Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the publishing industry will release more than 40 new books with Southern connections, be they set in the South, about the South or written by Southern authors. Winnowing that down to a manageable list of recommended titles proved challenging this year. So, in addition to our top 10 most highly anticipated books of the season, we’ve included 10 bonus titles from the full-to-bursting genres of nonfiction and thrillers. Place your preorders now or put your name on the waiting list at your local library. These are the books everyone will be talking about this season.
Credit: Little, Brown & Co.
Credit: Little, Brown & Co.
Michael Farris Smith, author of “Blackwood” and “Salvage This World,” delivers a dark, gritty tale of good vs. evil laced with prophesy, biblical imagery, grief, violence and redemption set in the backwoods of Mississippi. The story centers on the search for a child with special powers and the moral dilemma over what to do with her when she is found. As always, Smith elevates the Southern Gothic genre with rhapsodic descriptions of nature and fluid, muscular prose that defies punctuation and propels the narrative to its inevitable conclusion. (Little, Brown and Co., May 27)
Credit: Crown Publishing
Credit: Crown Publishing
A former reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kevin Sack applies his journalism skills to this examination of the history and influence of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, site of a mass shooting in 2015 when a white supremacist killed a pastor and eight members attending a prayer meeting. From its roots in slavery, through the trauma of Civil War and its role during the Civil Rights Movement, Sack traces the evolution of African Methodism in a city where nearly half the enslaved people in North America entered the country and where the Civil War began. (Crown Publishing, June 3)
Credit: Summit Books
Credit: Summit Books
Atlanta native Rob Franklin’s highly anticipated literary debut examines the intersection of race, class and privilege through the eyes of Smith, a young, gay, Black man born into privilege. Living a comfortable life in New York City after graduating from Stanford, Smith’s bubble is burst when he is arrested for cocaine possession following the tragic death of his beloved roommate, Elle. Thrust into the legal system, he discovers that his class might protect him but his race does not. After visiting his family in Atlanta, where he chafes against their high-achieving standards, he returns to New York where he navigates the city’s glitzy nightlife, a police investigation and courtroom drama in hopes of finding out what happened to Elle, who might not have been the person he thought she was. (Summit Books, June 10)
Credit: Henry Holt & Company
Credit: Henry Holt & Company
“If You Love It, Let It Kill You”
Atlanta native Hannah Pittard validates Truman Capote’s claim that all fiction is gossip with this work of autofiction inspired by the fallout surrounding the end of her marriage to fellow writer Andrew Ewell. The instigating event in their dissolution was an affair Ewell had with their mutual friend, an aspiring writer married to yet another aspiring writer. The literary drama was detailed in Ewell’s 2024 autofiction “Set for Life,” as well as in a lengthy New York magazine feature. So, consider Pittard‘s latest a revenge novel. It’s about “Hana P.,” an English professor at the University of Kentucky (like Pittard) who’s outraged over her ex-husband‘s new novel, which bases a very unflattering character on her. Per Pittard‘s style, it’s full of biting humor, keen observations and poignant moments. (Henry Holt & Co., July 15)
Credit: Tin House
Credit: Tin House
Georgia-born Carrie R. Moore makes her literary debut with this collection of 11 short stories about Black men and women searching for home in a place that is often inhospitable to them — the American South. For example, in “Cottonmouths,” a pregnant mother and her pregnant daughter ponder the paternity of the daughter’s child, the future living arrangements for their growing family and how to get a poisonous snake out of the house. The stories are “gorgeous, resonant and startling,” writes “The Vaster Wilds” author Lauren Groff. “It’s rare for a new writer to have such profound emotional wisdom.” (Tin House, July 15)
Credit: Dutton
Credit: Dutton
North Carolina author Jason Mott won the 2021 National Book Award for fiction for “Hell of a Book,” about a Black author on a cross-country book tour. “People Like Us” is a sequel of sorts, although it stands on its own. This go-round, the fictional author has won the National Book Award and is on a global book tour across Europe. But there’s a dual narrative involving another author (or is it the same?) who is scheduled to speak at a school that has suffered a mass shooting. Part memoir, part travelogue, part fever dream, Mott’s novel deploys wicked humor and pathos to explore issues around race, gun violence, fame and mental health. (Dutton, Aug. 5)
Credit: W.W. Norton
Credit: W.W. Norton
In 1985, Harold and Thelma Swain were shot and killed in a South Georgia church. A decade and a half later, Dennis Perry was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to a double life sentence. But when journalist Joshua Sharpe began looking into the case for the AJC, he found reason to suspect the wrong man had been convicted, and he launched a full investigation that ultimately resulted in Perry being exonerated and a new suspect being charged. In “The Man No One Believed,” Sharpe recounts the crimes, the court case that rushed Perry to conviction and the investigation that freed him. (W.W. Norton, Aug. 5)
Credit: Tiny Reparations Books
Credit: Tiny Reparations Books
Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s newfound independence in the 1960s, Tochi Eze’s literary debut begins with a love affair between Benjamin, a British-born man who has come to Lagos to explore his Nigerian roots, and Margaret, a local. But the discovery of a link between their pasts and Margaret’s mental health issues tear them apart. Four decades later, Benjamin is living alone in Atlanta nursing his health and Margaret has retired in an upscale community in Lagos. When their grandson experiences mental health problems similar to Margaret’s, the couple reunites and is forced to reconcile buried truths. (Tiny Reparations Books, Aug. 5)
Credit: Henry Holt & Co.
