Celestial | The Children
Log in or Sign up
The Children
Melissa Albert
Save to Your Books
100% of affiliate revenue supports Celestial
The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.
Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.
In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.
Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s fantasy world?
The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It's for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.
Show more
Get the Bindery app
Posts about this title from Celestial
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Jul 21
which one convinced you the most? 😖
which one convinced you the most? 😖 part twenty-four of one star goodreads reviews of books i enjoyed!
📚 books mentioned: - Spread Me by Sarah Gailey - Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler - The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson - Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle - Canon by Paige Lewis - The Children by Melissa Albert - The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo - On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield - The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang
👗💄: - dress is from Free People, rented from Nuuly - eyeshadow is Sickly Sweet Palette from Blend Bunny Cosmetics and In A Trance Palette from Colourpop - eyeshadow shimmer is Paradise from Adriana Nichole Cosmetics - eyeliner is Creme Gel Liner (Amethyst Hour) from Colourpop - mascara is Highly Rated XL from Milani - lip combo is 360 Contour Lip Liner (Mauve) and Wonder Blading Top Gloss (Holographic) from Wonderskin - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thank you to Tor Nightfire, HarperVoyager, Viking Books, William Morrow, Saga Press, and Berkley Books for the gifted copies!
#onestarreviews #negativebookreview #goodreadsreviews #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @tornightfire @grandcentralpub @harpervoyagerus @vikingbooks @williammorrowbooks @henryholtbooks @sagapressbooks @berkleypub @freepeople @blendbunnycosmetics @colourpopcosmetics @adriananicholecosmetics @milanicosmetics @wonderskin
.
reading one star reviews of books i loved • recommending books using their negative goodreads reviews • 1 star book reviews • bookish humor • diverse books
9 books
2
calling everyone who loves freaky nostalgic twisted fairytales!!
calling everyone who loves freaky nostalgic twisted fairytales!! especially if you want to investigate the ripples of childhood and generational trauma. 👀
📚 books mentioned: - The Children by Melissa Albert
👗💄: - dress is from Free People, rented from Nuuly - eyeshadow is Ellis Atlantis Palette from Blend Bunny Cosmetics - shimmer is from Ourbella (Aphrodite) - mascara is Lash Extensions XL from Milani - lip combo is háblame (morado 2) and acaríciame (rosa 4) from Aora México Makeup - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thank you to William Morrow for the gifted copy! #horrorbooks #mysterybooks #fantasybooks #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @williammorrowbooks @harpercollins @readwithjenna @freepeople @blendbunnycosmetics @ourbella.us @milanicosmetics @aoramakeup
.
horror books • thriller books • mystery book recs • dark fairytale books • horror book recs • generational trauma books • read with jenna pick • unique books
1 book
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • May 27
🥒 pickle books are BACK, baby!
🥒 pickle books are BACK, baby!
can we get a pickle emoji pleaseeeee?
(pickle books are books that leave you with a sour aftertaste in a positive way. yes, this is a concept i made up.)
📚 books mentioned: - The Children by Melissa Albert - The Grief Shop: and other stories from a broken world by Alex DiFrancesco - Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi
👗💄: - eyeshadow is The Lord of the Rings Middle Earth Palette from Glamlite - eyeliner is Vegan Longwear Eyeliner (Minty) from Pacifica Beauty - mascara is Badi Lash from Kulfi Beauty - lip combo is Lippie Pencil (Twisted) from Colourpop and Shine-On Milky Lip Oil Jelly (Sesame) from Tower28 - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thank you to William Morrow, Seven Stories Press, and Riverhead books for the gifted copies!
#picklebooks #horrorbooks #weirdbooks #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @williammorrowbooks @7storiespress @riverheadbooks @glamlite
.
pickle books • pickle book recs • science fiction books • thriller books • horror books • dystopian books • weird books • disturbing books • magical realism books • literary fiction book recommendations • unique books • diverse books
3 books
💭 what was your favorite horror read from last year?
