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The Library at Hellebore
Cassandra Khaw
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DELUXE EDITION—a gorgeous hardcover edition featuring cobalt blue sprayed edges!
A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and An Education in Malice who are hungry for something more diabolical.
The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But the Institute is more than just a haven for monsters. On graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together.
If not, this school will eat them alive...
Also by Cassandra Khaw:
The Salt Grows Heavy
Nothing But Blackened Teeth
A Song for Quiet
Hammers on Bone
The Dead Take the A Train (co-written with Richard Kadrey)
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Posts about this title from Kurryreads
Kurryreads\ \ Kerry\ \ • Jul 9 2025
July TBR.. what are you reading this month??
July TBR.. what are you reading this month?? #tbr #toberead #julyreads #summerreading #whatimreading #julytbr #bookworm #booktok #booktoker #thrillerbooks #horrorbooks #bibliophile #reader
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Kurryreads\ \ Kerry\ \ • Jul 1 2025
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July Thriller, Mystery, and Horror book releases! #newbooks #upcomingbooks #thrillerbooks #horrorbooks #mysterybooks #whattoread #booktok #booktoker #bookrecommendations #bibliophile #bookworm
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Posts about this book from across Bindery
Tongue in Cheek\ \ Carter\ \ • Aug 19 2025
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Get Yourself a Man Who Gets You a Piplup Bath Mat (Coffee Chat)
Piplup Step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm0nLJuRNbw
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Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Aug 15 2025
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[Poll:\ \ Are any of these on your TBR?\ \ Hi nerds,\ \ Last night we held our second installment of the Sunny's Salon—a monthly addition to our event programming that is like a book club with no assigned reading. We kicked off the night by doing a 15 minute reading sprint with some lofi music playing in the background and then went into a larger discussion centered around or Last, Now, and Next. It was so fun hearing about what people were reading or had on their radar (weirdly three people wanted to read Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh next) and seeing where reading taste overlapped and differed. Below you will find 50 (!) book recommendations gathered from the Yuma community.\ \ \ \
- Endling: Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness.\ \
- Hot Girls with Balls: In this outrageous and deeply serious satire, two star indoor volleyball players juggle unspoken jealousies in their off-court romance ahead of their rival teams’ first rematch in a year.\ \
- Mayra: An eerie, hypnotic debut about friendship, desire, and memory set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands.\ \
- Empire of Pain: A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin.\ \
- Say Hello to my Little Friend: Scarface meets Moby Dick in Say Hello to My Little Friend following a young man’s attempt to capitalize on his mother’s murky legacy—a story steeped in Miami’s marvelous and sinister magic.\ \
- I'll Make a Spectacle of You: This heart-pounding horror debut from Beatrice Winifred Iker takes listeners to Bricksbury University, the oldest and most storied HBCUs in the nation. But as one student is about to find out, a long history comes with a legacy of secrets.\ \ \ \ \
- Before Elvis: In this thought-provoking book, the Black musicians who influenced Elvis Presley's music finally receive recognition and praise.\ \
- Nineteen Minutes: Jodi Picoult pens her most riveting book yet, with a startling and poignant story about the devastating aftermath of a small-town tragedy.\ \
- Pageboy: With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.\ \
- Follow My Voice: This spellbinding #BookTok sensation from internationally bestselling author Ariana Godoy follows a nineteen-year-old battling agoraphobia as she forms an unexpected connection with the host of her favorite college radio show.\ \
- Wild Love: She's been driving him wild for years. The good kind of wild. The bad kind of wild. But mostly, the kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend's little sister and knowing you can't have her.\ \
- The Possession of Alba Díaz: When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust…from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.\ \ \ \ \
- The Colossus of New York: Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in—or spent time—in the greatest of American cities.\ \
- Is Mother Dead: A cat and mouse game of surveillance and psychological torment develops between a middleaged artist and her aging mother.\ \
- The Metamorphosis: This is not just a novel about physical transformation but also a deep reflection on alienation and loneliness.\ \
- Time and Time Again: In this debut YA speculative romance perfect for fans of Rachael Lippincott, two queer, disabled, Jewish teens find themselves stuck in a time loop--and falling love.\ \
- The Fellowship of the Ring: One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.\ \
- The Library at Hellebore: A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and An Education in Malice who are hungry for something more diabolical.\ \ \ \ \
