In this illuminating debut history, Colorado Springs, Colo., serves as a microcosm for how evangelicalism has accrued cultural power over the past 70-odd years. Historian Schultz begins in the 1940s and ’50s, when evangelical leaders fused faith to Cold War–era patriotic values, birthing a militaristic evangelicalism that saw believers as “stewards and defenders of a Christian” and American heritage. The era saw small towns like Colorado Springs attract evangelicals drawn to their traditional values, growing economy, and relatively cheap prices. Colorado Springs, in particular, drew enterprising evangelicals who built campuses for ministries like Young Life, Navigators, and Focus on the Family, and helped set up institutions like the U.S. Air Force Academy, marrying piety, patriotism, and power (military leaders “loudly proclaimed that good soldiers were good Christians and vice versa”). The evangelicalism that emerged in Colorado Springs—and the conflation of “Christianity and patriotism” that distinguished it from mainline Protestantism, which had increasingly begun to “emphasize America’s religious pluralism”—helped it evolve into a social movement which, the author convincingly shows, has played a key role in fueling today’s Christian nationalism. The result is a revealing window into the roots of a movement that has reshaped American religion and politics. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Sage (the Rebel Blue Ranch series) makes an impressive first foray into the paranormal with her Sweetwater Peak series launch. Photographer Collins Cartwright has communicated with ghosts her whole life—but recently, every ghost she sees has been ignoring her. Between jobs and short on cash, she reluctantly heads home to Sweetwater Peak, Wyo., where her twin sister, Clarke, gets her a temporary gig and a place to stay with local upholsterer Brady Cooper. Brady had abandoned a stressful career as a software engineer for a gentler life in Sweetwater Peak using skills taught by his grandfather. He’s attracted to his beautiful new house guest, but worries for her sanity when he hears her talking to herself in her room—until Collins informs him that his house is haunted and he gradually comes to believe her paranormal stories. A subplot about a shady developer circling Collins’s parents’ antique shop brings the budding couple closer as they work together to stop the deal. Ghostly backstories, elements of supernatural mystery, and sensual romance keep the pages flying. Sage proves adept at switching genres. Agent: Jessica Watterson, Sandra Dijkstra Agency. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Kraven, in this delicious forbidden romance, an expanded edition of her previously self-published Dark Fates series debut, dives into the booming subgenre of high-heat retellings of Greek myths. Persephone, Goddess of Spring, is used to her steamroller of a mother, Demeter, running her life, including by arranging a marriage between Persephone and Helios, Titan of the Sun, to shore up her own waning power, even though Helios is secretly in love with Narcissus. But when Persephone meets Hades, God of the Underworld, while walking in the woods, their connection is immediate and intense. After Persephone leaves the Upper Realm to join Hades in the Underworld, a bitter Demeter unleashes her fury, creating a famine that kills innocents and leads several divine factions to the brink of war. Kraven’s world feels dark but lived-in, and both the central romance and the subplot about Helios and Narcissus are passionate and emotional. She makes few changes to the original myth, save for inserting some red hot sex scenes. Fans of Katee Robert and Sav R. Miller will be hooked. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Basu debuts and launches the Reckoning Storm duology with a fast-paced fantasy built on real-world parallels. Poppy Sutherland is the adoptive daughter of the viceroy of Viryana, and unlike her colonizer parents, she is a native Virian. Having faced prejudice since her adoption, she went to finishing school to learn to fit in and returns determined to woo Capt. Richard Montrose, head of the police force and son of a First Family, Viryana’s political leaders. Though initially it seems she has secured the protected future for herself that a union with Richard would offer, Poppy finds herself out of her depth and powerless when he shows his true colors. Basu’s historically influenced worldbuilding fictionalizes the British colonial rule of India and draws from Indian culture, folklore, and caste systems. Magic and magic users exist, but the fantasy elements go relatively underdeveloped. The themes of racial justice, anticolonialism, and female empowerment under a patriarchy are similarly treated a bit simplistically, resulting in an almost YA feel. Readers will hope Basu goes deeper in the next installment. Agent: Allegra Martschenko, BookEnds Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Hamilton (The Excellent Lombards) serves up a charming story of a rebellious teen’s life-changing summer before college in 1974. Phoebe Hudson’s well-meaning adoptive mother, Greta, insists she meet her birth parents, the Dahlgreens, so she can see they’re “regular, real people” and let go of any “fantasy” she has about them. Horrified to learn the Dahlgreens have a big family she was excluded from, Phoebe feels betrayed by Greta, whom Hamilton portrays as partly driven by self-interest. Phoebe then runs away, with help from her best friend, Luna, and crashes in their friend Patrick O’Connor’s basement. After Patrick gives Phoebe a pixie cut, his 21-year-old brother, Miles, suddenly notices her stunning looks. The pair fall in love and she gets accidentally pregnant, forcing her to make a difficult series of decisions, all while facing the limit of Luna’s loyalty. Hamilton displays a natural touch in her characterizations, especially Greta’s struggle to find the right way to be open with Phoebe about Phoebe’s birth family and Luna’s competitiveness with boys, which add dimension to the entertaining tale. The author has another winner on her hands. Agent: Emily Foreman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, embodies the tortured soul of technocratic liberalism in this melodramatic biography. Journalist Philip Taubman (Secret Empire) and his political scientist brother William (Gorbachev) trace McNamara’s rise through the military-industrial