20 Most Anticipated Book Releases in March 2025
A new month means a whole new list of my most exciting and anticipated releases! Like always, I picked this list based off of the hook of the synopsis, the cover design, the author, and the general vibes I’m getting from all of these things combined. What’s another 20 books (plus some honorable mentions at the very end) added to our eternal TBR?
Since I tend to read Fantasy, Young Adult, and Romance, that’s what a majority of this list will contain. But other genres tend to sneak in, especially Mystery/Thriller, Literary Fiction, Horror, and Nonfiction
Let’s get into these amazing books and see what March has in store!
*All dates below are expected publication, but they are all also subject to change
THE BANE WITCH
by Ava Morgyn
Why this pick?:
A witch that uses her magical ability to consume poisons as a way to kill cruel, lascivious men? There’s no world in which I wouldn’t pick this up! I couldn’t nail down whether this was young adult or adult, but based on the comps (and to stay on the safe side) I’m listing it as adult.
Publication Date: March 18, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Paranormal | Adult
BLURB:
Practical Magic meets Gone Girl in Ava Morgyn's next dark, spellbinding novel about a woman who is more than a witch - she's a hunter.
Piers Corbin has always had an affinity for poisonous things - plants and men. From the pokeweed berries she consumed at age five that led to the accidental death of a stranger, to the husband whose dark proclivities have become… concerning, poison has been at the heart of her story. But when she fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her volatile marriage and goes to stay with her estranged great aunt in the mountains, she realizes her predilection is more than a hunger - it’s a birthright. Piers comes from a long line of poison eaters - Bane Witches – women who ingest deadly plants and use their magic to rid the world of evil men.
Piers sets out to earn her place in her family’s gritty but distinguished legacy, all while working at her Aunt Myrtle’s cafe and perpetuating a flirtation with the local, well-meaning sheriff to allay his suspicions on the body count she’s been leaving in her wake. But soon she catches the attention of someone else, a serial killer operating in the area. And that only means one thing - it’s time to feed. In Ava Morgyn’s dark, thrilling novel, The Bane Witch, a very little poison can do a world of good.
BANNED TOGETHER: OUR FIGHT FOR READERS’ RIGHTS
by Ashley Hope Pérez (Editor); Debbie Fong (Illustrator)
Why this pick?:
As a high school librarian, I couldn’t imagine skipping out on this one. In fact, I already know I will be nominating this anthology for a TAYSHAS award. (Though I will read it first, of course!) At this point, we all need to be fighting censorship and book banning tooth and nail.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Nonfiction | Anthology | Young Adult
BLURB:
A dazzling YA anthology that spotlights the transformative power of books while equipping teens to fight for the freedom to read, featuring the voices of 15 diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators.
Books are disappearing from shelves across the country.
What does this mean for authors, illustrators, and—most crucially—for young readers?
This bold collection of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, essays, and other genres explores book bans through various lenses, and empowers teens to fight back. From moving personal accounts to clever comebacks aimed at censorship, fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens.
Contributors include Elana K. Arnold, Nikki Grimes, Ellen Hopkins, Kelly Jensen, Brendan Kiely, Maia Kobabe, Bill Konigsberg, Kyle Lukoff, MariNaomi, Trung Lê Nguyễn, Ashley Hope Pérez, Isabel Quintero, Traci Sorell, Robin Stevenson, and Padma Venkatraman; the collection is a star-studded must-read that packs strength and power into every last word.
Striking illustrations from Ignatz-nominated artist Debbie Fong pair perfectly with the searing, impactful narrative. Resources include tips from the Vandegrift Banned Book Club and other teen activists, as well as extensive recommended book lists, a How to Start Your Own Little Free Library flier, and more.
THE DREAM HOTEL
by Laila Lalami
Why this pick?:
In an age where the threat of technology CEOS and companies loom and the United States has fallen into an Oligarchy controlled by these powers, this is a read I both fear and need.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Sci-Fi | Near-Future | Adult
BLURB:
A woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.
Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most, her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.
The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.
