What’s better than a regular-sized historical fiction book? A short historical fiction book that you can finish in the span of a weekend. That’s just math. All of these historical fiction books under 300 pages are short, sweet, and to the point. They’re not going to drag you along for dozens upon dozens of pages on side tangents about the Napoleonic wars (looking at you Victor Hugo). Instead, these books set the historical scene and get straight to the story. Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.

Short Historical Fiction Books To Read In a Weekend

Woman's World

From romance to thriller to women's fiction and more, these books will be hard to put down.

10 Must-Read Backlist Books From Authors With New Releases in 2024

Maine State

Aspiring authors, meet your new best friends: Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry. These seasoned pros provide an engaging and effective resource that includes a practical roadmap for planning, writing, and publishing your book, plus insider tips on capturing the attention of agents and publishers—even without a massive following. Writers at any stage will thrive with this comprehensive guide and ready access to HungryAuthors.com for additional support.

10 of the Best Books on Writing and Publishing

The most read books on Goodreads this week aren’t new names, but they are shuffled differently. We’re also witnessing the return of Colleen Hoover’s popularity, just when it was beginning to wane: It Ends With Us is back in the top five (as well as back on the bestseller lists), following the movie adaptation. It’s hard to believe there’s anyone left to read it for the first time!

The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week

Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. “[N]erve-shredding . . . Mejia maintains breathless suspense as she fleshes out the combative dynamic between her captivating leads. For crime fiction fans, it’s a must-read.”. –Publishers Weekly. Jonathan Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman, The Lost Coast. (Ballantine)

10 New Books Coming Out This Week

The Resurrection: Decoding Dante's Lost Canto by D. Allen Henry. As anyone who has read the Divine Comedy will attest, there were people Italian poet Dante Alighieri liked and those he didn’t like. The former populate his Purgatorio and Paradisio, while the latter — well, let’s just say they are punished, often spectacularly, in his Inferno. His strong views didn’t end there. In fact, Dante’s religiopolitical ties got him kicked out of Florence permanently.

Dante’s Lost Secrets Revealed in Historical Mystery

Here’s the full list of new science fiction titles heading your way in August!. Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change. August 6. The Mercy of Gods (Captive’s...

All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in August 2024

Back-to-school season is almost upon us, and you know what that means: school supplies! We at Book Riot know you’re never too old to get high on the joy of fresh notebooks and colored pencils, so we found some bookish stationery and school supplies to help you turn your nostalgia engines up to 11.

Power Ranking the Bookish Movies of 1999

Have you ever found yourself in a reading slump? I certainly have. There’s just something so frustrating to be in that head space where nothing I read seems to work for me. To help myself out whenever this happens, I keep a stash of books I think I’m all but guaranteed to like. In today’s newsletter, we’re talking about two books that helped pull me out of a slump and return me to my usual reading groove. But first, let’s jump into bookish goods!

Nonfiction Books to Pick You Up After a Reading Slump

It’s August, which means that scary season is just around the corner. I can’t help but get excited when I see Halloween decor show up at department stores. So, I couldn’t help but pick up today’s book, a gothic tale set in early Victorian England. Midnight...

This Victorian England-Set Gothic Fantasy Feels Like Part Jane Eyre, Part Fairytale

It's 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in Harlem. Elise is the reluctant heir to a reaper-hunting empire. Layla is a reaper who lost everything — her parents, friends, and humanity — and she'll never forget how Elise betrayed her. When a new kind of reaper that's more human than monster emerges, Elise and Layla must join forces to uncover the city's darkest secrets. As they explore New York City’s underworld, it gets harder to ignore their intense feelings for one another, even when they know they can never be together.

Compelling Historical Fantasy YA

It’s Women in Translation Month! Like it says on the Women in Translation website, “Every August, readers from all continents around the world (except Antarctica, but we’ll get those penguins yet!) gather in spirit (and sometimes in person) to read, review, and discuss works by women writers in translation.” I first started observing #WITmonth back in 2016 and have loved it ever since. So today, we’re looking at two different nonfiction titles by women in translation. But first, bookish goods!

