The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

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Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney

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Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney
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This is a book you can easily read in one sitting, and I did, because I needed to know what would happen to Kick and what had caused him to find himself floating in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Told as a stream of consciousness, we get to float alongside Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick for almost twenty-four hours as he reflects on his life, takes in the world around him, and has hallucinations in which he converses with sea creatures. You end up feeling very close to this man, and I found myself hoping for a happy ending because I genuinely liked him. But I won’t tell you what happens, because that would ruin the journey for you. A feel-good book, in my opinion. An easy read that glues you to the page from the very first sentence.

Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney, (List Price: $27, Gallery Books, 9781668212387, July 2026)

Reviewed by Erika, Righton Books in St Simons Island, GA

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Book Buzz: Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

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“Agnes Lives! is a 24 hour novel. I had all of these feelings in 2018, 2020, that I was trying to find an outlet for. So I started creating this character in snatches of daily life. What would it be like for this character to go shopping, or try to buy a gun in Chinatown, and so on. And as I started to write this, I discovered more and more of her, and I thought the 24 hour time period would add a propulsive clock to the piece.”
  ― Hallie Elizabeth Newton, InterviewBooks Are Magic with David Lipsky

Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

What booksellers are saying about Agnes Lives!

  • Agnes Lives! explores themes of self-worth and self-indulgence in a pitiless world that demands women be everything to everyone at all times, highlighting the push and pull of embracing or rejecting those demands. Said demands push Agnes to the absolute extremes. This is a literary thriller that all strange book lovers are going to devour. I loved it!
      ― Jenny, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, North Carolina | BUY

  • Funny, delirious, shocking, and a wild, wild goose chase of a time. You’ll root for Agnes in her search for a potential killer and cheer every time she gets closer to reaching her goal.
      ― Joshua, The Underground Bookshop, Carrollton, Georgia | BUY

  • A blistering manifesto of a book that crams so much into its pages; a kind of reverse American Psycho telling the story of one woman down-trodden by mid-2010’s rat race existence in New York. As wild, unexpected, and original as a hypnotic Instagram spiral, it’s hard to believe this is a debut novel.
    ― Doron, Octavia Books, New Orleans, Louisiana | BUY

  • Agnes is like a piece of glass that our patriarchal, image-obsessed society has trampled all over…a smart commentary on toxic femininity, on being an aging woman, on the ways women feel pressured to sacrifice their bodies at the altars of men, on all the toxic little crimes men commit against women and women commit against themselves. It’s full of killer lines and insights about our culture and the characterization is precise and blazing. This novel is as enraging as it is insightful. So if you like chaotic, weird girl Lit. Fic. with an unhinged woman on an equally unhinged mission then take a big bite, this one’s worth the calories.
    ― Savannah, The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, North Carolina | BUY

About Hallie Elizabeth Newton

Hallie Elizabeth Newton was born in Mississippi. A recipient of NYU’s Goldwater Fellowship, she won first prize for fiction in Columbia Journal’s 2020 Winter Contest. Agnes Lives! is her debut novel. She lives in New York.

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Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

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Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton
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Agnes is like a piece of glass that our patriarchal, image-obsessed society has trampled all over. She’s fractured. The beauty industry has her by the throat, she indulges the toxic behaviors of the men in her life, and Instagram is the safe haven where she tries to bury her head in the sand only to be assaulted with a constant influx of information on how to better herself aesthetically. Like someone who walks into oncoming traffic, she places herself directly in the path of the male gaze, spends her days in service to it, walks a tightrope to stay in its sightline, and gets repeatedly run over in the hopes of being seen. Thus, her maddening and manic spiral as she searches for someone to kill her, to set her free from this Plato’s Cave of warped womanhood refracted through the Conjunctiva of the male gaze. In a chaotic whirlwind of stream of consciousness prose, we follow Agnes through what she hopes will be the last day in her life. Agnes Lives! is a smart commentary on toxic femininity, on being an aging woman, on the ways women feel pressured to sacrifice their bodies at the altars of men, on all the toxic little crimes men commit against women and women commit against themselves. It’s full of killer lines and insights about our culture, and the characterization is precise and blazing. This novel is as enraging as it is insightful. So if you like chaotic, weird girl Lit. Fic. with an unhinged woman on an equally unhinged mission, then take a big bite, this one’s worth the calories.

Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton, (List Price: $26.99, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781639738564, June 2026)

Reviewed by Savannah, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, NC

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Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

, , ,
Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton
buy this book

Buy from your local indie.
Get the audiobook

A blistering manifesto of a book that crams so much into its pages; a kind of reverse American Psycho telling the story of one woman downtrodden by mid-2010’s rat race existence in New York. As wild, unexpected, and original as a hypnotic Instagram spiral, it’s hard to believe this is a debut novel.

Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton, (List Price: $26.99, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781639738564, June 2026)

Reviewed by Doron Klemer, Octavia Books in New Orleans, LA

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Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

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Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton
buy this book

Buy from your local indie.
Get the audiobook

Chaotic and relentless in the best way possible, Agnes Lives! Follows the internal dialogue of Agnes for 24 hours as she seeks a candidate to kill her. This has the pacing of Uncut Gems (the 2019 Safdie Bros. film) combined with the psychological intrigue of an insatiable inner monologue, like in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot. Agnes Lives! explores themes of self-worth and self-indulgence in a pitiless world that demands women be everything to everyone at all times, highlighting the push and pull of embracing or rejecting those demands. Said demands push Agnes to the absolute extremes. This is a literary thriller that all strange book lovers are going to devour. I loved it!

Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton, (List Price: $26.99, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781639738564, June 2026)

Reviewed by Jenny, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC

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Decomposition Book by Sara van Os

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Decomposition Book by Sara van Os
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Ooooh, yes. The premise grabbed me immediately, the cover is perfection, and the story is engrossing, if a wee bit unfulfilling at the end. College student Savannah is reeling (well, spiraling) after a friendship breakup and has retreated to an isolated cabin to drink away her woes. It’s not going particularly well, given her OCD and other mental health challenges. One morning, she wakes up next to a corpse in the woods. Awkward. There’s a journal next to the corpse, which recounts the harrowing set of circumstances that led to the young woman’s death. Instead of reporting the body, Savannah…bonds with it? For lack of a better phrasing. She starts reading the journal and visiting the corpse, and before long, she has formed an emotional attachment with the ghost of the dead hiker. If it sounds trippy, it is. It’s wild and unhinged and occasionally messy and gory. And I’m here for the mess. We also get to read along in the hiker’s journal. Her name is Ava, and watching her story unfold keeps you on the edge of your seat, even as you know where the story ends. The ending was a bit unsatisfying, but not so much that it detracts from the thrill of the story to that point. Great themes of mental health, toxic friendship, and how we heal.

Decomposition Book by Sara van Os, (List Price: $30, Hanover Square Press, 9781335001894, May 2026)

Reviewed by Kate, Plaid Elephant Books in Danville, KY

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Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg

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Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg
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Just Watch Me has a certain flaming-car-crash-you-can’t-look-away-from quality that I really admire in a book. In a painfully accurate depiction of how it feels to be young and very stupid in New York City, we watch human raccoon Dell rise to niche livestream fame eating very spicy peppers. We root for her, despite the fact that she seems to be sabotaging herself and every single one of her relationships. On purpose. But that’s what we grow to love about her, as do her livestream viewers… until one rogue account threatens to bring Dell’s spicy food empire toppling down.

Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg, (List Price: $28.99, Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster, 9781668091180, January 2026)

Reviewed by Ryan, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina

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Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily Austin

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Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily Austin
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This book is beautiful, full of subtle (and so unsubtle) subplots worth picking apart for hours, a very relevant love letter to libraries, and a lot of contemplation on censorship, compulsive heterosexuality, love, and manipulation. It is also completely devastating. Darcy is unreliable, messy, and complicated, and she is absolutely going through it. This makes her so incredibly easy to connect to on so many points as a queer adult. This is gonna haunt me for a bit.

Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily Austin, (List Price: $28, Atria Books, 9781668200230, January 2026)

Reviewed by Frances Elmore, Blinking Owl Books in Fort Myers, Florida

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Book Buzz: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

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Marisa Kashino, photo credit Laura Metzler“There were many moments when I wondered if I was making Margo too despicable. But I hoped that building out her backstory and giving her a wicked sense of humor would generate some empathy and induce readers to stick around. Because yeah, she does some horrible things and has some appalling views, but funny people are usually at least a solid hang! She’s also self-made, having come from humble, somewhat tragic beginnings, which I personally admire about her and hoped others would, too.

