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Usually, I do a roundup of some of the most notable book club-friendly books coming out each month at the beginning of the month, but I’m switching things up a bit for March. I thought that this roundup could be more reflective than prescient, and it’s a little more convenient for readers since all the books should be out.
The books below are ones that I’ve heard all manner of book people talk about, recommend, and review, and they’re perfect for book club conversations. In them, you’ll find a (satisfying) new take on vampires by Stephen Graham Jones, a survivor’s real-life account, and even a cult.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
New Stephen Graham Jones is always cause for celebration, and his latest offers up his usual Indigenous-centered horror. This time, it largely takes place out west, in 1912. It’s also full of sweet, sweet revenge.
The diary of a Lutheran pastor from 1912 is found a hundred years after it was written, and what is in it is almost unbelievable. The pastor recorded his interviews with a Blackfeet man named Good Stab, who can not seem to die, and who has a taste for blood. Good Stab is connected to a slow massacre that traces all the way back to the very real Marias Massacre, in which 217 Blackfeet people were killed by the U.S. Army.
Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope by Amanda Nguyen
After Amanda Nguyen was sexually assaulted, Nguyen chose to have her rape kit registered under the name “Jane Doe.” But she later found out that because she chose to remain anonymous, she only had six months to take action against the man who assaulted her. Horrified by this law, she decided to fight to change it. This is her story. — Kendra Winchester
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Lalami is another multi-award nominated author and her latest reminds me of Minority Report as it questions how technology, privacy, and freedom can coexist. We follow Sara, who has just landed at LAX, and who is swiftly gathered up by agents who say that she will soon commit a crime against her husband. They came to this conclusion using data from her dreams and the Risk Assessment Administration’s algorithm. She’s taken to a facility and held there with other dreamers, all of whom are women, and all of whom claim innocence of crimes not yet committed. Months pass before a new resident arrives who shakes things up. Now Sara is on a path to knuck if you buck against those who have taken her freedom.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
This is the debut solo novella from Amal El-Mohtar, co-author of the hugely popular novella This Is How You Lose the Time War! It’s about the two Hawthorn sisters, who live on the edge of Faerie, and what happens when one of them puts their lives at risk by falling for a Faerie man. Holly Black calls it “Half delicious murder ballad, half beguiling love story.” YES, PLEASE. — Liberty Hardy
O Sinners! by Nicole Cuffy
This cult-centered book has three perspectives: Faruq Zaidi’s, a young journalist; Odo’s, the Black infantryman who served during the Vietnam War and who leads The Nameless cult; and a documentary script that lays out the circumstances surrounding The Nameless beefing with a Texas fundamentalist church. But let’s focus on Faruq for a minute. After his father dies, he buries himself in his work by becoming enmeshed in a cult called The Nameless. The cult is led by the aforementioned Odo, and though Faruq is skeptical and the new teachings he encounters (like how “there is no god but The Nameless,” for example) are at odds with his atheist beliefs, he finds Odo’s pull increasingly harder to resist.
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