Credit: Henry Holt & Co.
A contributing writer to the New Yorker, Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. For “Blessings and Disasters” she blends memoir, history and reportage to explore her identity and that of her much maligned, misunderstood home state. According to PEN/Faulkner Award-winner Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, author of “My Monticello,” Okeowo’s “exploration of ‘outsiders’ in Alabama sheds light on the divided face of our nation and lovingly charts the push and pull of the places we call home.” (Henry Holt & Co., Aug. 5)
Credit: Hub City Press
Credit: Hub City Press
Atlanta native Austyn Wohlers makes her literary debut with this slim novel about a woman who abandons her relationships and painting career to live in isolation on an apple orchard she inherited from her grandfather. But Anna’s solitude is interrupted when a friend arrives for a visit and tries to interest her in painting again. As harvest season approaches, more people invade Anna’s privacy — pickers, neighbors, contractors — and she realizes that in order to return to her state of solitude, the orchard must turn a profit. Atlanta author Blake Butler says the novel “immediately establishes Austyn Wohlers as a vital and extraordinary wellspring of the divine.” (Hub City Press, Aug. 26)
Plus, more thrillers and nonfiction
Credit: William Morrow
Credit: William Morrow
5 thrillers
“King of Ashes.” In New York Times bestselling author S.A. Cosby’s latest Southern crime thriller, a finance whiz has to infiltrate an organized crime unit in small-town Virginia to save his family, who operate a crematorium, from ruin. (Flat Iron Books, June 10)
“Happy Wife.” Tongues in the wealthy enclave of Winter Park, Florida, wag when a prominent, middle-aged lawyer marries a young, financially strapped country club worker who falls under suspicion when her husband goes missing. By Atlanta authors Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores. (Bantam, June 24)
“Sunburned.” Tyler, an eccentric tech billionaire, summons ex-girlfriend Audrey to St. Barths to help him figure out who among his entourage is blackmailing him about secrets both Tyler and Audrey want kept under wraps. By Atlanta author Katherine Wood. (Bantam, July 1)
“Fast Boys and Pretty Girls.” Following her return to the North Georgia mountains after a career as a teen model in New York City, Danielle is forced to reckon with a dark event from her past when a body is found in a ravine behind her house. By Atlanta author Lo Patrick. (Sourcebooks, July 8)
“We Are All Guilty Here.” Atlanta author Karin Slaughter launches a new series with this North Falls mystery involving two teenage girls who go missing during the town’s Fourth of July celebration and efforts by Officer Emmy Clifton to find them. (William Morrow, Aug. 12)
Credit: Viking
Credit: Viking
5 nonfiction
“The Many Passions of Michael Hardwick.” Martin Padgett chronicles the historic struggle for LGBTQ+ rights in Atlanta through this biography of activist Michael Hardwick, who was at the center of a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Georgia’s anti-sodomy law. (W.W. Norton, June 3)
“Misbehaving at the Crossroads.” A recent transplant to Atlanta, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers won the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and was nominated for the National Book Award for her 2021 literary debut, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.” Her latest is a collection of essays and other writings that explore challenges unique to Black women in America. (Harper, June 24)
“Mailman.” Fired during the COVID-19 pandemic after a 20-year career as a consumer strategist in Charlotte, North Carolina, memoirist Stephen Starring Grant finds his life transformed when he takes a job delivering the mail in his rural hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia. (Simon & Schuster, July 8)
“The Fort Bragg Cartel.” Prompted by the double murder of two elite members of the military at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Iraq War veteran and investigative reporter Seth Harp uncovers a drug trafficking ring among the Special Forces. (Viking, Aug. 12)
“Positive Obsession.” Georgia Tech associate professor Susana M. Morris’ biography of Octavia Butler explores how the influential science fiction author and her work were shaped by the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women’s liberation, LGBTQ+ rights and Reaganomics. (Amistad, Aug. 19)
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