The Best New Book Releases Out September 10, 2024

I have a copy of this, and I am so excited to finish it. It opens up with a young Ida B. Wells in an opera house in Memphis. It’s 1886, and we follow Ida as she becomes the journalistic icon we know her to be—but we don’t just see her in marches or covering lynchings. We see big sister Ida, teacher Ida, lover of the arts Ida, and, yes, hot tamale Ida (the good sis could flirt, okay).

Reading historical fiction has long been my favorite way to learn about history, and I love that we’re seeing different perspectives of Black life in the late 1800s.

This award-winning debut is already big in India, where it takes place. In it, we see the country on the precipice of change. The narrative builds through a few characters—there’s the jaded Wall Street consultant, Naren, who returns to Mumbai with Amanda, a New Englander who will carry out a teaching fellowship in a poverty-stricken Muslim-majority area. Then there’s Rohit, Nren’s amateur filmmaker brother, who befriends young Hindu nationalists. As they each interact in their chosen corners, Rege deftly weaves us between fiery debates and complexities that culminate in a busy night when the entirety of Mumbai is on the street—and when everything that was boiling erupts.

I don’t always necessarily see the vision trying to be shared in book blurb comparisons—there were a few too many BIPOC-centered thrillers being compared to Jordan Peele’s Get Out after the film’s huge success, for example—but the mention of the movies The Menu and Ready or Not feel really apt here. That’s because, once thrifty fashionista canoodles her way into The Marie Caulfield-Ruskin’s isolated island mansion through her arrogant son, and their indentured servants start killing them off one by one as revenge, she realizes that maybe she doesn’t want that internship with Marie after all. Maybe she wants to struggle a Ruskin or two herself.

I love how Harrison seems to be working her way through the ghoulies commonly found in the Western canon. Here, Sloane’s birthday is coming up, and she’s indifferent about it at worst and bummed about the reminder of her own mortality at worst. But her husband, the cheating dog he is, actually arranges something nice for her. He sets up a weekend getaway with her messy fun friend Naomi. Now Sloane thinks they’re just going to have a cute lil girls’ staycation—replete with all the wine and cozy things you would think. But Always Turned Up Naomi has something else in mind. Something that involves spending a night out with mysterious strangers, and waking up to a life—and tastes—forever changed.

Okay, I think this has to be one of the best title+cover combos ever. When I saw the two together, I felt like I instantly knew what it was about, and that I was totally into it (and I was kind of right). It’s 1894 in Minneapolis when Faith arrives newly at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers. Unfortunately for her, she arrives at the same time as a string of unexplained deaths, and the other women in the house fill in her unknown history with dark magic. While Abby, a Quaker and the Home’s treasurer, doesn’t believe the rumors surrounding Faith, she does want to find out about her past and assigns Faith’s roommate, May, to investigate the girl. The more May finds out, the closer she’s brought to polite society and a happily ever after with Hal—and the more she realizes she can’t trust anyone, not even Abby. Especially as the bodies keep piling up.