The Best New Books of September, According to Indie Booksellers

#1 Indie Next List Pick

“A world descending into chaos. Another strangled by repression and surveillance. Imperfect choices…which do you fear more? More importantly, Emily St. John Mandel asks: which world will be ours?” —Anmiryam Budner, Main Point Books, Wayne, PA

“A detailed, alive, intense novel that gazes unflinchingly at the violence — physical, emotional, and existential — that generations of gay men have endured in Jamaica and beyond. These characters have a space in my heart forever.” —Maris Fessenden, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, MT

An R.F. Kuang release is always an event. I love that for her as much as I love it for us, and I especially love that her latest is a bit different from what I’ve seen of her so far. In this contemporary coming-of-age novel, we see through Chinese American college freshman Lily Chen how homegoing isn’t always quite like what you think it will be. When Lily sets off for Taipei and the intensive Chinese language summer course she enrolled in, she’s hoping to feel closer to the culture her parents were born into, but that she never fully grasped. But then everything seems to just crumble. Her roommate sucks, her classes are a little too intense, and there’s a piece of nasty gossip floating around about her. Then her grandfather dies, and suddenly, the search for who she is takes a different turn. —Erica Ezeifedi

Brothers. Betrayal. One murderous plan for revenge. Seth Oreamundo is living in exile in the United States. Once, he was a powerful politician in Costa Rica, but his brother, Osario, betrayed him, and now he must pay. Split between the present, as Oreamundo returns to Costa Rica with plans to throw his brother into an infamously crocodile-filled river, and memories of their childhood growing up in a corrupt political dynasty on a coffee estate, Crocodilopolis is a powerful meditation on power and masculinity from a rising star of Costa Rican fiction. —Rachel Brittain

Kingfisher’s back with a wonderful cozy fantasy: book two in the Swordheart series. Dervish’s soul was trapped in a dagger for hundreds of years before the scholar, Learned Edmund, was the latest one to draw his blade to protect himself from bandits. Learned thought he was delivering just another relic to a temple; instead, he finds the dagger possessed by a captivating warrior, bound to protect him. Dervish’s been angry for centuries, but the more time he spends with the cynical scholar, the harder it is to hate him. Worse yet, the more Dervish protects Learned, the more he finds he might actually love him. —R. Nassor

Hoffman knows a thing or two when it comes to writing about witches, and her latest witchy work involves a secret society. It’s the 1950s in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when two young women who are polar opposites—super bright Ava and wild and rich Lauren—meet each other at Radcliffe College. Soon, both women are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret society of witches that dates back hundreds of years. Their power and friendship grow within the safety of Radcliffe, but then girls from their society start to go missing. —Erica Ezeifedi

This trans romance novel is the newest book from the author of I Wish You All the Best, The Feeling of Falling in Love, and many more! Owen and Jacob are exes who end up stuck together on a seven-day cruise to Alaska with their friends. Owen agrees to try to be friends with the guy who broke his heart, if only to dial down the awkwardness of being trapped in a small space. Between the beautiful Alaskan landscape and cruise-mandated activities, though, Owen feels himself falling all over again. —Danika Ellis

This book really surprised me. I’ve been a Rachel Harrison fan for a while now, but WOW. For a horror novel that gets pretty darn graphic at times, Kiss Slay Replay offered a surprisingly philosophical consideration of questions about what’s really important in life. I loved that the main character, Willa, had broken off her engagement despite all the social pressures on her. More than that, the portrayal of her friendships in all their cute, annoying, deep-rooted glory felt realistic and made (of all things) a time loop slasher feel relatable. Also, there were lots of laugh-out-loud moments in this one because, you know: slasher + time loop + wedding = shenanigans. —Anne Mai Yee Jansen