Reading is literally a superpower 🦸🏾♀️📚
Fuel your favorite indie spaces by snagging these page-turners…
Browsing my local bookstores, I’ve always daydreamed of curating my own themed tables of celebrated authors and featured reads. It wasn’t until I was recovering from a rheumatoid arthritis flare up in May, unable to do much else, that I got a big idea…
I’ve heard about Bookshop.org a lot these days, and I know I’m late to the discussion, but in case you’re like me and didn’t know the full scope of what they do, let’s talk about it. Bookshop.org is a online book retail space and promising alternative to Amazon. They have partnered with IngramSpark and Draft2Digital to become a reliable book retailer. But what makes them really unique is that with each purchase, a portion of the profit goes to support an indie bookstore of your choice.
“Bookshop.org puts this mission and the public good above financial interests, giving over 80% of our profit margin to independent bookstores. In total, we support over 1900+ stores.”
Reading and book buying is literally a superpower at Bookshop.org. I love sharing new reads, amplifying amazing authors, and through this online platform, so I created an affiliate bookstore powered by Bookshop.org. Now, I can literally create my own “featured tables”, the digital version of what our bookstores do. I can also give back to our indie bookstore. And I’m inviting you to join me.
Enjoy P.O.W.ER reads, recs, and featured finds as usual, and if you’re so inclined, you can browse and buy from the Novel Creature store at Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores and yours truly.
So what reads can you expect to see on Novel Creature at bookshop.org? Diverse sci-fi, fantasy and related sub-genres. The Novel Creature store heavily centers Black and BIPOC books, and other notable reads and hidden gems, both traditional and indie.
I just launched the store at the end of May, but there are already a plethora of titles broken down into featured lists you can explore. Check out this month’s featured Novel Creature list below 👇🏽
Pre-Order These Page-Turners (Part 1)
Lore of the Tides by Analeigh Sbrana
Release Date: July 8, 2025
From the author of Lore of the Wilds comes the exciting and passionate conclusion, as Lore navigates Fae magic amid looming dangers that threaten to destroy her world.
Lore Alemeyu wakes up to discover she’s on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Held prisoner and with no way to escape, she’s faced with a dire set of circumstances…
A crew that’s distrustful of Lore’s magic capabilities…
Her betrayal by a Fae she thought she could trust…
A dangerous quest for the sun book, which, if placed in the wrong hands, will make the Alytherian Fae even more powerful.
Lore must navigate threats on the ship and beyond, into the ocean’s magical and mysterious depths, in order to find the sun book herself and help free the humans. All the while, Lore can’t help but feel the intense pull of one Fae male who has been helping her all along. But is she willing to risk her human heart for creatures that have burned her in the past, and jeopardize her people’s future?
Mastery of Monsters by Liselle Sambury
Release Date: July 29, 2025
Ninth House meets Legendborn in this “bold and bloody” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) first book in a dark academia fantasy series about a teen who’s willing to do anything to find her brother—even infiltrate a secret society full of monsters.
When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing.
The only clue he left behind was a note telling her to stay safe and protect their remaining family. And after August is attacked by a ten-foot-tall creature with fur and claws, she realizes that her brother might be in more danger than she could have imagined.
Unfortunately for her, the only person with a connection to the mysterious creature is the bookish Virgil Hawthorne…and he knows about them because he is one. If he doesn’t find a partner to help control his true nature, he’ll lose his humanity and become a mindless beast—exactly what the secret society he’s grown up in would love to put down.
Virgil makes a proposition: August will join his society and partner with him, and in return, he’ll help her find her brother. And so August is plunged into a deadly competition to win one of the few coveted candidate spots, all while trying to accept a frightening reality: that monsters are real, and she has to learn to master them if she’s to have any hope of saving her brother.
Bones at the Crossroad by LaDarrion Williams
Release Date: July 29, 2025
It's Homecoming season at Caiman University, and all 17-year-old Malik Baron wants to do is be a regular college student…or as regular as he can get at a magical HBCU for young, Black Conjurers. He’s ready to go to parties, hang out with his new friends, choose a major, and talk to girls. Instead, he's reeling from a summer of revelations, heartbreak and betrayal, and still uncovering the truth about his powers and his legacy.
