10 Must-Read New Books Out This Week

When a prank goes horribly wrong, a visiting professor at Wrynn College of Art must rebuild his career from the ashes, and three of his most talented students — one of whom orchestrated the prank — will be forced to do the same.

Leah’s last research trip went sideways, leaving a group of oceanographers trapped at the bottom of the sea. Luckily, Leah got home safe and sound — but her wife can’t shake the feeling that something’s changed.

The monk and robot at the heart of 2021’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built return this week in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. The sequel picks up with Sibling Dex and Mosscap as they journey into urban areas, hoping to answer one deeply philosophical question: What do people need?

This week, author K-Ming Chang returns to bookstores with Gods of Want, an uncanny short story collection that will delight fans of her 2020 novel, Bestiary.

When good-girl Maya gets in big trouble at summer camp, she’s forced to find a way to repay a massive debt before her parents find out about it. Enter Fierce: a fashion magazine looking for a paid intern. They love Maya, but what will they do when they find out she’s only 16?

T. Kingfisher’s retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher follows Alex as they visit some old friends at a palatial home in Ruritania. There, Alex finds that Madeline Usher is dying, and her brother, Roderick, is afflicted. Can Alex save them before it’s too late?

Island Queen author Vanessa Riley returns to stores this week with Sister Mother Warrior, a sweeping narrative about two women, Gran Toya and Marie-Claire, who helped give birth to the Haitian Revolution.

A coming-of-age story awash in ’90s nostalgia, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s Big Girl centers on Malaya, a young Black girl who faces both racism and fatphobia at her majority-white prep school.

In 1977, Faun drops out of college and hits the road for California, where her old childhood friend initiates her into the wild world of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

Carmen Rita Wong’s beloved stepfather made a late-in-life confession that he, not her mother’s first husband, was her biological father — but when she looked into her ancestry, she discovered that wasn’t related to either man. In her new memoir, the writer tells her story.