Nov 3

Nov 3 Books Publishing This Week

The first week of November feels like the beginning of a quieter chapter. October's brilliant colors are fading, the last Halloween decorations are disappearing from front porches, and the trees are slowly revealing their bare branches against a pale autumn sky. The mornings arrive with a sharper chill, and by late afternoon, the sunlight has already begun to slip away. You find yourself adjusting to the season's slower rhythm, trading long walks beneath colorful trees for evenings spent indoors, where warm lamps and familiar comforts make the early darkness feel inviting rather than unwelcome.

On your way home, you pass a neighborhood bookstore, its windows glowing against the gray afternoon. Inside, the air is warm, and the shelves are filled with stories waiting to be discovered. You wander without a particular title in mind, enjoying the pleasure of choosing a book simply because something about it catches your attention. Perhaps it's a beautifully designed cover, an intriguing first sentence, or a story that promises to transport you somewhere far beyond November's chilly streets.

Back home, you prepare a cup of tea and settle into your favorite chair. A soft blanket rests across your lap, and a candle flickers on the table beside you. Outside, the wind stirs the remaining leaves along the sidewalk, while inside, everything feels wonderfully still. You open your new book and begin reading, allowing the unfamiliar characters and settings to slowly take shape in your imagination.

Before long, the afternoon has disappeared into evening. You switch on another lamp, take a sip of your tea, and turn the page, grateful for a story that makes staying inside feel like a pleasure rather than a compromise.

November is only beginning, and there are countless stories waiting to accompany you through its colder days and longer nights. Whether you're craving an atmospheric mystery, a sweeping historical novel, a heartwarming romance, or a thought-provoking work of nonfiction, here are the new books publishing this week to add to your November reading list.

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Books Publishing November 1 - 7

The Love Operation by Melissa R. Collings

“I’m very picky about romance, but Melissa completely won me over―her writing is sharp, charming, and just incredibly readable in the best way.” ―Mindy Kaling

A brilliant spine surgeon gains the power to perfectly recall her past―only to discover that some memories are better left undisturbed. A witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Dr. Cordelia Wren has always been in control―of her surgical career, her emotions, and especially her memories. But when she joins a cutting-edge memory enhancement study at her hospital, she gains an unexpected ability: the power to vividly relive any moment from her past. It seems like the perfect opportunity to analyze her failed relationships and finally understand why every man she’s ever loved has walked away.

There’s just one problem. Actually, three:

She may have…borrowed…access to the highly restricted memory study.
She’s secretly dating the hospital’s new COO while competing for chief of surgery―a relationship that could destroy both their careers if discovered.
Her first love has just reappeared in her life, stirring up feelings she thought she’d buried.

As Cordelia dives deeper into her past, the lines between memory and reality begin to blur. The truth she uncovers forces her to question everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and what it means to be “in control.”

With her career hanging in the balance and her heart pulled in two directions, Cordelia must decide: Should she trust the memories that have shaped her life, or finally let go of the past to embrace an uncertain future?

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, The Love Operation is a witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Dark Messiah by Sara Z. Carson

A riveting debut novel telling the story of a teenage girl and her mother caught in the web of a sinister cult leader whose optimistic vision of hope descends into apocalyptic horror in the jungles of South America.

In 1975 San Francisco, 15-year-old Nell’s world has been ripped apart by her younger sister’s sudden, tragic death and her parents’ subsequent divorce. As her mother desperately reaches out for solace from any quarter―new hobbies, new philosophies, new relationships―a boyfriend leads her into the cult of a charismatic man known as Father. His message of peace and healing proves irresistible, and soon Nell and her mother join his mysterious Church of the People.

As they are drawn increasingly into the vortex of the Church, the community comes to consume their lives, and Nell’s concerns begin to build. She becomes enrolled in the school they operate, is intimidated into adopting their ways of dressing and acting, and is removed from her home.