- A Resistance of Witches: As World War II rages around her, a witch abandoned by her coven must journey to find a book of unspeakable power before it lands in Nazi hands.\ \
- Ruthless Vows: The epic conclusion to the intensely romantic and beautifully written story that started in Divine Rivals.\ \
- Tender is the Flesh: Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore.\ \
- Our Share of Night: A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family.\ \
- Heart of Darkness: The story is narrated by Charles Marlow, recalling his obsessive quest to locate the ivory trader Kurtz, who has become ensconced deep in the jungle managing a remote outpost. As he ventures further and further down the Congo, Marlow finds himself and his surroundings become increasingly untethered.\ \
- Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed: A "harrowing, incendiary" exposé of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem.\ \ \ \ \
- The Summer I Turned Pretty: As the summer seasons pass, Belly has to choose between two brothers who love her…and she’ll have to break one of their hearts.\ \
- Releasing 10: A devastatingly raw, achingly beautiful love story that will rip your heart out and patch it back together.\ \
- Tropic of Orange: Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway.\ \
- Atmosphere: An epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.\ \
- Starving Saints: A transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.\ \
- Black Salt Queen: Filled with passion, romance, betrayal, and divine magic, Black Salt Queen journeys to a gorgeous precolonial island nation where women—and secrets—reign.\ \ \ \ \
- American Scare: A vital exposé for both our history and our present day, American Scare tells the riveting story of how the Florida government destroyed the lives of Black and queer citizens in the twentieth century.\ \
- Can't Get Enough: Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.\ \
- Ship Fever: The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century.\ \
- Lapvona: In a village buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself part of a power struggle that puts the community’s faith to a savage test.\ \
- Smothermoss: A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.\ \
- Everything is Tuberculosis: A deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.\ \ \ \ \
- City of Quartz: In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs L.A.’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy.\ \
- The Coin: A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind.\ \
- How to Read a Book: A heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.\ \
- Razorblade Tears: A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.\ \
- All the Dangerous Things: A totally gripping thriller about a desperate mother with a troubled past.\ \
- Lock Every Door: A young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest and most glamorous buildings may cost more than it pays.\ \ \ \ \
- Compound Fracture: A queer Appalachian thriller that pulls no punches—following a trans autistic teen who's drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.\ \
- This is Me Trying: Inevitably drawn back together by circumstance and history, Beatriz and Santiago navigate grief, love, mental illness, forgiveness, and what it means to try to build a future after unfathomable loss.\ \
- You Weren't Meant to be Human: Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.\ \
- Bright Young Women: Don’t miss this “breakneck thriller” that examines “our culture’s obsession with serial killers and true crime” ( Harper’s Bazaar) as it follows two women on the pursuit of justice against all odds.\ \
- The Changeling: With a new introduction by Karen Russell, the 40th anniversary edition of The Changeling is a visionary fairy tale and a work of mythic genius by one of our best writers.\ \
- Choke: Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times.](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/P7WfIPf3S2q1NS4tNJ2v/)
What Sunny's Customers Are Reading
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Skies Press\ \ Emma\ \ • Aug 7 2025
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Idk if this is a TBR or just a pile of books I now have to drive over separately, but here’s what I left out of the packing frenzy 📚
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Arcane Nights Press\ \ Cassidy\ \ • Jul 22 2025
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Here’s another New Book Tuesday for you all!
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Kurryreads\ \ Kerry\ \ • Jul 9 2025
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Kurryreads\ \ Kerry\ \ • Jul 1 2025
July 2025 Thriller, Mystery, & Horror Book Releases
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Not So Well Read\ \ Courtney\ \ • Feb 9 2025