💭 what was your favorite horror read from last year?
if you’re wondering if it was hard to narrow these down, i initially tried to do a top 3. and then a top 5. and failed both times, so now we’re at a top 6 and even then i wanted to include more! it’s been a great few years for horror books.
📚 books mentioned: - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones - The Reformatory by Tananarive Due - You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White - The Children by Melissa Albert - Mexican Gothic bu Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Model Home by Rivers Solomon
👗💄: - eyeshadow is The Crawl Face & Eye Multi-Palette from Covergirl and The Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Palette from Glamlite - shimmer is Lucid Dream from Ourbella - lip combo is Lip Lingerie Liner Stain (Up To No Good) from NYX Cosmetics and 3D Volumizing Lip Gloss (Cherry Cola) from Fwee - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thank you to Saga Press and William Morrow for the gifted copies!
#horrorbooks #horrorbookrecs #besthorrorbooks #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @sagapressbooks @williammorrowbooks @delreybooks @mcdbooks @covergirl @glamlite @ourbella.us @nyxcosmetics @fwee_makeup
.
horror book recommendations • best horror books of 2025 • favorite horror books • mystery and thriller books • horror book recs • diverse books • diverse horror reads • Saga Press • William Morrow • Del Rey • MCD
6 books
top 10 books of 2025 | my favorite reads from the year
it’s time …. let me tell you all about my favorite books from 2025!
10 books
2
💭 what were your favorite reads from 2025?
💭 what were your favorite reads from 2025?
TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2025!! the first of my wrap up posts has ARRIVED! be on the lookout for a long form video where I go into each of these reads in depth, plus some favorites broken out into genres.
📚 books mentioned: - You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White - The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar - The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez - The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko - One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad - Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones - Model Home by Rivers Solomon - Somadina by Akwaeke Emezi - The Children by Melissa Albert
👗💄: - dress is from Aqua (thrifted) - eyeshadow is: In A Trance Palette from Colourpop, The Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Palette from Glamlite, and You Make Me Happy Palette from KimChi Chic Beauty - eyeliner is Epiphany Glow Melt-On Eyeliner (Sea Sparkle) from Kaleidos - shimimers are duochrome singles from Ourbella - lip combo is Lip Lingerie Liner Stain (Send Nudes) from NYX Cosmetics and Jelly Job High Shine Gloss (Honey, It’s Jelly) from NYX Cosmetics - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thanks to Saga Press, Tordotcom, Tor Books, Amulet Books, Knopf, Flatiron, MCD, Get Underlined, and William Morrow for the gifted copies!
#favoritebooks #readingwrapup #bestbooksof2025 #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @sagapressbooks @tordotcompub @torbooks @abramsbooks @abramskids @aaknopf @flatiron_books @mcdbooks @getunderlined @williammorrowbooks @colourpopcosmetics @glamlite @kimchichicbeauty @kaleidosmakeup @ourbella.us @nyxcosmetics
.
top 10 books of 2025 • favorite yearly reads • annual reading wrap up • favorite books of the year • best books of 2025 • best reads of the year • fantasy books • science fiction books • horror books • nonfiction books • diverse books
10 books
Posts about this book from across Bindery
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jul 24
Join for free
This hits close to home.
16 books
4
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Jul 21
which one convinced you the most? 😖
which one convinced you the most? 😖 part twenty-four of one star goodreads reviews of books i enjoyed!
thank you to Tor Nightfire, HarperVoyager, Viking Books, William Morrow, Saga Press, and Berkley Books for the gifted copies!
.
reading one star reviews of books i loved • recommending books using their negative goodreads reviews • 1 star book reviews • bookish humor • diverse books
9 books
2
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jul 12
Join for free
\ \ CLICK HERE TO JOIN\ \ 16 July 7pm EDT\ \ Melissa will join us at 7:30 so bring your questions for the queen!\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login](https://inkyphoenix.binderybooks.com/item/cSpoQGo6T3DJOHefochm/)
THE CHILDREN Zoom Conversation w/ Melissa Albert
Come meet THE QUEEN!
