New Releases - April 2026 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

FICTION

We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
Don and Rodney have been together for 40 years, but their wedding vows never included "until the Earth is destroyed." They face that now, as a black hole will consume the planet in a month. Rodney and Don know that time is up, but they have one last promise to fulfill. It's one they have delayed but can no longer, and it is a race against time in their old RV to get from Maine to Washington State. For these two men, it is not just the journey but also the destination. Along the way, they encounter many others who are facing the end of the world--in denial, in heartbreak, in joy--and will wonder if the best that they gave through the decades was enough, even if no one will be left to know it. VERDICT Klune's (Somewhere Beyond the Sea) heart-wrenching plot and emotional prose are on full display in this wonderful queer apocalyptic story.--Kristi Chadwick.  Copyright 2026 Library Journal

Bumblebee Season by Eileen Garvin 
Garvin's (Crow Talk) new novel is told from the perspective of three very different Oregonians: Jake, a wheelchair-using beekeeper; Flaco, a teen who has recently migrated from Mexico; and entomology grad student Abigail, who studies endangered bumblebees. When a local lawman both calls for detaining immigrants and threatens the wilderness where honeybees and other creatures thrive, Jake, Abigail, and Flaco are each galvanized in different ways to resist. The characters' perspectives contrast sharply and shift in each chapter, making this a dynamic and engaging story. The writing is engaging and speeds along compellingly, further enhanced by well-divided chapters, though the somewhat-rushed ending might have added more meaning if it were longer and delved deeper. VERDICT Garvin's latest is akin to Emily Habeck's Shark Heart and Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures with their animal themes and focus on human bonds, while the novel's treatment of multiple perspectives recalls Fredrik Backman. For fans of a wide range of genres, including literary and historical fiction, as well as those interested in science, thanks to the fun bee facts scattered throughout the novel.  Copyright 2026 Library Journal

Transcription by Ben Lerner
In the beautiful and resonant latest from Lerner (The Topeka School), a middle-aged man constructs an elaborate farewell to his mentor. In the first of three sections, the unnamed narrator travels to Providence, R.I., to interview 90-year-old artist Thomas for a magazine article. The narrator plans to record their conversation on his iPhone, which he accidentally breaks just before the appointment. Unable to admit the problem to Thomas, he proceeds with the interview, and Thomas embarks on his characteristically stunning soliloquies on art, light, and sound ("There is always music playing that we cannot hear.... We are deaf to the bats singing in ultrasound, or the elephants conversing in their infrasound.... The air is alive with messages"). In the second section, set after Thomas's death, the narrator travels to Madrid for a symposium on Thomas's work, where he's questioned after saying that he had drawn some of the now published interview with Thomas from memory. The novel concludes with a dialogue between the narrator and Thomas's son, Max. The pair, who have been friends since college, grapple with their complex relationships with Thomas ("Maybe you were the real son, maybe I was the clone or robot or doppelgänger," Max tells the narrator), and new mysteries arise over the course of their conversation. Lerner's lyrical narrative brims with insights into how memories take and change shape, the nature of father figures, and the ways an artist's influence echoes through time. It's a knockout. Copyright 2026 Publishers Weekly

NONFICTION

Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber 
This insightful investigation from New York Times reporter Scheiber (The Escape Artists) examines how a radical new cohort of young, college-educated workers at major American corporations powered a wave of unionizations and strikes in recent years. The "dismal economy" during and after the Great Recession led to many college graduates taking low-wage jobs in retail and customer service, or working for years for low pay within their profession. This widening "gap... between the expectations of many graduates and their actual prospects" fueled an upswing in labor activism. Scheiber tracks workers preparing to unionize at an Apple store in Towson, Md., and a Chicago Starbucks, along the way spotlighting other labor disputes and developments, such as the Writers Guild of America's 2023 strike and the United Auto Workers' election of president Shawn Fain by an insurgent collective of "fed-up autoworkers and... graduate students." Scheiber mixes nitty-gritty contract fights with poignant profiles of workers like Apple employee Chaya Barrett, who was "radicalized" by CEO Tim Cook's astronomical $750 million stock windfall ("I'm working my butt off for not even a full percent of what you just sold"), as well as glimpses of corporations' anti-union intimidation efforts, such as Starbucks establishing new benefits and wage increases only for non-union workers. It's a galvanizing look at a stymied white-collar generation with the "politics... of the proletariat." -Copyright 2026 Publishers Weekly