EVERY BORROWED BEAT
by Erin Stewart
Why this pick?:
This is going to make me cry, I already know it. My heart hurts and I haven’t read anything but the blurb.
Publication Date: March 11, 2025
Genre: Contemporary | Romance | Young Adult
BLURB:
For fans of FIVE FEET APART, this emotional and romantic YA offers an unflinching look at not only the realities of heart failure, but at memory, grief, guilt, and what it means to live—in spite of another, because of another, for another. For yourself.
Sydney Wells should have died. She was supposed to die.
She never expected, after years of waiting, to receive a heart transplant. Now, seventeen-year-old Sydney doesn’t know what to do with her life. Her daily routine consisted of staying indoors, eating heart-healthy foods, and posting about her transplant list experiences on TheWaitingList with her long-distance BFF (and heart failure buddy) Chloe.
Now, Sydney latches onto the one thing that gives her purpose: learning as much as she can about the person whose heart she inherited. After finding the family of her likely-donor, Mia, Sydney falls deep into her world—and may also be falling for Mia's best friend, Clayton.
But Sydney isn’t the only one hiding something. Mia’s brother Tanner won’t talk to Clayton, and Clayton won’t tell Mia why. And hundreds of miles away, Chloe’s health has taken a turn for the worse. Sydney needs to face what’s in her heart—the truth, the guilt, and the future—before it’s too late.
EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS
by John Green
Why this pick?:
I’m currently in the process of reading Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed and it’s magnificent. There’s no reason for me to be in interested in any of the essays, and yet, I’m spellbound. If anyone can write a nonfiction novel that captivates me, it’s this man.
Publication Date: March 18, 2025
Genre: Nonfiction | Health Sciences | Adult
BLURB:
John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.
In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
FAN SERVICE
by Rosie Danan
Why this pick?:
Does anyone remember the Hex Girls from Scooby Doo?? That’s exactly where my mind went when I saw this cover! If you’re an Illumicrate Afterlight subscriber, this will be your March subscription book.
Publication Date: March 11, 2025
Genre: Romance | Paranormal | Adult
BLURB:
The truth is stranger than fan fiction in the new sexy, paranormal romcom from the bestselling author of The Roommate and The Intimacy Experiment.
The only place small-town outcast Alex Lawson fits in is the online fan forum she built for Arcane, a long-running werewolf detective show. Her dedication to archiving fictional supernatural lore made her Internet-famous, even if she harbors a secret disdain for the show's star, Devin Ashwood. (Never meet your heroes - sometimes they turn out to be The Worst.)
Ever since his show went off the air, Devin and his career have spiraled, but waking up naked in the woods outside his LA home with no memory of the night before is a new low. It must have been a coincidence that the once-in-a-century Wolf Blood Moon crested last night. The claws, fangs, and howling are a little more difficult to explain away. Desperate for answers, Devin finds Alex - the closest thing to an expert that exists. If only he could convince her to stop hating his guts long enough to help . . .
Once he makes her an offer she can't refuse, these reluctant allies lower their guards trying to wrangle his inner beast. Unfortunately, getting up close and personal quickly comes back to bite them.
GOTHICTOWN
by Emily Carpenter
Why this pick?:
No matter the season, a gothic horror featuring a sinister southern town cloaked in secrets will catch my attention!
Publication Date: March 25, 2025
Genre: Horror | Gothic | Adult
BLURB:
A restaurateur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic town in Georgia.
The email message that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100 she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and some painful memories. Plus she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity.
After some phone calls and one hurried visit, Billie and her husband and daughter are officially part of the "Juliana Initiative." The town is everything promised, and between settling into her lavish home and starting a new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss misgivings.
Yet those misgivings grow. There’s something about Juliana, something off-kilter and menacing beneath its famous Southern hospitality. No matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and whether, they’ll ever leave.
I AM MADE OF DEATH
by Kelly Andrew
Why this pick?:
I read Andrew’s Your Blood, My Bones and fell in love with her writing style. She had a way of bringing the setting to life in a glorious example of gothic writing. I’m ecstatic for this newest release!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Romance | Young Adult
BLURB:
From bestselling author Kelly Andrew comes the most electrifying dark romance of the decade...