1 book
1
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jul 8
Join for free
Let's Pick a Date for our THE CHILDREN Zoom!
1 book
1
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jun 30
Join for free
Want to win a THE CHILDREN “sensory box” ?
1 book
7
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jun 17
Join for free
\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login](https://inkyphoenix.binderybooks.com/item/kp4qaqh4Bb6vrnk5JXGq/)
Recorded special for you!
1 book
2
ofpagesandprint\ \ Dahlia\ \ • Jun 12
Join for free
[On June 13th, Libro.fm is celebrating Audiobook Month with a global audiobook walk! Audiobooks are my favorite way to consume stories, and I am so excited to celebrate them on the 13th with a stroll. 🥳\ \ Last week, I asked my Bindery community for their audiobook recommendations, and I wanted to share them and some of my favorites with you all in case you need some recs for the walk (or just want to add to your audiobook TBR!):\ \ My Bindery community recommends:\ \
- @Sawyer loves Billy Porter’s Unprotected (narrated by the author)\ \
- @Readingwithlori loves Legendary by Stephanie Garber (narrated by Rebecca Soler) and The Survivor Wants to Die at the End by Adam Silvera (narrated by Frankie J. Alvarez, Kyla Garcia, and Anthony Rey Perez)\ \
- Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (narrated by Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and Steve West)\ \
- Taste by Stanley Tucci (narrated by the author)\ \ \ I recommend:\ \
- Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (narrated by Katie Anvil Rich, DeLanna Studi, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Darrell Dennis, Elva Guerra, Erin Tripp, and Jordan Waunch) - A welcoming, sweeping collection of interconnected stories with Native pride, food, and love.\ \
- Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous by Autumn K. England (narrated by Dani Martineck) - A queer, heartwarming, and cozy fantasy filled with farmer's market trips and delicious treats.\ \
- The Children by Melissa Albert (narrated by Rebecca Lowman, Saskia Maarleveld, Kristen Sieh, Leslie Aleman, and Iggy Costello) - A twisty and haunting novel perfect for readers who love dark fairytales that feel like fever dreams.\ \
- Shim Jung Takes the Dive by Julia Riew (narrated by the author) - A hopeful, whimsical, and enchanting middle-grade fantasy with Korean folklore.\ \
- A Potion, A Powder, a Little Bit of Magic by Philip C. Stead (narrated by Daniel Henning) - A quirky, creative, and magical middle-grade tale.\ \
- Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin - A poignant, thoughtful, and charged yet peaceful literary fiction novel.\ \
- The Summer of Lost Things by Jenn Bennett (narrated by Allie Shae) - An addictive and adventurous treasure-hunt romance perfect for summertime.\ \ \ What are you listening to this Saturday? 🎧🫶\ \ Join for free or login](https://ofpagesandprint.binderybooks.com/item/DHiBpNox8WVaLUbND1Xt/)
Audiobook Recommendations for Libro.fm's Audiobook Walk on June 13th!
12 books
5
calling everyone who loves freaky nostalgic twisted fairytales!!
calling everyone who loves freaky nostalgic twisted fairytales!! especially if you want to investigate the ripples of childhood and generational trauma. 👀
📚 books mentioned: - The Children by Melissa Albert
.
