The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Adult Fiction

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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Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera

A delicate coming-of-age story that is both elegiac and an ode to craftwork, womanhood, and friendship. Much like the characters in Cross-Stitch, Barrera and translator MacSweeny have yet again come together to craft another gift to treasure. One of my favorite reads of the year.

Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera, (List Price: $24, Two Lines Press, 9781949641530, November 2023)

Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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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How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney

I feel very fortunate to have had read this beautiful book. Autism is so hard and not having anyone in my family with it, I only know what I hear. When these 3 characters come together to help build a boat they bond and learn so much about themselves and each other. People are afraid of what they don’t understand and autism is one of those things we just don’t know enough about. It’s hard enough to be a freshman in high school, compound that with being different. This is a love story for the 3 generations involved. I guarantee you will see the world a bit differently after.

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney, (List Price: $17.95, Biblioasis, 9781771965859, November 2023)

Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi reinvents the notion of historical fiction in this haunting, sweeping tale of enslavement, colonialism, power, greed, despair, determination, and hope. I was captivated from page one! She brings to life the human cost of surviving the larger, often brutal, forces driving history through the gripping, visceral story of one extended family. Three hundred years of history come to life: from Ghana to Harlem and more as we follow their fates across continents and through time. A very moving book.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, (List Price: $16.95, Vintage, 9781101971062, May 2017)

Reviewed by Liz Feeney, E. Shaver, bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Fates and Furies offers a sharp portrait of a modern marriage, an eminently flexible partnership, still full of dark corners and locked rooms. We follow first Lotto’s perspective and then Mathilde’s through the full arc of this for-better-or-worse, and the result is a dynamic and quick-footed novel, Lauren Groff at the height of her powers. Lotto and Mathilde’s physical connection is hot and brutal and sometimes strange. The echoes of Shakespearean tragedy, of mythology, even allegory give their relationship resonant heft, while the storyline keeps the dirt of real life under their nails. I really, really loved Mathilde: her sheer darkness and fierce love for Lotto, her deep flaws and careful veneer. She was sympathetic and awful and familiar and pragmatic and true. This book is smart—about women and wives, marriage and art—and beautiful, and going to be talked about for a long, long time.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, (List Price: $18.00, Riverhead Books, 9781594634482, September 2015)

Reviewed by Ashley Warlick, M. Judson, Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina

The Manor House by Gilly Macmillan

MacMillan has crafted a twisting, well-plotted, multiview point mystery that sweeps between timelines without ever disorienting the reader as to where they are in the story. It’s an utterly readable tale of greed, avarice, and revenge. It reminded me in all the best ways of And Then There None, and MacMillan is fearless in revealing who each of her characters really are. Also? The ongoing subplot of the unreliability of smart home technology feels so current, relatable, and also informs the plot in surprising ways. Loved this book, can’t wait to sell it.

The Manor House by Gilly Macmillan, (List Price: $30, William Morrow, 9780063074385, November 2023)

Reviewed by Tracie Harris, The Book House in Smyrna, Georgia

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

The Berry Pickers is the debut novel from indigenous author Amanda Peters. When four-year-old Ruthie goes missing, the youngest of five in a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia, her older brother Joe is despondent and the loss of Ruthie haunts the family for fifty years. Meanwhile, a white family in Maine is raising a child named Norma with overbearing and almost suffocating familial love. Norma’s faint memories and dreams of her missing life are confusing until they almost vanish. The Berry Pickers considers lost lives, second chances, and the power of forgiveness.

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, (List Price: $27.99, Catapult, 9781646221950, October 2023)

Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

November Shelf: A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles

Bridgerton meets Poldark in this sweeping LGBTQIA+ Regency romance from celebrated author KJ Charles

When Major Rufus d’Aumesty unexpectedly becomes the Earl of Oxney, he finds himself living in a remote Norman manor on the edge of Romney Marsh with his noble, hostile, and decidedly odd family. His position is contested both by his greedy uncle and by unexpected claimant Luke Doomsday, a dashing member of the local smuggling clan. They should be natural enemies, but cocksure, enragingly competent Luke is a secretary by trade, and quickly becomes an unexpected ally, the partner Rufus needs…and soon the lover he can’t live without.

