recover a sea cow skeleton that Steller was forced to abandon, and the governor’s sickly sister finds her life’s purpose in studying the remains of this and other arctic creatures. It isn’t until the mid-twentieth century that the skeleton of the sea cow is properly restored and displayed in a Finnish museum, but hopes that the species may have survived human hunters are dashed. Turpeinen’s historical debut is a moving and tragic testament to a lost species and a gimlet-eyed look at the toll human existence takes on the ecosystem.
Little, Brown: November 18, 2025; ISBN: 9780316585835 Hardcover
★ THE BOOKSHOP BELOW
By: Georgia Summers
Booklist- Starred Review
Cassandra Fairfax was raised in a bookshop, but not just any bookshop. She was raised in one of the tributary bookstores of the river, which specialize in books that can grant readers their greatest desires—for a great price. Ten years ago, Cassandra was cast out of the bookshop and, in order to get by, had to turn to using her skill in reading the magic in a book to make that magic a reality and then stealing the books for private collectors. Now, her former mentor has been murdered and left the bookshop to her, but things are not right. The river is receding, and bookstores are disappearing, taking the magic with them. Cass will have to fight to save the river, and there are dark forces that want to see her fail. Will the river forgive her for the crimes she’s committed against it? Compulsively readable and unrelentingly moody, Summers’ latest (after The City of Stardust, 2024) shows that her worlds and plots just keep getting better; she’s an author to watch for imaginative, dark fairy tales. Perfect for fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus (2011) or Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January (2019).
Redhook: November 18, 2025; ISBN: 9780316561839 Hardcover
★ The HEIR APPARENT
By: Rebecca Armitage
Booklist- Starred Review
Tiaras, titles, and titillating royals abound in this engrossing debut from Armitage. Lexi Villiers, 29, suddenly becomes the heir apparent to her grandmother, the Queen of England, after a tragic skiing accident kills her father and her twin brother, along with a longtime family friend. Lexi, also known as Princess Alexandrina, walked away from the royal family several years earlier and is in her second year of medical residency. But duty calls her back. The Queen gives her one year to decide whether to accept her destiny, or the crown will go to Lexi’s smarmy Uncle Richard. She’s forced leave behind her student life with her two best friends, Finn and Jack, and the budding romance with Jack she had just started to enjoy. The Heir Apparent is filled with secrets, scandals, and a few unexpected twists, including a forbidden and beautiful love story. Anglophiles will enjoy this intriguing and expressive story of self-introspection that takes place in the thinly veiled world of the British royal family. Armitage’s writing is spectacular, with rich dialogue and descriptions, a vibrant depiction of the burden of duty versus personal freedom, and unique insights into royal life.
Cardinal: December 2, 2025; ISBN: 9781538776308 Hardcover
★ HEMLOCK
By: Melissa Faliveno
Booklist- Starred Review
Sam returns to her family’s cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a plan to restore it to sell. Her father built the cabin himself but hasn’t been back since Sam’s mother disappeared in the woods years before. Sam tells herself she’ll stay for a few weeks before returning to New York and her boyfriend, Stephen, but the woods draw her in, and time slips away. Several nights, Sam wakes up deep in the woods, unsure of how she got there. A doe speaks to her as it eats corn in her yard. Though she’s been sober for ten months, Sam starts drinking again. Her grandmother and mother both struggled with alcoholism, and Sam feels the pull within herself towards oblivion. In her first novel, Faliveno’s prose shines as Sam deals with solitude and isolation, desire and fear. Her body strengthened by the work on the house, Sam’s gender feels increasingly fluid. Hemlock is a propulsive, atmospheric story of ghosts, monsters, and transformation, with a sharp eye for gender dynamics and the queer experience in rural places. This tension-filled exploration of an inescapable haunting is a nuanced story of addiction and inheritance.
Little, Brown: January 20, 2025; ISBN: 9780316588195 Hardcover
★ Missing Sam
By: Thrity Umrigar
Booklist- Starred Review
Ali’s wife Sam disappears the morning after they have a bitter late-night argument, and she veers from concern to fear that Sam has left her. Restrained by humiliation and her erroneous belief that the police require a 48-hour waiting period, Ali kicks off a series of damaging mistakes by delaying reporting Sam’s disappearance. She reluctantly tells detectives about their fight but deletes their heated texts and fumbles media interviews. Meanwhile, Sam’s disappearance stretches into weeks as the leads dry up, and public speculation about Ali’s suspicious behavior swells. When Ali is shunned and abused in the artsy Cleveland Heights neighborhood she’d considered a cocoon, her estranged father provides unexpected comfort. Months later, Ali’s prayers are answered when Sam, battered and blindfolded, is dumped near their home. But Sam’s abductor remains at large. Umrigar explores the ripple effect of violent crime in gut-wrenching detail, capturing the callous intrusions Ali and Sam suffered, the space for redemption it created in their family relationships, and their determined devotion to each other. Healing from the abduction and lifelong patterns of abuse and discrimination, Sam and Ali find strength in corners of their lives that they’d written off. Gritty hope and redemption glimmer throughout this must-read literary crime story
Algonquin Books: January 27, 2025; ISBN: 9781643757629 Hardcover
★ NIGHTSHADE AND OAK
By: Molly O’Neill
Booklist- Starred Review
Mallt y Nos wanders Roman-occupied Britain with her pack of loyal dogs, guiding souls out of their bodies and towards the afterlife. But when she’s caught up in a wayward spell by Belis, the desperate daughter of Boudicca who is trying to save her sister, she finds herself forced into a mortal body, a body that frustratingly can’t run a hundred miles in a day or slip between worlds. Together, the two women head towards the afterlife, Belis with the hopes of retrieving her sister’s spirit, and Mallt needing to get back her magic so that the souls of the undead won’t all come to haunt the British isles forever. O’Neill’s specialty, as she proved in Greenteeth (2025), is mildly inhuman creatures being forced to deal with mortals and their nonsense. Mallt is an exciting main character, and Belis provides readers with flashbacks of real British history and legend. O’Neill has delivered yet another excellent story rooted in the folklore of the British isles, this one charged with a slow-burn queer love story and two characters who have to confront their deepest selves to help save the world of the dead and those they care for most. — Leah von Essen
YA: YA readers will enjoy the folklore inspiration and bold, queer female protagonists.
Orbit: February 3rd, 2025; ISBN: 9780316584272 Paperback