horror books • thriller books • mystery book recs • dark fairytale books • horror book recs • generational trauma books • read with jenna pick • unique books
1 book
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jun 1
Join for free
THE CHILDREN by Melissa Albert
1 book
Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • May 31
Join for free
[Poll:\ \ July Book Club\ \ \ \ Friends! Enemies! Everyone in between!\ \ I hope you're all doing as best as you can be and taking care of yourselves. It's time to vote for the July book club!\ \
Sunny’s Book Club is a monthly book club highlighting both new releases and backlist titles we love. A virtual discussion is hosted over Zoom on the last Sunday of the month.\ \ A new physical book will be shipped to you (or available for in store pickup) the month prior to when this month’s book club will take place. The July pick will ship the last week of June to ensure you have the entire month to read the book.\ \ The link for sign up is not a subscription service, you opt in on a monthly basis dependent on your interest in that months chosen title. We do however have a recurring book club subscription if you are interested here.\ \ \ \ A gripping, propulsive novel about succession, sex, and revenge on a California marijuana farm\ \ “Deliciously written and compulsively readable . . . As the ex-lovers of a missing weed farmer grapple for control of her land and harvest, they contend with the force of her presence and the complexities of their own pasts.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties\ \ Sapphire and her farm, Sourland, are fixtures of Northern California’s rugged wilderness, offering refuge to rejects, rebels, and outcasts—anyone willing to work and learn. But the haven Sapphire has built is fractured when she suddenly goes missing, her scorched truck abandoned on a mountain road.\ \ Frankie, a disgraced ballerina and Sapphire’s former girlfriend and right-hand woman, returns to Sourland, claiming ownership of the farm. When she arrives, Frankie finds that Fizz—Sapphire’s most recent lover, an ex–baseball player with a preternatural green thumb—has already begun prepping Sourland for its biggest harvest yet.\ \ As the two grapple for power, the farm’s fate hangs in the balance, and with it, the future Fizz and Frankie each covet for themselves. Past demons and scorned admirers remain hauntingly close, while the specter of Sapphire looms over the farm: in cryptic notes, in bud-tender gossip, in every blade of grass and whorl of smoke.\ \ A brilliantly constructed novel of desire and betrayal, Sourland sparkles with the beauty and grime of the California woods. Dixon’s novel warns that our true nature catches up to us all—no matter how far we run.\ \ \ \ “An extraordinary book. It’s a page-turner, full of mystery, but that’s the least of it. The language is dusted with magic. The Children reminded me of Ray Bradbury at his best.” —Stephen King\ \ The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.\ \ Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.\ \ In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.\ \ Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s fantasy world?\ \ The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It's for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.\ \ \ \ The acclaimed, prize-winning #1 New York Times bestselling writer returns with a moving, luminous novel that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time.\ \ When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.\ \ Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.\ \ \ \ A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process.\ \ It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.\ \ Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?\ \ As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever. \ \ Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.\ \ Four very compelling choices! Happy voting and remember we are reading Canon by Paige Lewis in June, today is your last day to sign up.\ \ Love what we do? Become a paid subscriberfor less than a cup of coffee a month. Your ongoing support helps us plan ahead, fund causes we care about, and create meaningful programming for our community.](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/lYYdBvqXgR5S0ayf8k8X/)
Vote for the July book club! 🦀
Witches, weed, and weirdos
4 books
6
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • May 27
🥒 pickle books are BACK, baby!
🥒 pickle books are BACK, baby!
can we get a pickle emoji pleaseeeee?
(pickle books are books that leave you with a sour aftertaste in a positive way. yes, this is a concept i made up.)
thank you to William Morrow, Seven Stories Press, and Riverhead books for the gifted copies!
#picklebooks #horrorbooks #weirdbooks #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @williammorrowbooks @7storiespress @riverheadbooks @glamlite
.
3 books
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • May 18
Join for free
Come to Charleston!
