August 11, 2026
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 10th and August 17th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for August, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the “Good Morning America” Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the “Read with Jenna” Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.
Editorial Content for Etna
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
To really understand Paul Yoon's new novel, I went back and read his tribute to his dog, Oscar, which was one of the short pieces in the collection THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD: Essays on Love. While I didn't cry while reading ETNA, I did when I reread “Oscar,” substituting the fictional Etna for Yoon's actual dog. Read More
Teaser
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home --- to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
Promo
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home --- to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
About the Book
Beloved author Paul Yoon, winner of The Story Prize, is back with the unforgettable story of a working dog, Etna, who, after a devastating war, embarks on an odyssey in the hopes of returning home.
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home --- to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there.
Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
This is a novel about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately a novel about finding hope in the most dire of times.
Audiobook available, read by Shrader Thomas
Editorial Content for The Seekers of Deer Creek
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Thao Thai, the bestselling author of BANYAN MOON, returns with THE SEEKERS OF DEER CREEK. This sweeping and powerful literary mystery is about two sisters on a quest for a long-forgotten artist --- and the surprising truths about family and forgiveness they discover instead. Read More
Teaser
Sisters Vivi and Calla Nguyễn have little in common. Vivi lives an orderly and predictable life. She works as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, but she refuses to examine her own dark history. Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. She’s an accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic. She’s also a recovering addict. Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father’s death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter she found in their father’s belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art. Calla is convinced it is meant for their family, and that it was their father’s deathbed wish for her and Vivi to find it together.
Promo
Sisters Vivi and Calla Nguyễn have little in common. Vivi lives an orderly and predictable life. She works as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, but she refuses to examine her own dark history. Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. She’s an accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic. She’s also a recovering addict. Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father’s death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter she found in their father’s belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art. Calla is convinced it is meant for their family, and that it was their father’s deathbed wish for her and Vivi to find it together.
About the Book
From the national bestselling author of BANYAN MOON, a captivating, evocative story of two estranged sisters on a quest to find a painting by a forgotten Vietnamese artist that holds the truth of their family’s fractured past.
Aside from the fact they are sisters, Vivi and Calla Nguyễn have little in common.
Vivi, the eldest, lives an orderly and predictable life. She works as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, carefully preserving pieces of the past, all the while refusing to examine her own dark history.
Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. She’s an accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic, charming and intriguing everyone she meets. She’s also a recovering addict, constantly causing Vivi to worry.
Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father’s death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter she found in their father’s belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art. Calla is convinced it is meant for their family, and that it was their father’s deathbed wish for her and Vivi to find it together. Intrigued yet reluctant to follow her capricious sister, Vivi must decide whether she’s willing to face or shut the door to the past.
From the ghostly Wisconsin woods to a glittering estate in the French countryside to a sprawling ancestral home teetering on the edge of a ravine in Việt Nam, THE SEEKERS OF DEER CREEK is a story of sisters, art and the irresistible gravity of the past --- how it endures across time and generations, always present even when buried.
Audiobook available, read by Quyen Ngo
Editorial Content for Furious Violet
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
I like to think that I'm a discerning reader, a savvy selector of books for all the right reasons. But I confess that every once in a while, a book comes along whose cover is just too fascinating to ignore. Read More
Teaser
Violet “West” Shelley has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now, as the self-described “lowbrow” crime journalist approaches 50 --- burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was --- she retreats to her hometown in the Colorado mountains hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the “Crying Killer,” a notorious serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes. But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges, insisting that West is their long-lost mother, though she has never had children. As the threats escalate, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to collapse.
Promo
Violet “West” Shelley has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now, as the self-described “lowbrow” crime journalist approaches 50 --- burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was --- she retreats to her hometown in the Colorado mountains hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the “Crying Killer,” a notorious serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes. But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges, insisting that West is their long-lost mother, though she has never had children. As the threats escalate, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to collapse.
About the Book
From the author of the bestselling phenomenon DIETLAND comes a razor-sharp, subversive thriller about motherhood, obsession, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
Violet “West” Shelley has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now, as the self-described “lowbrow” crime journalist approaches 50 --- burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was --- she retreats to her hometown in the Colorado mountains hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the “Crying Killer,” a notorious serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes.
But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges --- mysterious, relentless, with accusations disturbingly intimate. This invisible stranger insists that West is their long-lost mother, though West has never had children. As the threats escalate and her carefully defended privacy starts to shatter, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to collapse.
Is she being watched? Hunted? Or is her own mind turning against her?
