The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Action & Adventure

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins leads you astray, trips your feet out from under you, and then dunks your head underwater, all in the span of one night. This novella is an action-packed romp through a gloriously rich and well-defined world. Clark crafts a succinct and enthralling story that carries you through until the last page, offering a wide cast of vivid characters (mostly assassins) who capture your attention and your heart. On top of all of that, there lies a time paradox to challenge and twist your perception of the world itself.

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark, (List Price: $20.99, Tordotcom, 9781250767042, August 2024)

Reviewed by Faith Skowronnek, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Blue Window by Adina Rishe Gerwirtz

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Blue Window by Adina Rishe Gerwirtz
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I Am a Candlewick Frequent Blurber! On the shortest day of the year, Max, Susan, Nell, Jean, and Kate tumbled through Mrs Grady’s cobalt blue window. On the other side, things were the same (there were animals, people, and chicken for dinner) but at the same time very very very different. In this mesmerizing new portal fantasy from the author of Zebra Forest, five children learn who they are, discern how they fit into an ancient prophecy, and learn just what they can do when they set their minds to it.

Blue Window by Adina Rishe Gerwirtz, (List Price: $18.99, Candlewick, 9780763660369, April 2018)

Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

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The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves

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The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves
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The Book of Elsewhere is pulp sci-fi wrapped in literary fiction. Or literary fiction masquerading as pulp sci-fi. Or both. Or neither. It is a duality. It is gorgeous, arcane, and prosaic. It is eggs and pigs and blood and frenzy. It is the loss of the self, and the return. The prose is sulfurous, oceanic, tight, and expectant. It compels you to read it. It drags you under and drowns you in mystery and cruelty and absence, then leaves you gasping for air in moments of introspection and reflection. It is at turns explosive and sedate, complex and streamlined, isolating and hypnotizing. In short, The Book of Elsewhere rips. It puts your brain in a fugue state, stomps on it, caresses it, confuses it, and spits you out with a headache and blood in your mouth and a sense of completion.

The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves, (List Price: $30, Del Rey, 9780593446591, July 2024)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

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The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
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Reading The Lost Story reminded me of being a kid, and of the many hours I spent immersed in magical faraway worlds. Inspired by the classic Narnia novels, Meg Shaffer’s second novel is both a fairytale for grown-ups and a love story. As teenagers, Jeremy and Rafe vanished for six months in the forests of West Virginia. As adults, enlisted by Emilie to search for her missing sister, they return to the scene of their disappearance: a tree that opens onto Shenandoah, a fantastical realm where they are greeted as long-lost royalty, and where Rafe must grapple with the demons of his past in order to reclaim his future. Recommended reading for anyone seeking to reawaken a sense of wonder.

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer, (List Price: $29, Ballantine Books, 9780593598870, July 2024)

Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in , Mississippi

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Next Stop by Debbie Fong

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Next Stop by Debbie Fong
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Next Stop is an endearing graphic novel that made me laugh out loud on one page, then tear up on the next. Fong’s ability to discuss grief and loss without sacrificing charm makes Next Stop a must-read for children and adults.

Next Stop by Debbie Fong, (List Price: $13.99, Random House Graphic, 9780593425183, March 2024)

Reviewed by Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books in Rogers, Arkansas

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The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

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The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
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Battles defending honor and fighting sexism, this graphic novel has it all. Set in samurai times with a modern twist, The Worst Ronin shows the progression of a young girl learning how to fight for her life and a worn-down drunken warrior learning how to be kind.

The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, (List Price: $18.99, HarperAlley, 9780358464938, May 2024)

Reviewed by Sara Dimaria, Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, Louisiana

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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
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This book is beautiful. An epic tale of everything good in fantasy. Magic, pirates , bombs and demons. This book has it all. But the best part of this book is the way the main character handles her own identity as a woman , mother and badass.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, (List Price: $19.99, Harper Voyager, 9780062963512, March 2024)

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

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Hearts Still Beating by Brooke Archer

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Hearts Still Beating by Brooke Archer
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This is a fun YA book that has an interesting take on zombies. I love the idea of science being able to reverse the effects of zombification and what ramifications would come with that. What if your loved one had killed your family when they weren’t themselves? Could you forgive them? It’s a fascinating take. The love story is well done. Only reason I didn’t rate it higher was that it didn’t have me on the edge of my seat like some of my favorite apocalyptic novels, but it’s still a solid read that I believe teens will especially enjoy.

Hearts Still Beating by Brooke Archer, (List Price: $19.99, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 9780593698327, April 2024)

Reviewed by Kelley Dykes, Main Street Reads in Summerville, South Carolina

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A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke

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A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Westerbeke, Douglas
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A mind-bending, adventure-filled debut novel with an unusual premise: Nine-year-old Aubry contracts a strange illness that threatens to bleed her to death unless she keeps moving. So she spends her life on the run – constantly running – from one end of the earth to the other, below the earth and above, forever finding new places to go, for she cannot return to places she has been. It’s a fantastical journey that made me ask so many questions: Will she be cured? How does she endure? Why not give up? What a wild ride of a novel!

