Hachette Library – Starred Reviews

★A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder

By: Louise Candlish

Booklist- Starred Review

Seventy-something Gwen Healy is well-intentioned but has an unfortunate tendency to misread people and situations. She’s also desperate to have friends and fit in, no doubt partly because of the embarrassment and reputational impact of her now ex-husband’s conviction for embezzling
from the charity they co-ran. Gwen has put her life back together and now lives in a lovely flat. But things change when twenty-something Pixie moves in across the hall under the government’s Rent-a-Room scheme to help those struggling to afford accommodation in London’s pricey housing market. Declaring herself Pixie’s friend, Gwen soon learns that Pixie
pays rent to her landlord in sex, not cash. Horrified, Gwen launches a campaign to save Pixie and the growing number of other women who have fallen prey to similar abuse. Things quickly spiral out of control, and Gwen is caught in a situation that is both hurtful and potentially
dangerous to her mental, emotional, and financial health as unfounded accusations, disastrous errors, and escalating tension turn things very dark. The sense of impending disaster ratchets up
to an almost unbearable level in this tense, dark, roller-coaster ride of a story that will keep readers on edge until the utterly shocking end. Compelling, twist-filled, and brilliant.

Grand Central: July 7th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538778111 Paperback

★The Secret Society of Librarians

By: Kate Thompson

Booklist- Starred Review

During WWII, Joyce and Dorotha, members of a group of librarians and friends known as the Secret Society of Librarians, take on the task of bringing books to the people. In London, Joyce fights for book distribution while the city is relentlessly bombed during the Blitz. Joyce takes in
Dorotha’s young sister Adela, a Jewish refugee, and together they form London’s first mobile library, lifting spirits, preserving unity, and maybe even saving lives. Meanwhile, Dorotha is imprisoned in the Łódź ghetto in Poland. Under the cover of darkness, she collects books left behind in abandoned homes and creates her own library to share with others so that they may break free from their dark realities. Joyce and Dorotha, along with their friends, risk their lives during the war to ensure people have an escape through books. Readers will be on tenterhooks wondering who will survive this war and if the Secret Society will meet again in person. History
fans will feast on the author’s note and revel in the real-life testimonies at the end of the book. Anyone who loves books, libraries, and history will appreciate this powerful novel.

Forever,: July 21th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538775035 Paperback

★Blow by Blow

By: Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill

Booklist- Starred Review

As related in this superb biography, after playing before 60,000 delirious fans at a concert in England, guitarist Jeff Beck walked offstage, looked at an exec with his record company, Epic, and said flatly, “I suck.” Whereupon the exec marched Beck back onstage and said, “This guythinks he sucks.” M ore delirium ensued. Throughout Beck’s long, productive, mercurial, yet
always dazzlirightng career—from the groundbreaking Yardbirds in the mid-sixties through collaborations with some of the most impactful figures in mid-twentieth-century popular music tohis sudden death in 2023 at age 78 —it was this brutal self-candor, indifference to popular opinion, and unending quest for sonic perfection that made Beck arguably the most
accomplished among such guitar heroes as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Carlos Santana. It also made for famously testy relations with nearly all of his collaborators. Tolinski and Gill—longtime editor-in-chief and regular contributor, respectively, for Guitar World magazine—deftly lay out every step in Beck’s contentious, labyrinthine path to greatness while folding in critical information on the hardware Beck used to achieve his otherworldly sound, from guitars to amps, speakers, and special-effects devices. This fulsome biography will have special appeal for guitar enthusiasts, but Beck’s life and music will be a revelation to general audiences.

