A rare crop of new books that’s mostly fiction! And some very intriguing titles, too, from authors I’m already familiar with and also some new-to-me authors. I think I have a lot of great reading ahead of me…!

Featuring: David Baldacci, Hallie Cantor, Anna Dorn, Patricia Finn, Bruce Holsinger, John Niven, Claire North, Matthew Pearl, Casey Scieszka, Shea Serrano, Oren Weisfeld, Don Winslow

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David Baldacci, NASH FALLS (Grand Central)

When Walter Nash is recruited by the FBI to help bring down a global crime network his life is turned completely upside down…

Walter Nash is a sensitive, intelligent and kindhearted man. He has a wife and a daughter and a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. Despite never going on grand adventures, and always working too many hours, he has a happy and upscale life with his family.

However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years.

Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated. And that forces Nash to take the ultimate step both to survive and to take his revenge: He must become the exact opposite of who he has always been.

And even that may not be enough.

In his latest novel, Baldacci introduces readers to a new protagonist (not sure if this will turn into a series, but you never know with Baldacci). Nash Falls is due to be published by Grand Central Publishing in North America (November 11th) and Macmillan in the UK (November 6th).

Also on CR: Reviews of The 6:20 Man, The Edge, To Die For, Stone Cold, The Whole Truth, Divine Justice, First Family, True Blue, Deliver Us From Evil, Hell’s Corner, The Innocent, The Hit, Bullseye, The Target, The Guilty, End Game, Memory Man

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Hallie Cantor, LIKE THIS, BUT FUNNIER (Simon & Schuster)

TV writer Caroline Neumann is thirty-four and mired in professional envy and self-hatred. Even Harry, her usually supportive therapist husband, thinks it’s time for her to press pause on her career ambitions and focus on getting pregnant, despite Caroline’s serious ambivalence about having children.

When Caroline accidentally stumbles on Harry’s patient session notes and offhandedly mentions what she finds in a meeting with a producer, the momentum of Hollywood takes over. Before she knows it—and unbeknownst to Harry—Caroline finds herself pitching a TV show about the deepest, darkest secrets of her husband’s favorite patient, a woman known to Caroline only as the Teacher.

Amid the indignities of the Hollywood development process, Caroline must balance her burning desire for professional validation against her own morality and the health of her marriage. And when Caroline forms a real-life relationship with Teacher herself, the lines between art and life begin to blur further, shaking up Caroline’s understanding of what it means to be the “likeable female protagonist” of her own life.

Love a Hollywood-based novel. So, this was a must-read for me. Not out for quite a long time, so I’ll hold off on posting a review until closer to release date (but I’ll probably read it pretty soon). Like This, But Funnier is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America, on April 7th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Anna Dorn, AMERICAN SPIRITS (Simon & Schuster)

A love letter to pop music, American Spirits charts an icon’s fall — and an obsessive fangirl’s rise.

Thirty-eight-year-old Blue Velour has finally achieved the critical acclaim she’s long been chasing. Over the last decade, she’s released six studio albums to mixed reviews, landing her somewhere between performance artist and niche legend. But her latest album, Blue’s Beard — a cheeky reference to the subreddit fanatically dedicated to her suspected secret relationship with longtime producer Sasha Harlow — has rocket-launched her reputation. Blue hires nerdy superfan Rose Lutz as her assistant to handle the pressures of the upcoming tour.

When the pandemic shuts down the tour, however, Blue decides to hole up in the redwoods with Sasha to make another album. An aspiring singer herself, Rose is frothing at the mouth to be isolated in a cabin with these two legends, but what begins as a creative retreat spirals into a flurry of chaos and betrayal — culminating in a tragic act that changes their lives forever.

The next novel from the author of Perfume & Pain. Longtime readers of CR may not need an explanation for why this caught my attention: a novel about music and the music industry? Yeah, of course I was interested. Very much looking forward to reading this soon. (I’ll probably hold off on posting the review until later this year, though. Maybe.) American Spirits is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America and in the UK, on April 14th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Patricia Finn, GOLDEN BOY (Cardinal/Grand Central)

An unexpected letter sends a man and his wife into their pasts – and offers them both a shot at redemption

After an involuntary retirement from his high-flying Hollywood career, Stafford Hopkins has retreated to a luxury estate on Maui, along with his wife Agnes, both grimly resigned to life in a paradise where neither feels fully at home. Stafford is ready to retreat into himself, too, when a letter arrives with shocking news.

Stafford has been named guardian of four children he didn’t know existed: the grandchildren of his late childhood friend, Bobby Shepherd, whose ghost Stafford can no longer ignore. Returning to both the hardscrabble farming town and the dark secret he’d tried to forget for decades, Stafford is forced to confront his past in order to rebuild his future – and to redirect the fates of his family and the four young people suddenly in his care.

