The Best Southern Books of August 2025 https://ift.tt/KRMcwGp
I know it’s the end of August, but it’s still back-to-school season, and if you haven’t already bought yourself a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils (or at least a new stack of post-it notes), you should definitely consider it. Or maybe try a brand new Southern novel or a collection of poems or short stories!
W.W. Norton: “Princess Joy L. Perry tells us a previously unheard story — one in which characters must carve out choices from the narrowest of circumstances and confront heartrending questions: how far would you go to protect your children from enslavement? How to create a lasting family after being torn from your own? What to value more: a hard-won opportunity or your humanity? This Here Is Love is an unforgettable story from an astonishing new voice.”
Ecco: “In ten vibrant, affecting stories, Mariah Rigg immerses readers in contemporary Hawai’i. By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, these stories of love, longing, and grief are fierce dispatches from a state haunted by the specter of colonization, a precious biome under constant threat.”
Henry Holt: “Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery — the former seat of the Confederacy — as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her family’s story with Alabama’s, defying stereotypes about her endlessly complex, often-pigeonholed home state. She immerses us in a landscape dominated today not by cotton fields but by Amazon warehouses, encountering high-powered Christian business leaders lobbying for tribal sovereignty and small-town women coming out against conservative politics. Okeowo shows how people can love their home while still acknowledging its sins.”
FSG: “A wry and buoyant fairy tale set at the apex of the housing crisis, Emily Hunt Kivel’s Dwelling takes us on a hapless hero’s journey to the end of the world and back again. Madcap and magical, hilarious and existential, Dwelling holds a funhouse mirror to our moment — for anyone in search of space, belonging, and some semblance of justice.”
Dzanc: “Spanning two decades, Bloomland examines the social roots and community fallout of a shooting at a fictional Southern university. As the narrative moves between the lives of a disillusioned student, a grieving professor, and the shooter himself, the psyches and stories of each character blend and intersect, ultimately asking us to rethink American myths of selfhood, grief, and violence as a redemptive act.”
Atria: “So much more than an exploration of architectural achievements, The Black Family Who Built America is also a compelling illustration of how history rhymes and reverberates, and a celebration of the human spirit’s ability to overcome adversity and drive change. From Moses’s humble beginnings to Cheryl’s current role as a trailblazer and champion of diversity, the family’s journey underscores the importance of perseverance, innovation, and strategic vision in shaping a legacy that continues to inspire and impact the construction industry.”
Crooked Lane Books: “Motherhood and murder link five very different women when a working-class detective clashes with wealthy moms in this thriller in the vein of May Cobb and Jeneva Rose.”
Minotaur: “A ninth-generation Appalachian, Archer Sullivan brings the mountains of North Carolina to life in The Witch’s Orchard, a wonderfully atmospheric novel that introduces private investigator Annie Gore. In the shadow of the Blue Ridge, Annie begins to track down the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been forgotten, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.”
FSG: “A brilliantly crafted Black Southern family drama told with the captivating force, humor, and tenderness carried in the hearts of these women, Addie E. Citchens’s Dominion wrestles with the many brutal, sinister ways in which we are shaped by fear and patriarchy, and studies how we might yet choose to break free.”
Black Lawrence Press: “In Shedding Season, nature threatens to overwhelm those who would keep it in check. Instead, Morton explores what it means to refuse the language of dominance, to recognize oneself as a small part of an impossibly complex ecosystem. In these poems, a broken narrative follows cycles of violence and ecological degradation across generations, illuminating the ways in which our relationships — with others, our environments, and ourselves — define us even as we define them.”
Hub City Press: “Anna arrives at the orchard with the intention to abjure social life, deverbalize her experience, and adjust her consciousness to the rhythms of the trees. She succeeds, for a time, until the arrival of her old friend Jan, nomadic and lively and at work on a book about the painter Charles Burchfield. Alarmed by her isolation and declining health, he tries to get her painting again, while Anna is determined to show him the orchard as she sees it. Hothouse Bloom is a millennial pastoral, both painterly and critical in its ideas about art, permaculture, subjectivity, and the natural world.”
Regal House: “Peace Like a River, the latest novel from acclaimed Southern writer Scott Gould, weaves a lyrical and heartwarming tale of fathers, sons, and grandfathers, and the intricate bonds that define them. A captivating exploration of forgiveness, redemption, and the enduring bonds of family, Peace Like a River invites readers into a world where love and loss intersect with the healing power of nature and introspection.”
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