Lucky Devils: The True Story of Three Rebel Gamblers Who Beat the Odds and Changed the Game by Kit Chellel
In this absolute page-turner, Bloomberg reporter Chellel details the history of the tight, mostly secretive community of "advantage players," gamblers whose creative and unrelenting application of increasingly powerful computers has reaped unimagined financial rewards while upending the notion of casino gambling itself. Chellel focuses on three pivotal figures: Bill Benter, realizing that casinos barred card-counting because it worked, won $16 million in one evening betting on horses in Hong Kong; Bill Nelson, applied physics and mathematical models to predict where the ball would likely land on a roulette wheel; and Rob Reitzen, armed with a high-school diploma and a deceptively goofy persona, could crunch card combinations in his head with the skill of a math genius. Remarkably, casinos had trouble proving advantage play was illegal, since gamblers argued it was "un-American" for casinos to offer games based on skill, then bar those who played them skillfully. Even as casinos have embraced advantage play, the high-stakes, cat-and-mouse match between casinos and gamblers continues, as the author relates, if on a vastly larger stage.- Copyright 2026 Booklist

The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present by Steve Brusatte 
From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 10,000+ extraordinary species alive today. Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home--and many places we do not. With their flamboyant plumage, joyous dawn serenades, extraordinary aerial feats, they have captivated human imagination for millennia. Undeniably delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by downy feathers, how did such a seemingly fragile species break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, how have they survived millennia, and how does their legacy shape our world? Hailed as "one of the stars of modern paleontology" (National Geographic), Steve Brusatte now tells the extraordinary story of the dinosaurs' living legacy: birds. He begins by exploring how dinosaurs gradually developed the trademark features of birds one-by-one--feathers, wings, beaks, big brains, keen senses, and warm-blooded metabolisms. He investigates why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago and chronicles how these survivors rapidly proliferated to produce the diversity of avian species we know today. Along the way, we meet a variety of remarkable - now extinct - species: 10-foot-tall terror birds with beaks that sliced flesh; elephant birds that lived on Madagascar and laid eggs the size of footballs; pelagornithid seabirds with 20-foot wingspans; a ferocious Jamaican ibis that used its wings as clubs to attack rivals Yet, Brusatte also urges us to appreciate the extraordinariness of birds alive today - penguins that literally fly underwater, parrots that can mimic human speech and crows that can make tools and are smarter than most mammals. A fascinating scientific history that unearths the origins of birds, The Story of Birds establishes the living legacy of this remarkable species. Copyright 2026  - provided by publisher.

 

Spring Forward with WPL’s Money Matters Series and New Events for Entrepreneurs

Spring is the ideal time for new beginnings as we dust off the remnants of winter and enter a bright new season.  Maybe it’s a time to put your financial house in order or you’re giving fresh thought to move in a new direction and start your own business. Either way, the library has you covered when it comes to learning opportunities to help you reach your goals.

WPL’s Money Matters series offers plenty of opportunities to tidy up your financial life. This series covers a variety of topics:

On Tuesday, April 14 at 6pm we’ll host Demystifying Life Insurance which will cover how life insurance can play a role in financial planning. Click to register.

On Tuesday, April 28 at 6pm we’ll host Retire with Confidence which will cover how to plan for and transition to retirement. Click to register.

How Money Works is the ideal beginners’ class that covers a variety of financial topics. This class will take place on Tuesday, May 19 at 6pm. Click to register.

New Events for Entrepreneurs

We are excited to share that Lawyers for Civil Rights is hosting the inaugural BizGrow Conference Worcester on Tuesday, April 14 at 1:00pm to 4:00pm at the library. This event brings together small business owners—current and aspiring—who are eager to access legal resources that can help them grow and thrive. BizGrow Worcester will feature a free legal clinic to provide small business owners with guidance on issues such as entity formation, contracts, intellectual property, and more in the Banx Room. During the conference, a small business resource fair, allowing entrepreneurs to network with business support organizations in the region will be held in the Saxe room. This event is in collaboration with the City of Worcester, Executive Office of Economic Development.

SCORE Small Business Counseling has returned to the library on the fourth Tuesday each month from 4:30pm to 6;30pm. SCORE mentoring support is completely free. To register for a session, please go to score.org/Worcester to register with SCORE directly. Take a moment to fill-out the SCORE online intake form and request an appointment to take place at the library.

Happy (Irish) Women's History Month!