Slyly funny and deeply moving, The Golden Boy is a captivating debut about love, mercy, and second chances.

The cover caught my attention on NetGalley (it’s nice, if a rather bright), but the synopsis cemented my interest. It’s not out for quite some time — seems like 2026 titles are becoming available rather early — but I hope to read it very soon. The Golden Boy is due to be published by Cardinal/Grand Central Publishing in North America and in the UK, on March 10th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Brian Holsinger, CULPABILITY (Spiegel & Grau)

Set at a summer rental on the Chesapeake Bay, a riveting family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence…

When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret that implicates them in the accident.

During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie’s future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident—suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet’s teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI.

This novel has been generating a lot of buzz since its publication the other week. Somehow missed it pre-publication, but it has an intriguing premise, so I decided to pick it up. Hope to read it over in the next month or so. Culpability is out now, published by Spiegel & Grau in North America and Europa Editions in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

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John Niven, THE FATHERS (Canongate)

In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth — no, sixth? — child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block.

Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions. Dan plans to walk away from his saccharine TV success and finally knuckle down to writing that novel he always felt he had in him. While, for Jada, it’s the opportunity for one last get-rich-quick scheme — ripping off a local airport. When a tragedy occurs, their worlds are brought closer than either could ever have imagined — close enough that it could mean destruction for both of them…

I’ve been a fan of John Niven’s books since Straight White Male (2013), and have always looked forward to each new book — and this one is no exception. (I really must get around to his memoir soon, too.) The Fathers is out now, published by Canongate in North America and in the UK.

Also on CR: Review of Straight White Male

Follow the Author: Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

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Claire North, SLOW GODS (Orbit)

My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.

In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about. I should make myself a hero. Pretend I was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.

Here is one truth: out there in deep space, in the pilot’s chair, I died. And then, I was reborn. I became something not quite human, something that could speak to the infinite dark. And I vowed to become the scourge of the world that wronged me.

This is the story of the supernova event that burned planets and felled civilizations. This is also the story of the many lives I’ve lived since I died for the first time.

Are you listening?

I’ve been a fan of Claire North’s work ever since I read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (a novel that I really must revisit soon). Each of the author’s new books offers an interesting, new take on a SFF concept, and are always engaging. In this latest novel, the author takes on space opera, and I am very much looking forward to reading it. Hopefully get to it very soon, but may hold off just a bit before posting a review. Slow Gods is due to be published by Orbit Books in North America and in the UK, on November 18th.

Also on CR: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Touch, The Gamehouse, The Sudden Appearance of Hope, and Sweet Harmony

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Matthew Pearl, THE AWARD (Harper)

David Trent is an aspiring novelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, trying to navigate his ambitions in a place that has writers around every corner.

He lives in an apartment above a Very Famous Author named Silas Hale who, beneath his celebrated image, is a bombastic, vindictive monster who refuses to allow his new neighbor even to make eye contact with him.

Until young David wins a prestigious award for his new book.

Suddenly Silas is interested — if intensely spiteful.

But soon, the administrator of the award comes to David with alarming news, forcing the writer into a desperate set of choices.

Fate intervenes — with shocking consequences…

The latest novel from the author of The Dante Club and The Technologists (among many others), it is an “irreverent and propulsive novel about a young writer trying to make his way through a cutthroat literary scene that turns deadly.” Very much looking forward to reading this. The Award is due to be published by Harper in North America, on December 2nd. (At the time of writing, I couldn’t find any UK publisher information, but I’m sure there will be one.)

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Casey Scieszka, THE FOUNTAIN (Harper)

Vera Van Valkenburgh hasn’t been home in one hundred and eighty-eight years. But now Vera, forever twenty-six and able to heal from any wound, has returned to the Catskills. Whatever made her family immortal happened here, and if she can uncover it, maybe she can reverse it. After nearly two centuries—an endless sequence of unnoticed, meaningless lives and a soul-shaking incident in the desert — she longs to be released.

Posing as a newly arrived forest ranger, she quickly blends into the upstate community and learns of something curious and disturbing. A mysterious, well-funded company is snapping up local property, no matter how high the asking price. But when her brother, a fellow immortal shows up, accompanied by a woman whose face is incredibly familiar to Vera, the purpose for her return gets clouded and Vera is in a race against time to find out what has caused her condition before someone else does.

Blending the spectacular with the everyday in a tale filled with humor and warmth, The Fountain explores what gives life meaning and how our understandings of our histories shape — and cage — us.

An intriguing premise, I thought. Looking forward to reading this debut novel. The Fountain is due to be published by Harper in North America and in the UK, on March 17th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Shea Serrano, EXPENSIVE BASKETBALL (Grand Central)

A witty and fun examination of some of basketball’s most iconic players, moments, games, and more.