Gripping, provocative and laced with pitch-black humor, FURIOUS VIOLET is a psychological thrill ride and a fierce exploration of mothers (real and imagined), fame and the question of who can lay claim to women’s bodies of work --- and their bodies themselves. Once again, Sarai Walker has delivered a subversively brilliant heroine unlike any other: damaged, defiant and utterly unforgettable.
Audiobook available, read by Joy Nash
Editorial Content for Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Independent journalist and filmmaker Peter Santenello has been around the world more than once. In YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS, he combines his talents as a wordsmith with his concentrated attention to his native land in its 250th year. Read More
Teaser
Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn’t either until, after years spent traveling through 85 countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most of the media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became --- one story at a time --- an intimate, revealing portrait of America today.
Promo
Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn’t either until, after years spent traveling through 85 countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most of the media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became --- one story at a time --- an intimate, revealing portrait of America today.
About the Book
Come along with an adventurous and charismatic independent journalist (perhaps you're one of his four million subscribers on YouTube) on a journey through some of the very best of America, reminding us of all the reasons we’ve got to love this place and one another.
Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou?
Peter Santenello hadn’t either until, after years spent traveling through 85 countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most of the media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA.
What began as curiosity became --- one story at a time --- an intimate, revealing portrait of America today.
From road trips and chance encounters to dinners shared in locals’ homes, YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS captures what makes this country so dynamic, so resilient, and, most of all, so very human. Because what Peter discovered on his travels wasn’t a nation torn in two. He found something more complex and more powerful: people who want to be seen, who are willing to listen, and who still believe we’re more alike than we are different.
With humor, exuberance and reverence for the human spirit, YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS is a celebration of the United States that exists far beyond the headlines --- and an invitation to sit down, open up, and rediscover the soul of this place that we call home.
Audiobook available, read by Peter Santenello
Editorial Content for This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Jennifer Saint is a modern-day mythologist. She takes a new (and intensely researched) look at the possibilities of the gods --- in particular, the goddesses of Greek mythology. As a novelist, she takes a swing at the heavily masculinized tropes found in mythic tales from ancient Greece and gives them a new flourish that sends us reeling onto a new trajectory with them. Read More
Teaser
From the moment Aphrodite emerges fully formed from the sea, she is devastatingly beautiful and imbued with ancient power. When fate brings her face to face with Ares, she bristles at this surly, hot-tempered warrior who’s seemingly her opposite: disliked by everyone and devoted to stirring up conflict. Yet these gods are no more immune to the dizzying highs and lows of love and loss than anyone else. They are soon irresistibly drawn to one another. As their love affair spans mortal lifetimes, Aphrodite begins to question the gods’ games and her role in them. But there’s only so much room for fire and passion in Zeus’ kingdom. Before long, she must test her devotion to her own divine purpose --- and to a love that can only lead to ruin.
Promo
From the moment Aphrodite emerges fully formed from the sea, she is devastatingly beautiful and imbued with ancient power. When fate brings her face to face with Ares, she bristles at this surly, hot-tempered warrior who’s seemingly her opposite: disliked by everyone and devoted to stirring up conflict. Yet these gods are no more immune to the dizzying highs and lows of love and loss than anyone else. They are soon irresistibly drawn to one another. As their love affair spans mortal lifetimes, Aphrodite begins to question the gods’ games and her role in them. But there’s only so much room for fire and passion in Zeus’ kingdom. Before long, she must test her devotion to her own divine purpose --- and to a love that can only lead to ruin.
About the Book
The epic, captivating tale of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who must reconcile her mind and heart when she is drawn against all odds to Ares, the god of war, from the internationally bestselling author of ARIADNE and HERA.
From the moment Aphrodite emerges fully formed from the sea, she is devastatingly beautiful and imbued with ancient power. Driven by passion yet strategic in how she moves through the halls of Olympus and the earthly realm alike, the free-willed goddess wields unparalleled influence over every living being.
When fate brings her face to face with Ares, she bristles at this surly, hot-tempered warrior who’s seemingly her opposite: disliked by everyone and devoted to stirring up conflict. Yet these gods are no more immune to the dizzying highs and lows of love and loss than anyone else, and soon, they are irresistibly drawn to one another.
As their love affair spans mortal lifetimes, Aphrodite begins to question the gods’ games and her role in them. But there’s only so much room for fire and passion in Zeus’ kingdom. Before long, she must test her devotion to her own divine purpose --- and to a love that can only lead to ruin.
Audiobook available, read by Lydia Leonard