For this Women’s History Month (and this post roughly coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day), we are bringing a handful of female authors/artists with connections to the Emerald Isle to you. Some of these authors you may know and some you may not. With this little list we tried to get a variety of formats that include fiction short story, non-fiction, and graphic novel. With such a wide spread, hopefully we can find something that’ll interest everyone.

The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen

This novel takes places during the interwar period in Paris, France. The story takes place over the period of a single day in the lives of two children within the titular House in Paris. Much like Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, the narrative is grounded in realism by showing a slice of life for these two children. It is not an escape into fantasy, but rather a transportation to another’s lived-in existence. You may not find a lot of frills, but you will find complexities of human nature that will ring true with your own life. 

Country Girl: A Memoir by Edna O’Brien

This book is written by an author who could’ve appeared on this list with any number of the novels or short stories that she has written. But instead, we choose to highlight the author herself and her own personal experiences within and outside of the literary world. While it is easy to know an author by their works, we oftentimes never get to know the author as they are themselves. This memoir is a chance to peek behind the curtain and see what life is like for someone who has created so many fictional lives for us to get lost inside. 

Milkman by Anna Burns

This book is actually set in Ireland and won a lot of praise for its author. Taking place during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, we see what life was like for a teenage girl who feels hemmed in on all sides by her circumstances. While it feels like much of the story’s action is beyond her control, the main character shows a resilience and will to live life on her own terms that is inspiring. 

Happiness and Other Stories by Mary Lavin

This collection of stories offers a bit of escapism to a world that exists only in our idealized memories of the past. Mary Lavin may not have the name recognition that she once had, but that does not mean that her stories have lost any of their potency. If you’re looking to rescue a book from obscurity, then look no further. These stories are short enough to get through them easily, but also enjoyable enough that you will be checking the library catalog to see what else she may have written. Take a step outside the Classics and give contemporary literature a chance to percolate a minute longer while you relish in this collection of short stories.

What We Don't Talk About by Charlot Kristensen

This book is written and illustrated by a Danish/Zimbabwean author based in Dublin, Ireland. The story follows an interracial couple trying to navigate life in a world that prioritizes sameness. Kristensen has created characters that have to face a world that is uncomfortable with, if not hostile to, them being together. It is a unique gift that the author is also the artist and has given us the ability to not only read the story as she imagined it in her head, but to also see her vision for the characters and the world they inhabit.

Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys by Dervla Murphy

This book opens up a world that many of us may not remember and certainly few of us have ever seen. Murphy documents her travels via bicycle through the Balkan states as they recover from the years of violence that had dominated the region. While it is a documentation of her travels, it is also a reminder of the human spirit’s ability to rise from the rubble and extend goodwill to strangers.

 

All of the above-mentioned books are available at the Worcester Public Library and can be requested online or picked up in the library. If none of these books quite tickled your fancy, or you’d like more recommendations like these, you can fill out our book recommendation form. One of our librarians will curate a list of books for you according to your interests. The more information you give us, the easier it will be to home in on what you really want. Happy Reading!

March Madness!

What is March Madness? It's an annual single elimination tournament for American collegiate basketball. This competitive sportsball event is sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), runs for a couple of weeks, and inspires fans to download their own bracket worksheets to make predictions (or just follow the wins and losses).

More information can be found online at the NCAA website. Download your own bracket to play along! If you're caught up in March Madness and want some basketball history to read between games--or if you're on the couch supporting your sports fan and want to read some basketball fiction--here are a some suggestions. If you're visiting the Main Library, check out our March Madness display on the third floor.

Got teens? Check out this list of basketball themed reads for ages 12-18!

NONFICTION
The Back Roads to March: The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season by John Feinstein
With his trademark humor and invaluable connections, John Feinstein reveals the big time programs you've never heard of, the bracket busters you didn't expect to cheer for, and the coaches who inspire them to take their teams to the next level.

Basketball: A Love Story by Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew, and Dan Klores
The defining untold oral history of how basketball came to be, and what it means to those who love it, through interviews with players, coaches, and administrators: Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Steph Curry, Magic Johnson, Dr. J, Jerry West, David Stern, Phil Jackson, Coach K, Yao Ming, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, and more.

The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History by Dana Pennett O'Neil
From the formation of the league to the backstories of the people who shaped it, to inside the epic games and players that sealed its relevance and laid the groundwork for its eventual rebirth, The Big East tells the tale of the most powerful and entertaining league in college basketball history.