Da Capo: July 9th, 2026; ISBN: 9780306836589 Hardcover

★Steelborn

By: Taylor J. LaRue

Library Journal

Reya Connery plans to pull off one final job as the infamous Crimson Thief before leaving her criminal life behind. At first, everything goes according to plan, but during the mission, Reya makes a risky decision that costs her employer money. Furious over the lost payment, her employer gives Reya an ultimatum: repay the missing reward within 60 days or spend the next 10 years working off her debt. Desperate to find a way to repay the money, Reya crosses paths with the intimidating Caelan Halcyon. Caelan is racing against time, suffering from a deadly curse that is killing him slowly. He needs Reya’s skills to steal a rare cure that could save his life. Caelan leaves her little choice, but Reya agrees to help. Their mission becomes far more complicated than expected, and the cure proves difficult to obtain. Meanwhile, Reya struggles to keep a dangerous secret she has hidden since her parents’ deaths. As Caelan begins to uncover the truth, trust and attraction slowly grow between them. With Caelan’s life fading and the stakes rising, both must decide how far they are willing to go to achieve their goals.

VERDICT: Full of unexpected turns and rich adventure, LaRue’s debut fantasy story is a truly memorable read.

Requited: August 4th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316601627 Hardcover

★The Blue Flame

By: George Pelecanos

Booklist- Starred Review

From the always-superb Pelecanos comes a gritty, dark, violent crime story with a softer, gentler side that’s as charming as it is unexpected. Ex-cop-turned-PI Derek Strange (last seen in What It Was, 2012) loves old music, sports, his dog, his family, his neighborhood, and his city, but he’s
also prideful, shrewd, tough, and hard as nails. He’s hired by sleazy drug lawyer Billy Lake to gather evidence that will help clear Lake’s client, Antone Anthony, of murder. Strange dislikes Lake and his ilk, but money is money—and Strange’s business, the aptly but oddly named “Strange Investigations,” needs an infusion of cash. As Strange digs into the case, he finds a dark and shocking tale of sex work, drug dealing, jealousy, revenge, greed, and blackmail. By the time he uncovers all the facts, a woman has been brutally murdered, innocent people have died, a grief-stricken father has done the unthinkable, and two evil men have had revenge heaped on them. Pelecanos’ realistic descriptions of life in the Black communities of Washington, DC, and his vividly depicted characters, authentic dialogue, and ability to infuse a story with both violence and warmth make this an outstanding read.

Cardinal: August 4th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538779101 Hardcover

★The Perilous Fight

By: Colin Kaepernick and Nick Chiles

Booklist- Starred Review

The first three games of the 2016 preseason, San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick sat on a cooler near the bench, apart from his standing teammates, during the playing of the national anthem in a quiet protest over the recent killings of Black men by police officers. Until, spectacularly, his protest was quiet no more. As Kaepernick writes, amid a media firestorm, free safety Eric Reid suggested to him that before the next game, they join their teammates and take a knee rather than appear disrespectful. “Disrespectful to whom?” Kaepernick writes. “How could
pointing out police killing Black folks be more disrespectful than police killing Black folks?” Kaepernick and Reid together famously took a knee, inflaming while also animating and even elevating the ongoing national “conversation” over civil rights in America. This autobiography
may lack the granular detail fans might seek in the backstories of their sports heroes, but Kaepernick, biracial son of an adoptive white family, offers a candid, observant, generous chronicle of his development as an elite, suddenly dispensable NFL quarterback and also of the
relentless, high-profile civil rights warrior he’s become. Kaepernick’s painful truths—especially barbed about the racism he’s experienced within the NFL but also in the outside world—find their mark here.

Legacy Lit: September 15th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538777879 Hardcover