1 book
5
Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Mar 10
Join for free
\ \ Hi nerds,\ \ I recently had a bookseller rite of passage: I attended my first Winter Institute, the annual industry convention hosted by the American Booksellers Association for independent bookstores across the country. This year, 1,600+ stores attended. It was madness.\ \ It’s a packed three days of panels, vendor tables, publisher sales rep appointments, author signings, and more. I was there for my day job in publishing, but I managed to sneak away a few times to catch talks I wanted to attend—and I got to meet SO many fellow booksellers in the wild. I have literally never felt more popular in my life. I’m still riding the high of being pointed at across a room and hearing someone yell “Sunny’s?!” at me.\ \ A big part of Winter Institute is access to upcoming titles that publishers bring with them. There’s something called a galley room (a galley is an advanced reading copy of a book, also referred to as an ARC), which is full of thousands of unreleased titles that are free for the taking. Just after breakfast on the first day, the doors open and absolute chaos ensues. I’m talking people stacking 30+ books in their arms, trying to shuffle through a sea of other people doing the exact same thing. Watching 1,600 people descend on a room full of books is something I won’t forget anytime soon especially because I was right alongside them.\ \ I get a ton of galleys in the mail every day at the store. My sales reps at each publisher are usually happy to send whatever I want for stock consideration, so I wasn’t feeling particularly feral about grabbing everything I saw. But I still came away with my fair share.\ \ The following is my bounty—and I’m going to tell you why each title made the cut and was worth lugging home. \ \ \ \ I fucking STAN Hernan Diaz. His hit rate is 2/2 and I'm sure Ply will be a banger as well. I actually got to meet him during an authors reception at Winter Institute, and I told him that I always recommend In the Distance to customers when they come in looking for a Western to prank them. He signed my book with the following: "To CJ, with so many thanks for misleading readers into my work." 🥲\ \ About the book:\ \
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Trust turns to the future with a novel that examines the place of technology in the American imagination\ \ Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. It’s a high-risk life, one that brings her into a rich downtown art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could be either a contraption devised by a deranged mind or a machine that will change the very fabric of reality.\ \ After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz now gives us a glimpse into the future. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. It is a novel of ideas built from a story of people. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.\ \ \ \ Like I mentioned, I was really attending Winter Institute in a publisher capacity and the majority of the time I was behind a folding table handselling upcoming titles from the publisher I work for's catalog. Our table neighbors were the Canadian publisher, Biblioasis. Their sales rep described their table as being segmented into pastoral novels vs. hysterical novels, and directed me to Love Novel when I expressed I was more interested in the hysterical. The author of Love Novel is Croatian, and I am too! I don't think I've read anything translated from Croatian before, so this cemented that this was the book for me.\ \ About the book:\ \ Love in late capitalism: Ivana Sajko takes us to the frontlines of a war waged between kitchen and bedroom.\ \ Love in late capitalism: in an unnamed city, a husband and wife wage a silent war of rage and resentment. He, an out-of-work Dante scholar, is trying to change the world--and write a novel. She was once a passable actress, but now she's failing at breastfeeding. They take on gigs and debts. He drinks cheap wine; she cleans obsessively. In their two-room flat the tension rises and turns exquisite: the rent is past due, their careers have stalled, the regime is crumbling, and there's always the baby, the baby who won't stop crying.\ \ Intense and astutely ironic, devastating and darkly comic, Ivana Sajko's Love Novel takes a scalpel to the heart of modern married life.\ \ \ \ I gotta be real with you, this was a cover grab. What a compelling and minimal treatment! I love the sense of scale here. The published FSG is usually a safe bet for me as well, so after reading the description on the back this one came home with me.\ \ About the book:\ \ After her mother is sentenced to life in a hilltop prison, Suzanna vows to return to the hill forever. An unexpectedly funny and deeply moving novel about the many ways we punish and return to each other.