Pop Fiction | Prepub Alert, May 2025 Titles

GMA Book Club pick author Disha Bose offers a coming-of-age story about a woman who moves from Calcutta to Ireland, while Oprah’s Book Club author Wally Lamb returns with a novel about a young father in prison who finds kinship with the prison librarian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bose, Disha. I Will Blossom Anyway. Ballantine. May 2025. ISBN 9780593875322. 272p. $30. FICTION

Bose, author of Dirty Laundry, a GMA Book Club pick already sold for a TV/film deal, offers a coming-of-age story about new starts, old ties, the bonds of blood, and the power of found family. Most of all, as it follows a woman who moves from Calcutta to Ireland, it is about becoming, and deciding, who one wants to be.

Cummins, Jeanine. Speak to Me of Home. Holt. May 2025. ISBN 9781250759368. 384p. $29.99. FICTION

Cummins, the author of the controversial bestselling Oprah pick American Dirt, returns with a 750K-copy first printing of a new multigenerational story tracing the history of a Puerto Rican family who move from the island to the Midwest and back again, across three generations and more than 50 years.

Curtis, Aaron John. Old School Indian. May 2025. ISBN 9781638931454. 352p. $28. FICTION

Curtis debuts with a 150K-copy first printing coming-of-middle-age novel in which Abe Jacobs returns to the Saint Regis Mohawk reservation, which he left at 18. Now 43, Abe is gravely ill and agrees to undergo a healing treatment by his Great Uncle Budge. But as Dominick Deer Woods, the narrator, makes clear, this story is far more wide ranging.

Evans, Virginia. The Correspondent. Crown. May 2025. ISBN 9780593798430. 304p. $28. FICTION

Evans debuts with the story of Sybil Van Antwerp, a divorced grandmother, gardener, and letter writer. Letters are her way of making the world make sense, until one day she receives a note that forces her to look back at a painful episode in her life. Foreign sales are buzzy.

Hamdan, Sara. What Will People Think? Holt. May 2025. ISBN 9781250329813. 336p. $28.99. FICTION

Hamdan, who has worked as a New York Times journalist and editor at Google, and who won both a Netflix short story award and a First Chapter Writers’ Fellowship, gets a 100K-copy first printing for her debut, a coming-of-age story about a media fact checker who secretly performs at NYC’s comedy clubs.

Hardcastle, Dylin. A Language of Limbs. Dutton. May 2025. ISBN 9780593852712. 304p. $28. FICTION

Hardcastle (Below Deck) makes their American debut with this coming-of-age story that has already won the Kathleen Mitchell Award in Australia and been optioned by Sony for a TV series. The book relates the mirroring of two lives across a similar timeline, as they almost intersect and then profoundly collide.

Knapp, Florence. The Names. Viking: Pamela Dorman. May 2025. ISBN 9780593833902. 336p. $30. FICTION

Knapp makes her fiction debut with a novel that traces one boy’s three alternative lives, one for each baby name that his mother is choosing between. Each name shapes his life, as well as his mother’s, over the course of 35 years. The novel was bought in a 10-way auction and was a hot title at the Frankfurt book fair.

Lamb, Wally. The River Is Waiting. Scribner: Marysue Rucci. May 2025. ISBN 9781668006399. 432p. $28.99. FICTION

Lamb, a bestseller whose fiction has twice been picked for Oprah’s Book Club, returns with the story of a young father who is sentenced to prison after he causes an unbearable tragedy. In jail, he forms kinship with the prison librarian and others, finding a way to transcend the walls of his cell and think about hope, mercy, and reconciliation.

Larkin, Allison. Home of the American Circus. Gallery. May 2025. ISBN 9781668008416. 432p. $29.99. FICTION

Bestselling Larkin (The People We Keep) offers a coming-of-age story about 30-year-old Freya Arnalds, who moves back to her hometown of Somers, NY, to the derelict house she has inherited. There she meets old friends, enemies, and exes, as well as her 15-year-old niece Aubrey. Together they begin to restore the house—and perhaps their lives.

Moore, Meg Mitchell. Mansion Beach. Morrow. May 2025. ISBN 9780063336964. 336p. $30. FICTION

Bestselling Moore (Summer Stage) returns with a modern-day retelling of The Great Gatsby. Three women spend the summer on Block Island: one of them is a curious observer, the other two are high-powered figures with plans of their own. As the summer unfolds, betrayal, a love triangle, and a dead body will feature. With a 75K-copy first printing.

Morris, Mary. The Red House. Doubleday. May 2025. ISBN 9780385544986. 304p. $28. FICTION

Morris (All the Way to the Tigers), who has won the Rome Prize in Literature and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, offers a mix of family mystery, coming-of-age story, and historical novel about the secrets of Italy’s involvement in WWII, all centered around a mother, a daughter, and paintings of a red house.

Palmer, Caroline. Workhorse. Flatiron. May 2025. ISBN 9781250360083. 304p. $28.99. FICTION

Palmer, who worked at Amazon Fashion and Vogue, debuts with a 200K-copy first printing for this story of an editorial assistant working in NYC at the turn of the millennium. She lacks the “right” pedigree and is surrounded by privilege and people cruising in the easy lane. She wants in.

Wilson, Kevin. Run for the Hills. Ecco. May 2025. ISBN 9780063317512. 256p. $30. FICTION

Bestselling Wilson, a Shirley Jackson Award winner whose Nothing To See Here was a Read with Jenna pick, returns with a road-trip story about half siblings who go on a road trip in search of their father and any other relatives they can find. With a 150K-copy first printing.

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