Kinley Paigewright’s wedding day was supposed to be the beginning of her happily ever after. Instead, her fiancé dumped her, and a paranormal policeman showed up to inform her that the strange energy surge that just demolished her bridal suite is proof she’s a witch. Before she can process any of this, she’s whisked off to an enchanted island with a whole new identity waiting for her. 🧹

The inheritance waiting on that island turns out to be a snarky, sentient bookshop — which, honestly, sounds like an improvement over the wedding. But the fresh start curdles fast when the obnoxious tenant living above the shop turns up dead, and Kinley finds herself at the top of the suspect list of the same hunky magical cop who upended her life in the first place. 📚

Elle Wren Burke launches the Spellbooked series with a setup that fires on all the cozy mystery cylinders: a fish-out-of-water heroine with explosive untrained magic, a town overflowing with puzzles and potions, a feline familiar with strong opinions, and a mystery that requires digging into family secrets Kinley never knew existed. The enchanted island setting gives the whole thing a fresh, immersive quality that sets it apart from the crowded magical cozy field. 🐱

The balance between romance, humor, and genuine mystery plotting is well-handled — this isn’t just a witch book with a body count, but a story about a woman rebuilding her sense of self in the most unexpected circumstances imaginable. Kinley is a heroine worth rooting for, and the snarky bookshop alone is worth the price of admission. ✨

What makes this irresistible: A jilted bride discovers her witchy heritage, inherits a talking bookshop, and lands on a murder suspect list — all in the same week. Charming series opener with a memorable setting, a delightful familiar, and the kind of heroine who makes magical chaos look like exactly the fresh start she needed.

Journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing what seems like a feel-good urban legend — a mystery woman who pulled a teenage boy from the subway tracks seconds before an oncoming train, then vanished before anyone could get her name. When McKenna tracks down a video clip of the incident, she expects a quick edge on the competition. What she finds instead stops her cold. 🚇

The woman in the footage looks exactly like Susan Hauptmann — McKenna’s close friend, and a West Point classmate of her husband’s — who disappeared without a trace ten years ago. The NYPD closed the book on Susan’s case: a nomadic woman with a fractured identity, forced into military life by her father, who simply started over somewhere new. McKenna never believed it. 🔍

Alafair Burke is one of the most reliable names in contemporary suspense, and If You Were Here showcases exactly why. The mystery at its center — is this woman actually Susan, and if so, why has she been hiding? — pulls McKenna into a search that winds through New York City and back toward secrets buried uncomfortably close to her own life. The domestic suspense elements hit hardest precisely because they arrive quietly. 🌆

Burke handles the dual threads — the journalistic investigation and the personal stakes — with the plotting precision of a writer who understands that the most effective twists are the ones that recontextualize everything you thought you already knew. This is a book that rewards patience and punishes skimming. 📖

Why this grips from page one: A subway hero video leads a journalist to believe her long-missing friend may still be alive — and that the truth about why she vanished has been hiding in plain sight all along. Tightly plotted, atmospherically New York, and built on a mystery that keeps deepening the closer McKenna gets.

Aven Green was born without arms, and she has spent her whole life perfecting the art of the creative explanation — alligator wrestling, Tanzanian wildfires, take your pick. She approaches her disability with humor and confidence that most adults twice her age haven’t managed to find. When her parents take over a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves across the country ready to answer the inevitable questions all over again. 🌵

What she isn’t ready for is Connor — a classmate who carries his own invisible weight, isolated in ways that don’t show on the surface. Their friendship forms the emotional heart of the novel, and Dusti Bowling writes it with the kind of authenticity that makes you wonder if she simply remembered it rather than invented it. Two kids who don’t fit the usual molds, finding in each other exactly the kind of witness they both needed. 🤝

The mystery woven through the story — a hidden room at Stagecoach Pass holding secrets bigger than either of them expected — gives the book genuine plot momentum without ever overshadowing the character work. This is middle-grade fiction that respects its readers enough to give them real stakes, real feelings, and a protagonist who solves problems in ways that have nothing to do with her disability and everything to do with who she is. 🔎

Bowling has written a book that belongs on the shelf alongside the classics of the genre — the kind of story kids return to, and that adults who read it as children never quite forget. It handles adoption, identity, friendship, and belonging with a light hand and genuine emotional intelligence. ⭐

Why this touches the heart: A fiercely funny, deeply warm middle-grade novel about a girl born without arms who moves to an Arizona theme park and discovers friendship, mystery, and the limits of what she can’t do. One of those rare books that changes how young readers think about difference — and about themselves.

