The 29 Best New Book Releases This Week: August 6-12, 2024

Here are the 29 best new book releases out this week of August 6-12, 2024. It’s not easy doing this list! (Of course, it’s not easy doing anything in this heat. Stay hydrated, stay near a fan and take a nap when you can! Life is too short to not take care of yourself.) Some weeks–like this one–no thrillers demand to be included. And yet I had six really good picture books I whittled down to three. (Sorry, kids!) I found loads of great sci-fi and fantasy…but no cookbooks that whetted my appetite.

To be clear, I love choosing titles from all sorts of genres and tossing in some surprises. But I never include, say, a Romance just so I have a Romance. (Oh, don’t worry; this week I have at least four.) I only include books I’ve read and loved, books by authors with great track records or books getting great buzz. So let’s get reading. At the head of the Parade are…

The 29 Best New Book Releases This Week: August 6-12, 2024

1. The Art of Power by Nancy Pelosi
2. The Boys Of Riverside by Thomas Fuller 
3. The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon by Heath Hardage Lee

Nancy Pelosi shares her story as the first woman to be Speaker of the House. She made history every step of the way. If her book is candid, it may well become the rare political memoir worth reading years from now. If it’s a guide to wielding power–and few have done that more skillfully than Pelosi; witness her delicate handling of Biden’s Hamlet-like dilemma when stepping down–then The Art Of Power may be essential. 

The Boys of Riverside is an inspiring sports story. Journalist Thomas Fuller knew he’d hit paydirt during the pandemic when following a school for the deaf high school’s football team during a triumphant season against hearing opponents. It also illuminates the growing understanding and acceptance of those who are different from others in one way or another. And given their wining season, being different is sometimes a super power.

Few Presidents have fallen from grace as completely as the never-quite-liked but sometimes respected Richard Nixon. We now know he committed treason just to gain power by kneecapping the Vietnam War peace talks of 1968. Listen to the Watergate tapes and you’ll hear him asking how much it would cost to hire a killer and yes, he could arrange to get that amount of money. It’s shocking. But what do we know about his wife? Biographer Heath Hardage Lee goes beyond the “what did she know and when did she know it” to paint a complete picture of one of the least known First Ladys in American history.

The Art of Power by Nancy Pelosi ($30; Simon & Schuster) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

The Boys Of Riverside by Thomas Fuller ($28; Doubleday) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon by Heath Hardage Lee ($32; St. Martin’s Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

4. Hot Earl Summer by Erica Ridley
5. The Truth According To Ember by Danica Nava
6. Elizabeth Of East Hampton by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding
7. The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Sometimes a hot mess can make for a winning romance.

Erica Ridley continues to slice a path through period romances–with the Regency-set Hot Earl Summer, she has great fun with a sword-wielding spinster, a scientist posing as his cousin and all sorts of sexy misunderstandings.

Danica Nava is enjoying great reviews for The Truth According to Amber, her office-set romance starring a Chickasaw woman who can’t get hired…until she passes for white. Naturally, Amber falls for a Native co-worker, is blackmailed by a scheming employee and decides the truth must come out, even if it means losing everything that matters to her.

The writing team of Bellezza and Harding continue their popular re-imagining of Jane Austen by plopping Pride and Prejudice into a summer season at the Hamptons. Say hello to Elizabeth of East Hampton.

In The Pairing, Casey McQuiston has a blast depicting lovers turned enemies Theo and Kit, both bisexual and both determined to enjoy the European tour they bought and paid for when together. Oops, they’ve both chosen the same dates to use their vouchers. Ah well. A causal bet to see which one can bed their hot Italian tour guide first becomes a round robin of one-upmanship that inevitably leads them to wonder if perhaps the ideal pairing might just be one another after all?

Hot Earl Summer by Erica Ridley ($17.99; Forever) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Truth According To Ember by Danica Nava ($19; Berkley) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Elizabeth Of East Hampton by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding ($18.99; Gallery Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Pairing By Casey McQuiston ($16; St. Martin’s Griffin) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 32 Best Romance Books of 2024...So Far

8. The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey
9. Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer
10. Hum by Helen Phillips

Fans of The Expanse are thrilled James S.A. Corey launches a new Space Opera with the story of the remnants of humanity struggling to survive while being used as pawns in an intergalactic struggle. You know, Space Opera!

Author MJ Wassmer (to heck with periods after initials! So 20th century) offers up a wacky end-of-the-world dystopian tale laced with acidic humor. It’s about a dude on an island resort when the sun explodes (oops!). He’d prefer to just save himself yet the other guests are awfully desperate. Still, what’s the point of being a hero when most of the world is kaput and no one will be able to ticker tape him even if he makes it out alive? Decisions, decisions.

In the dystopian novel Hum, robots/AI are taking over the jobs of humans. Wait, when they say this is set in the near future, do they mean “Tuesday.” Anyway, a displaced woman agrees to have her face “erased” in an experiment that makes her invisible to surveillance; she’s a privacy guinea pig! That means a rare treat for her family–a night in a space with actual greenery!–but events go horribly awry and she must trust a “hum” (a robot) to set things right. Siri, is that a good idea?

