Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I. So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

The fiercest, most powerful novel of 2025. For what do you hunger . . .?Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage the relationship has soured, and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them from London to Sheffield, and with his success hinged on a hunt, an old tradition looms over the home; the hunt is a time to settle old scores. If a bullet finds a human home, then it is only that they were foolish to become prey. In the weeks leading up to the hunt, a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night, Carmilla who will not eat meals with the family, Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a terrible hunger . . .Set against the violent wilderness of the Peaks and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution HUNGERSTONE is a compulsive feminist reworking of CARMILLA, the book that inspired a captivating story of appetite and desire.