In this playful series launch from Thor (This Is How We Roll) and Hilis, a gay vampire couple deal with a murder at their small-town bed and breakfast. Bloodsuckers Arthur Miller and Sal Conte run the Iris Inn in sleepy Trident Falls, Ore., a “slice of idyllic peace” tucked away in the Cascade Mountains. No one bothers them about being gay, but there’s a quiet strain of prejudice developing against paranormal beings in the region, spearheaded by Trident Falls’s mayor, George Roth, whom Arthur and Sal both loathe. Unaware of the tensions in town, new city manager Nora Anderson—who’s staying at the Iris until she finds more permanent housing—invites Roth to the inn’s wine and cheese night, then finds him dead in the property’s garden with a pair of puncture wounds in his neck. Certain that they’ve been framed, Arthur and Sal set out to find the killer with the help of other paranormal locals including a werewolf and an elf. Witty, exciting, and full of eccentric worldbuilding, this sly supernatural cozy stands out from the pack. It’s a hoot. Agent: Carrie Pestritto, Laura Dail Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

In the festive second sapphic romance in Cochrane’s Puck Struck series (after Wake Up, Nat & Darcy) Olympic gold medalist hockey player JT Cox is guilt-tripped into spending an uncomfortable Christmas season with her hard-to-please family in their hometown of Hart’s Landing, N.H. There, she reunites with her best friend’s older sister, Ali Porter, who’s settling into a new home post-divorce. JT is more than happy to unpack boxes and build bookshelves for her childhood crush. The two also spontaneously decide to team up and compete in the annual holiday festival competition. JT hopes to beat her creative siblings and finally gain recognition from her parents, while Ali wants to outperform her arrogant ex and prove to her meddling mother that she’s far happier without him. Quaint seasonal challenges, including a hot chocolate–making contest and a comically entertaining sled race, add to the feel-good atmosphere of their charming romance. Less successfully handled are both women’s family conflicts, which become repetitive as they drag on, and some poorly fleshed-out side characters, including Ali’s villainous ex-husband. Nonetheless, this heartfelt romance will get readers excited for the nostalgic merriment of the holidays. Agent: Paige Terlip, Andrea Brown Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Coble’s second mystery featuring Alabama veterinarian Paradise Alden (after Ambush) is a mixed bag. At the outset, Paradise is ambivalent about her recent decision to buy the Pawsome Pets vet clinic, given her passion for treating wild animals over domestic ones. She’s also navigating a budding romantic relationship with Blake Lawson, owner and head zookeeper of a local wildlife preserve. Paradise’s personal concerns get sidelined when Blake finds Ivy Cook, one of his employees, mauled to death near a large white tiger’s enclosure. Authorities initially assume Ivy died during a feeding gone wrong, but an autopsy determines that she was shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart before her death. Since she was killed on Blake’s property and attacked with his supply of tranquilizers, he becomes a person of interest, but Paradise is sure he’s innocent. Then she starts receiving eerie text messages from an anonymous assailant and launches an investigation to ensure she’s not the next to die. The plot swiftly gathers momentum, and the romance between Paradise and Blake is suitably tender, but Coble fumbles the climax, relying on a few too many contrivances to tie everything up. Still, there’s enough here to satisfy the author’s fans. Agent: Karen Solem, Spencerhill Assoc. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Can an astrological birth chart determine where to venture for an ideal vacation, develop a promising career, and build a home? Absolutely, according to astrologer Monahan in this breezily entertaining debut primer on astrocartography. Originating in the 1970s, astrocartography helps individuals find their “power places”: “personally auspicious or challenging locations.” The author introduces the basics of birth charts—personalized “cosmic portraits” of longitudinal “planetary lines” (aka the Sun line or the Venus line) at the time of one’s birth. She then serves up a “Tinder for places,” guiding readers toward their ideal geographic matches for success. When it comes to career goals, for instance, Monahan notes that start-ups are ideal on one’s Sun line, while brand strategy excels in cities with “image-oriented... Venus energy,” and she cites specific star chart success stories, including Salvador Dalí’s “Moon career line running through Paris” and Kim Kardashian’s Jupiter line intersecting with Los Angeles. For those who don’t have the funds for astrology-based jet-setting, the author helpfully suggests “remote activation” (“like a cosmic Zoom call”), which means meditating on or perusing maps of a power place “to bring its influence into your life.” Most perplexing yet amusing are the packing list suggestions (i.e., bring “a silver dream journal” to the Moon line; bring “rose pink clothes” to the Venus line). This New Age travel guide possesses an earnest charm. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Sportsline anchor Hebscher (The Greatest (Athlete You’ve Never Heard Of)) delivers a spirited history of modern sports journalism, blending personal insight from his 45-year Canadian broadcasting career with sharp industry analysis. Beginning with early-20th-century radio announcers who described baseball games they didn’t attend, Hebscher traces a lineage of media manipulation from ethically compromised newspaper coverage to AI-generated content. Along the way, he highlights pivotal figures and institutions including Howard Cosell, whose polarizing presence made Monday Night Football a cultural juggernaut, and Sports Illustrated, which elevated sports journalism with quality long-form reporting before succumbing to cost-cutting measures. Hebscher’s analysis is often nostalgic but never rose-tinted, critiquing 20th-century sensationalism as readily as the performative punditry and click-driven narratives of contemporary coverage. The strongest sections link sports media’s decline to broader journalistic trends, with shrinking newsrooms and vanishing local coverage leaving good stories untold. Hebscher’s sobering conclusion—that it’s a golden age for fans but a bleak one for journalists—rings true. The result is a perceptive and entertaining chronicle of an industry that’s weathered its fair share of home runs and strikeouts. Agent: Brian J. Wood, Brian J. Wood Literary. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