Mae West — yes, that’s really her name, and yes, she’s heard all the jokes — has lost everything. Her husband’s Ponzi scheme collapsed in spectacular fashion, taking her home, her reputation, and her carefully constructed life along with it. What she’s left with is a rundown Kentucky campground she never asked for and a set of camper keys that don’t inspire confidence. She heads to Normal, hoping the name is prophetic. 🏕️

Normal is not, it turns out, particularly normal. Mae arrives to find FBI agents already on the property, townspeople who have very strong feelings about her husband’s crimes, and a body floating in her own lake before she’s even unpacked. As first days go, it’s a strong contender for worst ever. 🌊

Tonya Kappes is a prolific and beloved figure in the cozy mystery space, and the Camper and Criminals series showcases exactly why her readers keep coming back. The community of Normal is populated with characters who feel like people rather than types, and the Laundry Club Ladies — a gossip-loving ensemble who treat crime-solving as a community sport — are the kind of supporting cast that makes a series feel like visiting old friends. 🔍

Mae herself is a protagonist built for the long haul: funny, resilient, and carrying enough baggage to fuel a dozen books while never becoming a victim of her own backstory. The campground setting is fresh territory for the genre, and Kappes makes it feel lived-in and specific. 🌲

Why I’m including this: A woman rebuilding her life after her husband’s Ponzi scheme inherits a Kentucky campground and immediately finds a body in her lake — series launch with a standout protagonist, a charming community of sleuths, and a setting that gives the cozy formula some genuinely fresh air.

The local library is one of those rare spaces where the usual social rules don’t quite apply — where a cup of coffee and a good book can make strangers feel briefly like neighbors. Sue Heath uses this setting with genuine affection, building a story around four people whose lives intersect there in ways none of them anticipated or planned. 📚

Hattie is trying to reconnect with a past she’s been running from. Avril is doing the opposite — hiding from a future that frightens her. Stuart is looking for new purpose after losing whatever defined him before. And Will, the librarian, is navigating an unexpected turn in his own quietly upheaval-filled life. Four people who couldn’t look more different on paper, drawn together by a writing competition flyer tacked to a community board. ✍️

Heath writes found-family fiction with the kind of warmth that never tips into sentimentality — the connections here feel earned rather than inevitable, and the characters are specific enough to feel like people rather than archetypes assembled to represent themes. The library as gathering place is used thoughtfully, and the writing competition gives the structure a gentle forward momentum. 🏡

This is the kind of novel that readers describe as a hug in book form, and while that phrase is overused, it fits here. The Storytellers understands that the stories we tell about ourselves — to others, and to ourselves — are often the last things we’re willing to change, and that changing them is where growth lives. 💛

What makes this special: A warmhearted found-family novel set in a community library, where four very different people discover that a writing competition — and each other — might be exactly the rewrite their lives needed. Perfect for readers who love Nina George or Jojo Moyes at their most hopeful.

Jo Gunning is a former Army Civil Affairs specialist who has built her post-military life around having no fixed address and no permanent commitments. She moves when she wants, stays where she likes, and answers to nobody. It’s a system that works perfectly until a runaway teenager crosses her path in Virginia, and Jo’s instinct to help overrides her instinct to keep moving. 🎖️

What starts as getting a girl safely home quickly escalates into something far more dangerous. The girl calls for help, claiming her father is holding her hostage — but when Jo starts digging, she finds that virtually nothing about the situation is what it appears, and nobody involved is telling the whole truth. The layers of deception keep multiplying the deeper she goes. 🔦

Renee Pawlish builds Jo as a protagonist designed for the long haul — capable, self-reliant, and carrying the kind of moral clarity that makes her both effective and occasionally dangerous to be around. The military background gives her a specific skill set that Pawlish deploys with restraint, letting Jo’s instincts and judgment do as much work as her training. 💪

The addition of a shady government agency watching her movements adds a thriller dimension that elevates the book beyond standard PI mystery territory. Assassins, government surveillance, a hostage situation that may not be what it seems — it’s a strong debut for a series that promises to take its heroine to increasingly complicated places. ⚡

Why this grips from page one: A loner ex-military operative helps a runaway teenager and finds herself between assassins and a shadowy government agency in a case where everyone is lying. Series launch for a heroine with the skills of Lee Child’s Reacher and the moral compass of someone who genuinely can’t walk away from a kid in trouble.