Carole V Bell

Lisa Kleypas’ thoroughly winning historical novel, Queen of Lombard Street, captures the inequities of British society in the industrial age.

Elizabeth Hand masterfully uses the gothic to explore the tumult of the ’20s in her bold and brilliantly written queer thriller.

The author moves beyond clichés of the ’20s in her gothic thriller, which centers the era’s precarious yet still joyous queer liberation.

In Female Life on Planet Earth, Laleh Khadivi gorgeously blends the personal and the political into fiction.

Chloe Benjamin’s Under Story is a literary sci-fi tale balancing speculative physics with a deeply relatable story of love and grief.

Thanks to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s tart, clear-eyed social observation and unforgettable writing, The Intrigue is a top-tier noir.

For a book about legacies and the afterlife, Shannon Sanders’ debut novel, The Great Wherever, is surprisingly and charmingly life-affirming.

Shannon Sanders drew on 100 years of family history to write The Great Wherever, while raising a new generation.

Tom Lin's Babylon, South Dakota is a remarkable journey as lush and abundant as the chrysanthemums that take over the Hsius’ greenhouse.

The Missed Connection, Tia Williams’ second-chance romance about an anxious casting director and the one who got away, is a rollicking good time.

Our annual summer reading guide, just for you.

Kennedy Ryan’s second Hollywood Renaissance novel, Score, is a vivid and visceral portrait of messy, undeniable love.

Talia Hibbert’s smart and steamy small-town romance, originally self-published in 2018, is now getting the wide release it deserves.

Addictive and formidable, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a bracing literary debut bolstered by virtuosic writing.

The 1995 adaptation of Terry McMillan's novel celebrated the beauty of Black sisterhood.

The debut author pulled from Bulgarian folklore, the gothic tradition and, of course, Buffy to create her unorthodox historical thriller.

She Made Herself a Monster is a thoughtful, delightfully rich and visceral historical gothic brimming with sharp ideas about human nature.

Here are 380+ great reads from 2025 handpicked just for you by NPR staffers and trusted critics.

Olivia Dade’s cozy, smile-inducing Second Chance Romance is like a steamier, funnier Hallmark movie.

Akwaeke Emezi’s bold paranormal romance, Son of the Morning, is the ultimate dark romantic fantasy: The hero is the devil himself.