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The Girls Who Grew Big: A Novel

📚 Author: Leila Mottley✨ NEW RELEASESisters | Coming of Age Fiction

From the author of Oprah’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.

The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.

Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.

Leila Mottley burst onto the literary scene at just twenty years old when Nightcrawling became an Oprah’s Book Club selection and New York Times bestseller. A finalist for the Booker Prize and winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Mottley brings the same raw honesty and poetic precision to this story of young motherhood that made her debut such a revelation. Her ability to capture overlooked lives with dignity and fierce compassion establishes her as one of the most important voices of her generation.

What makes this special: Mottley refuses to write cautionary tales. Instead, she gives us teenage mothers as they actually are—complicated, hopeful, funny, flawed, and trying their best in a world that has already written them off. It’s a story about finding your people when everyone else has turned away, and the bonds that form when you’re all raising babies in the back of a pickup truck. Fans of Shuggie Bain and The Vanishing Half will find the same emotional depth and social consciousness here, but with Mottley’s distinctive voice that never sacrifices beauty for truth or truth for beauty.

Coeds and Cattails (Miss Fortune Mysteries Book 29)

🔍 Author: Jana DeLeon🎉 NEW RELEASE

Snitches get stitches.

Mimi Clark was never going to win the most popular student award. The prolific tattletale seemed to cruise through university life, seeking out rule-breakers so she could bring their sins to the dean’s attention. She probably never thought she’d be murdered for her favorite pastime. Detective Casey certainly didn’t think her daughter, Audrey, would become the prime suspect.

With Casey sidelined from the investigation and feeling helpless to protect Audrey, she hires Swamp Team 3 to investigate, but the case has enough suspects to fill a stadium. Fortune has to sort them out quickly and find a killer before the ADA makes a move that could ruin Audrey’s bright future.

Jana DeLeon has built the Miss Fortune Mysteries into one of the most beloved cozy mystery series in the genre, with millions of copies sold and a devoted fan base that eagerly awaits each new installment. Her signature blend of Louisiana charm, laugh-out-loud humor, and genuine mystery-solving has made Fortune Redding an iconic character in contemporary cozy mysteries. This is book 29 in the series, but DeLeon’s skill at weaving self-contained mysteries means new readers can jump in here.

Why I’m including this: This entry raises the personal stakes to new heights by putting Detective Casey’s own daughter in the crosshairs. When a universally despised campus tattletale turns up dead, the suspect list is practically endless—but only one person matters to Casey, and Fortune’s investigation becomes a race against time with real consequences for people she cares about. DeLeon expertly balances the series’ trademark humor with genuine tension, making this one of the most emotionally engaging entries yet. If you love Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series or Lilliana Hart’s Addison Holmes mysteries, Fortune Redding’s latest adventure delivers that same irresistible mix of comedy, action, and heart.

My Husband Next Door

😱 Author: K.L. Slater🆕 NEW RELEASEPsychological Fiction

‘Heart-pounding… Left me on the edge of my seat!… I was gripped from the very first page! I loved it… Definitely 5 stars… A page-turner!’ —arcreviews_by_m

The perfect way for us to live. The perfect way for him to hide.

I never expected to fall in love with my neighbour. But then tall, twinkly eyed Matt moved in next door. Now he’s my husband, but we’ve kept our own houses. It means my tranquil home remains a sanctuary for me and my daughter. People think it’s strange, but it works for us.

Everyone knows everyone on our street. So when Ellie, a local student nurse, goes missing, we’re all terrified. Matt and I are glued to the news, his jaw rigid with tension. How could something like this happen so close to our homes?

I try to keep things normal. But I know the neighbours are gossiping about Ellie… and the fact my husband and I live apart. Then another girl goes missing.

The whispers escalate. How does she know what Matt’s really been doing? Where he goes at night? I have to prove them wrong...

But when I use my key to creep into Matt’s quiet house, I discover something that shocks me to the core. How little I know about my husband next door. And now my daughter and I could be in terrible danger…

K.L. Slater is a number one bestselling psychological thriller author with millions of readers worldwide and multiple novels that have dominated the Kindle charts. Known for her ability to craft domestic suspense that feels uncomfortably plausible, Slater specializes in ordinary settings that hide extraordinary secrets. Her novels consistently deliver the shocking twists and compulsive readability that have made her a dominant force in the genre.

Here’s what you’re getting: A marriage arrangement that sounds unconventional but sensible becomes the perfect cover for unthinkable secrets. Slater brilliantly exploits the premise—what happens when your spouse lives next door, close enough to seem intimate but far enough to hide entire secret lives? The disappearance of local women turns neighborhood paranoia into a pressure cooker, and when our narrator finally crosses the threshold into her husband’s house, nothing will ever be the same. This is domestic noir at its most unsettling, perfect for readers who devoured The Woman in the Window, The Silent Patient, and anything by Freida McFadden or Lisa Jewell. Slater delivers exactly what thriller readers crave: a protagonist you root for, creeping dread that builds with every page, and a twist that recontextualizes everything you thought you knew.

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