Following the death of his father, Thomas Walsh had to grow up quickly, taking on odd-jobs to keep food on the table and help pay his gravely ill mother's medical bills. When he's offered a highly paid position as an interpreter for an heiress who exclusively signs, Thomas -- the hearing child of a Deaf adult -- jumps at the opportunity.
But the job is not without its challenges. Thomas is expected to accompany Vivienne wherever she goes, but from the start, she seems determined to shake him. To make matters worse, her parents keep her on an extremely short leash. She is not to go anywhere without express permission. She is not to deviate from her routine.
She is, most importantly, not to be out after dark.
A selective-mute, Vivienne Farrow hasn't said a word in years -- not since going missing in Red Rock Canyon when she was four years old. No one knows quite what happened to her out in the dark. They only know that the sound of her voice is now as deadly as a poison. Anyone who hears her speak suffers a horrible death.
Ever since that fatal family vacation, Vivienne has been desperately searching for a way to regain control of both her voice and her body. Because the face staring out of the mirror isn't hers. It's something with teeth.
Thankfully, Vivienne has a plan. She's finally found someone who claims to be able to perform a surgical exorcism. She just needs to find a way to get rid of Thomas first. But Thomas can't afford to walk away, nor is he willing to abandon the mysterious girl he's quickly falling for, no matter what dark powers threaten to swallow them both whole.
I AM THE SWARM
by Hayley Chewins
Why this pick?:
The stunning cover is what made me pause and really take a look at this novel. I’m glad I did, but this concept sounds like the kind of feminist rage I’m craving.
Publication Date: March 25, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Novel-in-Verse | Young Adult
BLURB:
A propulsive YA novel in verse that blends the contemporary magic of Jandy Nelson with the simmering feminist rage of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout.
As far back as anyone can remember, the women of the Strand family have been magical.
Their gifts manifest when they each turn fifteen, always in different ways. But Nell Strand knows that her family's magic is a curse. Her mother’s age changes every day; she's often too young to be the mother Nell needs. Her older sister bleeds music and will do anything to release the songs inside her. Nell sees the way magic rips her family apart again and again.
When Nell’s own magic arrives in the form of ladybugs alighting on the keys of her beloved piano, the first thing she feels is joy. The ladybugs are a piece of her, a harmless and delicate manifestation of her creativity. But soon enough, the rest come. Thick-shelled glossy beetles that creep along her collarbone when her piano teacher stares at her. Soft gray moths that appear and die alongside a rush of disappointment. Worst of all are the wasps. It doesn’t matter how deep she buries her rage, the wasps always come. Nell will have to decide just how much of herself she’s willing to lock away to stop them—or if she can find the strength to feel, no matter the consequences.
An intense, emotional read simmering with rage and magic, I Am the Swarm is a captivating YA novel-in-verse that beautifully speaks to the complicated nature of growing up as a girl.
THE LOVE SIMULATION
by Etta Easton
Why this pick?:
Last year, I read Easton’s The Kiss Countdown, and can’t wait to add this book to my shelf! She also happens to live in Houston and made a trip to a local Black-owned indie bookstore, Kindred Stories, to sign copies. I’ll be keeping an eye on their events page for sure! (No need to live in Houston to support. Order online and have the books shipped to you!)
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Contemporary | Romance | Adult
BLURB:
When Brianna Rogers joins a team of teachers who will spend their summer in a Mars simulation to win vital funds for the school library, she thought it would be easy. What she didn’t count on was Roman, science teacher, son of the principal, and far too handsome.
Brianna is sure he’s been sent to sabotage them. But each day, she finds herself falling harder and harder. While it’s clear the feeling is mutual, she can’t shake the sense that he’s hiding something.
???????As the simulation nears its end, Brianna realizes she may have to make an impossible choice, between the school she’s dedicated herself to, and the man who has won his way into her heart...
