Hachette Library – Starred Reviews
★ 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, 2026; 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, 2026; ISBN: 9781643757629 Hardcover
★ Judge Stone
By:James Patterson and Viola Davis
Booklist- Starred Review
This legal thriller from superstar duo and first-time collaborators, author and EGOT–winning actor Davis and Patterson, first gentleman of best-selling novels, demands attention from its opening pages and never lets go. In contemporary Alabama, in the fictional, Black-majority small town of
Union Springs, Dr. Bria Gaines has a secret midnight assignation: provide an abortion for terrified 13-year-old Nova. When complications from the procedure arise, the hospital alerts the police, and Dr. Gaines finds herself on trial in the court of Judge Mary Stone, a local elected official known for her no-nonsense, straightforward impartiality. Overnight, Judge Stone’s usually sleepy little jurisdiction gets blown up (literally) to a national stage, with locals in conflict with outside agitators, right-to-lifers, abortion-rights activists, religious fundamentalists, political schemers, ruthless media, and even the Klan. The action rolls along at breakneck speed and features archetypal characters (witty and wise, kind and true, rotten-to-the-core, entitled smartypants just begging to be brought down a peg or two). Family secrets emerge, demons are exposed, and as expected from two master storytellers, it’s all wonderfully satisfying and tied together by some very effective plot twists
Little Brown: March 9th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316579834 Hardcover
★ End of Days
By:Chris Jennings
Booklist- Starred Review
From 1992 to 1995, there were deadly anti-government clashes at Ruby Ridge and Waco and the horrific Oklahoma City bombing, events that stand as markers for ultraright white nationalist groups. Jennings (Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, 2016) explores the complex relationship between white supremacy and revisionist American history by zooming in on Ruby Ridge, the Idaho home of the survivalist and doomsday-Christian Weaver family. There federal agents ended up conducting an 11-day siege that resulted in the deaths of the matriarch
Vicki, 14-year-old Sammy, and a U.S. marshal. Jennings approaches this many-faceted topic with diligent research, focusing on primary source material, and powerful examination of the siege from multiple perspectives, including all sections of the ridge itself. Through rewarding
synthesis and references past and present, Jennings makes readers eager to turn the page or bring up a factoid with a friend. End of Days also delves into Vicki and Randy Weaver’s Midwestern childhoods, biblical history and theology, and thoughtful, often quite academic analysis and asides. What with a wealth of recent conspiracy-ridden, apocalyptic blockbuster
films, Jennings’ deep-dive will be of interest to fans of One Battle after Another, Bugonia, and Eddington.
Little Brown: February 10th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316381949 Hardcover
★ Second Chance Duet
By:Ana Holguin
Booklist- Starred Review
Celia Garcia has spent the last decade trying to break into the world of movie music, but so far all her jobs have involved creating advertising jingles and the like. Now a career-making opportunity to compose the score for a famous Hollywood director’s first television series is
within her grasp. There is just one problem: Celia must work with a partner on the project. Ordinarily, Celia wouldn’t hesitate before agreeing to this stipulation, except the person Celia will be partnering with is none other than Oliver Barlowe. When they were both students at Juilliard,
Oliver was a perpetual thorn in her side. Now if Celia wants the job, she will have to figure out some way to spend the next couple of months working closely with Oliver without going crazy. Holguin (Up Close & Personal, 2025) doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to composing a compelling enemies-to-lovers love story that is both flirtatiously sweet and seriously sexy in equal measures. With its perfectly matched protagonists and a fascinating plot that delves into the intriguing world of music composition, this will be a hit with romance readers.
Forever: March 10th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538756904 Paperback
