Soaked in Dread
In Michael Farris Smith’s Lay Your Armor Down, a pair of criminals, joined by an outcast woman, try to protect a 9-year-old girl from evil forces.
Fiction
Love Songs for Strangers
In his latest novel, Songs for Other People’s Weddings, David Levithan delivers an often funny, sometimes sad, but always entertaining story about what it’s like to be a wedding singer. Levithan will appear at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
“Smug. Narcissistic. Vaguely Unhinged.”
Hannah Pittard’s latest novel, If You Love It, Let It Kill You, depicts a novelist who finds herself the villain of a novel written by her ex-husband. Pittard will discuss If You Love It, Let It Kill You at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
Confronting Stereotypes
With her latest Lady Astronaut novel, The Martian Contingency, Mary Robinette Kowal leans into a feminism that embraces multiculturalism, antiracism, and disability theory, confronting historical stereotypes in both playful and serious ways. Kowal will appear at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
Tough Stuff
Paul Burch gets in the head of country music legend Jimmie Rodgers in his novel Meridian Rising. Burch will appear at Memphis Listening Lab on October 8 and the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
Astronaut Obsession
In Eliana Ramage’s debut novel, To the Moon and Back, Steph Harper is a queer Cherokee girl whose sole ambition is to become the first Cherokee astronaut.
