There are so many excellent new books out this week that it feels impossible to choose which to pick up, but here are six that need to be on your radar. There’s a literary exploration of queer life in Lagos that comes highly recommended by Kaveh Akbar, the author of Martyr!; a dark academia novel where graduation day has a body count; an Indigenous celebrity romance novel from the author of The Truth According to Ember; a sci-fi novel that’s Murderbot meets Thelma & Louise; a messy coming of age story recommended by Roxane Gay; and a gothic about a cliffside mansion haunted by the ghost of a silent film star.
Whether you’re looking for a light summer read or are a horror-all-year-round reader, there’s something for you out this week.
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde
The author of Vagabonds! is back with an exploration of queer life in Nigeria today. It follows a rotating cast of dozens of queer people in Lagos as they navigate romantic, familial, friend, and sexual relationships. They find love even while dealing with bigotry. Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!, says: “I can’t believe how alive Eloghosa Osunde’s Necessary Fiction is, how supersaturated and smart… Hustle, heart, privacy, sex, yearning so strong it buckles you—it’s all here. The ink practically hovers off the page.”
First Time, Long Time by Amy Silverberg
Allison is ready to start over. She’s spent too long living under the shadow of her brother’s death and her father’s controlling presence. Now that she’s moved to L.A., she’s excited to make it on her own… but things aren’t working out as expected. She’s barely scraping by as an English teacher. And then she meets Reid Steinman, a radio personality her father and late brother idolized. She is soon pulled into yet another controlling man’s orbit—only there’s another complication. She’s falling for his adult daughter, Maddie.
Love Is a War Song by Danica Nava
After the success The Truth According to Ember, fans have been eager to read Danica Nava’s next romance. And now you can! Pop star Avery Fox caused a stir posing for a Rolling Stone cover wearing a feather warbonnet. She is Muscogee, but has been ridiculed by the public, so she’s staying with her estranged grandmother on a ranch for a while. There, she meets Lucas Iron Eyes. The two strike up a deal where she helps fundraise for the ranch in exchange for more insight into her and Lucas’s shared heritage and culture. If you liked that Nava allowed her characters to be messy in her debut, you’ll love this book, too. —Isabelle Popp
New Books
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The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw
Alessa is forced to attend the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted. Most of her fellow students, who are divided into Anti-Christs (world-eaters) and Ragnaroks (apocalypse-starters), were also forced in. They’re promised that the school is their best chance of survival. Except that on graduation day, the faculty starts feasting on students… which puts the surviving thing into question. Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth and The Salt Grows Heavy were both knock-out novellas, and I can’t wait to see what bloody, monstrous, dreadful things they bring to the world of dark academia. —Liberty Hardy
Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
In the description of this book, it is being compared to Murderbot, Firefly, Thelma & Louise, Ex Machina, and This is How You Lose the Time War. Those are some big shoes, and I’m already sold! But if you need to know more, it’s a sapphic sci-fi adventure about a space treasure hunter named Wylla who finds a piece of tech that changes her life. It’s an AI mask, HAWK, and the consciousness of the woman who wore it is somehow still alive inside it. The truth behind how this could have happened sends Wylla and HAWK across the stars in search of answers. —Liberty Hardy
It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest
It Was Her House First is a gothic haunted house story set in a cliffside mansion where the ghost of silent film star Venita Rost haunts the halls. Now, the house has a new resident. When the grieving Ronnie Mitchell receives an unexpected inheritance, she purchases the mansion sight unseen. Little does she know what horrors lurk in the shadows of her new home. When a stranger knocks on her door, new secrets about the mansion are revealed. —Emily Martin
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
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