Table of contents for September 2024 in Booklist Reader

A Distant Heart. By Sonali Dev. 2018. Kensington. Alternating time lines and perspectives in modern Mumbai, Dev depicts the intimate relationship between Kimi and Rahul, her former childhood tutor. Happy Place. By Emily Henry. 2023. Berkley. Effortlessly toggling between the present-day fauxmance playing out between recently broken-up Harriet and Wyn and the origins of their love a decade earlier, Happy Place delivers on both style and substance. Her Perfect Affair. By Priscilla Oliveras. 2018. Kensington/Zebra. A night with her longtime crush results in pregnancy for Rosa, who resists the father’s proposal until trust and love grow in this emotional romance. Normal People. By Sally Rooney. 2019. Crown. The story of brainy classmates turned secret lovers Connell and Marianne advances months or minutes at a time through the reunions and rifts…

Acts of Violet. By Margarita Montimore. Read by a full cast. 2022. 11hrs. Macmillan Audio. With such an electrifying full-cast production, listeners are guaranteed dazzling delight. The anniversary of magician Violet Volk’s spectacular mid-show disappearance looms, and VV’s devotees aren’t done demanding answers. Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? By Nicci French. Read by Jane Collingwood. 2024. 12.5hrs. HarperAudio. In 2022, brothers make a podcast about unresolved deaths that shattered their teen years. Collingwood is particularly facile in aging traumatized youth into damaged adults. The Kids Are Gonna Ask. By Gretchen Anthony. Read by Lauren Fortgang. 2020. 11hrs. Harlequin Audio. Teen twins create a podcast hoping to find their biodad. Fortgang’s deft characterizations notably elevate Anthony’s quirky, vast cast. None of This Is True. By Lisa Jewell. Read by a full…

Banned Books Week is upon us, and the stakes are high: state legislatures all over the country are enacting confusing laws meant to limit what children and teens are permitted to access in their school and public libraries, and a vocal minority is driving libraries to remove scores of books from their collections by way of bad-faith arguments that chip away at fundamental library values, not to mention First Amendment rights. As library workers are stretched to the limit, the support of community members to drown out the few, if noisy, voices demanding the removal of books is essential. It can feel overwhelming to speak up, and young library patrons who want to make their voices heard, in particular, might think they have no power. This is emphatically not true,…

Before She Finds Me. By Heather Chavez. 2023. Little, Brown/Mulholland. After shots ring out during a college move-in day and Julia Bennett saves her daughter’s life, Julia has questions. So does trained assassin Ren Petrovic in Chavez’s third Southern California thriller. The Burning. By Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman. 2021. Ballantine. The superb fourth title in the father-and-son Kellerman series featuring coroner Clay Edison has him called to the scene of the murder of a wealthy Bay Area businessman during a terrible wildfire. Circle in the Water. By Marcia Muller. 2024. Grand Central. Muller’s hard-working San Francisco–based PI Sharon McCone has been hired by a homeowners association plagued by vandalism, leading to the unearthing of ugly secrets about the city’s elite. The Enchanters. By James Ellroy. 2023. Knopf. Ellroy brings…

Cassandra in Reverse. By Holly Smale. Read by Kristin Atherton. 2023. Harlequin. Cassie is a public-averse London PR rep who is bewildered and frustrated to find herself waking up yesterday. As she sets out to right wrongs, Atherton’s vibrant narration is an enticing companion. Cult Classic. By Sloane Crosley. Read by the author. 2022. Macmillan Audio. Lola doesn’t time-shift, but her past keeps popping up in the oddest places when she runs into one ex after another as she finds herself in the middle of a psychology experiment/start-up endeavor that lets her walk back through her many past loves before committing to her stalwart boyfriend. Crosley reads with a hint of sarcasm and reluctant self-reflection, a fitting narration for this delightfully cynical love story. The Husbands. By Holly Gramazio. Read by…

Find out more at www.LibraryReads.org/HOF Death at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Book Kate Atkinson (Doubleday) So Thirsty Rachel Harrison (Berkley) What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust: A Flavia de Luce Novel Alan Bradley (Bantam) Somewhere Beyond the Sea TJ Klune (Tor Books) We Solve Murders: A Novel Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman Books) The Night We Lost Him Laura Dave (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) Here One Moment Liane Moriarty (Crown) Tell Me Everything: A Novel Elizabeth Strout (Random House) The Life Impossible: A Novel Matt Haig (Viking) Buried Deep and Other Stories Naomi Novik (Del Rey)…