\ \ Suzanna Klein was a baby when her mother got up early one morning to rob a bank with a group of fellow radicals. Now, every Saturday, Suzanna lines up at the prison gates among the other children, each dressed as if for celebration. Inside there is a nursery and a cemetery; there are watchful guards and distractable nuns; there are women counting down to release and women like Suzanna’s mother, who will never be released.\ \ At home, Suzanna is raised by her grandmother, who is entirely unforgiving of her daughter’s crime and refuses to visit the prison. Surrounding Suzanna are her grandmother’s friends, who know one another from their years in the Communist Party and still spend extended cocktail hours debating the Hitler-Stalin pact. Though these women once insisted on changing the world, they are torn between teaching Suzanna how the world works and shielding her from it.\ \ Suzanna vows to return to the prison forever but her mother wants her to be free. Harriet Clark’s The Hill is an incandescent novel of a child growing up between worlds, the last of three generations whose fates have been tied to punishment. It is the tale of a family broken apart by the desire for change, told with irreverent wisdom and visionary force. The Hill brings new music to American fiction.\ \ \ \ I loved Daniel Mason's debut novel, North Woods. I handsell this a lot at the store and find it works for a lot of recommendation requests I get. I was able to get this one signed as well and meet Daniel and he was nice enough to sign one for my boss Matt, who was the person who recommended North Woods to me in the first place. Hi Matt I know you're reading this. \ \ About the book:\ \ A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont), leaving all the comforts of home behind—a rollicking, lyrical novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods and one of America’s greatest living writers\ \ Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.\ \ But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.\ \ The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.\ \ Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.\ \ \ \ Soft Skull is another indie publisher who consistently do weird shit that I'm into it. The desert landscape made me pick this one up (always looking for arid desert rep in a novel!) and the description sold me. \ \ About the book:\ \ A complex mother-daughter relationship is taken to a new level in this fresh and propulsive novel of family curses, blood-thirsty ghouls, and budding romance set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas\ \ Ellis Karsten spends nights working triage in the ER and days having the same conversation with her mom. The early onset dementia is exhausting, but the real challenge is their curse—Ellis’s family must feed daily on blood, or risk becoming mindless, skinless killing machines. When Ellis’s uncle, who supplies their blood, vanishes, she takes it upon herself to find a new source, aided by a prickly paramedic who’s equal parts unpredictable and intoxicating. But as Ellis fights to balance her bloodthirsty nature with a new relationship, her mom’s impossible demands transform into panicked warnings that a fabled monster, “The Flayed Man,” is stalking them.\ \ As she traverses the desert in search of blood, Ellis risks her safety and her family’s secret, until it becomes clear that her mom is right: something ancient and hungry is hunting them, and it has come for her mom. Blood hunger begins to overtake Ellis, transforming her body into something ghoulish and frightening—exactly what The Flayed Man wants. In the end, she must decide who to trust, what she’s willing to sacrifice, and whether she is worthy of a life, and love, beyond her curse—or if she’s going to succumb to instinct and ravage the world.\ \ \ \ This seemed to be the book in the galley room that most people were eager to get to first. I liked Station Eleven, both the book and show, but have not read anything else from this author! The premise of this one sounds more interesting to me compared to the rest of her backlist. Absolutely hate this cover though, so lazy!\ \ About the book:\ \ The award-winning, bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility returns with a breathtaking novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party, and a woman—a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State—searches for answers.\ \ Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross tents as they walk across Silverlake to a party. The mood is ecstatic inside the apartment, people drink and dance, a woman wears a silver dress, pleated like tinfoil. And then: A shift. A bewildered twin, an uncanny doppelganger stumbles through the crowd and out into the night, and Kareem, the party’s host, vanishes into thin air.\ \ As Ari Waker unravels the mystery of this inexplicable night, Emily St. John Mandel unfurls a story that takes us from a future America splintered by civil war to the seaside cliffs of Greece where weapons dealers hide in an elegant resort, and from the domed city of Paris to a colony on the moon. An unforgettable literary feat, Exit Party is a novel about the price of safety, the perils of the surveillance state, a requiem for a world not unlike our own, and a breathtaking story of resilience in the face of cataclysmic change.