Everything in basketball is measured. Everything in basketball is counted, quantified, and computed. And yet, no matter how expansive the list of various pinpoint-specific statistical categories gets, some basketball things remain uncountable or unquantifiable.

Some moments are more poetry than calculation, rising to art than numerical value. More feeling than data processing. And thus: Expensive Basketball.

From Kobe’s 81-point game to Sue Bird’s crossover, from the majesty of Ray Allen’s legendary 3-pointer to the beautiful mystery of Allen Iverson, Expensive Basketball is an affirmation of feelings.

It’s an affirmation of basketball as virtuosity. It’s an affirmation of how sometimes you watch a person perform on the basketball court and it feels the same way it does when you lie in the grass at night and stare up at the moon for long enough that you start to think about how incredible it is that you really, truly, honestly, actually exist.

As a long-time listener to The Ringer’s various basketball/entertainment podcasts (and reader of their articles), I’ve become quite familiar with Serrano’s work. His next book sounds pretty interesting, too, so I’m very happy to be able to read this early. Expensive Basketball is due to be published by Grand Central Publishing in North America and in the UK, on October 28th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Oren Weisfeld, GOLDEN GENERATION (ECW Press)

When Steve Nash led underdog Team Canada to the quarterfinals of the 2000 Olympics, many assumed the golden age of Canadian basketball was at hand. Instead, it took 24 years for the Canadian men to get back to international basketball’s biggest stage, with a wave of immigration pushing the sport into every corner of the country and a new generation of superstars blossoming into household names. How did we get here? And why did it take so long?

In The Golden Generation, sports journalist Oren Weisfeld uncovers the growth of Canadian basketball through the lens of Team Canada and its most influential figures, alternating between chronicling key moments in the rise of the Canadian men’s national team and profiling key figures in the grassroots basketball landscape. Through over 100 original interviews with athletes, coaches, and behind-the-scenes power brokers, The Golden Generation explores the role racism played in the national team’s early struggles, how pioneers like Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson paved a new path for high schoolers to follow before Jamal Murray recreated it, the enigma that is Andrew Wiggins, and the backstories of the core group of players that brought Canada back to the Olympics, including superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Canadian basketball has come a long way over the past two decades, with a record 24 current NBA players, a sophisticated grassroots infrastructure, and a top-ranked national team. But many trailblazers had to take their hits to lay the foundation for the current generation to thrive. The Golden Generation puts all the pieces and players together to explain how Canada became a basketball country with a bright future ahead.

I’m a Canadian basketball fan. Of course this book was going to catch my attention. I’ll read this very soon. Golden Generation is due to be published by ECW Press in Canada and in the UK, on November 5th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received from publisher

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Don Winslow, THE FINAL SCORE (Hemlock/William Morrow)

In six all-new short novels written with the trademark literary style, trenchant wit, and incisive characterization that have made Don Winslow “America’s greatest living crime writer” (Providence Journal), this repeat New York Times bestselling author serves up a collection of tales sure to delight Winslow’s most devoted fans and first-time readers.

The multi-million-dollar casino heist is impossible — it can’t be done. That’s what makes it irresistible to a legendary robber facing the rest of his life in prison for his “Final Score.” An ambitious, hard-working college-bound teenager has a side job delivering illegal booze to “The Sunday List” until a crooked cop, a seductive customer, and a fake guru threaten to end his dreams. Two wise guys tell each other a “True Story” over breakfast at a diner. It’s all bullshit and laughs until someone else has to pick up the check. An otherwise honest patrolman has to make an excruciating choice between his loyalty to the job and his love for a ne’er-do-well cousin in “The North Wing.” The entitled, substance-addicted movie star that surfer/PI Boone Daniels and his crew are hired to babysit in “The Lunch Break” is a problem. She also has a problem — someone wants her dead. Finally, the one terrible, momentary mistake that a devoted family man makes sends him to prison and on a “Collision” course between the man he wants to be and the killer he’s forced to become to survive.

With a foreword written by award-winning crime author Reed Farrel Coleman, The Final Score is a propulsive, perceptive, and deeply immersive collection of crime writing — the ultimate testament to Don Winslow’s prowess as a living legend of the genre.

A new collection of novellas from Don Winslow? Sign me up. I was very happy and surprised to see this book on the horizon — I was under the impression that the Danny Ryan trilogy was the last fiction we’d see from Winslow. The Final Score is due to be published by Hemlock Press in the UK (October 23rd) and William Morrow in North America (September 16th).

Also on CR: Reviews of The Force, Broken, City on Fire, City of Dreams, and City in Ruins

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via NetGalley