The best new books out this week 📚
 Hello, book lovers! Each week, dozens of new releases hit the shelves. Here are our favorites. ❤️📚 –The BuzzFeed Books team
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 The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
When Tookie is released from prison after a much shorter sentence than she originally received, she begins working in the bookstore. She also reunites with the man who arrested her and the two marry. Shortly before the pandemic, a frequent customer, Flora, dies and begins haunting the bookstore, particularly Tookie. Flora was the kind of white woman who longed to be indigenous and frequently invented ties to the indigenous community, although she also donated to the community. At first, her ghost is content to wander amongst the shelves, idly flipping through books, but when the pandemic hits, the ghost becomes more sinister. Sentences in multiple forms play an essential role in the novel, from prison sentences to favorite sentences from books. While the novel does meander from its ghostly plot, the bookish odes and conversations, as well as Tookie's family life, are such a joy to read that the reader will hardly mind. The novel is likely to become the book to read about the pandemic. —Margaret Kingsbury
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You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson
This queer poetry collection is full of personal, aching, and vulnerable experiences relayed both candidly and beautifully. Gibson's poems shed light on their experience with chronic Lyme disease, thoughts on confronting the person who assaulted them; gender and sexuality, grief and pain. One of my favorite lines reads as: "To be human, it seems, is to know your true self only as well as you know a galaxy you've never been to." While this collection does contain shorter poems, much of the work is longer poems that tell stories from the heart and allow us to attempt to understand life's complexities. —Farrah Penn
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 Just Haven't Met You Yet by Sophie Cousins
Hopeless romantic Laura La Quesne is a journalist for Love Life magazine's popular "How did you meet?" column and she's been tasked with writing her most personal story to date — that of her parents. On the plane traveling to the Channel Islands — the place her parents first met — she hits it off with a handsome stranger. The two part ways without exchanging contact information, but when she arrives at her hotel with the wrong luggage — instead finding that the suitcase in her possession is filled with items that would belong to her dream man — she goes on a hunt to return it to its rightful owner, hoping it will lead her to the man from the plane. She enlists the help of a crabby cab driver, Ted, who takes her all over the island to assist with her search. But maybe the happily ever after she's envisioned for herself and a stranger isn't as good as the reality she's living right now… —Shyla Watson
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The Wedding Ringer by Kerry Rea
After catching her fiancé in bed with her best friend, Willa Callister's life falls apart. She wants a fresh start, but that takes money, which she doesn't have. After a chance encounter with bride-to-be Maisie Mitchell, a new opportunity arises — Maisie needs another bridesmaid for her wedding and Willa needs cash. Willa is thrust into Maisie's high society life, meeting hotshot doctor Liam Rafferty along the way. As she fulfills her bridesmaid duties, her fake friendship with Maisie becomes very real and that, along with growing feelings for Liam, makes it hard to leave this life that's not really hers. —Shyla Watson
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Never Fall For Your Fiancée by Virginia Heath
Hugh Standish, Earl of Fareham has a huge problem: his meddling, matchmaking mother. Though all the way in America, she's been determined to marry him off to an eligible English bride, which would thoroughly disrupt his rakish lifestyle. To get her off his back, he fabricates a fiancée, sending his mother descriptive letters for the past two years all about their whirlwind romance. But, when his mother announces that she's visiting him in England, Hugh's house of cards comes crashing down. He must find a woman to play his fake fiancé and thinks it's fate when he meets Minerva Merriwell. Down on her luck and in desperate need of money to support herself and her two younger sisters, Minerva agrees to play the doting bride-to-be. But after spending a few weeks together, the charade becomes less about fooling Hugh's mother, and more about being fools in love. —Shyla Watson
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The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu
With no job or romantic prospects on the horizon, recent college grad Jasmine Tran works at her parent's donut shop while she figures out what she wants to do with her life. Before long, she finds herself in a cyclical trap — donuts, Netflix, sleep, repeat. When she's reunited with an old college crush, Alex Lai, things start looking up. He's handsome, successful, and Chinese. He's perfect on paper (much to her parent's excitement), but a disastrous dinner reveals he, nor Jasmine, is perfect IRL. With that potential relationship on the back burner, Jasmine is more determined than ever to figure out who she is and what she wants. Only then will she figure out who she wants to be with...and it might turn out to be Alex after all. —Shyla Watson
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 Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier
This excellent standalone fantasy follows Lord Cassia, who desires nothing more than to return to his home in the mountains, but three years after his mission was ambushed by enemy soldiers, and after the plague that devastated their land, his castle has become court, and so isn't quite the relaxing place he hopes. Plus, he's pulled into a search for a killer after an assassin targets those closest to the queen, teaming up with Lena, a young historian. And they soon realize that the question they've been asking — who is behind the attacks — might not be the right question at all. —Rachel Strolle
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 Margot Mertz Takes it Down by Carrie McCrossen & Ian McWethy
Margot Mertz has a secret identity — she's an internet sleuth of sorts. With no college fund to fall back on, Margot earns money helping students and teachers clean up their internet presence — from viral videos to DM's. But, when one student asks her to help take down a website that's sharing nude photos of her fellow female classmates, things get personal. Only the case proves more difficult than she anticipated. So she does the only thing she can think of — ask popular boy Avery Green for help. After all, he has access to every different team or club at Roosevelt High. Together, the two work to break the case, getting more than they bargained for in more ways than one. —Shyla Watson
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You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
Julie had the future all planned out — she and her boyfriend, Sam, would move out of her small town, go to college in the city, and spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies, and a devastated Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries to forget him. But when she becomes desperate to hear his voice one more time, she calls his phone to listen to his voicemail...and he answers. The connection is temporary, but it's a second chance at a goodbye. —Rachel Strolle
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 The Perishing by Natashia Deón
When Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memories, she has the uncanny feeling this has happened before. She's taken in by a foster family and eventually becomes the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times. But when she meets a local firefighter — one whose face she's been unintentionally drawing since she was a teen — she realizes her life isn't quite normal. Lou has the feeling they've met in a past life, and when she starts seeing flashes from a different time, Lou suspects that she could be an immortal sent to this time for a reason — but what? An intoxicating blend of sci-fi and historical fiction, The Perishing is a unique perspective on Depression-era life for a Black woman, time traveler or not. —Kirby Beaton
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The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath
Found family vibes abound in this historical adventure starring three queer, disabled teens who set out to make a home of their own when one's mother tries pushing her into a marriage for which she has no desire. In fact, asexual Asta has no desire for any marriage, ever, but she does love her best friend, Gunnar, and his boyfriend, Erlend. And when their lives prove to be unsafe where they are, they cling to one another to make a life for them all. Unshockingly, the trio isn't exactly warmly welcomed into early 20th century Norwegian-adjacent society, but if they can just pull off one feat together, they'll be set...as long as they can stay together long enough to make it happen. —Dahlia Adler
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 Body and Soul Food by Abby Collette
When they were just two years old, Koby Hill and Keaton Rutledge were orphaned, separated, and put into the foster care system. Now, years later, they've reunited and started a soul food café and bookstore in Pacific Northwest's Timber Lake. But their new life adventure takes a turn when Koby's foster brother is found dead. With police at a standstill in the investigation, Koby and Keaton put their two heads together to solve the murder and bring a killer to justice, all before their cafe's grand opening. —Shyla Watson
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Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
This sharp, slim novella takes place in the seemingly idyllic Arcadia Gardens, where everything is perfect and everyone should be — is required to be — happy. For Sophia, that happiness means taking joy in her perfect husband and the perfect house he made her. However, when Sophia starts asking herself questions about this overwhelming happiness she's meant to be feeling, she notices cracks and irregularities within Arcadia Gardens, leading her to ask more questions. As her life begins to fissure, Sophia wonders if escape from Arcadia Gardens for someone like her is possible. This searing read has an unexpected twist ending. —Margaret Kingsbury
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 Himawari House by Harmony Becker
In this graphic novel, three teens — Nao, Hyejung, and Tina — share the Himawari House in Tokyo as foreign exchange students at the same Japanese cram school. Nao has returned to Japan, after moving to the US in elementary school, to reconnect with the culture and language. Hyejung had been feeling disillusioned in her first year of university in Korea, and moved to Japan to try and find a new path. Tina wanted a change of scenery from Singapore, and is taking the new adventure one day at a time. Himawari House is a slice of storytelling perfection. —Rachel Strolle
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