NIGHTWEAVER
by R.M. Gray
Why this pick?:
Don’t get me wrong, I love Fae and elves and vampires and werewolves as much as the next person, but this sounds fresh. I love how new and unique this concept is!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Romance | Young Adult
BLURB:
For fans of Adalyn Grace's Belladonna and Lauren Roberts’s Powerless, Nightweaver is a propulsive YA fantasy debut about a strong-willed heroine avenging her brother and discovering her destiny.
Six hundred years ago, Nightweavers, cursed beings with untamed power, claimed the continents for their own. The ocean was meant to be a safe haven for humanity, including seventeen-year-old Aster Oberon and her pirate family. But after Aster’s brother is killed in an epic battle at sea against Nightweavers, Aster and her family are thrust into a new life on land.
When a handsome Nightweaver named Will offers the Oberons protection and work at his opulent estate, Aster is suspicious. As the arrogant and entitled right hand to the wicked prince, Will is everything that she has been taught to hate. But as he shows empathy and kindness, Aster can’t ignore a blooming attraction. And even more, Will opens her eyes to a new perspective. There are monsters worse than Nightweavers, monsters who may be behind her brother’s death.
As Aster hunts the creatures responsible, dark secrets threaten to unravel everything she once believed about her family, herself, and her world.
OUR INFINITE FATES
by Laura Steven
Why this pick?:
I love the fated, ephemeral quality of this with a girl who is both young and ageless caught in cycle of life and death. But more than that, I love that she wants to keep this life so that she can save her sister. Obviously, the romance will make me swoon, but I think I’ll adore this FMC.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Romance | Young Adult
BLURB:
The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.
They've loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They've killed each other in every one.
Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul―and survival―is tethered to hers.
The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and her little sister needs her for bone marrow transplants in order to stay alive. If Evelyn wants to save her sister, she’ll have to:
1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.
PROMISE ME SUNSHINE
by Cara Bastone
Why this pick?:
Parts of this intrigued, mainly that it feels as thought the FMC will be the main focus of this, and the romance will compliment her own journey. Since I was feeling iffy, I perused some reviews and saw one that said this is an enemies-to-friends-to-best friends-to-lovers relationship, and those are my favorite. I love me a foundation built on trust and emotional companionship.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Contemporary | Romance | Adult
BLURB:
Grieving the loss of her best friend, a young woman’s life is turned upside down when she meets a grumpy stranger who swears he can help her live again, in this heartwarming, slow-burn romance by the author of Ready or Not
Lenny’s a bit of a mess at the moment. Her best friend, Lou, recently passed away after a battle with cancer, and her death has left Lenny feeling completely lost. She’s avoiding her concerned parents, the apartment she shared with Lou, and the list of things she’s supposed to do to help her live again. The only thing she can do is temporary babysitting gigs, and luckily, she just landed a great one, helping overworked, single mom Reese and her precocious daughter, Ainsley. It’s not perfect: Ainsley’s uncle, Miles, always seems to be around, and is kind of... a huge jerk. But if Lenny acts like she has it all together, maybe no one will notice she’s falling apart.
Miles sees right through her though. Turns out, he knows a lot about grief and, surprisingly, he offers her a proposition. He’ll help her complete everything on her “live again” list if she’ll help him connect with Ainsley and overcome his complicated relationship with Reese. Lenny doubts anything can fill the hole Lou has left behind, but as she begins to spend more time with Miles, Lenny is surprised to discover that, sometimes, losing everything is only the first step to finding yourself, and love, again.
RED DOG FARM
by Nathaniel Ian Miller
Why this pick?:
From the setting to the familial ties to the long distance relationship, this lit fic sounds like something I’ll want to curl up with and lose myself within.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Literary Fiction | Adult
BLURB:
An atmospheric coming-of-age story about a young man's transformative year on his family’s struggling Icelandic cattle farm as he falls in love, discovers the purpose he’s been missing, and seeks to connect with his stoic father, who remains haunted by a tragic past.
Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things: the cavorting of a newborn calf, the return of birdsong after a long winter, the steadfast love of a good (or tolerably good) farm dog. But the outer world still beckons, so Orri leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavík.
Pabbi is no stranger to cycles of life and death, growth and destruction. He is pursued by the memory of a volcanic eruption and its aftermath, and so many years of hardscrabble farming have left their mark. Jaded, and no longer able to find joy in his way of life, Pabbi falls into a depression soon after Orri goes away to school. Orri, feeling adrift and aimless at the end of his first semester, comes home.
For the first time, Pabbi allows Orri to help him run the farm. Despite their conflicting attitudes, Orri and Pabbi must learn to work together. Meanwhile, Orri meets a kindred spirit on the internet: Mihan, a part-time student. Over time—and countless texts and phone calls—their connection deepens. By year’s end, Orri must decide whether he wants to—or should—return to university, and what a future with Mihan would hold, if she’ll have him.
With his signature blend of humor and tenderness, Nathaniel Ian Miller’s Red Dog Farm is about the bonds forged and tested between family, friends, and lovers—and the act of building a home, together.
THE RIVER HAS ROOTS
by Amal El-Mohtar
Why this pick?:
This feels like it will have the same lyrical, whimsical quality as the original fairy tales that our more modern retellings come from. Something with a bit of bite alongside pretty half-truths and eloquent riddles. I adore books that tip their hats to the fae of Faerie.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Novella | Adult
BLURB:
Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.
But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
SAY A LITTLE PRAYER
by Jenna Voris
Why this pick?:
In this day in age, I’m all for not holding back in pointing out the hate and hypocrisy in powerful institutions like the Christian church. I’m going to absolutely eat this up! Get ‘em, Riley!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Contemporary | Romance | Young Adult
BLURB:
A wry, heartfelt tale of a teen who's taking her church camp by storm—one deadly sin at a time.
Riley quietly left church a year ago when she realized there was no place for a bi girl in her congregation. But it wasn’t until the pastor shunned her older sister for getting an abortion that she really wanted to burn it all down.
It’s just her luck, then, that she’s sent to the principal’s office for slapping a girl talking smack about her sister—and in order to avoid suspension, she has to spend spring break at church camp. The only saving grace is that she’ll be there with her best friend, Julia. Even if Julia’s dad is the pastor. And he’s in charge of camp. But Riley won’t let a technicality like “repenting” get in the way of her true mission. Instead of spending the week embracing the seven heavenly virtues, she decides to commit all seven deadly sins. If she can show the other campers that sometimes being a little bad is for the greater good, she could start a righteous revolution! What could possibly go wrong? Aside from falling for the pastor’s daughter . . .
THE SCORPION AND THE NIGHT BLOSSOM
by Amélie Wen Zhao
Why this pick?:
One of the duologies that I always recommend to students is Zhao’s Song of the Last Kingdom. I loved the character development, world-building, and magic system, along with the romantic relationship between the two protagonists. I can’t wait to read her newest launch!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Mythology/Folklore | Young Adult
BLURB:
In a world invaded by demons, one girl will face the ultimate test when she is forced to enter into an ancient, deadly competition for the chance to save her mother's soul… before she loses her forever. From the New York Times bestselling author of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night comes the beginning of a dark and opulent fantasy duology, perfect for fans of Throne of Glass.
Nine years ago, the war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore Àn’yīng’s family apart, leaving her mother barely alive and a baby sister to fend for. Now the mortal realm is falling into eternal night, and mó—beautiful, ravenous demons—roam the land, feasting on the flesh of humans and drinking their souls.
Àn’yīng is no longer a helpless child, though. Armed with her crescent blades and trained in the ancient art of practitioning, she has decided to enter the Immortality Trials, which are open to any mortal who can survive the journey to the immortal realm. Those who complete the Trials are granted a pill of eternal life—the one thing Àn’yīng knows can heal her dying mother. But to attain the prize, she must survive the competition.
