The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Literary

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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The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin

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The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin
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Dusapin’s novel depicts the heavy silence that has fallen between two sisters who love and understand each other but who can no longer connect. The characters struggle to find peace with their life choices and roles in one another’s lives. The Old Fire questions how an individual is defined by place, family, loss, and abandonment and how those definitions can impede growth and happiness. A quiet novel whose impact on the reader is anything but quiet.

The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin, (List Price: $27, S&S/Summit Books, 9781668212219, January 2026)

Reviewed by Lera Shawver, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley

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How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley
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Spend a year in Wyoming in this one sitting read and you might just end up blaming the British, too. Dark, quirky, and complete with all the snarkiness of ’80s tween energy, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder will force you to confront the uncomfortable experiences of The Others. Agatha and Georgie’s story is so much more than a murder mystery; it’s about saving yourself and creating your own independence. Nina McConigley’s storytelling will stay with you for a long time — but most of all if teen magazine quizzes could be the solution to all things.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley, (List Price: $26, Pantheon, 9780593702246, January 2026)

Reviewed by Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver, Booksellers in Savannah, Georgia

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Television by Lauren Rothery

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Television by Lauren Rothery
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A traipse through time and the relationship of a movie star and his best friend/lover/partner. Set in the glamor and depravity of Hollywood, Rothery turns modern feelings of appearances and sex, phones and art, love and grief into a timeless and impressionistic drama. With each unexpected turn and change of form, you’ll relate to each character more intrinsically. I couldn’t put this down!!!

Television by Lauren Rothery, (List Price: $28, Ecco, 9780063443327, December 2025)

Reviewed by Ross Ramirez, E. Shaver, Booksellers in Savannah, Georgia

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The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

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The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
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In the same way Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Sheep and Goats left me captivated and shaken to my core, this coming-of-age tale touched me deeply. While set around the Yorkshire murders in the late 1970s, it is a tale for our times. What two preteens find when they begin to observe carefully is a world more complex and frightening. Revealing the power of friendships and the hidden stories around us with spot-on emotional resonance, this is a book to be swept up in and to reflect on.

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey, (List Price: $17.99, Sourcebooks Landmark, 9781464249051, December 2025)

Reviewed by Jan Blodgett, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina

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Queen Esther by John Irving

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Queen Esther by John Irving
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Queen Esther is the new historical novel by one of America’s most beloved authors, John Irving. The story takes the reader on a journey from New England to Europe and Jerusalem through the backdrop of World War II, the Vietnam War era, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much of the focus of this novel is on the role that history plays in shaping lives and identities. Queen Esther is a sweeping, multigenerational and multicultural novel full if memorable characters.

Queen Esther by John Irving, (List Price: $30, Simon & Schuster, 9781501189449, November 2025)

Reviewed by Karen Dugger, Righton Books in Saint Simons Island, Georgia

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House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk

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House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk
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House of Day, House of Night is a reversal of a common narrative structure; here, the setting, the rural Polish town of Nowa Ruda, is the main character, and the townsfolk are the setting within which the town’s legacy is formed. Each story fragment contributes to the never-ending cycle of life and death, of dreams and waking — from an old lady next door with elusive platitudes, to a gender-dysphoric monk on a journey to canonize a saint, to a knifemaking cult that worships the process of decay. Tokarczuk’s brilliant prose highlights the struggles of returning to a post-World War Poland, of feeling like a stranger in your own home, of sensing the ceaseless draw of entropy. Universal and bittersweet, this novel is a work of anthropology: a future classic in my book!

House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593716380, December 2025)

Reviewed by Catherine Pabalate, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

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Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
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If you are a fan of Margaret Atwood, and specifically The Handmaid’s Tale, this book is a must-read. Erdrich’s storytelling feels very intimate, which I prefer in a dystopian novel. A larger picture comes into focus through the perspective of Cedar’s individual experience. Quietly disturbing, this story will stick with you long after you’ve read the last page. Though this book is not a new release, I would put it in league with The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan and Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng.

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, (List Price: $17.99, Harper Perennial, 9780062694065, November 2018)

Reviewed by Krista Roach, E. Shaver, Booksellers in Savannah, Georgia

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The Definitions by Matt Greene

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The Definitions by Matt Greene
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A captivating, dystopian-esque story, The Definitions questions what truly makes one’s identity theirs. After a supposed virus ravages humanity and leaves people with no memory of themselves, victims of this virus are sent to the Center where they relearn things like ethics, language, and art. With no knowledge of who they were before arriving, the narrator waits for memories to return and to be released. But definitions aren’t adding up, and the ethical dilemma solutions seem skewed, and we learn there is something sinister going on. This is a quick read that you won’t want to put down until you find the real reason the patients are there.

The Definitions by Matt Greene, (List Price: $17.99, Henry Holt and Co., 9781250399342, December 2025)

Reviewed by Gabriela Warner, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy

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Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy
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Literary fiction that combines sharp cultural commentary against an absolutely absurd backdrop, with the addition of characters that seem to be like extras from a Girls episode, this book spoke to me on levels that nothing else this year has even come close to. Anika Jade Levy is no stranger to the art, good writing, or insufferable people you meet in your 20s, and her debut novel homes in on these facts and crafts a dystopian, frolicking book I could not put down. Capturing day-to-day life in a dystopian America, Levy’s world may be fictional, but the psychological struggles her characters face in corporate America, juggling transactional female friendships, navigating a time of conspiracy politics, and modern love, all tie back to our reality with ease.

Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy, (List Price: $26, Catapult, 9781646222810, November 2025)

Reviewed by Grace Sullivan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Hellions by Julia Elliott

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Hellions by Julia Elliott
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Swampy Southern Gothic at its finest. These stories are lush, each driven by magical, wicked, wholly-alive characters so deeply rooted in their surroundings—or their desires—its difficult to see where person begins and wild ends. Discerning and empathetic, Elliott’s eye for the strange wonders that bring folklore and fairytale to life is unmatched.

Hellions by Julia Elliott, (List Price: $17.95, Tin House Books, 9781963108064, April 2025)

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

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The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

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The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
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This novel is uber-Murakami, the author back to the magical best of his earlier novels such as Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (note: this makes sense, as the author writes in an afterword that this novel was a second attempt at reworking a novella, the first attempt being Hardboiled Wonderland). You don’t read a Murakami novel; you live it, holding on for dear life until it lets you off at the end, slightly confused but highly entertained. A magical world slowly unravels through an unnamed girl, while everyday life interweaves with it, featuring all the traditional Murakami Bingo tropes (loneliness, high school, jazz, pasta recipes, The Beatles, wells, libraries, cats…all the greatest hits!) There were a few minor logical bugbears, but plot logic was never Murakami’s strong suit. The simplicity of his language has long been a feature, but lately has felt more like a bug at times, with the repetition of banal thoughts (‘it was just my conjecture, but I was sure of it’; I nodded vaguely’ etc.) – perhaps as one of my all-time favourite authors I have come to expect more, but it was still great to be back in Murakami world.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, (List Price: $19, Vintage, 9780593687840, November 2024)

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

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Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
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The back cover of this new and highly anticipated novel by Oyinkan Braithwaite has a quote by the New York Times, calling it “brilliantly perceptive” and “sharp”. It is those things. But the review also calls this novel “wickedly funny” and “hilarious”. To me, this is misleading. This novel is more complicated than that, and it is certainly no rom-com. There were moments you could chuckle at, yes. When you have a big family sharing a home together, funny and ironic things happen all the time. To me, this is a family saga. In it, there is a lot of heartbreak, a lot of love, some superstition, and some questionable choices. Braithwaite is immensely talented, and her stories will keep you on the edge of your seat, craving the knowledge of what will happen next. She is a gifted storyteller, and I will eagerly read anything she writes. This story is very different from her first novel and is perfect for anyone interested in multigenerational stories woven together with otherworldly elements.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, (List Price: $29, Doubleday, 9780385551472, November 2025)

Reviewed by Krista Roach, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers

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The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
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Somers’s suburban realism is sharp enough to cut glass, with more humor on a single page than most entire novels could ever hope to contain. Here, the marriage plot is replaced by the adultery plot, so innovatively executed that it results in two equally gripping storylines. Not since “Choose Your Own Adventure” has the reader been able to have it both ways! At its heart, this is a book about desire, refreshingly unmoralizing and dauntless at uncovering its sad and funny peculiarities. Smart, sexy, and ferociously readable.

The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers, (List Price: $28, Simon & Schuster, 9781668081440, October 2025)

Reviewed by Kristen Iskandrian, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

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Bog Queen by Anna North

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Bog Queen by Anna North
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Anna North has written a tale with mysteries from a body found in the bog, believed to be 2,000 years old, and today’s struggle for the environment and development. Agnes is a young American forensic anthropologist who is hired to help identify a body believed to be buried in the bog from 196,1 and instead dates the remains as from the Druidic order of Celtic Europe, over 2,000 years old but preserved in the bog. Readers meet the young Druid as her mother has declared her, as she travels to Camulodunon and returns with gifts. She dies at a Solstice celebration and is buried in the bog. Readers will also know much of the life of Agnes as she spars with environmentalists and developers as she tries to save the bog. The mystery of the distant past and today’s conflict will haunt all who open these pages.

Bog Queen by Anna North, (List Price: $28.99, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781635579666, October 2025)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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