June 20, 2025
New Fiction
The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson – Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the community center to bring the locals together, but so far, it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything. To make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much loved community center at risk. Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. But the other members have their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove that Michael’s been framed, romance reader Arthur believes there’s a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play. While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder, and recover the stolen money, they all have their own secrets to protect. Despite the danger closing in, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and gotten everyone safe at home with a book, where they belong.
Dying to Meet You by Sarina Bowen – Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from a breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of rom-coms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in her favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder – and the primary suspect. But Rowan isn’t the only one keeping secrets. As she digs for the truth, she discovers the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past. Struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him. Will she be the next to die?
The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark – June 1975. The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets. Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she’s offered a job to ghostwrite her father’s last book. What she doesn’t know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it’s not another horror novel he wants her to write. After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.
Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson – Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for more than twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet, and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well…except that Wendy wants to murder her husband. What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom’s marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives – their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague – all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago. Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together the length of their marriage. But it’s power over the couple is fraying, and each of them begins to wonder if they would be better off making sure their spouse carries their secrets to the grave.