Tombolo Books

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

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The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
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I’m now on the last 100 pages, and I find myself slowing down because I do not want it to end and dogearing nearly every other page because the writing is so astounding. The characters, the worlds they inhabit in Vermont, New York, and India, and the cultural and family dynamics are written with such depth and humanity. Kiran Desai has created another masterpiece!

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, (List Price: $32, Hogarth, 9780307700155, September 2025)

Reviewed by Alsace Walentine, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman

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I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman
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Maris is your favorite book recommender’s favorite book recommender, and I’ve been excited for her debut essay collection for months. Happy to report it’s everything I wanted – a funny, relatable, and insightful exploration of the institutions that fail us. I felt her hope and rage deep in my bones, as someone who once believed that if I was “good” enough, things would work out. This book couldn’t come at a better time, as we reckon with the impact of our collective choices and failing empires. Must read!!! <3

I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman, (List Price: $26.99, Ecco, 9780063305823, July 2025)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes

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The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes
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Wow! This novel was absolutely beautiful! Quiara Alegria Hudes gives us a perfectly flawed narrator who I found myself in equal measures horrified by and empathizing with throughout the novel. April’s rage screams from the pages at times and quietly seethes at others. Abandonment is at the heart of this novel but also reclamation of the self and the hope that by leaving a mother can break the cycle of pain that has persisted for generations.

The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes, (List Price: $26, One World, 9780593732335, November 2025)

Reviewed by Kelsey Jagneaux, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Overruled by Lana Ferguson

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Overruled by Lana Ferguson
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She just keeps getting better. Oh my word! This book was exquisite. Listen, we can talk about how Dani is a wonderful female main character, strong but still fragile. We can talk about the hilarious banter and sizzling chemistry. But what makes this book amazing is the one and only Ezra freaking Hart. He has stolen my heart with his charm, his sensitivity, and just overall deliciousness. He is one of the best main male characters I have ever read, and at this point in time no one will take his crown. In true Lana Ferguson style, this book had me laughing, blushing and screaming from literally page one.

Overruled by Lana Ferguson, (List Price: $19, Berkley, 9780593549391, July 2025)

Reviewed by Mekhala Villegas-Rogers, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Zomromcom by Olivia Dade

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Zomromcom by Olivia Dade
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What a crazy ride! I mean, we were running into the arms of danger on page one! This book was hilarious, but also had me on edge because of the freaking zombies! Edie is amazing, and if I had the confidence to try to save someone with a burrito and pure determination, I think I would be considered a superhero. Max is prickly and a bit of a pessimist, but he treats Edie with such care, ahh, it is scrumptious. I mean if I could fall in love with a grumpy, flawless, not afraid to wear a thong vampire in the middle of an apocalypse, I would! Here for the adventure, staying for the romance, NO ONE….. does paranormal romance like ZOMROMCOM.!

Zomromcom by Olivia Dade, (List Price: $19, Berkley, 9780593818206, 2025-08-05)

Reviewed by Mekhala Villegas-Rogers, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez

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Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez
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What’s scarier: a haunted house in the Everglades or a toxic female friendship? Por que no los dos? Lush, eerie, and intense, Mayra is Shirley Jackson by way of I-95. I loved Gonzalez’s writing, which manages to be funny and wry while also pressing on the tender bruises of adolescence and insecurity. More Florida horror by women, please!

Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez, (List Price: $28, Random House, 9780593731550, July 2025)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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The Dry Season by Melissa Febos

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The Dry Season by Melissa Febos
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Truly, everyone should read this book. I’m happy that it found me in this moment of my life. As Melissa Febos travels back through an inventory of her past relationships, each section imparted so much on me as I considered my own relationship to sex and love. There is a delicious sort of ache in each chapter as she reflects on personal desire and the things we deny ourselves for the sake of those we love. In the same way that you shouldn’t scarf down a decadent meal, I could not push myself to read this book quickly. I savored and reflected on each chapter. She teaches the reader so much, using her own story as a guide to pull me in and point me towards histories of powerful women (beguines, mystics, writers) I hadn’t yet considered. I am left satisfied and inspired.

The Dry Season by Melissa Febos, (List Price: $29, Knopf, 9780593537237, June 2025)

Reviewed by Alyssa Sotelo, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria

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Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria
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I have never had such a sexy book hurt my feelings so much. As a Latina woman, Alexis Daria writes the most relatable characters, and it makes me love her stories even more. Ava is one of the best characters I have ever read. She is beautiful and wonderfully flawed that I knew from the beginning that she was my favorite prima. And Roman….. This man is 10/10 , the best, green flags all around, top tier. Heart-wrenching, relatable, and absolutely delicious, this was one of my favorite reads of the year.

Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria, (List Price: $18.99, Avon, 9780062960009, May 2025)

Reviewed by Mekhala Villegas-Rogers, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Audition by Katie Kitamura

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Audition by Katie Kitamura
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A middle-aged actress, preparing for a challenging part, meets a younger man who asks her a question that changes the nature of roles they each play, on-stage and off. Halfway through, this book changes its own rules, morphing into a bewildering and beautiful sleight of hand. Katie Kitamura’s sparse, intricate, and always confident prose pushes this from a simple story into something way more beguiling. Auditionexplores performance, expectation, and how hard choices can shape the story of a life. This is my favorite kind of book – one that leaves me eager to talk to other readers about its many layers.

Audition by Katie Kitamura, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593852323, April 2025)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in Savannah, Florida

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Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky

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Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky
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Marcy Dermansky is that girl!!! Hot Air is, well, a breath of fresh air. This is a comedy of errors, a mother-daughter love story, a Rashomon-style cast of unreliable narrators, and the best portrayal of the horrors of Universal Studios I’ve seen in print. I love a book that makes me learn how to read it, and Dermansky’s prose is wry, funny, and laser-sharp. I loved Hurricane Girl, her last novel, and Hot Air delivered on its weird, loving promise. Stunner!

Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky, (List Price: $27, Knopf, 9780593320907, March 2025)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson

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Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson
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Goddess Divine, this book was amazing! A new take on one of my favorite X-Men, Ororo, aka Storm. Giving her story new life with some of the core qualities we know and love about Storm, Tiffany Jackson did a fantastic job. With characters we also know and love sprinkled throughout the book, this will be an automatic pickup for any X-Men fans!

Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson, (List Price: $20.99, Random House Books for Young Readers, 9780593308851, June 2024)

Reviewed by Mekhala Villegas-Rogers, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

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All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky
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One of my favorites from the Tombolo Books Book Club this year! Ruth Madievsky’s debut is a buzzing bar sign of a book, telling the story of a young woman and her toxic relationship with her older sister Debbie in Los Angeles. After Debbie goes missing, our narrator has to decide whether to let her go and become her own person – or to stay mired in their fraught dynamic and the substances that kept them bound together. This book just felt like (cruel) summer to me – a hot, hazy fog of a book that I still think about.

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, (List Price: $17.95, Catapult, 9781646222254, July 2024)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

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The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
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Yasmin Zaher’s stellar debut never lets the reader get quite comfortable in its prose, and it is in that discomfort The Coin finds its brilliance. New York feels, at times, surreal through the eyes of the narrator, who slips further and further into what I can only describe as a justifiable madness. As the narrator stumbles through a life forced upon her in America, she becomes increasingly more untethered to her life. Her homeland, Palestine, is out of reach, and in flashbacks to her childhood, we can glimpse the parts of herself she left there. Zaher ruminates on statelessness, nature, opulence, and beauty in the narrator’s slow spiral. The Coin is an incredible debut!

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, (List Price: $27, Catapult, 9781646222100, July 2024)

Reviewed by Kelsey Jagneaux, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi

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A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi
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Virginie Grimaldi’s A Good Life was just what I needed at the beginning of the year. At first glance, you might think that this book won’t rip your heart out, but I can tell you that it absolutely does! Themes of grief, mental health, sisterhood, and family converge in gorgeous prose to create a story that feels familiar. Emma and Agathe’s deep love for each other will tug at the heartstrings of any girl who grew up with a sister. It is often time the everyday intricacies and complexities of life that can move us. These two ordinary women become extraordinary through their bond. Fans of Valerie Perrin here in the States are going to LOVE this novel!

A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi, (List Price: $28, Europa Editions, 9798889660248, June 2024)

Reviewed by Kelsey Jagneaux, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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Monsters by Claire Dederer

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Monsters by Claire Dederer
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What do we do with the work of monstrous artists? Can we separate it from their reprehensible actions and the suffering they cause? Claire Dederer doesn’t have an exact answer, but boy, was it thrilling to see her try to work it out on the page, using figures like Roman Polanski, JK Rowling, Woody Allen, Pablo Picasso, and others as her sparring partners. My favorite kind of nonfiction: thoughtful writing about tough stuff through the lens of the personal. More, please!

Monsters by Claire Dederer, (List Price: $17, Vintage, 9780525564188, April 2024)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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