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke, (List Price: $28.99, Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster, 9781668026069, April 2024)

Reviewed by Cathy Graham, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida

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Spotlight On: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

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Ray Nayler, photo by Anna Kuznetsova

One of the simplistic popular misunderstandings [the science fiction] bad label has engendered is that “science fiction” authors are trying to predict the future. We fundamentally are not. We are predicating, not predicting, and that one little letter makes all the difference. We are asking detailed “what-if” questions and building the results of those questions out into narrative. Some of these “what-if” questions might have to do with science and/or technology—but others largely do not. One Philip K. Dick story I love, “Roog”, has a simple predication: garbage men are really aliens, and only dogs know this, which is why they bark at them all the time: they are trying to warn us. The story is hilarious, and horrifying. But it isn’t about science and really, neither is anything else Dick wrote. Yet somehow people call Philip K. Dick a science fiction writer, and don’t think twice about it.
― Ray Nayler, Interview with Eliot Pepper

Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

What booksellers are saying about Tusks of Extinction

  • Nayler’s newest novella is a one-two punch of beautiful and devastating. In a world where all elephants in the wild have been driven to extinction by poachers, the science world has chosen instead to resurrect the long-dead wooly mammoths–science for the sake of science meets want for the sake of want when this great biological experiment is put up against a revival of ivory poaching culture. Lyrical prose leads the reader through three stories colliding on the fringes of humanity, testing empathy, compassion, and the insurmountable power of human greed.
      ― Morgan Holub from E. Shaver, bookseller Savannah, Georgia | Buy from Bookmarks

  • Absolutely loved this! I was a huge champion of The Mountain in the Sea, we’ve hand sold 100 copies in our small town bookstore. The Tusks of Extinction continues Nayler’s brilliant speculative conversation about humans, tech, nature, language, and more. Unfortunately there is no way the $26.99 price point for a 100 page novella is going to work in our market.
      ― Josh Niesse from Underground Books Carrollton, Georgia | Buy from Underground Books

  • The Tusks of Extinction hurt me, inspired me, and taught me in less than 100 pages. Through the lenses of an elephant-expert turned mammoth matriarch, a boy on a hunt with his father, and a man who can’t rise above his wealth, Nayler’s conservationist novella reaches into depths of human empathy and bares it all for examination. Nothing so short has ever made me cry so much. I pushed this novella onto every ARC reader I knew.
      ― KIsabel Agajanian from Oxford Exchange Tampa, Florida | Buy from Oxford Exchange

About Ray Nayler

Ray Nayler is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Mountain in the Sea, which won the Locus Award for “Best First Novel,” and was a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Los Angeles Times “Ray Bradbury Prize.” Called “one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction” by Locus, Nayler’s stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice, and Nightmare, as well as in many “Best Of” anthologies. His stories have won the Clarkesworld Readers’ Poll and the Asimov’s Readers’ Award, and his novelette “Sarcophagus” was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
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Snow Crash is the most fun I’ve had with a book in ages. Simultaneously a darkly hilarious, satirical vision of the near future and an absolutely pulse-pounding thriller, you won’t be able to put it down until the explosive conclusion.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, (List Price: $17, Del Rey, 9780553380958, May 2000)

Reviewed by Henry Williams, Flyleaf Books in , North Carolina

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unOrdinary Volume 1 by uru-chan

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unOrdinary Volume 1 by uru-chan
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A Webtoon classic! I was wondering when this would get unscrolled. I love fantasy or sci-fi with overpowered protagonists who have some reason to hold themselves back or conceal their strength. This does that concept well and with great pacing.

unOrdinary Volume 1 by uru-chan, (List Price: $27.99, HarperAlley, 9780358467786, November 2023)

Reviewed by Lana Repic, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Spotlight On: Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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Travis Baldree, photo by author

Initially, my plan for both [Viv and Tandry] was that they would simply build a supportive, essential friendship and that Viv’s recognition of the value of that relationship was key to her new life. That strengthened over the course of the story and became what it is now, and it felt inevitable to me. It isn’t a romance, really – it’s a friendship that evolved into something more. The book is largely about quiet acts of bravery that don’t involve a sword – and the leap from friendship to romantic relationship was one of Viv’s last brave acts. The kind of risk that most of us can relate to.
― Travis Baldree Interview, Hunger Mountain

Bookshops & Bonedust byTravis Baldree

What booksellers are saying about Bookshops & Bonedust

  • Baldree does it again! I was positively enchanted with this story, just as I was with Legends & Lattes. Seeing Viv in this stage of her life, so different from her time establishing a coffee shop, was a treat. The bookshop setting was perfect, the plight of a bookseller just trying her hardest to get books into the hands of readers utterly relatable. A fantastic read for cozy fantasy lovers!
      ― Hannah Kerbs, Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN | Buy from Parnassus Books