At the same time, the dangers lurking in the cult’s shadows emerge: threats, physical abuse, and the sudden disappearances of members to Father’s new “utopian” community deep in the jungles of South America. When Nell is secreted there alongside their fellow followers, they come under Father’s power as never before―with horrific and devastating consequences.

By turns sensitive and shocking, powerful and poignant, Dark Messiah is a story of a girl becoming a woman as her life is stolen from her―and a mesmerizing debut from a new voice in contemporary fiction.

The Friday Bookshop by Sawako Natori

Welcome to the Friday Bookshop, a cozy little bookstore tucked inside a rustic train station north of Tokyo. Rumor has it, you’ll find the perfect book there—one that you need at that particular moment, even if you don’t know it yourself....

When college student Fumiya visits the Friday Bookshop as a last-ditch effort to find a book for his ill father, he is disappointed in its ordinary appearance despite whispers of its peculiar charm. But he soon discovers that it not only includes a café where the food menu changes daily on the chef’s whim but also a vast underground vault lined with bookshelves, lovingly converted from an old abandoned subway platform. The bookshop, run by a quirky trio who have been close friends since high school, quickly becomes Fumiya’s favorite place—so much so that he begins to work there part-time.

Fumiya, who was never really a reader, learns to embrace the joy of reading, and that books can be a means to connect with other people and navigate the twists and turns of life.

Through colorful interactions with the zany shop owners and their visitors, as well as mouthwatering dishes inspired by the books the owners recommend, it’s impossible not to fall in love with the seemingly ordinary yet enchanting little bookstore in the subway station in Kanto.

Drown The Bones by Alexandra Kennington

As the younger twin, Merridan has never minded being the “spare” to the Rothian royal throne. She knows her brother, Von, will be an excellent king, and she’d rather devote her time to the Goddess, faithfully using her magic to send deceased spirits from the holy lake to the Afterworld.

When the unthinkable happens and her brother is murdered, she is certain their rival kingdom, Nova, is to blame. After all, they worship a false deity and use their magic to toy with necromancy. But when the Goddess halts the investigation of Von’s death, Merridan takes matters into her own hands, using a forbidden Novian ritual to speak to her brother’s ghost.

The last thing Merridan expects is to raise the wrong ghost. Now she’s bound to Phoenix Darragon, the arrogant crown prince of Nova—who was murdered the same night as Von. The prince makes Merridan a deal: if she takes his spirit to Nova to be resurrected, he will help her find her brother’s killer.

But uncovering the truth about the murderer means discovering Phoenix’s secrets, too. As the attraction between Merridan and the prince becomes undeniable and the threat of war builds, she must decide whether finding the truth is worth its cost if it means her beloved relationship with the Goddess is changed forever.

Pride and Practicality by Pepper Basham

In a world ruled by reputation, compassion may be the most scandalous act of all.

Arianna Reeves knows how quickly admiration can turn into exile. One poorly placed trust, one disastrously charming rake, and she is no longer society’s darling–but its favorite cautionary tale.

Now returned home–uninvited and unmistakably whispered about–Arianna is determined to make amends with her estranged family and do something useful with her thoroughly ruined life. Even if polite society would prefer she did it at a very great distance from anyone respectable.

Thomas Bridges, a principled clergyman with an inconvenient habit of thinking for himself, is already walking a narrow line. His congregation expects propriety, his mother expects matrimony, and both have very firm opinions about his future. Thomas, however, would prefer a life guided by conviction . . . even when it proves impractical.

When Arianna repeatedly–and quite disruptively–crosses his path, Thomas faces a dilemma no sermon prepared him for. She is not at all what she ought to be: not dull, not foolish, and–most dangerously–not someone he can overlook, but a kindred spirit who shares his passion for service and his troubling habit of defying society’s expectations . . . all with good intentions, of course.

As their forbidden acquaintance deepens into something far more perilous than friendship, Arianna and Thomas must decide: preserve their reputations, or risk them entirely for the good of others—–and their own hearts.

