Daniel H. Wilson is a frequent New York Times bestseller with a long bibliography that spans speculative fiction, techno-thrillers, and science satire. Wilson’s work is informed by his education and research background, including a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. Early standouts include How to Survive a Robot Uprising (2005) and How to Build a Robot Army (2007), humorous but fact-based guides about the dangers of robotics and AI. Wilson may be best known to many for his documentary-style doomsday novel Robopocalypse (2011) and its sequel Robogenesis (2014). Subsequent work includes The Clockwork Dynasty (2017), an historical fantasy about a secret, immortal race of biological automatons whose existence has quietly shaped human history, and The Andromeda Evolution (2019), an authorized sequel to the Michael Crichton classic The Andromeda Strain. Wilson’s latest novel, Hole in the Sky, is an alien encounter story inspired by the author’s own Cherokee background. Notes The Seattle Times: “Wilson reimagines first contact through an Indigenous lens, fusing Cherokee cosmology with cutting-edge science and creeping cosmic horror.”

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Cleyvis Natera is a Dominican-American novelist and a poignant chronicler of the modern immigrant experience. Her award-winning literary debut, Neruda on the Park (2023), follows a grassroots push to stop gentrification in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood of New York City. Community organizer Eusebia’s campaign is made more complicated when her daughter, Luz, becomes romantically involved with a handsome developer at the company her family so vehemently opposes. Neruda on the Park earned Natera an International Latino Book Award and was selected by Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai for her Literati Book Club. Themes of home, identify, immigration, and inequality also feature heavily in Natera’s literary follow up. The Grand Paloma Resort (2025) is a thriller set at a tony Dominican resort for the ultra-rich. National Book Award finalist Alejandro Varela praises: “The Grand Paloma Resort is a literary ‘The White Lotus.’ … Natera has written a sexy, sinister, and intricate tale that serves as an indictment of the ‘haves’ at the expense of the ‘have-nots’.”

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Sara Hashem is best known to readers for the chart-topping The Scorched Throne romantasy series, an Egyptian-inspired duology comprising The Jasad Heir (2023) and The Jasad Crown (2025). The Jasad Heir is set a decade after a devastating war between the militaristic nation of Nizahl and Jasad, a kingdom of magic and prosperity obliterated by the Nizahli after a treacherous betrayal. Sylvia, fugitive queen of the lost realm, lives in hiding – until a chance encounter forces her to reveal her survival to Arin, the Nizahl heir apparent. Paste Magazine praised the book as “A summer fantasy banger… A compelling fantasy saga that’s one part political treatise, one part slow-burn ‘enemies-to-lovers’ romance, and one part survival competition.” It charted high on both the USA Today and Sunday Times bestseller lists. Hashem’s latest, Where No Shadow Stays, is her first foray into young adult fiction. After a visit to her family’s ancestral mansion in El Agamy, Egypt, high schooler Mina returns to her California home with an unwelcome souvenir: a sinister entity bent on claiming a generational blood debt.

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With more than 60 books to her name, Tessa Bailey is one of the most prolific and best loved names in contemporary romance. Bailey has a book for every lover of the genre, with series focusing on law enforcement (Line of Duty), artists (Broke and Beautiful), factory workers (Made in Jersey), construction contractors (Hot and Hammered), lifeguards (Beach Kingdom), and of course sexy vampires (Phenomenal Fate). She solidified her standing in the modern romance canon in 2021 with It Happened One Summer. A juggernaut #1 New York Times bestseller often likened to Schitt’s Creek, this first entry in the Bellinger Sister duology brings together a gruff fisherman and fun-loving socialite. Bailey’s current series, Big Shots, turns the spotlight to professional sports. The fifth and latest entry hits shelves in January. Catch Her If You Can is a play on the “marriage for convenience” trope and pairs New York Yankees pitcher Madden Donahue with high school friend Eve Mitchell – whose vocation as a burlesque club owner is sure to do nothing for Madden’s professional prospects.

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In five short years Carley Fortune has established herself as a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and a leading light in fiction’s international romance boom. Her four books have been translated into 30 languages and sold more than three million copies. Fortune’s first novel, Every Summer After (2022), is a nostalgic tale of love and life choices told over the course of six years. Set in the picturesque Ontario hamlet of Barry’s Bay, this chart-topping literary debut introduced readers to Fortune’s hallmark: the magic of Canadian cottage country and lake life’s unique ability to foster second-chance romance. Fortune’s follow-ups, Meet Me at the Lake (2023) and This Summer Will Be Different (2024), perfected the model. Fortune’s latest novel, One Golden Summer (2025), returns to Barry’s Bay and centers Charlie Floek, a fan-favorite side character from Every Summer After. In a glowing review, E! News summarized: “Fans have been begging [Fortune] to give Charlie his happily ever after for years—and she’s fully delivered with a sweet, summer love story.”

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Literary wunderkind Nathan Harris is the author behind the instant New York Times bestseller The Sweetness of Water (2021), “a historical page-turner about social friction so powerful it ignites a whole town” (NPR). Set in the waning days of the U.S. Civil War and turbulent aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation, Harris’s debut follows the unlikely partnership and budding friendship between eccentric homesteader George Walker and newly freed Prentiss and Landry. The Sweetness of Water became an Oprah’s Book Club selection and was longlisted for both the Mann Booker Prize and Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction – a rare of honors for any writer, particularly a first-time author still in his twenties. Harris’s anticipated follow-up returns to the Reconstruction era and a South determined to return its Black citizens to bondage. In Amity, Louisiana freedman Coleman treks to Mexico in pursuit of his sister and their former enslaver. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews commends Amity as “a smartly imagined Western with a different sort of hero… with twists and turns from beginning to end.”

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Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Hawkins is an acclaimed journalist, memoirist, and podcaster. Over nearly two decades with The Wall Street Journal, Hawkins honed his skill and voice as an investigative journalist, news editor, and on-camera reporter. He gained a following with The Business of Celebrity with Lee Hawkins, a recurring series with Hollywood superstars, sports icons, and business legends that explored the entrepreneurial and financial aspects of fame. Later in his career, Hawkins pivoted to coverage of race, equity, and education, with strong emphasis on the enduring impacts of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. These are subjects with deep personal resonance for him. Hawkins explores centuries of oppression and trauma in his own lineage in I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free. I Am Nobody’s Slave is a potent blend of memoir, history, social commentary, investigative reporting, and cutting-edge genealogical science. In a glowing review, Forbes summarizes: “Hawkins confronts the lingering effects of intergenerational trauma, showing that healing is an act of defiance in itself.”

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Thomas Maltman defies genre classification, but the award-winning author’s four novels to date each offer a grounded, unflinching look at rural and small-town life in the Upper Midwest. His first, The Night Birds, vividly captures the devastating U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 as seen through the eyes and reminiscences of German immigrants who lived alongside the Wahpekute Dakota. It amassed top literary honors from sources as varied as the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and the Western Writers of America. Maltman’s follow ups, Little Wolves (2013) and The Land (2020), return to the sweeping Minnesota prairie and cement the author’s reputation as a master of the Midwestern Gothic. His latest, Ashes to Ashes, is a worthy addition to this corpus. In it, the sleepy town of Andwhen is rocked by two impossible mysteries. At the local Ash Wednesday service, ashes applied to parishioners’ foreheads refuse to rub off. Equally baffling, local teens uncover the centuries-old remains of a Viking explorer improbably buried in a nearby meadow.

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