★As We Fall Through Time

By: Claire North

One day, Cal, a time-traveler who slips through walls into other eras, meets and falls for a Napoleonic soldier. Afterwards, he feels
there is no choice but to risk breaking the rules of time travel to keep Olivier alive even though it might spawn destructive paradoxes.
Despite his efforts, his lover mysteriously vanishes from existence completely. Meanwhile, Cal’s colleague Fadimatu creates a massive
paradox when she stumbles across her own desiccated corpse. Cal and Fadimatu investigate a slowly unraveling timeline to discover
which oddities are part of the problem. North (Slow Gods) creates the perfect time-travel novel, ensuring that the only paradoxes are
the ones they purposely place within the story. The captivating prose and thoughtful exploration of love, grief, and hope will please fans
of Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time, while the intricate worldbuilding and twisty plot will fascinate fans of Kate Mascarenhas’s The
Psychology of Time Travel and Tom Sweterlitsch’s The Gone World. VERDICT North’s writing feels like sinking into a dream, fully
immersing readers in Cal’s race to save his lover, outrun grief, and stop a growing paradox from obliterating a massive chunk of time
and space.

Orbit: October 13th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316586467 Paperback

★Hanging and Burning

By: Walter Mosley

Booklist- Starred Review

Once again, his invincible Grandmother Brenda recruits private eye Joe King Oliver for a seemingly simple case that morphs into a labyrinth of treacherous secrets and violent confrontations. Fortunately, Joe has his ways and some highly skilled, intrepid, and loyal allies, including his daughter, Aja-Denise, who runs his Brooklyn office. His mission is to find Twyla, the granddaughter of Arman Babylon, who is receiving cancer treatments at the same high-end Los Angeles hospital as Joe’s grandmother. But Arman is a gangster with a still dangerous past and
Twyla, for all her toughness and evasiveness, is more tangled up in that mess than she thinks. As the investigation—involving nightclubs and a jazz singer, roofies and collusion, and lots of strong, alluring women, many attracted to Joe and vice versa—escalates and complicates, Leaf,
Joe’s elusive love, reenters his life with fresh determination. Mosley, witty and incisive, is in the zone in the fourth King Oliver novel, following Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right (2025), lingering over the fashion choices, build, and temperament of each intriguing character;
choreographing match-point dialogue and down-to-the-wire showdowns, paying tribute to the transporting beauty of jazz, relishing the absurd, and exploring the interplay of family and crime. HIGH-DEMAND

Little, Brown: October 20th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316573207 Hardcover

★Die Famous

By: Michael Koryta

Savannah Cody truly loves Eddie “Nickel” Terhune, but there are days when she could easily kill him—like when she hears that a reward is out for Eddie and the other members of Al Brady’s gang after their most recent bank robbery. Considering all the grief she has endured as Eddie’s romantic partner (if not his legal wife) and the mother of their young son Alford, Savannah figures it’s only fair that she be the one to track Eddie down and claim the reward for his capture, dead or alive. With Alford and her father Wendell, an
Indiana farmer who once worked as a detective, Savannah sets off on a road trip to get her man back, one way or another. Writing with a delectably desiccated sense of wit, Edgar winner Koryta (An Honest Man) chronicles a United States still shaking off the Great Depression. His flair for nuanced characterization shines as he deftly pivots between multiple viewpoints in this perfectly tuned, noir
tinged plot that thoughtfully explores fame, family, faith, and love.

VERDICT Readers who fell for the complicated charms of DennisLehane’s Live by Night or Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos will be equally dazzled by Koryta’s superbly written and stunning novel.

Little, Brown: September 22nd, 2026; ISBN: 9780316535991 Hardcover

★American Hagwon

By: Min Jin Lee

Booklist- Starred Review

The third title in Lee’s Diaspora Quartet arrives almost a decade after the international phenomenon Pachinko (2017), preceded by Free Food for Millionaires (2007). The final installment, Marshall Plan, is in the works as well as a memoir, Name Recognition. In this immersive masterpiece, Lee takes on Korea’s all-consuming obsession with education. At the core of her intricate epic is the Koh family: Korean-born parents John and Helen, their New Jersey-born sons Bo and DH, and daughter Mido. The novel opens in 1992 when the Kohs have recently moved from Australia to Seoul, where getting into the right hagwon, or after-school cram school, irrevocably determines the direction of each of their lives. Bo struggles alone in Seoul far too long; DH returns to elite U.S. institutions through the generosity of a new friend’s family; and Mido, with the least schooling, likely has the clearest understanding of what a genuine education
should be. Betrayal scatters the family to Australia, then to southern California, and back again to Korea. In between, John and Helen suffer and sacrifice; Helen’s sister, Sonya, succumbs to decades of longing; payback topples John’s former boss and his philandering lover; and Mido
falls in love with the man she’ll likely never marry. Beyond irresistible storytelling, Lee expertly confronts broken systems, familial expectations, and peripatetic identities with empathy and brilliance. HIGH-DEMAND