Because in a society that measures worth by perfection, choosing grace, mercy, and love may cost them everything–and give them more than they ever hoped to find.

In Pride and Practicality, Pepper Basham delivers a Regency romcom brimming with lively banter, heartfelt charm, and just enough mischief to keep propriety on its toes. With a kisses-only romance that sparkles with chemistry and a story rich in faith, humor, and second chances, this delightful tale invites readers to laugh, sigh, and fall in love with a romance that is as meaningful as it is joyful.

The Battle for Heaven and Earth by Mark M. Yarbrough and Jerry B. Jenkins

In the beginning–before Earth, before humanity, before sin–there was Heaven. And it was perfect.

This is the story of creation as you’ve never imagined it.

Once united in worship and purpose, the angelic realm is shaken when Lucifer–the most beautiful and exalted of all–questions the authority of God Himself. What begins as subtle pride soon ignites into open rebellion.

As loyalties fracture and one-third of Heaven’s hosts defect, Michael the Archangel is thrust into a role he never imagined: commander of God’s army in a war that was never supposed to erupt. Friendship turns to enmity. Worship becomes warfare. And Heaven itself becomes a battlefield.

From the first spark of dissonance to the thunder of celestial combat, this sweeping epic explores the origin of evil and the agonizing cost of free will. With vivid imagination rooted in deep biblical truth, witness darkness rising against the very throne of God . . . and the divine plan that refuses to be undone, one that stretches from the creation of a new world to a garden paradise, and a fall that echoes through all of human history.

This is not just the story of a rebellion.

It is the story of why it mattered.

And why it still does.

There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole

In 1970s Mississippi, a Black detective and his temporary partner are assigned to a case that shifts from murder to paranormal conspiracy with life-altering repercussions.

Wenton, Mississippi: A man enters the bathroom of a local gay bar and doesn't come back out. Instead he's found cold, on the floor, and facing the wall. And no one seems to know how this happened.

Samuel Barkley is Wenton's only Black detective. Assigned to the case, Samuel's one goal is to keep his head down with eyes on moving up in the police ranks. But it's not easy with Harvey, a new, temporary partner who Samuel can't seem to like...or hate. Nor with the cold, questioning eyes and fake smiles from those in town. Persistent. Judging. Wrong. Samuel is reaching his breaking point.

As his investigation leads him to a curious plane crash cover-up, Samuel's placid existence is turned on its head. Because what crashed in Wenton isn't a plane. There are others here. They like it here. And if Samuel can't stop them, they will find a way to stay.

With shades of The X-Files and S. A. Cosby, There Used to Be People Here deftly explores race, queerness, and existing as other in a society that demonizes everything different.

The Runner by Scarlett Thomas

He’s running for his life. And he’s running out of time.

Jay has been hunted since he was twenty years old. A contract on his life has been traded like a commodity, rising and falling with Bitcoin for decades. On the run once again with no passport and airmiles as his only currency, Jay will have to choose between love and survival, and run for his life.

While staying at an all-inclusive resort, surviving off of the points he accrued in a previous, more successful life, Jay meets Ellie, a beguiling fellow runner who may even be faster than he is, and is harboring secrets of her own. When an assassin appears poolside, Jay is on the run again, but this time with Ellie, as they find themselves on a catamaran helmed by a sinister and reckless crew.

The Runner is about high-finance, con artists, the Book of Jonah, ultramarathons, and how falling in love can change everything. Darkly funny, sexy, and exciting, Scarlett Thomas—author of the “work of gonzo genius” (The New York Times), The Sleepwalkers—transports readers from the sun-drenched roads of Cyprus to the rain slicked streets of Kent in this high-concept literary thriller.

