The Best New Book Releases Out March 11, 2025
I noticed a mini pattern this week while I was looking for new releases and started to wonder if there was some mid-March witchy memo I didn’t get. There is everything from witchy nonfiction (The Story of Witches: Witchcraft, magic and the Occult by Willow Winsha) to fantasy (The Witch Who Trades with Death by C.M. Alongi, The Anatomy of Magic by J.C. Cervantes) to romantasy (Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton, Rebecca Podos) coming out this week. There’s even an Irish mythology-inspired book with Big Witch Energy (The Winter Goddess by Megan Barnard). Can’t say that I’m mad at it.
Witches aside, there are also some really cool Japanese short stories for you to read in Unusual Fragments and a mash-up of The Marriage Plot and The Idiot for you to get into with Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani.
The rest of this week’s notable new releases have Prarie Witches during the Dust Bowl, Indigenous Mexican goddesses, a robot-filled future Korea, and a slow-burn trans Regency romance.
The Antidote by Karen Russell
Karen Russell has been nominated, awarded, and received all the things—from Pulitzer nominations to a MacArthur Fellowship—and now she’s back with a Dust Bowl epic.
A historic dust storm converges upon the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, but it’s not the only thing the town is threatened by. As the Great Depression looms large, Uz’s violent past starts to bubble up. We see it through its many characters, like the Prairie Witch, whose body stores peoples’ secrets, the wheat farmer whose blessing becomes a curse, a yapping scarecrow, and even a New Deal photographer who has a time-traveling camera.
Malinalli by Veronica Chapa
Here’s another entry into the “reimagining long-time maligned female figures in history and mythology” trend we’ve been seeing for a while. This time, we’re getting a fantastical look at Malinalli—who was also known as Malintzin, La Malinche, Doña Marina, and Malinalxochitl—the Nahua interpreter who bridged communication between Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and the native people of now-Mexico. During her time, Indigenous people saw her as a goddess who could wield two tongues, but later, she was seen as a traitor who helped the Spanish colonize. Here, we see how she was really just a young girl trying to make it after she was kidnapped and sold into slavery.
Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy by Bridgett M. Davis
Bridgett M. Davis’s sister Rita lived many lives before hers was cut short by lupus at only 44. Here, Davis pays homage to a woman who left home for Fisk University, became a car test driver, an amateur belly dancer, a special ed teacher, and more, even as racism weighed on her.
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A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander
From the author of Chef’s Kiss comes a trans Regency romance that is as witty as it is unique. In it, Lord Christopher Eden is what the ton would consider unusual—he keeps himself away from snooping eyes and isn’t attracted to women romantically. But then he finds out that his father’s will states that he must marry by the end of the season in order to keep his family’s fortune. He moves to London to find a wife, even as he doubts his ability to make her happy. Then there’s James Harding, Christopher’s new, handsome—and somewhat rigid—valet. Their rocky beginning turns into a tepid friendship, and then more, but both men have big secrets that threaten their happiness.
Luminous by Silvia Park
The future Korea in Park’s Luminous is unified. It also has a society that has integrated robots into its fabric—here, robots can be children, servants, and more. But even when the different between organic life and artificial life blurs, there is still a preference for the organic. Within this society are three estranged siblings, Morgan, Jun, and Yoyo—two of whom are organic, while one is robotic. War veteran-turned-detective Jun reconnected with his robot designer sister Morgan—who is secretly having an affair with one of her creations—because of an investigation he’s involved in. Meanwhile, an 11-year-old looking for robotic parts in a junkyard to save her failing body finds a remarkably lifelike robot boy named Yoyo. As the three siblings make their way back to each other—while Morgan prepares to launch a career-making robot boy, and Jun’s investigation takes him into Seoul’s underbelly—they must contend with their past and the question of what really makes one human.
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Lalami is another multi-award nominated author and her latest reminds me of Minority Report as it questions how technology, privacy, and freedom can coexist. We follow Sara, who has just landed at LAX, and who is swiftly gathered up by agents who say that she will soon commit a crime against her husband. They came to this conclusion using data from her dreams and the Risk Assessment Administration’s algorithm. She’s taken to a facility and held there with other dreamers, all of whom are women, and all of whom claim innocence of crimes not yet committed. Months pass before a new resident arrives who shakes things up. Now Sara is on a path to knuck if you buck against those who have taken her freedom.
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