\ \ \ \ I cruised around some other publisher tables and stopped by Coach House, where their sales rep told me this was Marxism meets sci-fi. Say no more, I'm in. I think this one is going to hurt my brain.\ \ About the book:\ \ Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Annihilation in this poetic space-age fable of proletarian internationalism.\ \ At the end of the twenty-first century, on the shores of the Indian Ocean, a minor Marxist politician's speech is interrupted by the arrival of an iridescent, pill-shaped object. It brings him, briefly, to another world, and to a state of ecstasy he will struggle to interpret upon his return. Soon, many others will be offered the same incantatory opportunity. Rival states attempt to capitalize on these developments, and a cynical spy sets an elaborate psychological operation in motion. Thousands of miles away, on an agricultural commune near the Caspian Sea, a young poet spends her nights troubled by prophetic dreams. The politician, the spy, and the poet will be ineluctably drawn into one another's orbits, as will the mysterious Bell Letterist, author of a text about "the interdimensional will to the aesthetic" - a powerful motive force that requires human solidarity in order to thrive.\ \ The Coffin of Honey is inspired equally by apocryphal stories of Alexander the Great, Bolaño-esque tales of literary vanishings, thousand-year-old Persian poems by exiled princesses, and the fever-dream conclusions of every parapolitical conspiracy theory that might just be true.\ \ \ \ Similar story here, I really liked Sorrow and Bliss, this authors debut. I thought it depicted depression in a really precise and exact way and I am excited to read more from her. I also hate this cover but it is giving the upmarket broad audience appeal I'm sure it is intended to.\ \ About the book:\ \ The “brilliant” (Ann Patchett) and much beloved author of the critically acclaimed Sorrow and Bliss returns with a tender and hilarious novel about heartbreak and the journey from isolation and loneliness towards love.\ \ Sophie Pattison loves books. And as well as a dream job at a local book festival, she has a husband she adores, a lifelong best friend, Emma, and a brother she’s always been close to. Which makes you wonder why since Christmas Sophie has been living alone, estranged from Emma, avoiding her brother, and about to be fired.\ \ Now it feels like the only thing she has left is reading. When Sophie re-discovers an author she first read in her twenties, the words on the page reach her in a new way—becoming both solace and company. Devouring every one of her novels, Sophie begins to dream of meeting her, knowing she never will. But what if she did? What if, by then, the author feels like a friend? What if, for Sophie, it feels almost like love?\ \ In this much anticipated novel, Meg Mason captures the heartache and dark humor of our relationships in all their complexity, giving us a story about the power of connection and an ode to the inexplicable nature of the human heart.\ \ \ \ Lastly, I was able to meet Melissa Albert and grab her adult debut. She has a strong career as a YA author in the SFF space. I love this weird ass apothecary meets 1970's horror novel cover. I also feel weirdly connected to her because our last names are almost the same lol. \ \ About the book:\ \ The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.\ \ Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.\ \ In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.\ \ Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s fantasy world?\ \ The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It's for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.\ \ That's it! A conservative haul if you can even believe it. I hope this was interesting and put some new books on your radar.\ \ Love what we do? Become a paid subscriberfor less than a cup of coffee a month. Your ongoing support helps us plan ahead, fund causes we care about, and create meaningful programming for our community. We're currently raising funds through our membership program to buy a class set of books for our programming that benefits our local prison, Books Behind Bars.](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/d6T1OCKyNMQYTph2QpVz/)
Every book I got at a conference for booksellers and why
8 books
7
💭 what was your favorite horror read from last year?
💭 what was your favorite horror read from last year?
thank you to Saga Press and William Morrow for the gifted copies!
.
6 books
top 10 books of 2025 | my favorite reads from the year
it’s time …. let me tell you all about my favorite books from 2025!
10 books
2
💭 what were your favorite reads from 2025?
💭 what were your favorite reads from 2025?
thanks to Saga Press, Tordotcom, Tor Books, Amulet Books, Knopf, Flatiron, MCD, Get Underlined, and William Morrow for the gifted copies!
.
10 books