Our Long Goodbye: A Daughter, a Father, a Best Friend, and the Journey Through Alzheimer’s by Teri Roche Drobnick

In this deeply emotional memoir, a grieving daughter bonds with her father’s best friend of eighty years—and reconnects with her father—through the stories her unlikely new friend shares with her.

From the moment Teri Drobnick’s father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she feels like he’s slipping away. As she grapples with an uncertain future and the steady erosion of his memory, Teri leans on Uncle Bob—her dad’s best friend of eighty years.

As Teri navigates the emotional limbo of caring for a parent with dementia, she and Uncle Bob, united by mutual grief, form a deeper bond from the stories he shares of his lifelong friendship with her father. Beginning with their boyhood during World War II, Uncle Bob recounts first dates, college at UC Berkeley, marriages, building a business, raising children, surviving loss. In the present, Teri confronts the anger, loneliness, and role reversal that accompany memory decline—but through tales of the past, she finds a way to reconnect with her father.

With a narrative braided between past and present, Our Long Goodbye is a poignant love letter from a daughter to her father that explores anticipatory grief, enduring friendship, and the profound power of shared memory.

A Glimmer of Death by Laurell K. Hamilton

New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton returns for the first in a two-book epic conclusion to her genre-defining Merry Gentry Series.

I am Meredith Gentry. Princess of the realm of faerie, private investigator in the mortal land of Los Angeles, mother of triplets, and lover to my men—the royal guards sworn to protect me. With a family and a court to support back home, I can’t say no to a job investigating a string of magical attacks against up-and-coming Hollywood actresses. Not when the case raises old nightmares from my own past. This time when I find out who is responsible for all this pain, I can make him pay.

But affairs in the land of faerie keep interrupting my hunt. Aisling is supposed to be the next king of the Seelie Court, but he is doubly cursed once by beauty and once by despair. If we cannot cure him my uncle Taranis, former King of Light and Illusion, may regain the throne. If he does he will destroy me and everyone I care about. Only true love will cure Aisling of his curse but is my love true enough? If not, I will share his fate and lose myself to the haunted magic that torments him.

While we fight for one kingdom of faerie, my aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, claims my deceased best friend, Keelin, has turned up alive and well along with a child supposedly sired by her dead son. If this baby is the true child of my former rival to the Unseelie throne, my enemies might use it to take the throne from me. Mysterious fey babies, curses both ancient and new are shaking the delicate balance of the faerie courts, and I am still hunting a monster terrorizing the women of Los Angeles.

The Pearl Farmers by Stacey Gordon

For fans of Ann Patchett, a layered, multigenerational family novel about three sisters carrying on the legacy of their family’s pearl farm in small-town Tennessee.

Three estranged sisters—Helen, Anna, and Penn Lockshire—are bound by the shimmering but fragile legacy of their family’s freshwater pearl farm in rural Tennessee. When the business that once made them famous faces collapse, the sisters are pulled back into each other’s lives and forced to reckon with old betrayals, unspoken resentments, and the complicated truth of their inheritance. Soon, what began as a fight for survival becomes a reckoning with the myths that shaped them and the secrets buried in the family’s past.

From the discovery of a rare pearl in 1981 to the struggles of a failing farm in 2008, the Lockshire sisters must navigate love, loss, ambition, and forgiveness to decide whether their heritage is a blessing to preserve—or a burden to escape.

Rich with emotional depth and anchored by the pearl’s enduring symbolism—a thing of beauty born from irritation—this sweeping story of family, identity, and resilience will captivate readers of Celeste Ng and Claire Lombardo.

A Drop of Color by Elizabeth Ese

Sharp, timely, and unforgettable —A Drop of Color is a coming-of-age story about belonging, betrayal, and Black girlhood.
For as long as she can remember, seventeen-year-old Gabrielle's existence has been a balancing act. Between begrudgingly accepting her role as her predominantly white school's Token Black Girl, and performing the role of the dutiful Nigerian daughter at home, she's not left with much time to simply exist as Gabby. But as far as she's concerned, survival is her main priority - even if it means perpetually walking on eggshells in both spaces.

