2025 Fall Preview Time in Nigh

Yes, we are still in the heat of summer, but the Fall Previews are coming fast and furious. 

First, a reminder that the ALA Annual Galley Guide which I posted a few weeks ago is also a Preview of late summer and Fall titles as well.

Second, I recently appeared on ARC Party to discuss the July-December Horror Titles myself, the host Robb Olson, and Emily Hughes were most excited about.

Now on to the point of today's post looking at the Fall Previews. 

But before we get to the lists, why should you care? Especially those of you who do not have to worry about buy-in the books?

Obviously if you are someone who is purchasing you need these lists. But if you are simply the person who is working with reads any service point or making lists and/or building displays, you need to be aware of what books are coming soon for a few reasons:

• If an author has a big book coming out, you need to be ready with readalikes for the inevitable holds lists. Also those big books make for great display topics. 
• If a book makes a seasonal preview list, you know that the book will be appearing on many different lists in multiple venues. The chances that your patrons will hear about said titles on their own is high. Preferably, you want to know what your patrons are going to ask for, before they ask for it, both so you are ready and also to show them that you understand them and their reading wants.
• The resources I am going to share, they are not new on the scene, so their backlist options from seasons just before this one, or better yet, last Fall (or the Fall before), are also a great resource because you probably ordered them and still have them. Also if they are from a year or two ago, they probably have just been released in paperback and are enjoying a new publicity cycle as well.
• Looking at these larger lists also gives you an idea of trends. Are there a lot of books with similar colors. What genres/subgenre/tropes are showing up in larger numbers. What titles do these books remind you of? What displays could you make in the coming months to play off of these titles popularity with book you already know you have. 

See there is a lot you can do with season preview lists that can help you help your patrons in a variety of ways that have nothing to do with putting these titles on order.

Here are 3 major lists and regular resources to find upcoming titles.

• PW's Adult Announcements for Fall 2025: In 13 categories, fiction and nonfiction, these titles were submitted by the publishers. Also useful the 2024 and 2023 PW Fall Previews
• LitHub's Most anticipated books of 2025, Part 2: This is a comprehensive list with a page for each month. Also useful the 2024 and 2023 lists.
• The Millions Most Anticipated coverage all in one place.

RA for All is Off Today

 Back Monday.

Becky's Annual Horror Genre Preview in Library Journal Featuring My Interview with Chuck Tingle

It's alive!

My 2025 Horror Genre Preview is in the July 2025 print magazine and is up on the Library Journal site here.

 It is paywalled, but they give you a few free articles a month. However, in the interest of helping all of you serve your horror readers,  I have made the (longer) unedited draft of this article avaialable here. 

Also anyone can accces a full list of titles, sorted by BISAC code and including trend notes in a handy spreadsheet to make ordering easier for your library.

Shout out to Emily Hughes’ archive of 2025’s New Horror Books on her site Jump Scares which was instrumental in helping me craft this article as well as Edelweiss's database.

You can also enter the article via LJ's site by clicking on the title and intro at the bottom of this post.

But wait....there's more. I was able to conduct an interview with Chuck Tingle as part of this issue as well.

LJ Talks with Horror Writer Chuck Tingle,
Author of ‘Lucky Day’
 

Click here to read our conversation, here for the LJ starred review of Lucky Day and here for access to my starred review of the same novel in Booklist. Thanks again to Tingle for fitting this interview into his schedule.

So much upcoming horror goodness here. Get on it. Now is the time to prepare for Spooky Season.

Horror Renaissance | Genre Preview

Becky Spratford  Jul 09, 2025

Across the range of new horror titles this season, four key trends emerge: lengthy reading experiences are returning to the genre; retellings, which are influencing many genres, are at play in horror too, particularly in the gothic novel; authors are reworking standard tropes; and authors are mining the current state of the world to inspire their stories.

Booklist's Famous Read N Rave and Bonus Graphic Novels for Libraries Content

One final day of Booklist content before we move to my July 2025 Horror Genre preview in LJ.

First, during the ALA conference, Susan Maguire moderated one of the best annual events at ALA Annual, the timed book buzz known as Read N Rave sponsored by Booklist and LibraryReads. I have done it a few times. It is a a fun and educational experience for all who attend.

While you had to be there to see the madness in person,  Booklist has made the names of the "ravers" and the upcoming titles they crammed into their 10 mins. The result: a list of awesome upcoming titles, compiled by RA experts for your library to pre-order, a list that is diverse in every way.

The full list is here on the Booklist blog. I have reposted the titles so that they are searchable here on the blog as well.

Booklist and LibraryReads Read ‘n’ Rave 2025.

By Susan Maguire.
BLOG. First published June 30, 2025 (Booklist Online).

At this year’s ALA Annual Conference, Booklist and LibraryReads teamed up for the popular Read ‘n’ Rave, where superstar librarians scour the Exhibit Hall floor to find the books you’ll want to know about for late summer and fall. 

If you missed the event, or if you had trouble keeping up with the rapid-fire raving (can’t blame you!), here’s a list of the books everyone talked about:

Lila Denning:

Acquired Taste, by Clay McLeod Chapman

Bear Hunter’s Daughter: A Tale of Seven Sisters, by Anneli Jordahl

Breathe In, Bleed Out, by Brian McAuley

Crafting for Sinners, by Jenny Kiefer

Cursed Daughters, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Fiend, by Alma Katsu

Play Nice, by Rachel Harrison

Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys, by Mariana Enriquez

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, by Hailey Piper

The Unveiling, by Quan Barry

Veil, by Jonathan Janz

The Whistler, by Nick Medina

Why I Love Horror, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Migdalia Jimenez:

And Then There Was The One, by Martha Waters

F*cked Up Fairy Tales: Sinful Cinderellas, Prince Alarmings, and Other Timeless Classics, by Liz Gotauco

Gabriela and His Grace, by Liana de la Rosa

Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Solutions for Climate Displacement, by Jessica Hernandez

How to Be a Saint: An Extremely Weird and Mildly Sacrilegious History of the Catholic Church’s Biggest Names, by Kate Sidley

Humanish: What Talking to Your Cat or Naming Your Car Reveals about the Uniquely Human Need to Humanize, by Justin Gregg

I Know How This Ends, by Holly Smale

Ladies in Hating, by Alexandra Vasti

A Little Holiday Fling, by Farah Heron 

Alene Moroni:

6:40 to Montreal, by Eva Jurczyk

Bog Queen, by Anna North

Boudicca’s Daughter, by Elodie Harper

Burnt Sparrow: We Are Always Tender with Our Dead, by Eric LaRocca

Deeper than the Ocean, by Mirta Ojito

Every Step She Takes, by Alison Cochrun

Happy People Don’t Live Here, by Amber Sparks

The Mean Ones, by Tatiana Scholote-Bonne

The Missing Pages, by Alyson Richman

No Rest for the Wicked, by Rachel Louise Adams

The October Film Haunt, by Michael Wehunt

A Particularly Nasty Case, by Adam Kay

The Scald-Crow, by Grace Daly

Spread Me, by Sarah Gailey

The Villa, Once Beloved, by Victor Manibo

You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, by Vincent Tirado

You Watched Me in Silence, by H. Lee Justine

Jessica Trotter

Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore, by Char Adams

The Ferryman and His Wife, by Frode Grytten

The Glowing Hours, by Leila Siddiqui

Heartland Masala: An Indian Cookbook from an American Kitchen, by Jyoti Mukharji and Auyon Mukharji

Her Wicked Roots, by Tanya Pell

Higher Magic, by Courtney Floyd

Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson

House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, by John T. Edge

It’s Me They Follow, by Jeannine A. Cook

The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward, by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith

Psychopomp & Circumstance, by Eden Royce

Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers, by Anthony Delaney

Slayers of Old, by Jim C. Hines

Wolf Bells, by Leni Zumas

Rebecca Vnuk:

The Board, by Katy Farber

Good Daughtering: Reclaiming Your Role, Setting Boundaries, and Finding Balance, by Allison M. Alford

Her One Regret, by Donna Frietas

In Deadly Company, by L. S. Stratton

The Irish Goodbye, by Heather Aimee O’Neill

Lauryn Harper Falls Apart, by Shauna Robinson

Lucky Seed, by Justinian Huang

Overdue, by Stephanie Perkins

Some Bright Nowhere, by Ann Packer

Undead and Unwed, by Sam Tschida

Second, the July issue of Booklist is the annual Spotlight on Graphic Novels. This means two things. First there are these special articles:

Top 10 Manga for Adults and Older Teens
Essentials: Head over Heels for Heartstopper
Top 10 Manga for Children & Teens
Graphic Novels as Audio Adaptation

And second,  the issue includes Booklist's annual 2025 Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries as a pull out in the print, and it is also free online here.

So much great FREE content for you to help a wide range of your readers. Take advantage of all of it today.

What I'm Reading: Booklist July 2025 Part 2

I have three more review in the July 2025 issue of Booklist. As usual, I have my draft reviews here on the blog with bonus info including my three words.

8114

By Joshua Hull

Aug. 2025. CLASH, paper, $19.95 (9781960988607). 

First published July 2025 (Booklist).

Paul, reeling from his last true crime podcast series blowing up in his face, heads back to his small Indiana hometown at the urgent request of his best-friend. While he has always known that his former home at 8114 South State Road 67 has been haunted by a violent and malevolent force for generations, what he finds upon his return is even more upsetting than he remembers. The podcast frame and Paul’s conversational tone draw readers into the compelling mystery and temper the shocking violence. However, it is Paul’s awareness of his own unreliability as a narrator combined with the terrifyingly realistic world building that together keep the dread building and the pages turning until it becomes clear, the only way to stop the killings is for Paul to give the property what it wants– him! For those who loved the unsettling verisimilitude of The Ghost That Ate Us by Kraus, the entrenched evil of  The Good House by Due, or the cursed media, small town horror of Universal Harvester by Darnielle.

Three Words That Describe This Book: verisimilitude, haunted small towns, trauma

Further Appeal: Other words: podcast (as a frame and a cursed media trope), unreliable narrator-- from the start, readers know they should not trust Paul, they know he is not a good person, he knows it too. Not evil, but not a hero. At the very least he is VERY flawed. Supernatural-"true" crime (the crime is not real but it is written like a true crime book), cinematic (author is an award winning filmmaker)

Great hook to open the book. 

Paul's narrative voice draws the reader in and adds to the compelling pace of this book. He is a podcaster and parts of the book are podcast transcripts but also the narrative in-between is Paul in a confessional, conversational tone. 

While Paul is very developed, other characters are a little less so. Hull gives us the brush strokes but it is hard to understand their serious, violent, and terrifying choices. Now, some of this could be intentional because Paul is SO self obsessed and focused and he is our narrator, therefore, what we get of others is not deep enough. And as I read, I felt like that was the case because it works in the narrative as a whole.

The haunted, even cursed history of the town and the actual supernatural force deriving all of the evil, violence, and horror was very well built. You believe it and the story is written in a way to keep the fear going. Hull contributes to the creepiness and terror coming off the page with his acknowledgements where he lists all the parts of the book that are 100% real.

More Readalikes:  Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, The September House by Carissa Orlando, Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar.

Tantrum

By Rachel Eve Moulton

Aug. 2025. Putnam, $28 (9780593854600); e-book (9780593854617).

First published July 2025 (Booklist).

Moulton (The Insatiable Volt Sisters) returns with a provocative, sinister, and trope upending take on the bad seed novel. Thea had a difficult childhood and is still dealing with her trauma, even after marrying an amazing and supportive man and becoming the mother to two kind and intelligent sons. But it is with the birth of her daughter, Lucia, and the undeniable understanding that this baby is a monster, when Thea’s dangerous memories of her own upbringing start to emerge. With dark humor and Thea’s conversational tone, Moulton stakes her claim on the female rage novel. Blending supernatural horror, generational trauma, and unapologetic yet relatable anger, Moutlon’s story gives Thea power over her life and control of her rage, allowing her to own it while still remaining a “good” girl.” Original, shocking, and subversive, the purposeful disorientation and intense discomfort here will leave no reader unscathed. Suggest to a wide range of Horror readers from Flynn's Sharp Objects to Audrain's The Push but especially the work of Hailey Piper.

Three Words That Describe This Book: generational trauma, bad seed novel reimagined, sinister

Further Appeal: More words: female rage, parental horror, original, darkly humorous at times, intense psychological dread, very uncomfortable, conversational voice which is calming and unsettling.

This is a story that will leave no reader unscathed.

It is also Moulton staking her claim to the female rage novel in a way that will leave readers looking at the trope in a new, terrifying way-- but one that truly gives women the power over their lives and their rage-- no hiding its it can be part of who you are and you can still be a "good girl."

Provocative is a key word here. This book engages with the bad seed novel in key ways, ways that are meant to make readers think and questions. In fact, I can see many finding fault with the story because of their own discomfort with what she did here. I will be interested to see if that happens because there is a twist and it is there to make every reader question every novel like this that they have read before.

Generational trauma dialed to 11. Female rage, generational trauma: this novel reworks those tropes. So much agency here, but also straight up terror. 

This is a Horror novel-- 100%. I say this because I don't want to give things away but also, know this is not a typical hysterical parent or unreliable narrator situation. Nor is it Baby Teeth. It is something new and way more sinister and powerful.

Further Readalikes: For Hailey Piper, I think Queen of Teeth and A Light Most Hateful are the best bets here. Also What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman and Now You're One of Us by Asa Nonami are also excellent readalike suggestions.

The Autumn Spring Retirement Home Massacre
By Philip Fracassi

Sept. 2025. 416p. Tor Nightfire, $28.99  (9781250879066); e-book (9781250879073). 
First published July 2025 (Booklist).

Step aside, teenagers. Make way for Rose DuBois, a final girl for the over 70 set. Quick witted and active, Rose enjoys her full life at Autumn Springs surrounded by so many friends, especially her best friend, Miller. However, when two residents end up dead in quick succession, Rose starts to suspect that they were murdered, and she may be the only person able to stop the killings. Like the best slashers, this is an emotionally resonant tale, more about its characters than the violence being perpetrated against them (of which there is plenty). But it is also a well-paced, age appropriate, kick-butt, final girl story led by Rose’s point of view with cinematic, darkly humorous glimpses into the residents’ lives as they are about to be murdered. But at the horror at the heart of this story is the terrifying reality of how disposable society views mature adults. In the tradition of the Scream films, this story will appeal to fans of Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and Hendrix’s Final Girl Support Group.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Slasher, Mature protagonists, emotionally resonant

Further Appeal:  A well executed final girl story-- it has all of the elements you need. The POV is mostly Rose but it moves to those who are about to be murdered right before they die. Very cinematic in that way-- they get their "close ups." The ways the people are killed are very well thought out but with some dark humor.

A slasher on the loose at a nursing home underscores how marginalized these older adults are. They live in this nice (but not luxurious) retirement community and while they are happy, most have no one to come help when things start going bad. Their children and grandchildren are living their lives and forget about them. When the residents start to realize what is going on and try to get picked up-- they cannot. It is sad but believable. Their families have gotten rid of them-- safely they thought.

The resistance by everyone who are not the residents to thinking this was not just a spate of the olds dying made sense. The not believing Rose and Miller et al saying they know it is a murder. Very sad.
Rose Dubois is THE final girl for the over 70 set. She is built in a fashion that makes sense. She is not abnormally strong or smart. She is just a strong, smart woman in her 70s who is tough and independent. 
Rose is also the resident with the best family who care about her-- and that is part of her superpower. And a secret in her history that makes her prepared for this role as a Final Girl. 

And there is just a touch of supernatural here which works very well. It is weaved into the story believably and from the start. I liked that about it. The best final girl stories have a touch or hint of supernatural.

The most important thing here is that this novel will introduce non horror readers to Fracassi and the entire Nightfire line of books-- It is The Thursday Murder Club meets Final Girl Support Group. But seriously, give this to Thursday Murder Club fans.

For those new to Horror who want to try Nightfire titles like this-- should try Mary by Nat Cassidy next.

More Readalikes: I Was a Teenaged Slasher by SGJ would be a fun pairing here. They are both emotionally resonant and violent but with just enough dark humor.

 

And the Clown in a Cornfield series by Cesare.