King (A Certain Appeal) opens her playful sophomore outing on a very bad day for 30-something Ellie Hayes. She’s just been tentatively diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and dumped by her live-in boyfriend, leaving her desperately searching for a new place. Following a sparkly pink sign advertising a room for rent near UT Austin, Ellie expects to meet and hopefully room with a group of female college students. Instead, a trio of puppy-like, early-20s “dudelings”—Grant, Diego, and Alistair—open the door. Somewhat surprisingly, they immediately click, with the boys asking Ellie not only to move in but also to be their mentor “for adult stuff.” Ellie also hits it off with Grant’s burly older brother, Ian Hammond, whom she meets—and makes out with—while drunkenly cleaning the apartment’s filthy bathroom during a kegger. When Ellie gets a job at Ian’s gym, the pair fall hard—but she’s worried that if she tells him her diagnosis she’ll scare him off. Sweet, considerate Ian, whom Ellie thinks of as “Man Mountain” and “Mr. T-Shirts Don’t Fit My Arms,” is easy to fall for, as is bubbly but practical Ellie. Meanwhile, the trio of hapless but bighearted college bros adds plenty of humor. This is a treat. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Written partly in prose and partly as a script, Fleischer’s thrilling sophomore horror outing (after The Roommate) introduces recent drama school graduate Corey, an aspiring playwright who feels betrayed when her mentor, Maxine, reveals she’s leaving Texas for an opportunity in Chicago. In a serendipitous twist, Corey then encounters a clairvoyant in a strip mall who encourages her to put a curse on Maxine. What follows is an entanglement of the psychological and the supernatural as Corey follows Maxine to Chicago and eagerly awaits the curse’s results. Fleischer keeps the tension taut and the action exciting, but the plot is undermined slightly by the tenuousness of Corey’s motivations, especially as Maxine’s betrayal is relatively minor compared to Corey’s outsize reaction. Readers are thrust into the women’s relationship at its crisis point, and without seeing more of their shared backstories the dynamic becomes difficult to grasp. Still, Fleischer’s stylistic flair and plenty of striking supernatural set pieces make this well worth a look. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Bailey’s sparkling fourth Big Shots romance (after Dream Girl Drama) pairs a playboy hockey player with a prickly softball pitcher. Boston Bearcats rookie Robbie Corrigan is smitten from the moment he meets college senior and Division 1 softball star Skylar Page. Unfortunately for him, she just overheard Robbie boasting about his sexual exploits and writes him off as a pig. She also has a major crush on her brother’s best friend, catcher Madden Donahue, who won’t give her the time of day. In a scheme to spend time with Skylar, Robbie offers to be her fake boyfriend to make Madden jealous. The stakes rise on this deception when Skylar brings Robbie as her partner to her parents’ annual weeklong backyard sports tournament, which Madden will also attend. Attraction on both sides soon leads the fake relationship to heat up, while plentiful competition and interpersonal drama keep the pages flying. Bailey brings characteristic wit and spice to the fake dating trope and crafts a central couple readers will root for. It’s especially satisfying when Robbie reveals the big heart beneath his horniness as he steps up to become a supportive partner to Skylar both on and off the field. This is another home run for Bailey. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

The Substance gets transported to 1970s Singapore in YA author Lee’s gruesome and evocative adult debut (after The Dark We Know). Contrarian teen Adeline Siow inherited her mother Kim Yen’s ability to summon fire at will, but resentfully lives by her mother’s rules to keep these blazes small and secret. She gets her thrills picking the pockets of customers in her mom’s clothing store and snooping into Kim Yen’s secrets, like her ties to the White Orchid bar, a haunt of the Red Butterfly gang. There, Adeline sees and becomes infatuated with gang member Ang Tian. After a mysterious fire destroys the Siow home and Kim Yen is burned alive, Adeline learns that her mother was the Red Butterfly’s leader. She tracks down Tian, joins the Red Butterflies, and feels a sense of belonging for the first time. Danger arises, however, from rival gang Three Steel, which has begun dealing strange pills that promise to make users beautiful but just as often transforms them into monsters. Adeline is a well-drawn but challenging heroine who constantly lashes out at everyone around her, and the close third-person POV from such a relentlessly prickly perspective can be wearying. However, those seeking a purposefully unlikable narrator and blood-drenched body horror will find much to enjoy. Lee should win a new set of fans with this. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/10/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink