Okay, things look a little different around here this week.

For a while, my Bindery page has mostly been a place to find the week’s new releases. And while I LOVE keeping you updated on all the books hitting shelves, I kept thinking… why stop there?

I spend basically my entire week talking about books anyway. I’m reading them, reviewing them, interviewing authors, falling down weird book-news rabbit holes, and occasionally explaining to my family why I absolutely DO need another book when there are already unread books all over my house.

So we’re expanding.

Every Tuesday, you’ll still get the new releases before my social media roundup goes live, but now we’re also talking about the biggest bookish stories I’ve been obsessing over, sharing pieces of my author conversations, and (because she has demanded editorial control) checking in with Link.

Basically: more books. More opinions. More fun.

Welcome to the new newsletter. 🖤

📚 NEW THIS WEEK

Another Tuesday, another completely unreasonable number of books I want to read.

Here’s what’s hitting shelves this week (all links to purchase books can be found at the bottom of this email!).

🩸 HORROR

• A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young
  An isolated Korean seaside village + an ancient plague + people transforming into monsters from the sea. This is a translated Lovecraftian horror novella, and at only 112 pages, it sounds like something you could absolutely devour in one sitting.

• Reliquary by Hannah Whitten

• The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

⚔️ FANTASY + ROMANTASY

• Winterborne by J.D. Netto

• A Dance of Burning Blades by M. H. Ayinde (book 2)

• Splintered Kingdom by Gretchen Powell Fox (book 2)

• Dreamland by Olivie Blake

• The Silver Hand by Shawn Carpenter (book 2)

• Heavensent & Hellbent by Sara Jafari

Fantasy readers are EATING this week. A Dance of Burning Blades is the second book in M. H. Ayinde’s Invoker Trilogy, while Olivie Blake has another new release hitting shelves with Dreamland.

🔎 THRILLER + MYSTERY

• The Nobody Code by Miciah Bay Gault

• Drowning in Paper Flowers by E.L. Westbury

• Don’t Cross Mo Ellery by Birdie Horne

• Brimstone Hollow by Archer Sullivan (book 2)

• Butcher Legacy by Alaina Urquhart (book 3)

• There Are Ghosts Here by Adrienne Tooley

• Codebreakers by Stella Sands (book 2)

The one immediately catching my attention here is The Nobody Code. A woman returns to Vermont and starts investigating whether the vigilante group she joined as a teenager (and the things they did together) are coming back to haunt her decades later. The publisher is pitching it for fans of The God of the Woods, which is obviously going to get my attention.

📖 LITERARY FICTION

• You’ll Love It Here by Natalie Sue

• Night Songs by Alli Dyer

You’ll Love It Here follows Mona after her career implodes and she reluctantly becomes the superintendent of her crumbling apartment building. Nosy neighbors + found family + a woman whose life absolutely did not go according to plan? This sounds incredibly charming.

💕 ROMANCE

• The Magic We Made by Meg Cabot (book 2)

• Counting the Days by Laura Chinn

• A Witch in Notting Hill by Alexandra Paige

Which one are you adding to your TBR? Hit reply and tell me because I need to know what everyone else is eyeing this week.

☕ THE BOOKISH GROUP CHAT

A few things happening in the book world that caught my attention this week:

• Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey takes some BIG swings from Homer. From character changes to mythology and story structure, Reader’s Digest breaks down what the movie changed from the original epic, and whether those changes actually work. Read now via Reader’s Digest.

• Ann Patchett radically decluttered her bookshelves. Yes, even sentimental and signed books. As someone who attaches approximately SO MANY memories to every book I keep, this concept is mildly horrifying to me. 😂 Read now via Good Housekeeping.

🎙️ AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: R. JOHN DINGLE

This week, I’m spotlighting thriller author R. John Dingle, whose Gus Wheeler series blends fast-paced FBI investigations, twisty cases, and something I particularly love in a thriller series: actual character evolution.

I asked John how he balances character development with the nonstop pacing readers expect from a thriller.

His answer? He learned the hard way.

“My first several books were… all plot, no character.”

Gus actually wasn’t supposed to become a recurring character at all. But as the series evolved, John had to figure out how to keep each investigation satisfying as a standalone while still allowing longtime readers to watch Gus change from book to book.

And after reading Before the Devil Knows, I can say that character growth is one of my favorite things about this series.

🎧 Listen to our full conversation on Spotify
📺 Watch the full interview on YouTube

🐾 LINK’S CORNER

Link has discovered representation in literature.

This week’s important canine literary news: Paul Yoon’s new novel Etna follows a former military dog making his way home through a war-torn country.

The entire story is told from Etna’s perspective, and reviewers have described it as a modern canine Odyssey exploring war, loyalty, memory, survival, and what it means to find your way home.

Link’s official thoughts:

Finally, a protagonist with range.

• Brave? ✅

• Loyal? ✅

• Dog? ✅

• Humans making everything unnecessarily complicated? Presumably. ✅

She has not read it, obviously, but she supports more dogs securing leading roles in publishing.

Read The New York Times review of Etna.

📖 BEFORE YOU GO...

That’s it for our first edition of the new format!

New releases will still land here every Tuesday before I share them anywhere else, but now we get to dig into everything else happening in our little corner of the book world too.

And I want this newsletter to feel like our bookish group chat, so tell me what you want to see.

Reply and tell me:

What book are you most excited about this week, and could you EVER do an Ann Patchett-level bookshelf purge?

Because personally, Link will probably learn to read before I willingly get rid of some of mine.

See you next Tuesday. 🖤📚