Black Market: An Insider's Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball by Merl Code
From a former college basketball player and executive at Nike and Adidas, this explosive insider's account of the business of college basketball exposes the corrupt and racist systems that exploit young athletes and offers a new way forward.

Breaking Barriers: A History of Integration in Professional Basketball by Douglas Stark
Stark details the major moments that led to the sport opening its doors to black players. He charts the progress of integration from Bucky Lew—the first black professional basketball player in 1902—to the modern game played by athletes like Stephen Curry and LeBron James.

Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession by Joe Lunardi 
Lunardi delves into the early days of Bracketology, details its growth, and dispels the myths of the process --a must-read for college hoops fans and anyone who has aspired to win their yearly office pool.

Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum
A behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process for the 1992 Olympic men's basketball team, recounting of late-night card games and bull sessions in the Olympic Suites, where the athletes debate both the finer points of basketball and their respective places in the NBA pantheon, and a riveting possession-by-possession account of the legendary July 1992 intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game—and the greatest exhibition of trash talk—in history.

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory by Lydia Reeder
Combining exhilarating sports writing and exceptional storytelling, Dust Bowl Girls takes readers on the Cardinals’ intense, improbable journey all the way to an epic showdown with the prevailing national champions, helmed by the legendary Babe Didrikson.

Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First U.S. Women's Olympic Basketball Team by Andrew Maraniss
A League of Their Own meets Miracle in the inspirational true story of the first US Women’s Olympic Basketball team and their unlikely rise to the top. Packed with black-and-white photos and thoroughly researched details about the beginnings of US women’s basketball, Inaugural Ballers is the fascinating story of the women who paved the way for girls everywhere.

The Joy of Basketball by Ben Deitrich illus. by Andrew Kuo
Deitrich celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book’s focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing.

Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four by John Feinstein
An in-depth portrait of the NCAA Final Four competition is presented from the perspectives of schools, coaches, and players who have made it to college basketball's final weekend, in a collection of dramatic and inspiring stories that also includes accounts by officials, referees, and scouts

Sports Illustrated the Boston Celtics at 75: Celebrating the History of Celtics Basketball
Celebrate the championship glory, Hall of Fame personalities, and passionate fans that make the Boston Celtics one of the most revered teams in basketball. Sports Illustrated™ celebrates basketball greatness with The Boston Celtics at 75, an extraordinary collection of classic stories and photographs from the pages of SI. This commemorative book salutes hall of famers like Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, Paul Pierce, and coach Red Auerbach.

State: A Team, a Triumph, a Transformation by Melissa Isaacson
With the intimate insights of the girl who lived it, the pacing of a born storyteller, and the painstaking reporting of a veteran sports journalist, Isaacson chronicles one high school team’s journey to the state championship. In doing so, Isaacson shows us how a group of "tomboys" found themselves and each other, and how basketball rescued them from their collective frustrations and troubled homes, and forever altered the course of their lives.

When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball by Seth Davis
The 1979 NCAA finals, that meeting launched an epic rivalry between two exceptional players: Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird. Davis recounts the dramatic story of the season leading up to that game, as Johnson's Michigan State Spartans and Bird's Indiana State Sycamores overcame long odds and great doubts to reach the game's grandest stage, transforming the NCAA tournament into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and laying the groundwork for the resurgence of the NBA.

FICTION

Chasing Red by Isabelle Ronin
He had everything: wealth, adoration, a brilliant future. Until one chance encounter changed everything. The moment Caleb Lockhart spotted the mysterious woman in her siren red dress, he couldn't tear his eyes away. For the first time in his life, he wanted something. Something he knew he could never have. The unforgettable stranger he dubs RED.

Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky
When V.I. takes over coaching duties of the girls' basketball team at her former high school, she faces an ill-equipped, ragtag group of gangbangers, fundamentalists, and teenage moms who inevitably draw the detective into their family woes. A player voices her worries about sabotage in the little flag manufacturing plant where her mother works. As V.I. begins to investigate, she finds herself confronting the owners after the plant explodes, and she gets injured.

Full Court Press by Mike Lupica
When the owner of the worst pro basketball team in the world decides to sign Dee Gerard, the first woman ever to play in the NBA, chaos ensues as Dee tries to play the best game there is while spoiled young millionaires, personal and professional relationships, and the press wreak havoc on her life, in a rollicking and hilarious new novel by the author of Bump and Run. 125,000 first printing.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it's a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home, where he meets artist Julia and her family.

