The Best New Books of August, According to Indie Booksellers

#1 Indie Next List Pick

“A canine soldier survives war, only to go on an odyssey that may take more than it gives. The Art of Racing in the Rain meets Angel Down. A beguiling, poetic affair that’s bathed in crimson, and barks hope into the dark.”
—Dominic Howarth, Book + Bottle, St.Petersburg, FL

“In A Tender Age, a quiet young Korean boy pulls a knife on his classmate, baffling both his parents and the juvenile justice system. It reminds us that new worlds are birthed in brutality, and children face a brand new world every day.”
—Sayan Ray, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

The bestselling author of Yerba Buena pens a historical tale inspired by her own family history. In 1944 New Orleans, the Honore sisters are admired and respected in their community. But unlike her older sisters, Odette isn’t content to live out life as a wife and a mother. It’s only in the hidden garden she discovered with her cousin Delphine that she can be truly honest: she’s in love with another woman. Delphine, in love with a white man, seems to understand. But years later, their lives have turned out entirely different than they’d envisioned in that garden. Odette is a widowed mother. Delphine is passing as white. The two have grown apart, but when Delphine begins to spiral out of control, Odette goes to life-altering lengths to keep the family together. —Rachel Brittain

With Lost and Found, the final book in DeWitt’s trilogy, we say goodbye to the Spunes, OR world, but not before we fall in love with Bea and Silas’s story!

Firefighter Silas’s world has changed after an accident, so he never expected to reunite with Bea. Needing a place to stay, Bea agrees to room with Silas, all while trying to complete a bucket list her late best friend left behind.

One thing Tarah DeWitt always does is make you cry, and Lost and Found is no different. This is a fantastic curtain-closer to one of the most beautiful, emotional, and romantic book series. —Silvana Reyes Lopez

We’ve got a new Emily Rath series and it’s a paranormal MMF! When you introduce characters with names like Dáinn the Devourer, you might expect something dark and body-horrory. But this offers Emily’s usual style of storytelling that will make you regularly alternate between anxiety and laughter. Our Devourer has been tied to a witch for a couple of centuries, doing her dirty work, including taking out rival witches by devouring their souls. When he gets stopped in the middle of a devouring by a surprisingly compelling mortal woman, the rival witch he was sent to kill gets to live and the three of them enter into a weird game of cat mouse and other cat. But romantically. —Jessica Pryde

This gothic horror novel follows Claire, a woman grieving her fiancé Elias, who died from an unknown neurological illness. Then Elias’ wealthy family reaches out and invited Claire to a three-day wake at their secluded family home on a private island. Claire sees this as an opportunity to connect with the family of the man who meant so much for her and gave her a sense of belonging for the first time ever. But things do not go the way she hoped. As soon as she gets there, Elias’ brother warns her to leave, and the family’s dark secrets start bubbling to the surface. What is going on with this family and their deep connection to the sea? And is it somehow connected to Claire’s own past trauma and the accident that killed her parents and sister? —Emily Martin

Emilee Hackney grew up in the ridges and coalfields of western Virginia. In the Appalachian Mountains, Hackney finds herself immersed in Pentecostalism and engaged to a man when she’s just 19 years old. But Sam hasn’t been telling the truth about who he is. In All That’s Unseen, Hackney describes how she began to disentangle her life from her partner and her church, slowly finding herself again and eventually leaving Virginia to attend Harvard. —Kendra Winchester

When we picture scientific discoveries in our minds, we often picture a singular lightbulb moment that spontaneously changes the course of science as we know it. But Roberta Kwok wants us to understand that it’s more complicated than that. Scientific progress requires years of planning, research, and often fundraising just to make the possibility of learning more possible. As we learn more about these determined researchers, Kwok highlights scientists’ resilience and perseverance to learn more about the world, against all odds. —Kendra Winchester