  • This book is so DELICIOUSLY COZY that it CURED my common cold—or at the very least it warmed me all the way up, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and made me feel a whole lot better! Wounded in her first venture as a mercenary, a young Viv washes up in a seaside town with a ramshackle bookshop and ends up finding fiction, friendship, first love, the mutually enriching relationship between small businesses and their community, and a little badass bone-busting adventure along the way! It’s hard to believe, but I loved Bookshops & Bonedust even more than Legends & Lattes and literally hugged this book when I finished it.
      ― Megan Bell, Underground Books in Carrollton, GA | Buy from Underground Books

  • This was a rare stand alone prequel that adds so much to the first book, Bookshops and Bonedust has all the cozy vibes and action I had come to expect from Legends and Lattes. There’s a loveable animal companion, a frazzled bookshop owner, a baker of fine treats, and a necromancer lurking somewhere in the background. If you were wondering why a mercenary orc would want to open a coffee shop, read this, maybe with a nice cup of coffee of your own. This book is the perfect example of there’s a right book for every time, and a right time for every book. Super cozy, super well written (and narrated) Travis has definitely made himself an instant buy author for me after these last two slam dunks.
      ― Charlotte Beck, Main Street Reads in Summerville, SC | Buy from Main Street Reads

About Travis Baldree

Travis Baldree (he/him) is a full-time audiobook narrator who has lent his voice to hundreds of stories. Before that, he spent decades designing and building video games like Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate. Apparently, he now also writes books. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his very patient family and their small, nervous dog.

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Spotlight On: Juniper’s Christmas by Eoin Colfer

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Eoin Colfer, photo credit author

I was aware that although my own Christmas situation is currently very happy with my wife and boys, a lot of people are not so lucky. I would be willing to bet that most people have had really low Christmases due to grief, illness or that curse of loneliness, so I wanted to portray main characters who are suffering through sadness or desperation or the feeling that their lives have drifted off course and show that maybe things will change or there could be a way back.
― Eoin Colfer, Interview, Reading Zone

Juniper's Christmas by Eoin Colfer

What booksellers are saying about Juniper’s Christmas

  • Juniper only wants one thing for Christmas… to honor her father. As Christmas draws closer and closer, the chance of Juniper getting her wish seem farther and farther away. This tale of finding joy and hope where you can even in the face of grief is the perfect holiday book for fans of Wishtree, Pax and The One and Only Ivan.
      ― Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, NC | Buy from The Country Bookshop

  • This has all the feels of a perfect Christmas classic! I can already see this becoming a yearly tradition to read every December. Juniper and Niko are the perfect pairing of a charismatic young lady and a grumpy old man.
      ― Olivia Schaffer, The Bookshelf in Thomasville, GA | Buy from The Bookshelf

About Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer is the best-selling author of the children’s fantasy series Artemis Fowl. His other notable works include The Dog Who Lost His Bark, illustrated by P.J. Lynch, and the novels Half Moon Investigations, Airman, and The Supernaturalist. The recipient of many awards, he lives in Ireland.

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Spotlight On: System Collapse by Martha Wells

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Martha Wells, photo credit Lisa Blaschke

I got this idea for what was going to be a sad, short story that was basically the plot of All Systems Red, about a SecUnit that basically had to expose the fact that it had hacked itself and was now free in order to save the people it was guarding. It was kind of—I’ve heard them called “attack novels” or “attack ideas” or “attack stories”—this overpowering idea that you want to write it right then. So I was just going to jot down some notes on what the story’s plot was but ended up writing five pages of All Systems Red.
― Martha Wells, Interview, Monster Complex

System Collapse by Martha Wells

What booksellers are saying about System Collapse

  • Nothing makes me remember how amazing science fiction is more than a Murderbot Diaries book. It reinvigorates my love for the genre every single time and makes me yearn for more. This installation just reaffirmed my love for Murderbot. The way they care for their humans and mission, and for doing the right thing- which for someone who is a “construct” and learning how humans and the world can be, is so heart warming and endearing. The story is not as fast paced as some of the others, but the way it builds to it is amazing. System Collapse really felt like a diary entry, but also an adventure. I can’t wait for more adventure with Murderbot, ART, and their crews
      ― Preet Singh, Eagle Eye Bookshop in Decatur, GA | Buy from Eagle Eye Bookshop

  • Murderbot! Another great installment in the adventures of our favorite rogue bot. I also enjoyed that it also wasn’t *just* another adventure–murderbot also wrestles with some very human consequences of trauma. As always, we’re huge fans here at the store and look forward to more!
      ― Angela Trigg from The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, AL | Buy from The Haunted Book Shop

  • There will never be enough Murderbot to make me happy. I could reread these books nonstop and it would never get old. Martha Wells is a genius and if you haven’t been introduced to this series, you do not need to begin with the first to enjoy the majesty that is Murderbot.
      ― Jamie Southern from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC | Buy from Bookmarks

About Martha Wells

Martha Wells has written many novels, including the million-selling New York Times and USA Today-bestselling Murderbot Diaries series, which has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards. Other titles include Witch King, City of Bones, The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads and ending with The Harbors of the Sun), and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction.

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