complex, first as a colonel helping make the Air Force more efficient during WWII and then as an executive at Ford. The book centers on McNamara’s management, as defense secretary, of the Vietnam War, which he initially supported but concluded was unwinnable in late 1965. He nevertheless continued to publicly maintain, citing misleading statistics, that it was going well, while privately urging Johnson to seek peace. The strain led to psychological turmoil, including incidents of public weeping. Subsequent chapters cover McNamara’s later acknowledgments that the war was wrong. The Taubmans’ psychologizing of McNamara is heavy-handed: they say his mother “infantilized” him merely because she told him to eat well and stay warm at Harvard, and make much of McNamara’s apparent platonic affair with Jacqueline Kennedy. (Jackie danced with him, shared poems, and beat on his chest while yelling at him to “stop the slaughter.”) The narrative is more revealing when focusing on prosaic factors—like that arguing more forcefully against the war would probably have gotten McNamara fired. McNamara’s spiritual ordeal, despite the authors’ efforts, never comes off as more than a sideshow to the Vietnam tragedy. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this blunt yet accessible debut guide, Biesinger, whose modernist illustrations have been featured in the New Yorker and the New York Times, outlines basic legal rights and best practices for freelance artists. Biesinger shares his personal frustrations, including a design studio copying one of his illustrations, a frame shop selling bootlegs of his art, and one of his prints appearing in an influencer’s monetized video—situations in which “there is no design-oriented 911 to call.” For each case, he unpacks the legality, ethics, and options available to an artist, including how those who can’t afford a lawsuit can seek justice outside the legal system. He also highlights the differences between homage and theft, explores the ways in which the internet has blurred understandings of creative ownership, and provides tips on building a career as a freelance artist. All of these ideas are illustrated with Biesinger’s bold, imaginative black-and-white artwork. While the no-frills writing sometimes rambles, Biesinger’s honesty and willingness to share his hard-earned lessons make this an invaluable resource. Aspiring artists looking to strike out on their own would do well to take a look. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Investigative journalist O’Meara follows up 2005’s Psyched Out with a disappointing diatribe about the evils of psychiatry, psychiatrists, psychotropic drugs, the FDA, and groups she derisively refers to as “the numbskulls at NIMH” and the “psycho-wizards at the APA.” O’Meara reiterates some of the strongest points from the original version and updates them with newer statistics: psychiatry is a muddy and imprecise discipline; the DSM has been the subject of controversy; drugs are often over-prescribed; and pharmaceutical companies frequently act in ways that are less than upstanding. However, the book suffers from O’Meara’s poor grounding in science. For example, the fact that scientists can’t explain the factors underlying mental disorders (or why certain drugs work for some and not others) is not—as she suggests—a matter of ineptitude but a reflection of the ongoing nature of brain research. Her reasoning is also highly selective; she cites pages of psychiatric drug contraindications from the Physicians’ Desk Reference without mentioning that all drugs have adverse effects, and her attempts to link school shootings with the rise in psychiatric drug prescriptions rely on tenuous logic and outright speculation. Psychiatry is a fascinating and rapidly evolving field; it deserves better than this. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Originally self-published on Wattpad, this simplistically written but emotionally complex new adult romance from Godoy (Through My Window) finds Klara Rodriguez, 19, having developed agoraphobia in response to her mother’s death. She hasn’t left the house in eight months but eases her loneliness by tuning into her favorite college radio show, Follow My Voice, finding comfort in the soothing voice of its host, Kang. On a whim, she sends a message expressing her appreciation, and Kang reads it on air. To her shock, Kang texts back and the pair strike up a pen pal relationship. As texts turn to phone calls, their connection deepens and Klara finds inspiration to start living again. She signs up for classes at the local community college—bringing her and Kang into contact IRL. Godoy over-relies on cliché, and the interpersonal drama often veers into YA territory, but Klara’s anxiety, grief, and depression are handled with care and her path toward healing is satisfying to witness. With a film adaptation forthcoming from Amazon Prime, this angsty tale should please the author’s fans and win her new ones. Agent: Johanna Castillo, Writers House. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth) puts a millennial spin on the haunted house genre with this spooky but underbaked tale of sisterhood, self-destruction, and social media. While enjoying a night out, influencer Clio Barnes gets a call informing her that her estranged and deeply troubled mother has died. She reunites with her sisters, Leda and Daphne, to process the news. After making the bold decision to attend their mother’s funeral, it becomes clear that death was only the beginning of the trouble to follow. The sisters inherit their childhood home, which their mother always claimed was haunted and used as the basis of her paranormal memoir, Demon of Edgewood Drive: The True Story of a Suburban Haunting. With memories of childhood trauma lurking around every corner, none of the sisters want anything to do with the house, except for Clio, who sees the potential for house-flipping social media content. When she discovers and starts reading a worn copy of her mother’s memoir and strange occurrences plague the house, she begins to question what’s real, culminating in a confrontation with the many ghosts of her past. The result is certainly a breezy and entertaining supernatural story, but one that offers few surprises. Meanwhile, a shoehorned romance subplot and underdeveloped secondary characters detract from the fun. This isn’t Harrison’s best. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink