This book’s organization and illustrations are a 10/10. Love it! And the message is precious! I honestly think this would be a great book to get to for a child who is about to become a big sibling!
Buffalo Fluffalo and Puffalo by Bess Kalb, (List Price: $18.99, Random House Studio, 9780593810309, September 2025)
Reviewed by Samantha Steele, Plenty Downtown Bookshop in Cookeville, Tennessee
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I inhaled this book! I have loved all of the Dalton series books, and the end to the series did not disappoint. Spending time with the same characters and getting in the heads of the other minor characters from previous books gives you a giant hug that gets you through the day. Shannon has a way in her writing that makes you feel like you are a part of the story. She makes the place in Maine seem like its own character. I am going to miss Tru, Bev, Nate, Rose, and all the town folk who make this story so vivid. The line “With each mouthful of champagne, Trudy feels lighter and fuller at the same time” Is just an example of the beauty of her writing. There is so much more to love in her newest book, and I can’t wait to see what she does next! Amazing
In a Distant Valley by Shannon Bowring, (List Price: $19, Europa Editions, 9798889661405, October 2025)
Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina
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There are many examples of this kind of thing throughout history. I was actually inspired by a specific historical event; I came across the true story of a village in Oxfordshire in the 1700s in which a great rumor was said to be spreading that five sisters had been “seized with frequent barking in the manner of dogs.” I was obviously fascinated to imagine how the girls’ community would have responded to their case, and how this rumor spreading might easily have become dangerous and even violent…I agree [that the] incredibly sinister aspect of Shirley Jackson’s work, the vilification of the mundane…is definitely terrain that The Hounding shares with Jackson’s stories. Like her, I’m very interested in thinking about the everyday awfulness of people, but I also wanted to try to understand even my most detestable characters. I really wanted to find a degree of sympathy for all of them in order to inhabit their thoughts and feelings.
― Xonebe Purvis, Interview, Indies Introduce, American Booksellers Association
What booksellers are saying about The Hounding
About Xonebe Purvis
Xonebe Purvis was born in Tokyo in 1990. She studied English Literature at the University of Oxford, has an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, and was part of the London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme. She is a writer and literary researcher, with essays published in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Magazine, and elsewhere.
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Loved this book. It had a really engaging plot and it is my favorite realistic fiction book I have ever read. This book is great for older teens and young adults. This book did a really good job of keeping the reader engaged and entertained. Whether you like cliffhangers or not, you’ll love this book! I can not wait for the sequel to come out, and I definitely recommend this book to all young adult readers.
Sync by Ellen Hopkins, (List Price: $13.99, Nancy Paulsen, 9780593463260, August 2025)
Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in , North Carolina
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Interestingly, the first voice that came to the page for me in this project was Margaret’s — the character who becomes entangled in Ivan’s life in the course of the book. It certainly wasn’t that I sat down thinking, I have to write a book where the male voice is central. I just felt my way through the story that seemed to emerge when I encountered these characters, which is what I always try to do. Of course I had moments of self-reflection and self-consciousness, because I was thinking, What do I know about this form of interiority and specifically — which is different from Connell in “Normal People” — relationships between men?
–Sally Rooney, InterviewThe New York Times
What booksellers are saying about Intermezzo
About Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney is an Irish novelist. She is the author of Conversations with Friends; Normal People; and Beautiful World, Where Are You. She also contributed to the writing and production of the Hulu/BBC television adaptation of Normal People.
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Certain themes really choose writers. Addiction is a theme I never really chose to write about, but I cannot escape it. I’ve been sober for eight years and I come from a family of addicts and alcoholics, almost all of whom are sober as well, so I was interested in writing about addiction in families. I’m also interested in sobriety in families and how that can get passed down through generations. What does it look like to be long-term sober but still self-destructive? What does it look like to be newly sober and starting to heal? What does it look like to have never drunk or done drugs, but still have the impulse to escape yourself, which I think Bonnie has.
–Coco Mellors, Interview, The Guardian
What booksellers are saying about Blue Sisters
About Coco Mellors
Coco Mellors grew up in London and New York, where she received her MFA in fiction from New York University. Her debut novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, was a Sunday Times bestseller, has been translated into over fifteen languages, and is currently being adapted for television. She lives with her husband and son in New York.
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I have waited for this book for 10 years. In 2014 I read I’ll Give You the Sun and it changed my life from the very first page. Since its release, I have patiently waited for the next book that I would adore from Jandy Nelson–When the World Tips Over is that book. The correct word does not exist for how incredibly beautiful this story is. Jandy Nelson’s talent for creating characters that feel like your own peers (even at the age of 26) is completely unmatched–throughout the progression of this story, I felt like I was traveling through Northern California as a close confidant to each of the Fall siblings. As a young reader, I’ll Give You the Sun felt like home to me (and it always will). I felt understood, adored, appreciated, and like there was a little bit of magic inside of me. When the World Tips Over now gets to provide all those exact same feelings to young readers today–though that does not take away from adult readers like myself, who are also incredibly touched, moved, and changed by this story. Told through many different perspectives, readers are able to latch on to and understand each character and what makes each individual story important for the narrative that is being told. Dizzy, Miles, Wynton, and Cassidy are characters that make sure they will never be forgotten even after the last page is turned.
