Fall books preview 2025: Nelson DeMille, Debbie Gibson and more

THE ACADEMY, by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham

The Nantucket beach-book queen has teamed up with her daughter to try something different — a campus novel set at a high-end prep school that has an upstairs-downstairs feel: half the focus is on the faculty and administrators, the other half is on the kids. Both halves have plenty of spice, with a riveting plot that features an app that somehow knows everyone’s secrets and a secret speakeasy right on the grounds. (Little Brown, Sept. 16)

AMITY, by Nathan Harris

From the author of “The Sweetness of Water” comes this Western-style melodrama, which has terrific characters and plenty of action. In post-Civil War New Orleans. a young Black man like Coleman, an optimist with a huge vocabulary and a dog named Oliver, is quite unique. You will gladly follow him to Mexico with his former owner and her daughter to track down her husband, who has absconded with Coleman’s beloved sister, June. (Little Brown, Sept. 2)

THE LITERATI, by Susan Coll

Passionate readers are audience No. 1 for humorist Coll, who snatches a minor character from 2022's "Bookish People" to helm another farcical confection set in the literary world. Having moved on from her job at the bookstore to a literary nonprofit, Clemi now has less than a week to pull off a major gala for an organization with no money in its bank account and a director who has gone AWOL. Did we mention that the featured "public intellectual" has unfortunately died? (Harper Muse, Sept. 9)

ETERNALLY ELECTRIC: The Message in My Music, by Debbie Gibson

This pop phenom wrote her first hit song while a student at Calhoun High School in Merrick, becoming the youngest person ever to make the Billboard Hot 100. Her moving memoir details not only the highs of her career as a musician and actress but also the darker times for her spirit, body and bank account. Down to earth, candid and relatable, her story will win your heart. (Gallery Books, Sept. 9)

HEART THE LOVER, by Lily King

The staying power of a college romance can be a force to reckon with, and King's latest evokes the intensity of those formative connections. Our narrator finds herself dating one of the two smartest boys in her lit class -- then realizes she’s in love with the other one, his best friend. These complications unfold in a professor's Victorian mini-mansion where the boys are house-sitting for the semester, over card games, late-night chats and pepperoni pizza with Riesling -- and then, decades later, in their adult lives. (Grove, Sept. 30)

THE WOMEN OF WILD HILL, by Kirsten Miller

Tell you what's wild: this book. Meet the Duncans, a family of powerful witches who lived for generations on the tip of Long Island, but were scattered by tragedy across the country. Now the Old One is bringing them home to put the brakes on the crisis facing planet Earth. Watch out, greedy billionaires and other tools of the patriarchy: Sybil, Phoebe and Brigid are coming for you big time. (William Morrow, Oct. 7)

JOYRIDE, by Susan Orlean

The author of "The Orchid Thief," "Rin Tin Tin," "The Library Book" and other classics of narrative nonfiction applies her storytelling chops to the unfolding of her own career -- a joyride for her reader, too. Whether she’s taking us back to the Florida swamp or to the Oscars with Meryl Streep, her infectious enthusiasm, boundless curiosity and complete lack of pretention light up the page. For anyone with big ambitions, she has important advice. (Avid Reader, Oct. 14)

THE SUNFLOWER BOYS, by Sam Wachman

This beautiful, terrible, one-of-a-kind coming-of-age story is set in Ukraine, where Artem, his best friend Victor and little brother Yuri are having a relatively uncomplicated boyhood -- until the day the bombs start falling. Critics are comparing this breathtaking debut to the work of Anthony Marra, Justin Torres and J.D. Salinger, and many say it's the best thing they've read so far about the war in Ukraine. (Harper, out now)

NO ORDINARY BIRD: Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth, by Artis Henderson

When she was 5, Henderson survived the plane crash that killed her pilot father -- the rare man who could be reasonably described as a “beloved drug smuggler. All her life, this crash was referred to as an accident. To learn the truth, she had to break through decades of silence and recreate the lost world of her childhood -- a sprawling Georgia farm and a private island in the Bahamas. (Harper, Sept. 2)

THE TIN MEN, by Nelson and Alex DeMille

Like the two previous novels featuring Special Agents Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, the final thriller from Long Island’s late, great master of the genre was co-authored with his son, Alex. This plot revolves around the role of artificial intelligence in weaponry and warfare -- and in the murder of the chief scientist at a secret war games facility in the desert. (Simon and Schuster, Oct. 28)

DEAD AND ALIVE: ESSAYS, by Zadie Smith

As the author notes in a foreword, this essay collection invites the reader to choose their own approach. Some will jump directly to the brilliant appreciations of other writers: Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison. Others will start with the section on art -- images of the paintings are helpfully included. Those who read "The Fraud" will be eager to know its backstory. This is the desert island book, with enough food for thought to last indefinitely. (Penguin Press, Oct. 28)

THE BOY FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, by Sam Sussman

This young author is himself the probable son of Bob Dylan, a plight he shares with his autofictional narrator, Evan. (Google him and take a look.) Evan comes home from London to take care of his mother -- a generous but elusive woman dying of cancer -- at her farmhouse in the Hudson Valley. She is finally ready to tell him her secrets, opening the door to a poignant new closeness between mother and son. (Penguin Press, Sept. 16)