Jump by Mike Lupica
When a high-profile basketball star is accused of rape, ex-lawyer and pro sports investigator DiMaggio is called into the case and must sift through a media circus of innuendo and lies in order to discern the truth.

One False Move by Harlan Corbin
Myron is asked to keep an eye on the star of the new women's basketball league who's been receiving threats on her life.  Myron takes on the seemingly innocuous task, figuring he'll pick up the star as a new client.  But soon her beauty and her quiet strength have him falling for her terrible story--the mother who disappeared twenty years before and the father who was recently discovered murdered--as he moves headlong into a case that prevails against his own better judgment, maybe to win her heart, maybe to save his own.  The answer is at the end of a narrow trail of lies, lust, and murder, where one false move can cost both of them their lives.

One on One by Tabitha King
A small-town school in western Maine, milltown Greenspark has a single claim to fame: its high school basketball team. A hero on the court, senior Sam Styles has led Greenspark Academy to three consecutive state championships. He has become an off-court mover-and-shaker as well, and he sends a shockwave through the school's social hierarchy when he decides that capping his own high school career with a fourth victory will not be enough: he wants the girls' team to win one, too.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman.

Sooley by John Grisham
Samuel “Sooley” Sooleymon, a raw, young talent with big hoop dreams, gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basketball tournament. During the tournament, Samuel receives devastating news from home: a civil war is raging across South Sudan, and rebel troops have ransacked his village. His father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp. Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it’s just not possible; he becomes determined to bring them to America, instead.

Testimony by Anita Shreve
At Avery Academy, a prestigious New England boarding school, the headmaster finds himself in possession of a videotape - of three star basketball players with an underage female student. A Pandora's box, the tape unleashes a storm of shame and recrimination throughout the small community.

Valentine's Day is for the Romanticists

 Isn’t it Romantic? Well, isn’t it? With Valentine’s Day right around the corner we may all have Romance on our minds. Flowers, chocolates, and cards may be expressions of romantic notions nowadays, but what about in years gone by? The Romantic movement took hold in the late eighteenth century and encompassed all sorts of cultural touchstones. Art, literature, philosophy, politics, science, everything was being reexamined or restructured through this new lens. In some ways it was a look back at our human past through sentimental eyes. It was a harkening back to a time when things seemed better, but it also demanded something new. The industrial revolution had driven growth for so many cities, but its inhabitants were not all equally reaping those rewards. The Romantic movement in literature tended to focus on pastoral scenes that reconfigures Medieval Romance and held up nature as the ultimate ruler of rhyme and reason. Too much progress too quickly was seen as dangerous, and the living conditions of those straining under the weight of industrialization was proof of that. And so it spawned a form of literary escapism that looked away from the dark and dank cities that were grinding its lower class citizens underfoot in the name of progress. 

You may be wondering, who are these Romanticists and are their works still relevant? Some may view the Romanticists’ style as outdated and melodramatic, but they were great storytellers who captured the zeitgeist. Sweeping revenge epics, pining away for lost lovers, brutal and tragic ends to characters both good and bad. All you have to do is think of the windswept moors of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights or the unending search for revenge in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo or even the questioning of what it means to be human in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Each of these authors, and their contemporaries, created stories that were referencing the past while looking toward the future. Their literary output has inspired countless other stories, movies, and television shows that reinterpret the past for contemporary audiences. While these stories may not be the first thing you think of when you’re browsing the shelves this Valentine’s Day, it can still be fun to return to them when you’re feeling a bit Romantic.

Abrams, M. H. The Correspondent Breeze: Essays on English Romanticism. W.W. Norton & Company,

1984.

Barzun, Jacques. Classic, Romantic, and Modern. The University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Contemporary Retellings, Adaptations, and Read-A-Likes for Wuthering Heights

It's wuthering weather! March roars in like a lion, and out like a lamb - what more perfect time to sit inside, listen to the wind bluster, and warm yourself up with a passionate (but not too spicy) romance? The weather harkens to the tempestuous, passionate, obsessive tale of Wuthering Heights, recently adapted to a feature film starring Margot Robbie as the fickle Catherine Earnshaw, and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the not-good-enough foundling who returns to win her love after he has made something of himself. The original novel includes the death of Catherine's father (and Heathcliff's foster father), an older brother who doesn't like Heathcliff, servants who help and hinder the relationship, and the atmospheric moodiness of the Yorkshire moors. Read on for a list of fiction with romantic elements featuring intense, destructive, obsessive, and/or star-crossed relationships; novels that  utilize literary elements, are heavily character-driven, and are influenced by setting or weather.