The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey ($30; Orbit) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer ($16.99; Sourcebooks Landmark) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Hum by Helen Phillips ($27.99; S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

11. Paris 1944 by Patrick Bishop
12. The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss

World War II looms large in our imagination, but if you live in Europe, one can only assume it looms even larger. So when the UK press praises a new work of popular history and says even people who know the general facts of the occupation and liberation of Paris will find plenty to savor in Paris 1944, when they say author Patrick Bishop entertains and enlightens in equal measure, I’m sold.

Did you know Founding Father Benjamin Franklin opened the first (or surely one of the first) commercial bookstores in the colonies? Author Evan Friss charts the journey of the American bookstore from those impolite early days when publishers bootlegged the latest novels by Charles Dickens and paid him nary a penny or Mark Twain found it smarter to self-publish novels himself to the rise of chains and the superstore and of course Amazon. But he doesn’t stop there. Everything from used bookstores (hello, The Strand!) to the guys hawking pulp paperbacks at tables on the streets of New York City get their due in a work of history indie bookstores in particular will be sure to embrace.

Paris 1944 by Patrick Bishop ($35; Pegasus Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss ($29.99; Viking) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

13. The Devil Raises His Own by Scott Phillips
14. In The Blink of An Eye by Jo Callaghan
15. Wordhunter by Stella Sands

Scott Phillips scored big with his Western noir debut The Ice Harvest. He may be back on top with a noir set in Hollywood during the early days of the film industry. A portrait photographer and his granddaughter want a fresh start in the Los Angeles of 1916. Instead, they get offers to make blue movies (yes, even in 1916), become tangled up in a series of grisly murders and must make like Bogie and Bacall long before The Big Sleep if they want to survive Tinseltown.

Jo Callaghan is a UK writer who puts a clever new spin on the old gambit of mismatched partners. Kat Frank is a shoe leather cop who trusts basic field work and her gut a lot more than scraps of DNA or statistical analysis. Her partner is a fiend for statistical analysis and data mining, which makes sense since her partner is LOCK, an AI-powered hologram Kat must consult in a pilot program testing its usefulness. Kat is a skeptic…until a killer starts targeting her and LOCK is her best and only ally.

After delivering a half dozen true crime books (among other titles), author Stella Sands makes the leap to fiction. Clearly Sands has a way with words, which may explain her protagonist. Maggie Moore is a genius when it comes to analyzing speech patterns and word choices: hand her some words penned by a suspect and you might as well be handing her DNA. Maggie can nail them at a thousand yards with just a hundred telling word choices and sentence structures. Which means any chance of my being a master criminal hiding in the shadows is short circuited by the thousands of stories I’ve written. Oh well. Instead of hunting me, Maggie is breaking open a conspiracy that’s about to rock the small north Central Florida town she resides in…assuming Maggie can stay alive, that is.

The Devil Raises His Own by Scott Phillips ($27.95; Soho Crime) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

In The Blink of An Eye by Jo Callaghan ($18; Random House Trade Paperbacks) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Wordhunter by Stella Sands ($18.99; Harper Paperbacks) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

16. Why Animals Talk by Arik Kershenbaum
17. Life As No One Knows It by Sara Imari Walker

Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum answers the question of why animals talk. I would have thought the only question was how do animals talk, because why wouldn’t they talk if they could? But that’s why I’m not a zoologist, since the answers to both questions offer a fascinating glimpse into the ways animals communicate and the meaning of what they say and the motivation for it all. Apparently, breakthroughs have been made in recent decades, so it’s a lot more complicated than “bees dance to tell others where the pollen is located” we learned in school.

Physicist Sara Imari Walker has a theory about the beginning of life and how to determine it. She has a talent for explaining complex ideas in a way the general public can understand. In this case, it involves analyzing how many steps it takes to build a structure (like a protein). The more steps it takes, the closer you get to “life” rather than, say, an inanimate material. The theory she shares works for both life on earth and any life we might encounter off planet. And one way to test it? Building a machine that just might generate new life of a form we’ve never seen before. What could go wrong, Dr. Frankenstein?

Why Animals Talk by Arik Kershenbaum ($30; Penguin Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

Life As No One Knows It by Sara Imari Walker ($29; Riverhead Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

18. There’s Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg
19. The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
20. And So I Roar by Abi Daré

When a man suffers from a debilitating disease no one can diagnose, it’s usually given a fancy new name like “What The Hell Is This?” Syndrome. When a woman suffers the same, she’s hysterical. In the sometimes hysterical (as in funny) novel There’s Nothing Wrong With Her, our heroine struggles with a Long COVID-like illness she calls The Pit. It’s nightmarish, but also funny as author Kate Weinberg captures the exquisite, cruel boredom of it all, even with hallucinations and a new handsome upstairs neighbor who is awfully understanding. Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan.

Writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a rising star in the world of fantasy, horror and sci-fi, both as aa acclaimed writer and editor. Just to keep us on our toes, she delivers The Seventh Veil Of Salome, a doubled work of historical fiction. In 1950s Hollywood, every young star yearns for the role of Salome in a big new production, but it’s the little known Mexican ingenue Vera Larios who wins it. That makes her the target of envy and more, especially from the All About Eve-like bit player named Nancy Hartley. As if that’s not enough, Moreno-Garcia also jumps to Biblical times where the princess Salome is torn between the demands of her family (including stepdad King Herod) and her love for John the Baptist.

Nigeria is really bringing it right now as a hotbed of excellent books taking the world by storm. Author Abi Daré scored a hit with her acclaimed debut novel The Girl With The Louding Voice, a Today show pick. The heroine of that novel–now 14 year old Adunni–is back and paired with Tia, a young woman who must defy her dying mother or watch Adunni and all the girls of Adunni’s village suffer a terrible fate. You needn’t read the first book to enjoy this one, but everyone who devoured that bestseller will surely be ready for And So I Roar.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg ($27; G.P. Putnam’s Sons) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ($28.99; Del Rey) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

And So I Roar by Abi Daré ($28; Dutton) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

21. There Is A Rio Grande In Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr.
22. A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher
23. House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias

Author Ruben Reyes Jr.’s short story collection is pegged as “speculative fiction,” which means he’s so good that mainstream critics who don’t normally cover sci-fi and fantasy want to claim Reyes as one of their own, so expect references to Kurt Vonnegut and the like when they review this startlingly diverse range of tales.

T. Kingfisher is a quiet powerhouse in fantasy fiction. As Ursula Vernon, she’s written books for kids and as T. Kingfisher she delivers works geared to an older audience. Under both names, she’s won top awards like the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. Now she makes like the Brothers Grimm and wholly reimagines the classic fairy tale “The Goose Girl.” Instead of a wicked servant, this time it’s our hero’s wicked mother who plots to hurt people the girl loves. Can you betray someone who never cared for you?

Award-winning author Gabino Iglesias covers horror for the New York Times, where he champions other horror writers. So I’ll do the same for him. In House of Bone and Rain, childhood friends in Puerto Rico make a pledge to avenge the murder of one of their moms. The problem? She was killed by people working for one of the most violent criminals on the island. Plus, a hurricane approaches, bringing with it the malignant spirits that turns this bloody minded vow into a supernatural battle reflecting the evil unleashed by any violence, even the righteous kind. Critics make it sound like a cross between Don Winslow and Stephen King, which sounds good to me.

There Is A Rio Grande In Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. ($27.39; Mariner Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher ($27.99; Tor Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias ($29; Mulholland Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 29 Best Mystery, Thriller and True Crime Books of 2024…so Far

24. Molly and the Bear: An Unlikely Pair by Bob Scott & Vicki Scott
25. All About U.S. by Matt Lamothe with Jenny Volvovski
26. We Are Big Time by Hena Khan; illustrated by Safiya Zerrougui

Molly and the Bear: An Unlikely Pair is a full length spin-off of the comic strip “Bear With Me,” all about a little girl and her best friend, an easily frightened 800 lb bear. The word adorable springs to mind.

All About US is a winning look at real people all over the country. It combines interviews with people from every state with illustrations and photos depicting their lives. Naturally, you’ll go to your own state right away, but it’s a wide-ranging survey that can’t help but open reader’s eyes to the diverse lives in these United States.

Author Hena Khan and illustrator Safiya Zerrougui charm with the story of a Muslim girl who finds purpose and friendship when she joins an all-girl, all hijab-wearing basketball team.

Molly and the Bear: An Unlikely Pair by Bob Scott & Vicki Scott ($14.99; Aladdin) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

All About U.S. by Matt Lamothe with Jenny Volvovski ($19.99; Chronicle Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

We Are Big Time by Hena Khan; illustrated by Safiya Zerrougui ($13.99; Knopf Book For Young Readers) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

27. Skeletown: Mas. ¡Menos! by Rhode Montijo
28. The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston
29. That’s Not Fair by Shinsuke Yoshitake

Three picture books you can safely read a hundred times and not tire of, which is exactly what picture books need to do.

Skeletown: Mas. ¡Menos! Is a casually bilingual treat telling a story via just the words “mas” and “menos.”

Illustrator Oliver Jeffers of The Day The Crayons Quit fame is back with the story of a dictionary who’d rather tell a tale than have words lined up alphabetically. So boring! Chaos ensues.

And why are picture books always listed last in these roundups? That’s Not Fair! In Shinsuke Yoshitake’s sweet story, a little girl wants to complain to her daddy about all the things that aren’t fair. Why does she always have to take a bath when he says? Why does she have to go to sleep when he stays up? His...inventive answers will amuse adults, even if a skeptical kid might respond with “is that really true?” Umm, how about a snack? 

Skeletown: Mas. ¡Menos! By Rhode Montijo ($17.99; Little, Brown Books For Young Readers) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston ($18.99; Candlewick) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

That's Not Fair by Shinsuke Yoshitake ($17.99; Chronicle Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 46 Best Books of 2024…So Far