When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson, (List Price: $21.99, Dial Books, 9780525429098, September 2024)
Reviewed by Abbie Cyr, Sassafras on Sutton in Black Mountain, North Carolina
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This story was absolute FUN to write. Yes, I have fun writing all my stories. Readers can see it in the humor I imbue in those tales, even when the topics are serious. But there was a different kind of freedom with The Dead Cat Tail Assassins. I wasn’t bound to our world. Or our histories. I wasn’t trying to deliver some deeper message on real-life colonialism or racism or the like. I set out to just tell a story that was fast-paced, punchy, full of action, thrills, and, when called-for, sheer hilarity. As I pitched it to my editor, this is John Wick meets Dungeons & Dragons.
― P. Djèlí Clark, Disgruntled Haradrim
What booksellers are saying about Dead Cat Tail Assassins
About P. Djèlí Clark
Born in New York and raised mostly in Houston, P. Djèlí Clark spent the formative years of his life in the homeland of his parents, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn and the novellas The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. He has won the Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards and been nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon Awards. His stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Apex, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies, including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is also a founding member of FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons.
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It’s too easy to equate character strength with physical power. So what is strength? What does it mean to be truly tough? Is suffering what makes you strong? Is continuing to persist, to exist on your terms in the face of overwhelming opposition or little hope of change—is that strength? (Recently, reading K.X. Song’s novel An Echo In the City about the 2019 Hong Kong protests I was impressed with the characters’ repeated acknowledgment that they knew they couldn’t win and yet that was no reason to stop fighting). Is strength merely preserving some core kernel of your true self deep down when all the world tells you that what you are, what you believe, what you feel is not right, not okay, not even real? Does that internal personal act of truth and private rebellion equate with strength? Is real strength the ability to ask for what you want and keep asking? Is it the ability to make hard choices in the face of disappointment or compromise?
― Alisa Alering, Interview, We Are Grimoire
What booksellers are saying about Smothermoss
About Alisa Alering
Alisa Alering grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. After attending Clarion West, their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.
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A cute cautionary tale with beautiful art. I love how the wolf follows Millie around in the illustrations, and how Millie was able to outsmart the traps. The narration was easy to understand and fun. A great read for children.
Into the Goblin Market by Vikki VanSickle, (List Price: $18.99, Tundra Books, 9780735268562, July 2024)
Reviewed by Kamilah Wong, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia
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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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One of my favorites from the Tombolo Books Book Club this year! Ruth Madievsky’s debut is a buzzing bar sign of a book, telling the story of a young woman and her toxic relationship with her older sister Debbie in Los Angeles. After Debbie goes missing, our narrator has to decide whether to let her go and become her own person – or to stay mired in their fraught dynamic and the substances that kept them bound together. This book just felt like (cruel) summer to me – a hot, hazy fog of a book that I still think about.
All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, (List Price: $17.95, Catapult, 9781646222254, July 2024)
Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida
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“Sisters never stand a chance to be friends. We’re pitted against each other from the moment we’re born. A daughter is a treasure. Two is a tax. God, how they must have wanted a boy when they tried a do-over after a dead baby girl.” One of the most fraught relationships in humanity is sisterhood. In Yolk, Choi takes on that relationship and explores it through both the joy and pain. Coming of age, learning to live on one’s own, and navigating modern romance are all tackled in turn with the grace and realism for which readers have learned to love her writing. Come for the angst, stay for the characters you may just love like sisters. Content warnings for disordered eating, depression and anxiety, absent parent, and cancer.
Yolk by Mary H. K. Choi, (List Price: $12.99, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 9781534446014, March 2022)
Reviewed by Faith Parke-Dodge, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina
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I have never read a book quite like this. This close family of six is like any other family until tragedy strikes when their father disappears in the Middle East with no trace. So many times, tragedy can rip a family apart, and so this family comes apart. The CIA gets involved, and people are actively trying to find their beloved father, but time passes and he is not found. Years later one of the daughters is getting married and wants her family involved. Her mom tries to help out to no avail. Life has taken each of the four siblings on a ride, and they are caught up in their own drama. What will unravel the negativity they have for each other? Is their dad alive? How can they go on without knowing? This thriller is like no other I have ever read. You will love it.
April May June July by Alison B. Hart, (List Price: $28.99, Graydon House, 9781525804274, May 2024)
Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina
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When you have a sibling, you can have a relationship with almost no boundaries. You can say anything to me; I can say anything to you, and because we’re bound by all of these things—the structure of our family, the understanding we have of one another’s issues, the love we have for each other; we’re always going to be connected. At the same time, it’s a delusion to think that you know a person so entirely because you grew up together—because you have the same parents; because you were raised in the same way. Every person has secrets. Everyone has a complete internal world that you know nothing about.
― Alexandra Tanner, The Columbia Journal
What booksellers are saying about Worry
About Alexandra Tanner
Alexandra Tanner is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School and a recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, The Center for Fiction, and Spruceton Inn’s Artist Residency. Her stories, essays, and reviews appear or are forthcoming in Granta, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Baffler, The New York Times Book Review, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Worry is her first novel.
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