A TWENTY-ONE (yes 2-1) item list coming your way with amazing titles being released in September. We’ve got a pull as your heartstrings novel about people’s relationships with dogs, a little pocket bear who’s the unofficial mayor of a home for refurbish plush toys, a novel and a nonfiction book written by Indigenous authors, there’s werewolves, there’s witches, there’s time travel portals, we’ve also got a travelogue of one’s author’s favorite cemeteries.
If you can’t find one thing on this list that sounds good – what are we missing??
September 2, 2025
From the best selling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed (aka one of my favorite Indigenous authors) comes a new young adult about a foster teen claiming her heritage on her own terms.
By: Angeline Boulley
A middle grade book that’s sure to rip my heart out about the powerful relationship that can happen between dogs and humans.
By: McCall Hoyle
A young adult book about the only survivor of a massacre twelve years ago, who is now being hunted by urban legend cultists who believe that on her 17th birthday, she’ll open a portal to hell and user in the apocalypse.
By: Laura Creedle
A novella (128 pages), where scholars must construct an ancient city from scratch to please their new dictator, Gyges, who needs the justification for his next invasion.
By: K.J. Parker
September 9, 2025
A book I kept religiously checking for ARCs for online because it’s not only by one of my favorite children’s authors (Katherine Applegate), but it’s also about a Pocket Bear from WWI who serves as the unofficial mayor of Second Changes Home for the Tossed and Treasured – where stuffed toys are refurbished and given a fresh opportunity to be loved.
By: Katherine Applegate
A fantasy (with some horror) book where paintings hold curses and powers.
By: Kosoko Jackson
A middle grade novel about three generations of Black girls connected through a wormhole in their school locker.
Candace, the Universe, and Everything
By: Sherri L. Smith
September 16, 2025
A new take on werewolves anybody?
By: Emily Jane
A look into works of history, science, memoir, and fiction written by Indigenous authors.
Bad Indians Book Club: Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds
By: Patty Krawec
A novel with institutional menace with triple boys who only want to sent to the Big House in Margate.
By: Catherine Chidgey
A young adult novel about the longing to be loved while living with a mind that tells you otherwise.
The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar
By: Sonora Reyes
When the lights come back, the king is dead – murdered with the princess’s knife, in a weak spot only his guards know of, and dipped with venom from one of the beast tamer’s monsters – the unlikely group in his chambers make a pack to not tell a soul the king is dead until the treaty is signed. But then a winter storm seals everyone inside and the person who killed the king, begins killed off guests one by one…
By: Rebecca Mix & Andrea Hannah
September 23, 2025
It’s the sequel to “Book of Night”!! Charlie is good enough to steal a shadow, but is she good enough to steal a heart?
By: Holly Black
A companion piece to another of my favorite books, “My Father, the Panda Killer”, told in dual POV that follows a teenage son searching for information about his absent mother, and the mother as she struggles with grief and longing and the battle of the decision to leave her children.
By: Jamie Jo Hoang
Okay, I’m just going to give the pitch of “Twilight” meets “Teen Wolf” and let y’all decide 🙂
By: Tom O’Donnell
September 30, 2025
Oh, just a history about how the patriarchy used the accusation of witchcraft to both weaponized fear and silence women.
How to Kill a Witch: A Guide for the Patriarchy
By: Zoe Venditozzi & Claire Mitchell
A graphic memoir about the author’s father’s life during the Cuban Revolution and his family’s escape to America.
By: Daniel Miyares
A travelogue about the author’s favorite cemeteries around the world… a grave-a-logue.
Somebody is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys
By: Mariana Enriquez
Oh, this a deeply researched novella (144 pages) that’s based on a series of real witchcraft trials that took place in Northern Jutland in the seventeenth century.
By: Olga Ravn
A YA about lost sisters, female rage, and the drive to find out the secrets in order to survive.
By: Mary E. Roach
Another novella (176 pages) about two daughters of opposing clans falling in love and how they want to be together, but also to be loyal to their clans.
By: C.L. Clark
oldandnewbooksmell 