Archives de catégorie : Literary

I’M NOT HERE TO HUNT RABBITS de Josh Kendall

This debut is a raw, tantalizing love story wrapped in a thriller that contains as much psychological intrigue as there is action – from one of the most acclaimed editors of the genre.

I’M NOT HERE TO HUNT RABBITS: A Novel
by Josh Kendall
Putnam, Spring 2027
(via The Gernert Company)

Smith thought he had left it all behind: the intense, dangerous work in Afghanistan; the grueling training; the vast reach of his former employer – the mysterious organization Cornerstone; and most of all Helen – the woman he loved and who was now gone forever. Better to start new in a place where no one knows him – Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Security for a local kingpin named Sabadi and his family. A job he could do in his sleep.

But something is off about the whole assignment. The previous security detail seems to know more than they are letting on about the nature of the job and what Sabadi is planning in Ethiopia. Smith is left in the dark, and for the first time in his life, he is not sure where the threats are coming from. The only things he is certain of are that Cornerstone knows he is here and he will have to confront his past with Helen to make it out of Addis Ababa alive.

A different kind of thriller, one in which the tension comes as much from what’s unsaid as what is left in, from an acclaimed editor of the genre, I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits is an existential suspense novel of a life on a knife’s edge.

Josh Kendall was VP and Executive Editor at Little, Brown, and Editorial Director of Mulholland Books where he worked with Walter Mosley, Attica Locke, Robert Galbraith, JJ Abrams, and Tana French among others. He’s worked in various editorial positions at Viking, Picador, and Scribner, and has also taught creative writing at Brooklyn College, University of Iowa, and The New School.

SUNRISE de Téa Obreht

Three lives, 100 years, one Western ghost town: an explosive novel about a mysterious place called Sunrise where the secrets of the past refuse to stay buried, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife.

SUNRISE: A Novel
by Téa Obreht
Random House, August 2026
(via The Gernert Company)

In 2024, Nina’s small-engine plane crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. Her boyfriend Ben, who was flying it, is nowhere to be found. Lost and freezing on the shore, Nina is armed with only a few old energy bars, a phone with no service, and a vague hope of rescue. It is up to her to survive in the vast wilderness. But then she stumbles upon Sunrise—a town of the Old West that is strangely well-maintained, but seemingly abandoned. A place that holds the missing link to a ghost story 100 years in the making.

In 2003, Sunrise’s golden boy Coll begins to direct town’s annual historical reenactment when he is linked with a scandalous incident at a local bar. And when an upstart author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise’s most beloved figures, it threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about the city—and himself.

In 1902, town founder, gunslinger, and legendary pulp hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and quickly takes charge of a group searching for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? What does he know about the boy’s disappearance? And why has he returned after such a long absence?

These three are strangers, separated by time. But Sunrise has secrets which lie in waiting like gunpowder: quiet, unassuming, until they encounter a spark. Magisterial and suspenseful, Téa Obreht’s novel challenges the myths we think we know: of heroes and villains, of the places we lay claim to, and most of all, of our own lives.

Rooted in one place, yet traveling across three time periods, Téa explores: the complicated concept of people becoming legends big enough to support ticket sales in their own time, and how they perpetuate their own myths, even as they diverge from reality.  Our spooky fascination with ghost towns – imagining what once was in a place, or what could be again.  What it means to be truly lost and faced with back-to-survival basics in today’s uber connected world.  The novel comes together in a heart-in-mouth ending that I haven’t felt since watching Thelma & Louise, literary style. With its matryoshka doll structure and her signature command of language, this novel, brimming with wry humor, sharp observations and pure linguistic joy, is a triumph.  

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Literary Hub, Today

“Téa Obreht never disappoints.”—Esquire

“As the novel goes on, Obreht weaves three timelines together . . . to unravel the mystery of Sunrise, the ghost town to end all ghost towns. Sorry to fangirl but: YAY.” —Literary Hub

Téa Obreht is the internationally bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife, Inland and The Morningside. Her novels have won the Orange Prize for Fiction, been a finalist for the National Book Award, won the Southwest Book Award, and won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among many other publications. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, Obreht now resides in Wyoming.