Unfortunately, Luke’s not telling anything like the truth. He came to Stone Manor with an ulterior motive, one he’s hiding even from the lord he can’t resist. And as family secrets unspool on both sides, master and man soon find their positions and their partnership in danger of falling apart…

A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles, (List Price: 16.99, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 9781728255880, September 2023)

System Collapse by Martha Wells

If you already love Murderbot, you’ll continue to love it. This newest installation still has the wonderful mix of snark, action, and Murderbot struggling with being a construct of free will. This book in particular, Murderbot is processing the trauma and learning to deal with its own extreme emotional responses. My only criticism of the book is that I wish I would have reread Network Effect before I read this one, because this book takes places immediately after and heavily leans on events that happened in that book. Overall, though, I loved it!

System Collapse by Martha Wells, (List Price: $21.99, Tordotcom, 9781250826978, November 2023)

Reviewed by Kelly McLeod, The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, Alabama

So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan

So Late in the Day is brilliantly written with Keegan’s beautiful prose. The underlying theme in the stories is the fractured relationships between a man and woman, told with a nuanced tension that grips the reader from beginning until end. A quietly delightful, tense, and gripping read.

So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan, (List Price: $20, Grove Press, 9780802160850, November 2023)

Reviewed by Kelley Barnes, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

Absolution by Alice McDermott

There’s so much I could say about this epistolary novel set in 1963 Saigon and confessing to the lives of two American wives in Ho Chí Minh’s Vietnam, but for now, I’ll say: Alice McDermott is (maybe) my favorite living novelist, and Absolution is (maybe) her best novel yet.

Absolution by Alice McDermott, (List Price: $28, Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 9780374610487, 2023-10-31)

Reviewed by Laura Cotten, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Mark and Louise hate each other, but when their parents flee their home in the middle of the night and die in a car crash the siblings are forced to re-unite. What happens when you walk into your family home and see the attic door bolted up? Or your mom’s massive puppet collection whose eyes seem to follow you wherever you go? Well, I’m afraid you may have some trouble selling the house. Filled with family secrets, twists, and an uneasy tone that had me on the edge of my seat, this book was WILD and FUN. It had me second guessing everything around me. Did I turn on the TV? Okay, that milk was not there 5 minutes ago.Is someone messing with me?I loved this. It was creepy. It was weird. It was emotional. It was absolutely bonkers in the best way possible!

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, (List Price: 28, Berkley, 9780593201268, January 2023)

Reviewed by Janisie Rodriguez, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

n immersive trip through Southern Gothic Early America. The narrative follows a lone girl down the Potomac River, from Jamestown and into the unknown. Nameless or many-named like a barn-cat drifter, Girl wields caution, imagination and a blade to survive the crystalline forests of Virginia and Maryland. She drafts off a peloton of memories–as the British orphan, the mistress’s servant, Bess’s friend, the glassblower’s lover—that pull her forward to eat dirt and vibe with a bear in the present. It’s all about the stories that keep us alive. Groff’s easy and percussive writing, along with her use of time, space and inner dialogue, create an immediacy that had me trying to locate Girl’s coordinates on a map so I wouldn’t lose her. Captivating. Awesome. Great.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593418390, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jackie Carlson, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

As someone who has always been a little too soft for the world, nothing delights me more than living vicariously through fierce and hard as nail protagonists like Opal. Opal is fighting every day to make sure her brother doesn’t go without in the town of Eden. Despite barely having time to think, Opal begins to dream of Starling House, the Secret that no one talks about, and even though she knows better, she finds herself at the front door. Arthur is going to be the last warden of the Starling House, taking its legacy of monsters and magic down with him. He’s determined to be so until Opal breaks down the walls around his heart with her knock at Starling House’s door. This is a story of two people who are less than beautiful that smile with crooked teeth and black eyes, and I didn’t want it to end.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, (List Price: $28.99, Tor Books, 9781250799050, October 2023)

Reviewed by Katlin Kerrison, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia

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