Death is common in the Trials. Yet oddly, Àn’yīng finds that someone is helping her stay alive. A rival contestant. Powerful and handsome, Yù’chén is as secretive about his past as he is about his motives for protecting Àn’yīng.
The longer she survives the Trials, the clearer it becomes that all is not right in the immortal realm. To save her mother and herself, Àn’yīng will need to figure out whether she can truly trust the stranger she’s falling for or if he’s the most dangerous player of all . . . for herself and for all the realms.
SCOT AND BOTHERED
by Alexandra Kiley
Why this pick?:
What can I say? I’m in my romances-set-in-Scotland era. Add the setting to the fact that this plot actually sounds ridiculously cute with a hike through the countryside, and I’m there! Just look at this Highland cow on the cover!!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Contemporary | Romance | Adult
BLURB:
SCOT ON THE TRAIL!
Brooke Sinclair’s dream of being a published author derailed when she was expelled from the University of Edinburgh seven years ago. Now a ghostwriter, she sticks to other people’s stories. But when her college mentor, Mhairi McCallister, needs a cowriter for her memoir about Scotland’s most challenging trek, Brooke will do anything for the opportunity—including agreeing to hike the rugged Skye Trail for authenticity’s sake. What she doesn't know is that the nature photographer who’ll join her is Jack Sutherland, the teaching assistant who shattered Brooke’s writing career—and her heart.
Between falling for a student despite university rules and walking away from his family’s tour-guiding business to follow his photography dreams, Jack is desperate to prove he didn’t disappoint everyone for nothing. And he can’t ignore his aunt Mhairi’s final wishes for her memoir. Even if it means acting as guide and storyteller for the one who got away. Even if it means keeping secrets about Mhairi’s health.
As Jack and Brooke head into the solitude of the sweeping Scottish landscape, they’re forced to confront old feelings that haven’t disappeared with time. But can two weeks and eighty miles heal years of unspoken hurt and offer a second chance at the end of the trail?
WHAT WAKES THE BELLS
by Elle Tesch
Why this pick?:
For someone who adores retellings, I don’t think I’ve read one based on folklore from Prague. Everything about this has me absolutely giddy, including the cover!
Publication Date: March 11, 2025
Genre: Fantasy | Gothic | Young Adult
BLURB:
Inspired by an ominous Prague legend, What Wakes the Bells is a lavish gothic fantasy by debut author Elle Tesch.
Built by long-gone Saints, the city of Vaiwyn lives and breathes and bleeds. As a Keeper, Mina knows better than most what her care of Vaiwyn’s bells means for the sentient city. It’s the Strauss family’s thousand-year legacy―prevent the Vespers from ringing, or they will awake a slumbering evil.
One afternoon, to Mina's horror, her bell peals thirteen times, shattering the city’s tenuous peace. With so much of the city's history and lore lost in a long-ago disaster, no one knows the danger that has been unleashed―until the city begins to fight back. As the sun sets, stone gargoyles and bronze statues tear away from their buildings and plinths to hunt people through the streets. Trapped in Mina’s bell, the soul of a twisted and power-hungry Saint festered. Now free of his prison, he hides behind the face of one of Vaiwyn’s citizens, corrupting the city and turning it on itself.
Time is running out, and the only chance Mina has to stop the destruction and horrific killings is finding and destroying the Saint’s host. Everyone is a suspect, including Mina's closest loved ones. She will have to decide how far she’ll go to save her city―and who she’s willing to kill to do it.
YOU KILLED ME FIRST
by John Marrs
Why this pick?:
Color me intrigued by this one! I actually passed over it at first because it didn’t hold my attention. Except, I kept thinking about it, so I guess I was more interested than I initially thought!
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Genre: Mystery / Thriller | Adult
BLURB:
Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?
It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in – she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?
Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretense of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret – and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.
As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?
Books by Publication Date
March 4, 2025
March 11, 2025
March 18, 2025
March 25, 2025
Time to brew some coffee and add even more novels to your infinite TBR! Which one are you most excited to read?
By Title or Author
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Check out recent bookish posts below. So many jewels, and we’re hoarding them all!