THE DISCO WITCHES OF FIRE ISLAND de R. B. Fell

THE DISCO WITCHES OF FIRE ISLAND is a smart, sexy story of love, romance, magic, and the power of community, sure to captivate readers of Alexis Hall, Casey McQuiston, and Madeline Miller.

THE DISCO WITCHES OF FIRE ISLAND
by R. B. Fell
Alcove Press, May 2025

It’s 1989, the height of the HIV/AIDScrisis, and Joe Agabian has hopped on the ferry to spend his first summer in Fire Island Pines, a popular beach destination for young gay men. Joe is grieving the death of his boyfriend Elliot, who died two years earlier from AIDS. Though Joe is HIV negative, he remains lost – in nearly every sense – and hopes spending the summer away from NYC will help him find his way.

He quickly finds himself enmeshed with a group of long-time locals, including an older couple – Howie and Lenny – who may or may not have mystical powers, and a gorgeous ferryman – Fergal – who can’t keep his eyes off Joe. When Joe begins seeing a mysterious figure – whom he refers to as Gladiator Man – around the island, Howie and Lenny grow fearful, certain Gladiator Man’s presence, which somehow only Joe can sense, is a harbinger of terrible things to come.

Howie and Lenny are longtime protectors of the island and its inhabitants, and that protection has never been more needed. But now that one member of their coven has fallen ill with AIDS, they aren’t strong enough to use their powers to full effect, and Joe is the one caught in the metaphorical crossfire.

Blair Fell, writing as R.B. Fell, writes and lives in New York City, where he has been an ASL interpreter for the Deaf since 1993. His acclaimed debut novel The Sign for Home was published by Simon & Schuster in 2022. Fell’s television work includes Queer as Folk and the Emmy Award-winning California Connected. He’s written dozens of plays, including the award-winning plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun, and the downtown cult miniseries Burning Habits. His personal essays have appeared in HuffPost, Out, Daily News, and more.

LOST ARK DREAMING de Suyi Davies Okungbowa

The brutally engineered class divisions of Snowpiercer meets Rivers Solomon’s The Deep in this high-octane post-climate disaster novella written by Nommo Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa.

LOST ARK DREAMING
by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Tordotcom, May 2024
(via DeFiore & Company)

Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region’s survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers’ most affluent rule from their lofty perch at the top while the rest are crammed into the dark, fetid floors below sea level.

There are also those who were left for dead in the Atlantic, only to be reawakened by an ancient power, and who seek vengeance on those who offered them up to the waves.

Three lives within the towers are pulled to the fore of this conflict: Yekini, an earnest, mid-level rookie analyst; Tuoyo, an undersea mechanic mourning a tremendous loss; and Ngozi, an egotistical bureaucrat from the highest levels of governance. They will need to work together if there is to be any hope of a future that is worth living―for everyone.

Suyi Davies Okungbowa is an award-winning author of fantasy and science fiction. He lives in Ontario, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Ottawa.

CAVE MOUNTAIN de Benjamin Hale

With the immediacy and extraordinary feeling for people and place of Under the Banner of Heaven and Say Nothing, a compelling true crime story about two young girls who went missing in the same Arkansas woods twenty-three years apart and the strange circumstances connecting them.

CAVE MOUNTAIN
by Benjamin Hale
Harper, March2026
(via DeFiore & Company)

This story begins in 2001 on top of Cave Mountain in the Arkansas Ozarks. A six-year-old girl named Haley—Benjamin Hale’s cousin—got lost on a mountain trail, prompting what was at the time the largest search and rescue mission in the state’s history. Her disappearance—and her account, after she was found, of the “imaginary friend” she met in the woods—would eventually become connected to another story that took place in the same wilderness more than twenty years earlier: a dark and bizarre story of a cult, brainwashing, murder, and the apocalyptic visions of a teenage prophet.

Enriched by Benjamin Hale’s own family history and the lore of the Arkansas Ozarks, CAVE MOUNTAIN is a gripping story about nature and survival, religion and skepticism, and good and evil. At its center are two young girls, years apart, both in danger in the verdant wilds of northern Arkansas.

Benjamin Hale is the author of the novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore (Twelve, 2011) and the collection The Fat Artist and Other Stories (Simon & Schuster, 2016). His writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Paris Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Conjunctions, and has been anthologized in Best American Science and Nature Writing. He is a senior editor at Conjunctions, teaches at Bard College and Columbia University, and lives in a small town in New York’s Hudson Valley.

HEARTBREAK IS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM de Rob Sheffield

An intimate look at the life and music of modern pop’s most legendary figure, Taylor Swift, from leading music journalist Rob Sheffield.

HEARTBREAK IS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
by Rob Sheffield
Dey Street, August 2024
(via DeFiore & Company)

As Taylor Swift’s preferred and most trusted music journalist, Rob Sheffield has enjoyed closer access to the mega-star than any other writer working today. His unique insight has afforded him a singular perspective of Taylor’s world and her impact on the world. Inspired by his years of this exclusive access, and the Swiftie response to his commentary on their beloved Taylor, Sheffield merges reportage and criticism in a way that only he can.

At once one of the most beloved music figures of the past two decades and one of the most criticized, Taylor Swift is known as much for her life beyond her music as she is for her constant stream of hits—and most of all, how she uses the former to not only create the latter, but market and brand herself throughout the many “eras” of her career. At once both approachable and enigmatic, Taylor Swift has become a master of controlling the narrative surrounding her life and career while keeping fans eager to learn of her every next step.

In the tradition of Sheffield’s award-winning Dreaming the Beatles, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem will inform and delight a legion of fans who hang on every word from Taylor and every word Rob writes on her.

Rob Sheffield is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He has been a rock critic and pop culture journalist for more than 15 years, and has appeared on various MTV and VH1 shows. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

IT BEGINS WITH YOU de Jillian Turecki

The first book from renowned relationship coach with 20 years of experience in the field, and “the TikTok relationship expert,” who millions flock to for her heartfelt advice on revolutionizing their relationships.

IT BEGINS WITH YOU
The 9 Hard Truths About Love That Will Change Your Life
by Jillian Turecki
HarperOne, 2025
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

In IT BEGINS WITH YOU, Jillian will share hard-won lessons from her own life experience and from her years of coaching thousands of people on their love lives. She will share personal anecdotes, as well as her clients’ experiences, alongside her best advice and practical tools, tips, and questions, to help readers examine their own lives and relationships. Each chapter will focus solely on one of her 9 Hard Truths, such as: “No One is Coming To Save You” – which looks at inner strength, accountability, and dependences – in the relationships we keep, and in ourselves. Jillian holds nothing back as she weaves her own experiences into her lessons; imperfections and failures are a part of all relationships and acknowledging this truth is a core principle of her teaching.

IT BEGINS WITH YOU will provide the tools to recognize the fulfilling relationships that serve us, but also the ones that don’t – the realization of which can be a hard truth to swallow. In her own words: “There may be some truths that sting a little more than others, but if you open your mind and heart to each one’s message, it will illuminate your path towards healthy love and ultimately, self-love.”

Jillian Turecki is a certified relationship coach, teacher and writer who for 20 years has taught others how to transform their relationships with themselves. Under the tutelage of Tony Robbins and worldrenowned family therapist Cloe Madanes, Jillian is certified by the Robbins Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention, a renowned coaching program known for its innovative strategic solutions to the most difficult relationship problems. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity about what makes a relationship thrive, Jillian has helped thousands through her teaching and writing revolutionize their relationship with themselves so that they transform their relationships with others.