With her senior year in full swing, Gabrielle can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. But when a racist incident erupts within her social circle, Gabrielle can no longer justify letting it slide and breaks the Oakmont Academy's unspoken code: no snitching. Suddenly, social butterfly Gabrielle is transformed into a social pariah.

Now on the outs with the Oakmont student body, Gabrielle is faced with a choice: fighting to return to the idea of 'normal' she'd worked for years to curate, or finally reckoning with the aspects of her identity that she's trained herself to subdue - her Blackness, her Nigerian-ness, and the space where the disconnect between those identities exists.

With razor-sharp honesty and emotional depth, debut author Elizabeth Ese delivers a coming-of-age story that will resonate with readers navigating identity, belonging, and the weight of expectation.

Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, All American Boys, and The Black Kids, A Drop of Color is a timely and compelling novel that challenges readers to reckon with racism, embrace their heritage, and discover the power of self-acceptance.

Solace in Winter by Mary Lawson

Winter in the small Canadian town of Solace is a season of hibernation. But this year, the snowfall brings a series of accidental encounters that will shake up the lives—and loves—of an old man, a student on the run and an abandoned dog.

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack’s quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack’s cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters—and all the baggage, dreams and desires they’re carrying.

The atmosphere chills when Jack’s daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn’t like what she sees. What Sally does next changes everything, for everyone but herself.

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the beloved world of Mary Lawson’s bestselling, prize-winning Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace.

The Loneliness of Glass by Kathleen Furin

A young woman who has lost her half-sister in a tragic murder makes a decision that will doom a dog; a woman becomes obsessed with a cookie jar at an Airbnb; a woman in an interracial marriage returns to her hometown for the first time since she married and must confront what she was taught about race; a woman with unusual powers embeds pieces of dead creatures in the jewelry she creates. Featuring women on the borders, Kathleen Furin's stories show how a deepening understanding of inner truths can challenge one's social belonging, and how this tension between inner and outer selves serves or destroys. Grappling with complicity, the characters in The Loneliness of Glass struggle as they learn how an intent to "save" others is often fraught with hypocrisy and can lead to self-destruction.

Animal Kingdom by Alex Behr

In late 2019, award-winning Portland author Alex Behr reunited with Chris Hartman, a lost love, after thirty years. Their brief, intense romance in San Francisco left behind no photos, and yet they’d never forgotten each other. Chris soon moved to Portland to start a new life with her. Tragi¬cally and suddenly, he was diagnosed with a rare, aggres¬sive prion illness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and died just months after the move.

It explores desire and searches for meaning from chaos and loss. With piercing humor, the collection explores a couple bonding over alien visitations, the brutal accommodations in a marriage between musicians, sexuality during menopause, and a teen girl’s bruising path to feminism via her Fender guitar. The stories share the theme that humans can’t escape their primal urges and are intelligent animals in the flawed kingdom we all share.

A Good Haunting: Stories by Carol Mitchell

A GOOD HAUNTING: STORIES by Carol Mitchell (Akashic Books; November 3, 2026) Grounded in contemporary life and infused with traditions of Africa and the Caribbean, A Good Haunting: Stories spins myth, magic, and realism into heartrending tales of characters seeking love and connection. Death is the primary antagonist in each of these stories, sometimes appearing as death of self, other times as death of a loved one, and often as both. In the title story, “A Good Haunting,” a widower in the midst of an unorthodox death ritual uses humor to deal with grief and guilt while coming to terms with unsavory details about his spouse’s sudden death. In “The Way of the Volt,” an eighteenth-century African queen is made immortal, sold into slavery, and left to face a series of impossible choices that force her to struggle with what it means to be human. In “The Sunset Toll,” members of the last community on earth disappear one by one until there are just three people left, trying to maintain hope even as they question the forces that keep them trapped on earth.

Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle? by Melanie Moore

Stuck in a dead-end job as a copyeditor, awaiting the next big layoff, Mandy Boyle’s life changes overnight when she wins a contest for a 100+ year old Vermont newspaper and the apartment over it. The only catch: She must run The Liberty Eagle for one year without selling it to a conglomerate. Only, Mandy soon learns the newspaper is in worse shape than she thought, and in a quaint small town where everyone knows everything about each other, this city girl must play catch-up quick lest she lose the reins over her avalanche-prone life. The town's bright side comes in the form of Greg Stewart, the mechanic next door who keeps trying to sell her snow tires and is very easy on the eyes. And with each passing day, Mandy feels her heart growing three times its size as she gets closer to the people in town… And closer to Greg. But how can two such guarded hearts ever fully fall for each other—especially when Mandy is so sure she’ll be leaving by the time next Christmas rolls around? For fans of Peacock's The Paper and cozy love stories that remind us that being brave and opening our hearts might just be the biggest source of holiday magic after all.

The Other Side of Starting Over by Mara Williams

After her husband’s sudden death, Beatrice Bell retreats to her childhood home in California’s Sierra mountains with her rebellious teenage twins in tow. Her plan is to take over her parents’ antique store, ensure it survives another generation, and build a new life from the rubble of the old one.

But Bea didn’t plan on Simon, the gruff store manager with his own ambitions for the business. As they’re forced to work together, animosity gives way to grudging respect and ignites an unexpected spark. Before Bea can find her footing, everything is upended. First by River, a local boy who bears a striking resemblance to her late husband. Then by her estranged mother-in-law, who reveals devastating secrets that will test everything Bea believed about her marriage.

As Bea navigates grief, betrayal, and an unexpected connection with Simon, she finds that it may be possible to begin again, but only if she confronts the truth of her past.

Happily Ever After the Murders by Rae Wild

Ida and Jean got away with murder. Settling into their golden years in late ’90s Rockaway, New York, Ida and Jean’s biggest problems are HOA squabbles, grown kids who don’t visit enough, and staying in the closet as a lesbian couple for fear of being ostracized. But when the electrical lines in their backyard need replacing, the women know that digging up the ground will unearth their long-held secret: the bodies of their late husbands buried under the rosebushes.

After their attempts to keep the electrical company from digging take a deadly turn, the lovers go on the run, launched into a cross-country adventure—with their cat, Frankie, in tow. To escape the law, they’ll need to outwit quirky midwestern locals, mend frayed relationships with their adult children, and shake off the detective that’s hot on their trail. But if Ida and Jean can pull it off, they’ll find their freedom in the place that has always represented their best shot at coming out and finally living their authentic lives together: San Francisco, California.

Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi

Monsters of Ohio is a heartfelt exploration of a tentacular solution to the struggles of the modern world from the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain

Welcome to Richland, Ohio. Things aren't great.

The town’s biggest employer is closing shop, and Richland's on the brink. It's where Mike Boyd, with his own set of problems, finds himself returning to after decades away.

He's not planning to stay.

But Richland has other plans for Mike, his old friend Dave, and a newcomer Andi. They're caught in a swirl of local troubles, private equity, executive theft… and something extremely weird involving Jeremy Keller’s prize cow.

Welcome to Richland. Leave your expectations behind. Bring a tarp.

Scythe (Collector's Edition) by Neal Shusterman

This deluxe paper over board collector’s edition has a ribbon bookmark, bonus content, and sprayed stenciled edges!

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

Two teens must learn the “art of killing” in this Printz Honor–winning book, the first in the chilling, New York Times bestselling Arc of a Scythe series from National Book Award–winning author Neal Shusterman.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered them all…even death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life, and they are commanded to do so in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that failure could mean losing their own. The more they train, the more Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes with a heavy price.

Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption

Handed over as an infant along a Texas hospital curb in 1970, no judge, no paperwork, no questions asked, Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man". Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt the adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. They paid and looked the other way to keep their paperless baby.

Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled and depressed 600-pound father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors, unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them. At any moment, someone could come back for their child.

Part detective story, part searing family portrait, part historical reckoning, Wonderland exposes what happens when maternal desperation meets need and greed, when falsified documents, family secrets, and systemic abuses can no longer sustain one woman's relentless search for truth.

A tumble down the rabbit hole of America's baby trade, Patricia delivers a haunting reckoning with Baby Scoop Era exploitation that asks: as reproductive rights disappear, are we headed to Baby Scoop 2.0.

First Love Last Love by Adele Griffin

For fans of Daisy Jones and A Star is Born, Adele Griffin's First Love Last Love is a deeply romantic, emotionally sweeping novel about first love, fame, and the long road to finding yourself—even if it takes a lifetime.

Vida Jamison has spent years building a life she can count on—steady job, solid marriage, a teenage son who still occasionally lets her hug him. But all it takes is a winter storm, a grocery run, and a familiar voice speaking her full name—Vida Marie—to turn certainty into quicksand. Elijah Beck, her first love and most enduring wildcard, is back. Rock star, Grammy nominee, a walking tabloid headline, and the one person who has always known how to get under her skin. He swears he’s here to fix what’s broken—maybe himself, maybe them. But when a collision, both literal and emotional, lands them in the hospital, Vida has to face the question she’s spent two decades avoiding: Is Elijah her greatest mistake, or the love she was always meant to find again? Because first love doesn’t always fade. It imprints and echoes. Sometimes, it waits. Elijah, for all his talent and magnetism, has spent a lifetime being wanted but never quite held—by the industry that made him famous, by the people who adored him from a safe distance. Once, Vida never looked away. As children, they spoke in a language only they knew. As teenagers, they built a world inside the walls of Sparrowbank, the house where Elijah's mother took Vida in when she needed it most. And now, time seems to fold in on itself, the years collapsing between them, as if no distance ever existed at all. Against all odds, here they are again, locked in the same charged pull—part history, part heartbreak, in a half-written song neither knows how to finish. But nostalgia is a tricky thing. The past can pull you under just as easily as it can set you free—and this time, they might not have a choice.

Souls in Ruin by Jacqueline White

For the first printing only! This hardcover features red gilded edges while the special edition supply lasts.

Raven Kennedy’s Gild meets Jennifer L. Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash in this dark and riveting romantasy following a bastard princess caught up in the revenge of gods, the first book in a trilogy about survival, obsession, and the quiet fury of a woman who won’t be forgotten.

A marriage forged in blood. A kingdom bathed in silence. And a princess who refuses to break.

As the king’s bastard daughter, Mireille has spent her entire life scorned by her father’s court. When she’s forced to wed the infamous conqueror threatening her kingdom’s borders, she accepts she’s nothing more than a bargaining chip for a people who don’t care whether she lives or dies.

However, the Blood King is not what Mireille expects. His cold eyes and sharpened words stir a heat within her unlike anything she’s ever known, and she wonders if this arrangement might be a blessing in disguise. Instead of being reviled by one kingdom, she could rule another.

Yet the gods are not so merciful.

When Mireille’s wedding turns into a nightmare, the man who should have been her escape becomes her captor. Imprisoned and tormented in her own castle dungeons, she quickly learns her father’s past sins are not so easily buried. In the darkness, she finds a single thread of light: the voice of the prisoner in the cell beside her, a man as mysterious as he is volatile, as dangerous as he is alluring.

Dragged into a brutal struggle for survival, Mireille is caught between two powerful beings that threaten to consume her entirely—one who wants her obedience, and one who craves what little soul she has left.

But Mireille was not born to kneel.

Orlando by Harry Whittaker

Never Mind Your Good Reasons

character-driven short stories in which troubled characters "face disruption and themselves"

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