LibraryAware October 2025

Recent Releases

Christmas at the women's hotel : a Biedermeier story
by Daniel M. Lavery

New York Times bestselling author Daniel M. Lavery returns to the world of Women's Hotel in this delightful and heartwarming novella about one especially lively Christmastime at the Biedermeier.

Six Weeks by the Sea
by Paula Byrne

Before moving to Bath, England, Jane Austen, her sister Cassandra, and her parents stay at coastal Sidmouth for several weeks during the summer of 1801. Jane relishes the views, sea bathing, and visiting with her brother Frank, who’s temporarily home from the Navy with a handsome friend in tow. But there are other intriguing men with whom Jane spends time in this delightful novel. Read-alikes: Natalie Jenner's Austen at Sea; Gill Hornby’s Godmersham Park.

The Guest in Room 120
by Sara Ackerman

In 1905 Honolulu, hotel worker Iliahi Baldwin forms an unexpected friendship with the accomplished, willful Jane Stanford before her mysterious death, leaving a dark legacy at the fashionable hotel for two writers to uncover a century later.

Amity
by Nathan Harris

In 1866 New Orleans, formerly enslaved siblings Coleman and June are separated, only to embark on perilous, individual journeys through the Mexican desert to reunite and seize the freedom they were promised.

Whatever happened to Lori Lovely? : a novel
by Sarah McCoy

In 1991, college student Lu Tibbott investigates her aunt Lori Lovely's sudden transition from Hollywood starlet to cloistered nun, uncovering hidden ambitions, forbidden love, and dark secrets behind Lori's dramatic life change amid scandal and mystery.

The Silver Hills Boarding House
by Linda Lael Miller

In early-20th-century Montana, in the lead-up to the holiday season, a woman risks everything to protect her younger brother and sister in the unforgiving west -- and a widower sees in them a second chance at love and family.

The Hounding
by Xenobe Purvis

In 18th-century Oxfordshire, a ferryman claims he saw one of the Mansfield girls turn into a dog. Soon villagers blame the girl and her four sisters, aged between six and 19, for the terrible heat, failing crops, and the dead body at the edge of the Thames River. Menacing and atmospheric, this timely Gothic-tinged debut explores misogyny, herd mentality, and resentment. For fans of: Chris Bohjalian’s Hour of the Witch; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan

On Victory in Europe Day, 1945, while her husband is away in the Pacific, beautiful Margaret shares a celebratory kiss with married hardware store clerk Cal Jenkins, whose physical disability kept him from enlisting. This leads to a connection between their small-town Ohio families for decades, where their sons grow up together but take different paths in the Vietnam era. For fans of: Read with Jenna books; vivid, heartfelt novels about families and war.

Contact your librarian for more great books!