Abide With Me by Sabin Willett 🌶️
A juvenile delinquent leaves on a five-year tour of Afghanistan, and returns home a broken hero hoping to reunite with the heiress he had an intense ten-week tumultuous adolescent affair with--only to discover she is engaged to a wealthy attorney, and her father's finances are in ruins after his suicide. Determined to win back Emma and restore her family home, The Heights, Roy sets out to make something of himself and earn Emma's love and the town's respect. Set in small-town Hoosier's Bridge, Vermont, the setting plays into the narrative. As in other reframings of Wuthering Heights, all obsessive love ends tragically.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo 🌶️🌶️
When Katarina Shaw sees Sheila Lin win an Olympic gold medal in ice dancing with her partner, she immediately asks her father for skating lessons and begins training. When she befriends a local foster boy who has learned to skate through a hockey program for underprivileged youth, it doesn't take much convincing to get Heath to begin learning routines with her. Their undeniable chemistry, skill, and talent earn them a spot in Sheila Lin's ice skating academy, alongside her twin children, who are ice dance partners and being groomed for an Olympic bid as well. The narrative oscillates between Kat's point of view and interviews from a variety of sources, for a documentary about what went wrong between Kat and Heath that ended their partnership. Former competitors, coaches, journalists, siblings, friends, and more chime in as the dramatic story moves back and forth in time, covering nearly two decades of competition, training, injury, scandal, and setbacks against an obsessive and possessive relationship modeled after Katherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff's in Wuthering Heights. 

Here On Earth by Alice Hoffman 🌶️🌶️
March Murray and her teenage daughter Gwen travel to their Massachusetts roots for the funeral of the family's housekeeper who raised March; the return reignites March's passion for bad boy Hollis, the orphan her father took in--the one she spurned to marry a rich neighbor, whom she has left behind in California. March abandons all sanity and obligation in pursuit of obsessive love for a bitter man who can neither forgive nor forget her--but does he love her? Through a contemporary lens, Hoffman explores the themes of Wuthering Heights (obsession, violence, abusive relationships) alongside motherhood and middle age, passion and security, chance and destiny with her distinctive character development, almost-supernatural elements, and atmospheric, allegorical writing. New England weather, no less predictable than that of the Scottish moors, plays its own role in a narrative that moves back and forth in time.

How to Grieve Like a Victorian by Amy Carol Reeves  🌶️🌶️
When recently widowed professor of Victorian literature loses it at an underperforming student who happens to be the son of the dean, her supervisors suggest a sabbatical; she takes her six-year-son (Heathcliff!) off to London for an extended stay at her friend’s house, happily escaping after an almost-kiss with her husband's best friend, attorney Henry, who is helping her untangle some mysterious details of a trust for Heathie. While in London, she meets with her agent to negotiate a second book (and film!) based on her successful young adult novel, a romance hailed as the next Twilight that’s a magical take on Wuthering Heights. She bumps into another writer who writes popular thrillers, and allows him to pursue her, simultaneously charmed and repulsed by his behavior, and his attraction to her affectations of her grief. Lizzie finds herself befriended by Bella, who plays Cathy in the movie adaptation of Lizzie’s book, who is involved in a love triangles in both the film and IRL. This is wonderfully gothic, well-crafted tale of love and grief and longing that pays homeage to Wuthering Heights, complete with a love triangle, obsession, desperate longing, and hiking on the moors. 

Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights by Alison A. Case 🌶️
In this reimagining of Wuthering Heights through the eyes of the Catherine's loyal young servant, Nelly Dean is raised alongside her employer's children Catherine and Hindley practically as a member of the family until Heathcliff is added to the mix. Her love affair with Hindley's son Hareton results in an illegitimate heir, reduced to a life as an illiterate, uneducated laborer by a vengeful Heathcliff. The slow pace is rife with passion, violence, betrayal, revenge, and especially suffering as Nelly endures the thoughtless cruelty of the gentry she serves.