The other thing — maybe the most important thing — is that she harbors a constant, boiling rage as a result of the immense pressure she feels as a late-30s woman trying her damnedest to have it all. Creating that part of her character was incredibly cathartic for me”
  ― Marisa Kashino, Interview, Bookweb

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

What booksellers are saying about Best Offer Wins

  • The fact that I was as stressed as Margo was about getting the house of her dreams in this thriller of a novel is telling! Her obsession is off the charts and her determination to get what she wants will stun you.
      ― Barb Rascon, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY

  • This takes “cutthroat real estate market” to a whole other level! I can’t believe this is a debut novel- it was expertly executed and alarmingly realistic. Given the right person, you can see how this could all play out, which was maybe the most disturbing part of this psychological thriller!
      ― Allyn Oliver, The Bluffton Bookshop in Bluffton , South Carolina | BUY
  • Margo is stuck, struggling with this phase of her life. She has goals: get pregnant, buy a house, fall back in love with her husband. These significant life events are intertwined. Her inner dialogue is hilarious and edgy. I admired Margo’s intelligence. She is a serial liar and is devoted to none, other than Fritter, the neighbor’s dog. I am so pleased to recommend this exceptional debut thriller.
      ― Liz Tietsworth, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida | BUY
  • Meet your new favorite anti-hero, Margot. She’s smart, she’s accomplished, she’s driven … but she’s also stressed and desperate for a forever home, which seems truly impossible in today’s cutthroat housing market in DC. Margot’s monomaniacal for all the trappings of a normal life…maybe because she’s far from normal herself. If you like stories that make you laugh and cringe in equal measure, this is the perfect appalling tale for you!
      ― Maggie Robe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY

About Marisa Kashino

Marisa Kashino was a journalist for 17 years, most recently at The Washington Post. She spent the bulk of her career at Washingtonian magazine, writing long-form features and overseeing the real estate and home design coverage. She grew up near Seattle, graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism and political science. She lives in the DC area with her husband, two dogs, and two cats. Best Offer Wins is her first novel.

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Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann

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Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann
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It’s hard to describe what Harald Voetmann has captured in Visions and Temptations. It is a meditation on death, faith, sin, and human struggle. It is a hallucinatory travelogue of heavenly reward and divine punishment. It contains a striking monologue about onion-based farts. Fundamentally, though, Visions and Temptations depicts two fundamental and immutable elements of the human experience: mundanity and empathy. A compact, fascinating, and affecting read, unlike anything I’ve read before.

Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann, (List Price: $15.95, New Directions, 9780811229807, July 2025)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Bad Nature by Ariel Courage

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Bad Nature by Ariel Courage
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From the start, I was sucked into this story of a woman hitting a milestone birthday and a cancer diagnosis. Faced with her mortality, she sets off across the country to tie up loose ends. Along the way, she ponders the meaning of life as well as the state of affairs in the US. There is so much to relate to in this debut novel.

Bad Nature by Ariel Courage, (List Price: $28.99, Henry Holt and Co., 9781250360885, April 2025)

Reviewed by Alexandra Bender, Fonts Books in McLean, Virginia

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Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

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Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
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I’ve been trying to think of words to describe Virginia Feito’s Victorian Psycho, and I’ve come up with: propulsive, visceral, disorienting, and riveting. The writing barrels you toward an ending that I was prepared to find shocking, but still managed to surprise me. I was amazed at how funny Feito is in the midst of the absolute chaos on the page and how big of a punch she managed to pack into a novella. You know exactly what you are getting into from page one: Virginia Feito grabs you by the neck (with her teeth) and does not relent until long after you’ve finished the book. Winifred Notty will haunt you, and since she can’t kill you, she will have to settle for that.

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito, (List Price: $24.99, Liveright, 9781631498633, February 2025)

Reviewed by Chelsea Bauer, Union Avenue Books in Knoxville, Tennessee

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