The Best New Book Releases Out September 9, 2025

Harrison is low-key the queen of bestselling, revamped-monster horror. Her books tend to take ghoulies and ghosties that are very common in Western horror stories and give them an interesting twist. Here, she’s getting Gothic with Clio Louise Barnes, whose glossy life as an influencer hides a dark childhood. She grew up in a possessed house, or at least, that’s what her mother always said. Now that her mother has passed away, Clio and her sisters own the house, which her sisters see as a source of trauma, but Clio sees as an opportunity. As she begins making over the house to flip it—and eventually finds the book her mother wrote about the house—she starts to think there may be some truth to the house’s demonic presence her mother warned about.

The unnamed narrator of Middle Spoon has a loving husband and two incredible kids—and he’s nursing a heartbreak no one in his life seems to understand. While his husband is supportive of him being polyamorous, he doesn’t see why he’s so hurt by the breakup with his boyfriend. To try to process, the narrator writes, including exchanges with his therapists (plural) and endless unsent emails to his ex. These transcripts skewer modern “rules” of love and heartbreak. — Danika Ellis

I loved The Spirit Bares Its Teeth and Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White, and now he’s making his adult debut. Given how dark and gory his YA horror is, I can only imagine what his adult horror will be like. In this, Crane is one of the last humans on Earth, living only to serve the alien hive. There have been some upsides to the end of the world, though, including that he’s been able to transition and has met Levi. But when Levi gets him pregnant and the hive demands Crane give birth, Crane will do anything to stop it. — Danika Ellis

The award-winning and bestselling Kosoko Jackson is making his adult fantasy debut with The Macabre, whose premise is both unique and, well, macabre. It starts with Lewis Dixon, who is living that struggle artist life as a painter whose work has never really garnered much attention. That is, until the British Museum sends him an invitation, but it’s not exactly for an art show. Turns out, they’ve noticed the magic simmering just beneath the surface of his work, and want to see if he can not only enter ten cursed paintings made by his great-grandfather more than 100 years ago, but if he can escape them as well. Thing is, these paintings, which have been scattered all over the world, have eldritch powers that, if harnessed by the wrong people, could spell disaster. After getting orders from a mysterious museum official, he gets partnered with the intriguing agent Noah and dives deep into a world full of magic, black markets, and ancient terror. — Erica Ezeifedi

Though this is part of the Detective Kosuke Kindaichi stories, it’s also a stand-alone mystery, full of jealousy and betrayal. It has animal death, so heads up on that.

In a Tokyo still recovering from the war, a policeman finds two bodies—a woman’s and a black cat’s—in a sloppily dug hole near The Black Cat Café. The woman’s face is so disfigured as to make her unrecognizable, and the cat is not the one that belongs to the café, so its presence only adds to the mystery. The scruffy Detective Kosuke Kindaichi is put on the case, and it isn’t long before he finds out about the café’s mistress, Oshima, and her super-secret past. What is she hiding? And what is her relationship with the owner? — Erica Ezeifedi

Lala, 15, absolutely agrees with social justice and the goals of her school’s Black Alliance Club. But she’s tired of fighting these fights and doesn’t want to join in; instead, she wants to focus her efforts on her passion for music and for getting out of her small town.

Something else about Lala: she has the same gift her grandmother has to see visions of the future. Those visions are almost always what happens.

Lala has a vision in her small Texas sundown town of a Black boy being shot by a white homeowner amid calls for better diversifying the community. She’s got to find that boy and protect him.

There’s a hitch, though. Lala’s grandma is also seeing visions, but they’re about what happens in the wake of that boy’s murder. The entire community will see protests and change, resulting in the kind of inclusive future they’re all fighting for. But this vision won’t come true if anything along the way is altered, putting Lala into an impossible place. Does she help save the boy in her vision or not, knowing either way will alter the course of their town’s future. — Kelly Jensen