Cardinal: September 29th, 2026; ISBN: 9781538752036 Hardcover

★The Only Way Out Is Up

By: Django Wexler

Booklist- Starred Review

When you live at the literal bottom of society’s well, you will do anything to survive. Hunting mindless metal robots with an implacable urge to kill all humans is one option. Seventeen-year old Taj is a survivor. If he manages to fight off a multi-limbed, stabbing horror, he can claim a bounty and salvage its parts to improve his own built-from-scratch automaton. Star, Taj’s sassy robot companion, is unique. He can move independently and communicate due to an indestructible red jewel core inscribed with the word “think.” The pair plan to win bigger prizes in the fighting arena, but an early loss causes Taj to switch to stealing from the wealthy who live a level above. This gamble will lead Taj and Star into a treacherous world of danger and deceit. After concluding his Dark Lord Davi duology, the prolific Wexler has written a novel inspired by his favorite type of anime: progression fantasy. He has added fighting robots engaged in thrillingly detailed battle sequences and used Kabbalah mysticism for its naming conventions. This humorous, action-packed story of survival, found family, AI, a heavy dose of haves versus have-nots, and unanswered questions continues with the next volume of the proposed Sigilist trilogy.

Library Journal– Starred Review

Wexler’s (Everybody Wants To Rule the World Except Me) latest is a video game–style tale. In a world born of a giant junk-pit, where each tier of life is better than the one below it, life at the bottom of the heap is not for the weak. Protagonist Taj may not be the physically strongest, but he has something no one else does: a runic that can think. Most runics are small discs with an action word on them, imbuing the disc with that action. Star is different; he is made from a ruby instead of clay, and he is alive. Taj keeps Star hidden, but when his family is in danger, he must take drastic action, such as teaming up with someone from the upper rings, to fight in a runic tournament for the chance to ascend beyond the heap. But Star’s ability to think draws more attention than either he or Taj bargained for.

VERDICT This incredibly satisfying new adult progression fantasy is brimming with action-packed, fast-paced adventure where characters narrated in the first person fight for justice, freedom, and the possibility of changing the unfair systems of their world.

Orbit: September 29th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316392600 Paperback

★As We Fall Through Time

By: Claire North

One day, Cal, a time-traveler who slips through walls into other eras, meets and falls for a Napoleonic soldier. Afterwards, he feels there is no choice but to risk breaking the rules of time travel to keep Olivier alive even though it might spawn destructive paradoxes. Despite his efforts, his lover mysteriously vanishes from existence completely. Meanwhile, Cal’s colleague Fadimatu creates a massive
paradox when she stumbles across her own desiccated corpse. Cal and Fadimatu investigate a slowly unraveling timeline to discover which oddities are part of the problem. North (Slow Gods) creates the perfect time-travel novel, ensuring that the only paradoxes are the ones they purposely place within the story. The captivating prose and thoughtful exploration of love, grief, and hope will please fans of Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time, while the intricate worldbuilding and twisty plot will fascinate fans of Kate Mascarenhas’s The
Psychology of Time Travel and Tom Sweterlitsch’s The Gone World. VERDICT North’s writing feels like sinking into a dream, fully immersing readers in Cal’s race to save his lover, outrun grief, and stop a growing paradox from obliterating a massive chunk of time and space.

Orbit: October 19th, 2026; ISBN: 9780316586467 Paperback