#1 New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand chose Georgia Clark’s delightful rom-com, IT HAD TO BE YOU, as the July pick for her Literati book club. Clark and Hilderbrand hosted a live event via Crowdcast to discuss Clark’s book, as well as other smart, elevated beach reads that are perfect for the summer. Emily Bestler Books published the novel on May 4, 2021.

CHINA ROOM by Sunjeev Sahota has been longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. The judges praise: "Weaving together two timelines and two continents, CHINA ROOM struck us as a brilliant twist on the novel of immigrant experience, considering in subtle and moving ways the trauma handed down from one generation to the next. In crisp, clean prose, and with a dash of melodramatic action, Sahota turns these heavy themes into something filled with love, hope and humour." The shortlist will be announced on September 14, and the winner will be revealed in a ceremony on November 3. Viking published CHINA ROOM on July 13, 2021.

DEAR CYBORGS author Eugene Lim’s next novel, SEARCH HISTORY, has received its first trade review—a starred review from Kirkus. They praise: “Lim’s ability to balance the fantastical with the heartfelt is what ultimately makes this book resonate. Lim brings together the mundane and the extraordinary to powerful effect.” The novel has also received no shortage of stunning blurbs. INSURRECTO author Gina Apostol writes: “Surveying our planetary wreck on Eugene Lim’s craft is to see our survival more clearly—through friendship’s grief, through love’s quest, through the bereaved trust that survivors must sustain in art.” Meanwhile, COUNTERNARRATIVES author John Keene raves: “SEARCH HISTORY, Eugene Lim’s new masterpiece, is a novel of such richness, inventiveness, and strangeness that it rewards multiple readings. Lim has found a way to capture both the pointed specificity of the internet and its Borgesian infiniteness, in order to tell a picaresque tale about race and American culture, artificial intelligence, artmaking, storytelling, and so much more. Oh, and then this is also a novel about a dog! SEARCH HISTORY is utterly original, from its opening pages to its final sentences.” Coffee House Press will publish the book on October 5, 2021.

THE ONES WHO DON'T SAY THEY LOVE YOU by Maurice Carlos Ruffin was featured in the AV Club's preview of must-reads for August. The reviewer writes: “Sometimes a story—or any short piece of writing—can get by on the strength of a single scrap of language, be it an unusual description or surprising line of dialogue. In the title short story of Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s debut collection, such a moment comes just after a john approaches a young sex worker on the street and wonders aloud why he’s the only one there. ‘I’m the onliest one you need,’ he hauntingly responds. In THE ONES WHO DON'T SAY THEY LOVE YOU—which follows Ruffin’s novel WE CAST A SHADOW, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner and the PEN/Open Book Awards—the writer traces the lives of a cast of characters living on the margins in his hometown of New Orleans.” One World publishes the book August 17, 2021.

PARIS IS A PARTY, PARIS IS A GHOST by David Hoon Kim received a glowing review in The Financial Times. They hail it as a "haunting and surreal debut [with] vividly drawn characters,” adding: “With a confidence rare for a debutant, Kim trusts readers to make the connections between the novel’s seemingly disparate scenes and to attend to the ripples that hint at turmoil just beneath the tranquil surface of Henrik’s prose…PARIS IS A PARTY, PARIS IS A GHOST, with its patchwork plot, otherworldly visitations, and high-wire performance of a tonal flatness that just fails to conceal the anguish beneath will likely try the patience of some readers too far. Those willing to immerse themselves in its mysterious and forlorn landscapes will be amply rewarded by this startlingly original debut.” Farrar, Straus, and Giroux will publish the novel on August 3, 2021.

The Wall Street Journal published a rave review for EVERYTHING NOW by Rosecrans Baldwin. They write: “In his deeply empathetic and insightful book EVERYTHING NOW, Rosecrans Baldwin opts not to grasp for some unifying theory of Los Angeles that will sort it all out for readers. EVERYTHING NOW gives us dark glimpses of an impending apocalypse—the ever-expanding homeless population, the recurrent eco-cataclysms—then introduces us to a handful of resilient Angelenos doing their best to buck the tide of indifference that seems to have crept into the political and social life of the place like a toxic marine layer…Like the city, the stories in Rosecrans Baldwin’s EVERYTHING NOW have no rigid order. But the book is stronger for these digressions. An elegant and unflinching observer, Mr. Baldwin digs up an invisible city under layers of pop-culture mythologizing and media cliches.” MCD published the book on June 15, 2021.

Danielle Steel’s latest novel, NINE LIVES, will make its debut on the New York Times Bestseller list for the week of July 25th. The book will debut at number 2 on the Combined Print & E-book Fiction list, and at number 3 on the Hardcover Fiction list. Delacorte Press published the book on July 6, 2021.

NEON IN DAYLIGHT author Hermione Hoby’s newest novel, VIRTUE, published this week to a cascade of excellent coverage. On publication day, an excerpt from the novel ran alongside a glowing review in the New York Times Book Review, which called VIRTUE “intense and addictive” and praises Hoby’s “penetrating observations” and “stunning visuals.” The reviewer adds: “With a touch as light as a single match, Hoby scorches the earth beneath hollow social activism and performative outrage among young, coastal liberals.” The novel was also named a best book by The Millions, Vanity Fair, Bustle, and Literary Hub, and Hoby sat down for an interview with Vol. 1 Brooklyn to discuss her book. Riverhead Books published the novel on July 20, 2021.

ELECTION MELTDOWN author and UCI law professor Richard Hasen is the co-director of UCI Law’s newly launched Fair Elections and Free Speech Center, along with fellow UCI law professor David Kaye. The Center “will be a driving force to ensure fair elections, vibrant and free debate, and the rule of law in the digital age in the United States and around the world.” Yale University Press published ELECTION MELTDOWN on February 4, 2020.

An excerpt of FLIGHT 149 (titled OPERATION TROJAN HORSE in the UK) by Stephen Davis was featured in the Daily Mail’s Mail On Sunday. PublicAffairs will publish the book in the US on September 7, 2021, and John Blake will publish the book in the UK on July 22, 2021.

GOLDEN GATES by Conor Dougherty is the winner of the California Book Awards’ Silver Medal in Nonfiction. The virtual awards ceremony will be held on August 16th at 6:00 p.m. Penguin Press published the book on February 18, 2020.

Booklist praised TOGETHER WE WILL GO by J. Michael Straczynski in a starred review, calling the book “a conversation starter…compulsively readable, replete with compelling characters, surprising twists, and heady themes.” Gallery/Scout Press published the novel on July 6, 2021.