The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Adult Fiction

Julia by Sandra Newman

I have read 1984 more than any other book in my life…maybe 12-15 times. Being overly familiar with the inspiration for this retelling, I was skeptical. From Julia’s perspective, Orwell’s classic is reframed from a feminist perspective. While Winston Smith is undoubtedly sympathetic in the original as are the other male victims of the Oceania regime, they still possessed the freedoms and advantages of their gender in the classic. Imagining the same world through largely female characters was even more shocking and heartbreaking. Julia is a survivor. She does what is necessary whether it is fitting into or subverting the system. It’s is hard to like her, but even harder not to deeply admire her and hang on her every move. This powerful, uncomfortable book left me feeling much the same. Recommended!

Julia by Sandra Newman, (List Price: $30, Mariner Books, 9780063265332, October 2022)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

All The Sinners Bleed is crime fiction at its best. Cosby has created a genre all his own with this and his first two novels that I’d call “Virginia noir.” And I’m totally here for it. This one follows a small-town sheriff (with an FBI background) that’s chasing a serial killer that has an obsession with religious iconography and targeting very specific victims. This police procedural that sets a new standard for thrillers and it also highlights the overt/covert social tensions that are prevalent in rural communities.

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby, (List Price: 27.99, Flatiron Books, 9781250831910, June 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Spotlight on: The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

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Tan Twan Eng, photo credit Lloyd Smith

In my teenage years, when I first read Somerset Maugham’s The Letter, I was intrigued to discover that he had based it on Ethel Proudlock’s trial in Kuala Lumpur in 1911. She was the first white woman to be charged with murder in Malaya. She claimed that the man she had shot dead had tried to rape her in her home.

The House of Doors is about many things, but at the heart of it all, it is really about the acts of creation: how Maugham had come to hear about the trial, and how he had transmuted it into his story. It’s about the power of stories, how they can transcend cultures and borders, transcend even time itself.
― Tan Twan Eng, Interview, The Booker Prizes

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

What booksellers are saying about The House of Doors

  • I walked the streets of Penang along side Somerset Maugham. I felt the rough paths beneath my feet, as the clatter of Mah jong tiles felll from a doorway. We were on our way to the House of Doors. My fingers caressed the worn wood of its front door. But neither of us gained entry. Entry was reserved for others. This is a rare book. All my senses were captured by Tan Twan Eng. The pages glowed with atmosphere as the story propelled me into the lives of Cassawary House. Best book I’ve read this year.
      ― Trish O’Neill, MacIntosh Books & Paper in Sanibel, FL | Buy from Macintosh Books & Paper

  • Gorgeously written with strong characters telling the tale of Malaysia between the two wars. Who knew I needed to know all of this. We sometimes focus on what happened to us. This story will get right under your skin. I am a huge fan of Somerset Maughn and loved this story that drops him in there. Based on real events you are invited into this world and you won’t be the same!
      ― Suzanne Lucey from Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, NC | Buy from Page 158 Books

  • Nobody transports a reader in time and place like Tan Twan Eng. Bringing the same beautiful, lyrical writing as he did in The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, he sends readers back in time to 1921 when writer Somerset Maugham arrives in Penang at a crossroads in life. The House of Doors reads like a magical look back in time into the life of one of my favorite writers as well as an entirely new story whose layers unfurl one a time, revealing an overlapping web of love, friendship, power and more.
      ― Beth Seufer Buss from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC | Buy from Bookmarks

About Tan Twan Eng

Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang but lived in various places in Malaysia as a child. His first novel, The Gift of Rain, was longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker. His second, The Garden of Evening Mists, was a major international bestseller, shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker, and winner of the Man Asia Literary Prize 2012 and the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. It was adapted into an award-winning film in 2019, directed by Tom Lin. Twan divides his time between Malaysia and South Africa.

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Spotlight on: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

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Isabel Canas, photo credit Photo by Kilian Blum

I am more conscious of writing characters with agency than I am of writing “strong” characters. This is in part due to the fact that many of my early drafts flounder when the main characters lack agency, which I then need to address in revisions! With this story, however, I knew from the start I would intentionally give my main character a voice and a choice in her fate. I decided this for two reasons. First, women, especially those who were not members of the elite, are often silenced in the historical record due to the nature of the sources that survive from the pre- and early modern periods. Giving them a voice in fiction is very important to me. Second, female victims who lack agency is one of the great tropes of classic vampire fiction. Writing vampire stories in the post-Twilight era is a deft game of trope-tipping, and I absolutely wanted to knock that trope in particular on its head in a way that felt organic in a historical setting.
― Isabel Cañas, Interview, Nightmare Magazine

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

What booksellers are saying about Vampires of El Norte

  • An epic adventure, gothic love story. The romance of Nena and Nester, torn apart as children, captured my attention in the first few chapters and never wavered throughout the book. A great follow up book to The Hacienda.
      ― Kathy Clemmons, Sundog Books in Santa Rosa Beach, FL | Buy from Sundog Books

  • The rancho and surrounding landscape are so alive that I can easily tell Cañas lived this in a thousand and one nights of storytelling at her abuela and tias’ feet. While I was reading, I wondered why Cañas chose vampires as the monster rather than something like El Cuco. Especially since the MC Nena uses the legend of El Cuco to quickly explain the danger of the situation to her family. Cañas’ author’s note explains this and her choice to keep the vampire/El Cuco separate made the Yanquis approach all the more monstrous and creepy. The romance between Nena and Nestor was fabulous. Loved the ending, and especially the way Nena “dealt” with the vampires in the end.
      ― Candice Conner from The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, AL | Buy from The Haunted Book Shop

  • Isabel knows the realm of gothic romance like the back of her hand- Like she’s an apprentice to Del Toro himself. Vampires of El Norte is haunting, both in the depictions of vampires, and the history it follows, of continued colonization that’s violent, horrifying, and seemingly never ending. Yet amongst all of it, there is the reminder that above all, love, all kinds of it, is how we fight back against those who terrorize. Love is the strongest force possible to back the fight. Familial, platonic, and romantic. And salt. Lots of salt.
      ― Caitlyn Vanorder from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC | Buy from Bookmarks

About Isabel Cañas

Isabel Cañas is a Mexican American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage.

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Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

An exciting collection of creepy tales from both young authors and noted horror greats. The stories within Never Whistle at Night play within the rules of established horror genres, but there is so much variety from story to story; as a fan of all kinds of horror, I was very happy to have basically every itch scratched. “The Prepper” by Morgan Talty, “Collections” by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, “Wingless” by Marcie R. Rendon, and “Snakes are Born in The Dark” by D. H. Trujillo were my four favorites.

Never Whistle at Night : An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk (editor), Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (editor), (List Price: $17.00, Delacorte Press, 9780593468463, September 2023)

Reviewed by Sam Edge, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

The story of two black teenage siblings, one wrongfully over-sentenced to indefinite time in the titular Reformatory (based on the infamous Dozier School for Boys), the other working from the outside (if you could call Jim Crow-era Florida “outside”) to get her brother out. With a father MIA, having narrowly escaped a lynch mob for trying to unionize, and a mother recently deceased (but not 100% out of the picture), every choice and action made by the teens give the book a one-step-forward-one-landslide-back momentum right up to the last page. Due brilliantly plates an equal parts jailbreak and ghost story, both playing by history’s rulebook, pulling no punches along the way, with neither element hindering the other, which is a feat on its own, but to make it edge-of-seat-worthy with an epic showdown-at-high-noon finish is just extra icing on the icing.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, (List Price: $28.99, Saga Press, 9781982188344, October 2023)

Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala

More fun and intrigue await in Manansala’s newest mystery with our favorite Filipino baker. Lila and her godmothers are back on the scene. The Calendar Crew (April, Mar, and June) are opening up a new laundromat, but their main competition is furious about the development. And their gossiping ways have another townsman blaming them for the breakup of their marriage. So when the laundromat is vandalized, those are the two main suspects. But when April’s niece is found dead in the laundromat, things just got a little more serious. This time, Lila will have to call on all her friends to break the case.

Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala, (List Price: $17, Berkley, 9780593549162, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic casts a spell! Can’t get enough witchy reads? Me neither! It has all the good things, family, true love, magic, and mystery. Get ready for spooky season with a great read.

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall, (List Price: $18.99, Alcove Press, 9781639105731, September 2023)

Reviewed by Susan Williams, M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina

Spotlight on: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

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Cassandra Clare, photo credit Cassandra Clare

Usually for me, the first thing that comes in a story is the characters, and then the story weaves itself around them. With Sword Catcher, for the first time the people and the place came at the same time, in a sort of burst of images and color…from the beginning of my working on it, Sword Catcher has been a story about adults rather than about teenagers, so it was always going to be an adult fantasy.

The big difference to me is that in YA, your characters are working on problems of identity: What kind of person am I? What are my values? What does it mean to love someone new? But the characters in Sword Catcher are in their early twenties, and they’re facing a different question: What does it mean to take on the responsibilities of adulthood?
― Cassandra Clare, Interview, Paste Magazine

Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

What booksellers are saying about Sword Catcher

  • Get ready to be pulled headfirst into a beautiful, rich world full of life, magic, and history. In Sword Catcher, concepts of identity and loyalty take on new life with characters who are viciously human. (Not to mention, there’s a very healthy dose of spice.) You’ll fall in love with Cassandra Clare all over again.
      ― Tori Finklea, Union Ave Books in Knoxville, TN | Buy from Union Ave Books

  • I thoroughly enjoyed Clare’s foray into the adult book world. Sword Catcher is a fantasy of rich city-states, magic inspired by Jewish mysticism, and characters who find themselves in tangled webs of secrets and loyalty. I was absolutely TICKLED by Lin and Conor’s banter, and appreciated how much character depth Clare gave to Kel. The ending about did me in so I cannot wait for The Ragpicker King.
      ― Candice Conner from The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, AL | Buy from The Haunted Book Shop

  • I’m utterly obsessed with this book, but, who is surprised! I grew up reading Cassandra Clare, and now here I am as an adult, getting to read her adult debut, a masterwork of world building and beautiful respect for her own history woven through the pages. The queernormativity makes it even more beautiful, setting the stage for every reader to feel comfortable and at home as they dive into a world that promises adventure, love, and lore that begs you to get lost in it. Sword Catcher is brilliant- the next unstoppable force of nature in the world of adult fantasy.
      ― Caitlyn Vanorder from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC | Buy from Bookmarks

About Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the coauthor of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium with Holly Black. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.

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Our Strangers by Lydia Davis

Picking up the same one-to-three-page story by Lydia Davis ten times gives the reader ten different experiences, like taking a plate of gourmet food from a fussy child with her right hand, passing it behind her back to the left hand and returning it to the child saying “fine, eat your magic boopie beans” to the child’s ravenous delight. And the beauty of a book full of one-to-three-page, multidimensional gems is that you’ve got a book jam-packed with multidimensional gems.

Our Strangers by Lydia Davis, (List Price: 26, Bookshop Editions, 9798987717103, October 2023)

Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

This book was made for autumn. A community who clings to ghosts, unable to move on, stuck in their grief, comes together in such a lovely way with the introduction of a new resident. Revisiting this brought such a warmth to my heart, and is one I’ll keep in my back pocket for quiet days.

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen, (List Price: $18, St. Martin’s Griffin, 9781250019875, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jamie Kovacs, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

John Scalzi, you never cease to delight! This time, Scalzi lets us into the secret world of villains. Charlie’s not doing well. It doesn’t seem to be getting much better when his estranged uncle dies and wants him to preside over his wake. But when he comes home, he discovers that’s just the beginning. Soon, he’s deep into the underground world of supervillains, sentient, computer-using cats and dolphins who want to strike. This tongue-in-cheek fish out of water scifi story will keep you laughing!

Starter Villain by John Scalzi, (List Price: $28.99, Tor Books, 9780765389220, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

Spotlight on: Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

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Jesmyn Ward, photo Credit Beowulf Sheehan

In each book since my second novel, there has been a wild animal presence: a dog, a snake, and a great black vulture…I like to think they are reflections of the natural world, but I also believe they are something more, that they are the manifestations of that which does not operate by human logic. They exist in a liminal space, fierce and free and mysterious. They are both ordinary and divine, and they bear proof that there is more to this world than we know.
― Jesmyn Ward, Interview, LitHub

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

What booksellers are saying about Let Us Descend

  • This book is no mere pick of the month. This is the kind of book that comes along once in a generation. The kind of book that makes us want to open bookstores. The kind of book that will be required reading for our children and grandchildren as they go through school. The kind of book that will be filmed page by page and line by line because there is not one thing about it that needs to be changed. I can only hope that we are ready to let this book change us.This is a story that needed to be told, but couldn’t be told without a great deal of pain. For Jesmyn Ward to explore this territory and tell this story amid her own personal grief is an act of bravery. It is an act of service to American society to tell this story no matter how hard it got, and to withhold shortcuts and saviors and swooping gestures, to force us to look at the honest truth of the human toll of our history. And it is an act of love to each and every individual who we will never know but whose story this could be.
      ― Emily Liner, Friendly City Books in Columbus, MS | Buy from Friendly City Books

  • One year after her sire sold and marched her mother south, he does the same to enslaved teen Annis. In the depths of Louisiana bound in rope and destitution, Annis must use the extensive knowledge of combat and foraging imparted to her by her mother, and by her warrior grandmother before her, to transcend her squalor and claim her humanity. Let Us Descend is an often-painful story with an excellent lead character whose story is explicitly her own to wrangle. Largely, it is about one family’s generational fight so that each descendant may have a better life than the last.
      ― Sam Edge from Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, NC | Buy from Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews

  • Let Us Descend is a novel of American slavery loosely based on Dante’s Inferno. Through many circles of hell you are led on a heart-wrenchingly powerful journey. Annis struggles through the soul-searching harrowing hellish march from the Carolinas to Lousiana, in shackles. She speaks to her mother and her african warrior grandmother, and mystical spirits of good and bad. These memories and spirits comfort and strengthen her on this journey. She finds love and loses love, and this love becomes her measure of love. All very strong women at every turn. This a powerfully magnificent novel with an absolute break-neck breath-taking end.
      ― Amy Loewy from Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, LA | Buy from Garden District Bookshop

  • A visceral and haunting gut-punch of a novel. Annis’s journey through the hell of the American South’s antebellum era is harrowing but her spirit and tenacity will keep you turning the page with bated breath. The gorgeous writing, and magical realism of Let Us Descend will stay with you long after you finish.
      ― Chelsea Bauer from Union Ave Books in Knoxville, TN | Buy from Union Ave Books

About Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

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Family Meal by Bryan Washington

An October Read This Next! Book

There are two things I expect from a Bryan Washington narrative: food rendered so exquisitely I could lick the page and an emotional excavation so expansive it swallows the book and me with it. Family Meal delivered on these expectations and more. It’s propulsive and harrowing, the brittle edges of its characters encapsulating a world and giving way to its perfectly tender center.

Family Meal by Bryan Washington, (List Price: 28, Riverhead Books, 9780593421093, October 2023)

Reviewed by Miranda Sanchez, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

An October Read This Next! Book

History, family, community, and the all encompassing power of life in the face of brutality are abundant in Ward’s work, no less here in Let Us Descend. I was floored by the story of Annis, a young woman enslaved and sold down to a Louisiana plantation. Through her connections (both physical and spiritual), Annis builds a life and a future beyond loss. With a slight twist of magical realism and always brilliant prose, Jesmyn Ward has delivered another amazing novel and gift to readers.

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, (List Price: 28, Scribner, 9781982104498, October 2023)

Reviewed by Michelle Cavalier, Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, Louisiana

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