The family he only just discovered is already fractured beyond repair, and a new relative who shows up on his doorstep brings even more questions. Then there’s the mother he risked everything to find, who might be the biggest threat to the life he's trying to build. To protect his new community, Malik joins an elite secret society with roots in ancient magic.
His journey takes him even deeper into his own heritage and the history of the magical world, while bringing him closer to a classmate whose friendship might mean something more, if Malik is ready to let her in. But how can he use powers he can’t even control to defend a world he’s not sure will ever fully accept him? And as the pressure and danger builds, will he be able to confront the deepening cracks within the magical society, and those building within himself?
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Release Date: July 15, 2025
Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.
Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
Blood Moon by Britney S. Lewis
Release: September 9, 2025
Mirabella Owens grew up with legends of wolves that traveled to her midwestern town to protect humans from vampires. Of a werewolf that fell in love with one of the undead, unraveling a blood-soaked history. But Mira stopped believing in those fairy tales years ago. She stopped believing in a lot of things after her mom left without a trace when she was only thirteen.
As Mira begins her freshman year at Lakeland University, she’s ready to leave the past behind her. Only the past isn’t finished with her yet. Strange animal attacks are occurring around campus, reopening cold cases tied to her mother’s disappearance. And the only person who seems to know anything is Julian Santos, the boy who is hell-bent on getting Mira to leave campus for reasons she can’t begin to understand. But Mira refuses to let him keep his secrets, not when the truth is the difference between life and death.
Mira will have to accept that there is much more to the old town myths, and her growing feelings for Julian, than she ever could have anticipated. And as the Blood Moon rises, she will come to know a world that will shatter her past and change her future.
Daughter of the Dead by K. Jamila
Release Date: September 18, 2025
A Witch Fighting for her Freedom
Centuries after the Massacre of the Witches, Nova Aarin has clawed her way out of the dirt. Through death and destruction, she has learned that above all, blood answers to her. After striking a deal-death for freedom-Nova chases all she has ever wanted: her autonomy. For someone who has brought nothing but death, will her life ever be her own?
A Princess Vying for her Throne
Fear is the most powerful emotion of all. Elaia Zūne, the Princess of Shadow, knows that, even if she cannot admit it. Her mother and sisters are dead. Her father and the girl she has loved all her life, are all who remain. Darkness and death wait in the shadows and fear slithers within her. Will she bend to it? Or will fear bend to her?
A Queen Discovering World's End
Failure was not an option, not for Syrena Savali. The Reyn of Iyvia is dead and the crown is hers. Syrena must rise to the challenge or risk losing her position. But her world is not all that is changing-under the ocean's surface, a rift grows on the seafloor, and something poisonous leaks.
Is she strong enough to contain it, or will she fail the world?
The Descent
The world fractures and the hunt begins.
Make Me a Monster by Kalynn Bayron
Release Date: September 30
New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is back with a Frankenstein-tinged horror romance.
Meka is used to death. After all, it's the family business.
As a newly certified mortician's assistant at her parents' funeral home, her days are not for the faint of heart. Luckily her boyfriend Noah isn't squeamish, and Meka is finally feeling ready to say the three little words that will change everything.
But then tragedy strikes, and Meka's world is torn apart. Nothing makes sense, especially the strange things start happening. Ravens are circling her home. Strangers are following her. Someone is leaving mysterious items at her door. And worst of all . .
The dead don't seem to be staying dead.
Meka thought she understood death better than anyone. Turns out, the family business is a bit more complicated than it seems. And Meka isn't the only one desperate to unearth their secrets . . . because the truth may be worth dying for.
I couldn’t fit the entire list in this post, so look for part 2 of the books you should definitely pre-order (or click the link below to explore all my lists).
What’s your favorite indie bookstore? What Black and BIPOC books or authors are you reading and loving? I’d love to know so I can support them on bookshop.org.