Solsbury Hill by Susan A. Wyler 🌶️ 
When a surprise call brings twenty-something up-and-coming fashion designer from New York to the Yorkshire Moors, Eleanor discovers she is to inherit Trent Hall, the family estate, where Bronte composed some of her singular novel. Having left behind her childhood sweetheart turned cheating fiancé, Eleanor encounters her dying aunt's ward, the enigmatic Meadowscarp McLeod, as well as the pervasive ghostly presence of Brontë herself. Following a long history of women in her family making mistakes in their romances, Eleanor finds herself caught between her love for Miles and for Meadowscarp amid the howling winds off the moors. This atmospheric and inventive romance makes a case that Wuthering Heights’s central theme of finding (and losing) a great love amid the moors was based on actual events, as proven by letters Eleanor discovers with the aid of Bronte's ghost.

What Souls Are Made Of: A Wuthering Heights Remix by Tasha Suri 🌶️
As the abandoned son of a lascar—a sailor from India—Heathcliff has spent most of his young life maligned as an "outsider." Now he's been flung into an alien life in the Yorkshire moors, where he clings to his birth father's language even though it makes the children of the house call him an animal, and the maids claim he speaks gibberish. Catherine is the younger child of the estate's owner, a daughter with light skin and brown curls and a mother that nobody talks about. Her father is grooming her for a place in proper society, and that's all that matters. Catherine knows she must mold herself into someone pretty and good and marriageable, even though it might destroy her spirit. As they occasionally flee into the moors to escape judgment and share the half-remembered language of their unknown kin, Catherine and Heathcliff come to find solace in each other. Deep down in their souls, they can feel they are the same. But when Catherine's father dies and the household's treatment of Heathcliff only grows more cruel, their relationship becomes strained and threatens to unravel. For how can they ever be together, when loving each other—and indeed, loving themselves—is as good as throwing themselves into poverty and death? This fresh take on an old classic subverts the default whiteness of the original text.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger 🌶️🌶️
Time traveling is a genetic disorder like epilepsy in this story modelled after The Odyssey, with Henry always slipping out of time, and his beloved wife Claire, an artist, left behind like Penelope, longing and waiting for his return. She has known him most of her life, as he was drawn back through time to her in his 40s; when they meet in their 20s, he is a familiar sight to her, but to him, they have only just met. The narrative focuses on their tumultuous star-crossed relationship; her art, which is sculptural and involves mostly birds, crafted from handmade paper; his work as a librarian at a world-class institution; their desire to conceive a child; and their search for a cure to Henry's inconvenient disorder. Tons of literary allusions, the Chicago locale, and their punk rock aesthetic create a multi-sensory, rich backdrop to a story that to some will resonate as star-crossed fated mates--and to others, a warning tale of grooming and privilege.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley 🌶️🌶️ 
The narrative of this science fiction book moves back and forth between the tragic disaster of the ship Erebus, stranded at the Northwest Passage for several years, and present day Britain, where a time travel device allows specific people with potential to be rescued from certain death and brought forward in time to play a role in the fight against climate change. An agent assigned to a traveler inconveniently falls for her charge, and their relationship is an intense slow burn that incorporates both passion and destruction. The characters are complex, the writing excellent, the plotting clever, the narrative compelling.  There is a bit of a disconnect with typical time travel stories, where the basic premise includes rules like "the future is already set" and "going back into the past cannot change or derail things," and "you can’t meet your future or past self." If you are willing to suspend your disbelief, you’ll be rewarded with a tale that will have you googling the Northwest passage and crushing on Commander Graham Gore as unapologetically as the author and the narrator.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 
Can you wholly love two separate people with your one heart? Claire, a war nurse on holiday with her officer husband Frank, seeks to rekindle their marriage, spent mostly apart during WWII. She gamely trots off to look for flowers to press in the Scottish highlands while he's on a family history search. On a  pagan feast day, she slips through a pair of standing stones and finds herself 200 years in the past, deeply in danger and in the middle of a skirmish between the locals and the British army. Only marriage to a Scotsman--Jamie, a laird with a price on his head--will keep her from being apprehended by the British, and she finds herself developing feelings for her new husband, while still longing for her first one. The adventure is as heart-pounding as the passion; violence, love, betrayal and passion are recurring themes, and both locations and secondary characters are richly drawn. Claire is a feisty, twentieth-century feminist whose mouth gets her into trouble on more than one occasion, and the historical and cultural details are thoroughly researched.

Note: The chili peppers denote the steaminess, or spice level, of the book's romantic/intimate elements; visit https://www.romance.io/steamrating for the key.