8 New Must-Read Books Out This Week

In this poignant novel, a gay Taiwanese man who fled his conservative family for Berlin returns home — after serving time in prison, for the murder of his boyfriend — just to find that many of the people he left behind may be gone for good.

A group of teenage vampire hunters attending an elite academy in the UK are still grappling with the loss of their dead teammate, Jared, when school officials replace him with his untested ex.

Rebel leader Xin Ren seeks to free the child empress, who is imprisoned by her regent, Miasma. She entrusts this important mission to her chief military strategist — an 18-year-old named Zephyr — who’ll have to act as a double-agent inside Miasma’s court.

Peyote Trip works in Hell — literally — and he’s gotten pretty good at his job. So good, in fact, that if he can get one more member of a certain family to sign their soul away, he’ll land a big promotion — and finally forget everyone he’s tortured at work.

With The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy publishes his first novel in 16 years. The story follows Bobby Western, an eccentric salvage diver who finds himself running from police, who want to question him about the wreck of a downed plane.

In this tightly wound thriller, dire circumstances force a pair of Black sisters living in Jim Crow-era Mississippi to seek out greener pastures — one north to Ohio, the other east to Georgia.

Larimar's a brand manager for a café chain — and, on full moons, a ciguapa. She’s never felt like she fit in, but a burgeoning relationship with a local baker brings some much-needed joy to her life... until her employer decides to put him out of business, and everything changes.

Chih and Almost Brilliant travel across the land, committing stories to memory and recording them for posterity. When they arrive to find tales in the riverlands, however, they find themselves becoming a part of the story.