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL The 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival occurred on Aug. 24 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. It was free and open to the public. The festival featured 90-plus authors, poets, and writers across many genres. The festival’s recorded sessions are now available at lov.gov/bookfest. PBS Books, in partnership with the Library of Congress, created a series of Author Talks promoting the 2024 National Book Festival, featuring Sandra Cisneros, Max Greenfield, Susan and Lexi Haas, James McBride, Abby Jimenez, Tiya Miles, and Renée Fleming. These conversations are available on demand on Facebook, YouTube, and on pbsbooks.org. On Thursday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. ET, PBS Books will release a new best of show, highlighting this year’s National Book Festival.…

Chasing Vermeer. By Blue Balliet. Illus. by Brett Helquist. 2004. Scholastic. Gr. 5–8. A pair of precocious 11-year-old Chicago sleuths is lured by mysterious letters into the investigation of a missing Vermeer painting. Art-themed mysteries are really their own popular subgenre, but this crossover classic includes puzzles and code in addition to interactive illustrative elements. Chester Keene Cracks the Code. By Kekla Magoon. 2022. Random/Wendy Lamb. Gr. 4–7. The only thing Chester likes more than his routines is a good mystery, but when classmate Skye shows up with a joint puzzle to solve that Chester believes is from his absent father, a spy Chester’s never met who routinely leaves Chester secret messages, the friends find unexpected answers and danger in the process. A sensitive middle-grade mystery with big, emotional twists…

Anita de Monte Laughs Last. By Xochitl Gonzalez. 2024. Flatiron. Gonzalez’s spirited spirit protagonist, artist Anita, is spending her afterlife in a tree after her murderer, husband and famed minimalist artist Jack Martin, has succeeded in erasing traces of her art until a struggling art-history student, Rachel Toro, happens upon Anita’s story. The Apartment. By Ana Menéndez. 2023. Counterpoint. Menéndez tells the emotionally and culturally intricate stories of the diverse tenants in 2B in a South Miami Beach apartment building over 70 years, beginning in 1942, as the world changes around them. The Apartment on Calle Uruguay. By Zachary Lazar. 2022. Catapult. Lazar’s stream-of-consciousness tour de force portrays artist Christopher Bell as he mourns the death of his partner; takes refuge in rural New York; finds a new love, Ana,…

Fiction The Accomplice. By Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Aaron Philip Clark. Amistad. In his fiction debut, rapper and entrepreneur Jackson, with mystery author Clark, introduces Nia Turner, the first Black female Texas Ranger, who’s on the hunt for a mastermind criminal who’s messing with the wrong family, the ultra-wealthy Duchamps. Counting Miracles. By Nicholas Sparks. Random House. A military man wants to give up his rolling-stone ways, so he heads to North Carolina in search of the father he never knew, meets a single-mother doctor, and feels an instant connection. Bring your hankies! Creation Lake. By Rachel Kushner. Scribner. Kushner’s latest (after The Mars Room, 2018) is a brainspinning tale about a secret agent whose latest mission is to break up a radical French farming cooperative that may be…

All the Sinners Bleed. By S. A. Cosby. Read by Adam Lazarre-White. 2023. 13hr. Macmillan Audio. This nail-biting southern noir thriller is packed with simmering tension. Lazarre-White is Cosby’s regular narrator, and again he brings a nuanced portrayal to a full cast of complex characters. Bright Young Women. By Jessica Knoll. Read by a full cast. 2023. 13hr. Simon & Schuster Audio. Sutton Foster voices sorority president Pamela, who investigates the murder of Ruth, voiced by Imani Jade Powers. The two beautifully develop their characters, while the introduction of male voices at the end is a jarring turn, well worth the buildup. Crook Manifesto. By Colson Whitehead. Read by Dion Graham. 2023. 11hr. Books on Tape. Ray Carney is drawn back into the crime world on the hunt for Jackson…

YA Celestial Monsters. By Aiden Thomas. Feiwel and Friends. Gr. 9–12. This duology closer deals with the aftermath of the Sunbearer Trials as Teo, Niya, and Aurelio fight to return light to their world. Compound Fracture. By Andrew Joseph White. Peachtree Teen. Gr. 9–12. Trans, autistic teen Miles is caught up in a century-old feud in rural Appalachia between those trapped in poverty and their oppressors. Desert Echoes. By Abdi Nazemian. Harper. Gr. 9–12. Time shifts between freshman and junior year as “gay-ass Iranian” friends Kam and Bodie navigate love and loss. Luminous Beings. By David Arnold. Illus. by Jose Pimienta. Viking. Gr. 10–12. Four friends in a zombie-squirrel-infested apocalyptic future head on a road trip to secure funding for a documentary film in this surprisingly profound, emotionally resonant comic.…