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[Whoops! A little late, but read this instead of watching The Super Bowl.\ \ This Week in the Book World: \ \ Ooohhhhh let's talk smut, because I don't know if you saw the Quill and Flame "#sickofsmut" campaign, but y'all that had me angry for days.\ \ So, in case you missed it, an indie publishing house put out a campaign of posts talking about how they were sick of smut in their romance books and that they were committed to only publishing "clean" and "PG-13" romances. Which, is fine. Because, and I cannot say this loudly enough, no one is forcing anyone to read smut. If you don't want to read smut, don't read it. It's as simple as that.\ \ As a bookstore owner, I get asked constantly for closed-door romances and I am happy to help folks find the kind of content they're comfortable with, because I believe strongly that engaging with books that sexual content should come with informed consent. \ \ However, where this whole thing really started to go downhill and, well frankly, piss me off was with the brazen smut-shaming that came with it. In case you missed the sentence above where I said that no one is forcing anyone to read smut, these folks were out here acting like they were being held at gun point and forcing to read about "body part behavior"–yes that is a direct quote. Things started to fall apart more when they started throwing around words like "safe" and "good" and "darkness" when referring to sexual content, but it REALLY, REALLY, REALLY got me when I saw the words "YA" and "NA".\ \ clears throat ALLYOUNG ADULT BOOKS ARE NOT "CLOSED DOOR ROMANCE BOOKS" AND ALL "CLOSED DOOR ROMANCE BOOKS" ARE NOT YOUNG ADULT BOOKS. Young adult books are books written for young adults. End of story. Sometimes those books contain sexual content, because–and this might blow some mind–teens need a safe, healthy way to learn and talk about and process their feelings about sex.\ \ There are tons of authors who use their books to help teens learn about things like consent, healthy relationships, bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and so much more. This is important work. And describing books written by adults for adults as "YA" simply because they don't have sexual content amongst a political backdrop of nationwide book bans, mom's for liberty, and publishers printing age labels on book covers, is nothing but dangerous. \ \ I could stand on this soapbox for the rest of the evening, so clearly this should be topic I cover more in depth later.\ \ Moving on...\ \ This week's publishing news: \ \
- We finally got an announcement for Del Sandeen's second novel! Titled, Death is my Castle, this newest horror novel is about "two sisters who inherit a house in Savannah, Georgia, only to discover that it may be haunted by the man who built it in 1910."\ \
- Dinesh Thiru, author of Into the Sunken City, announced My Killer Family Reunion, which was pitched as "Knives Out meets Never Have I Ever". Also, excited about this one, because I do feel like true "mystery" and "whodunnit" books are a gap in the teen market. Not every teen wants to read an intense thriller/true crime book.\ \
- Tehlor Mejia's Marrow, which was described as "a dark academia fantasy in which a trans 16-year-old boy finds himself way in over his head when he joins a hyper-elite school with dark, potentially supernatural secrets"\ \
- AND! We got more news about Alix E. Harrows, The Everlasting, which according to her "rhymes" with her short story The Six Deaths of the Saint. She apparently wrote the story while plotting this newest novel, and I cannot contain my excitement!\ \ \ This week's new releases: \ \
- The Lamb by Lucy Rose (Adult, Horror)\ \
- Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (Adult, Horror)\ \
- Capitana by Cassandra James (YA, Fantasy)\ \
- Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey (Adult, Literary)\ \
- Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft (YA, Fantasy)\ \
- All Better Now by Neal Shusterman (YA, Dystopian)\ \ \ What I read this week: \ \ Listen to Your Sister (Finished)\ \ I've talked about this book a lot and I'm going to continue to talk about it, because it deserves it. Holy hell this book was so good. I was not expecting to fall as in love with this one as I did, but it struck something deep in my core. As I wrote in my mini review, Listen to Your Sister is both a love letter to oldest sisters and Black women and a vicious rejection of the expectations the world puts on them to save us over themselves. It's so timely and so heartfelt. 5 out of 5 stars.\ \ Also, it definitely reads more speculative fiction that horror, so I think it's got great crossover appeal for those of you who might be wary of scary books.\ \ Gifted & Talented (Finished)\ \ I hinted at it last time, but I'm here to confirm that Gifted & Talented is Olivie Blake's best book yet. I feel like all of her standalones throughout the last few years have been leading up to this story. When I tell you that I full-on, audibly, gasped not once, but multiple times, while reading this last night. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me send out-of-context screenshots of highlighted paragraphs to my husband. I know that her prose style is not for everyone, but wow do I love it. \ \ This one also leans way more literary fiction than fantasy. It contains magical elements, but it is way more a Succession-esque family drama than anything. Also, I posted this on BlueSky last night, but the scene where the enemies become lovers in this one was... immaculate. \ \ A Burning in the Bones (17%)\ \ This is the third and final book in The Waxways series, and all I have to say is that I am so excited. I love this series. I can't wait to keep reading.\ \ What I bought/shelved \ \ Books I bought/received this week:\ \
- The Wayways series in hardcover\ \
- The Devils by Joe Abercrombie\ \
- The Library at Hellbore by Cassandra Khaw\ \ \ Here are some books I shelved this week:\ \
- Dream by the Shadows by Logan Karlie\ \
- The Balance of Fates by Raquel Raelynn\ \ \ Other musings: \ \ Our February book pick is in and I'm thrilled to be reading One for my Enemy by Olivie Blake, this is the only standalone of hers that I haven't read yet, and coming off the high of Gifted & Talented I'm especially excited. Join here.](https://notsowellread.binderybooks.com/item/9bIOc0mot3P1THEQMA7a/)
14 books