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS de Kira Chung Judish

A wildly compelling debut novel about family, ambition, and a lie that spins out of control.

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS
by Kira Chung Judish
HarperCollins, Winter/Spring 2027
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

When high school senior Minjee Choi insists she’s been accepted to Harvard, she expects the lie to last only long enough to save face. But when her mother Dasom learns the truth, she doubles down instead—determined to keep the family dream alive. Soon, what began as a desperate cover-up becomes a dazzling performance for their tight-knit immigrant community in Fairfax County, VA, where everyone has a stake in the family’s success.

Told primarily through alternating mother–daughter perspectives, FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS  reveals the relentless pressure to succeed at all costs, masterfully details the tug-of-war between blending in and standing out, and the weight of carrying generations of hope. At the same time, it’s a total blast—darkly funny, absurd, and irresistibly entertaining, with a duo you can’t help but root for even as the lie unravels. A chorus of nosy neighbors, competitive classmates, and PTA parents adds bite, comedy, and urgency, making the story as layered as it is propulsive. 

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS will appeal to fans of Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You for its poignant portrait of family and belonging, R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface for its sharp look at deception and desire, and Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation for its satirical take on identity and community. 

Kira Chung Judish is a Korean American and Jewish writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland. A graduate of Amherst College, she is pursuing a doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine and was named a 2025 Periplus Fellowship finalist. In addition to writing, she performs in local theatre productions.

WHAT WE COME BACK TO de Chloe Michelle Howarth

The hotly-anticipated third novel from the author of Sunburn, which sold over 100,000 copies and was shortlisted for the Nero Book Award, the British Book Awards and the Polari Prize.

WHAT WE COME BACK TO
by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Publisher TK
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Aly and Meadhbh meet at a party that changes the course of their lives. Meadhbh has just moved to London from small-town Ireland with her best friend Saoirse, and Aly has been living in a penthouse paid for her by parents while she completes yet another degree. They are worlds apart, yet they cannot take their eyes off each other, and they fall instantly and madly in love.

We follow them from London in 2000 to Kilcoom in 2006, navigating obsessions, affairs and estrangements but always coming back to each other. Told through their alternating perspectives, this tender and addictive novel is for fans of Coco Mellor’s Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Nicola Dinan’s Bellies.

Chloe Michelle Howarth was born in July 1996. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. She attended university at IADT in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, where she studied English, Media and Cultural Studies. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.

ACCIDENTS NEVER HAPPEN de Penny Zang

From the author of Doll Parts comes a literary thriller partly inspired by We Have Always Lived in the Castle, injected with the gothic presence of Poe, and set against the vibrant and smoke-filled bars of the 80s.

ACCIDENTS NEVER HAPPEN
by Penny Zang
Sourcebooks Landmark, December 2026

1985. Madeline, a hard-edged twenty-something bartender in Baltimore, is still processing her father’s untimely death. Before, she and her sister, Annabel, a free-spirited party girl, lived alone in the apartment above the family bar where they spent their off-hours partying until sunrise and dreaming about their unsure futures in a smoke-filled rooms. Now, Annabel is reclusive, the neighborhood treats the family like outcasts, and Mad is struggling to make ends meet.

When a picture taken of the bar makes it look like there’s a ghost in the upstairs window, gothic obsessed tourists start to show up in droves. Desperate to keep customers coming in, Madeline and Annabel decide to embrace the publicity and make up a story that embellishes on the history of Edgar Allan Poe, who famously died in the city. But on opening night of their new venture, Annabel goes missing without a trace, and soon, strange things begin to happen not only in the bar, but in their neighborhood, and soon, Annabel isn’t the only bartender to disappear. Hoping to find the truth behind what happened to her sister, Mad finds herself confronted with the dark underbelly of a haunting Baltimore, and as she digs, she’ll come to realize that some ghost stories may turn out to be true.

Penny Zang is an English professor at Greenville Technical College and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia University. She is the author of Doll Parts (Sourcebooks, 2025). Her other work has appeared in New Ohio Review, Louisville Review, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina with her husband and son.