It’s Women in Translation Month!

Buried Deep collects almost 20 years of award-winning Naomi Novik’s acclaimed short stories. It is a treasure trove for fans who no longer need to hunt through a dozen anthologies to find them individually. Some stories have already achieved legendary status, such as her retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice—with dragons! Novik’s fans from her nine-book Temeraire series will delight in the abundance of dragons in this collection, including in the tale of “Vici”, which traces the militarization of dragons back to Rome and Antony.

Naomi Novik’s Fantastical Feminist Worlds

These stories pack a lot into minimal pages, plus they can help you get out of a reading slump

9 Short Books You Can Read In One Sitting: ‘Sandwich,’ ‘Heartburn’ and More

This week, I’m finally heading to the beach for the first time this summer. This is a little embarrassing because I live on an island: there are beaches in every direction. I’m so looking forward to doing some reading there, and naturally, I’ll be packing queer books in my beach bag. There are a lot of opinions about what a beach read is, but for the purposes of this list, I’m going very literal: these are all queer books that are set at least partially at the beach or on the ocean. For a less literal approach, check out 15 of the Best LGBTQ Beach Reads of 2024.

Queer Beach Reads for Every Kind of Seaside Reader

It’s International Cat Day, and if there’s one thing we love almost as much as books here at Book Riot, it’s cats. In fact, many of our cats have become quite the book connoisseurs themselves. They spend their days in our homes full of giant stacks of books, after all! Our cats love to nap on their favorite tomes and rub their whiskers on our latest reads. The mischievous kittens can make a mess of our bookshelves or send our towering TBRs tumbling to the ground. Whether they’re snuggling on our laps at reading time or causing mayhem, they all have impeccable taste. Today, in honor of the holiday, we’re going to let the cats of Book Riot do the work of telling you what books to read.

The Cats of Book Riot Recommend Books to Read on International Cat Day

South Carolina State

Before I dive into your bi-weekly mystery goodness—which includes new releases, backlist titles featuring cold settings, and news—I have a new mystery film for you to watch. If you’re in the mood for a heist comedy starring Matt Damon, you can now stream The Instigators on Apple TV+. Watch the trailer here.

A Forensic Linguist, Cold Setting Mysteries, + More!

Again and again, I’ve exclaimed that immersion reading, reading along with a book while the same title plays on audio, has worked its way into my bookish heart as my favorite way to read. That hasn’t changed. However, my amount of free time has dwindled. Suspecting the rarity of unbusy hands approaching, I, in the second half of last year, listened to three books immersively: Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa; Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton; and Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward.

What is Immersion Reading?

I’ve mentioned this already, but there just wasn’t enough horror rep in the NYT‘s top books of the 21st century. So as I share with you some of my personal picks for the best books of this century, you had to know more horror was going to come up. This one is another one from Paul Tremblay, who I mentioned a couple months ago. But why not read two Paul Tremblay books this summer? Especially when this one is, again, one of the BEST BOOKS of the century. Hear me out.

Horror Makes The List of This Century’s Best Books…Again!

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NewsNinja

A lady is cautioning others about purchasing budget earrings from Amazon, Shein, and H&M, after she experienced keloid formations on her earlobes due to wearing them. On a TikTok post that has garnered more than 334,000 likes, Sailor Rozema (@sailor.rozema), a content creator, shares a warning with her community of "dangly earring girls": the inexpensive jewelry found in fast fashion can have negative impacts on your well-being.

‘I’ll never be wearing earrings for the rest of my life’: Customer warns against buying from Shein

NewsBreak

New Books for the First Tuesday of August!

Hello, reading superstars! I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far. Today is possibly the biggest new release day of the year. Just...

New Books for the First Tuesday of August!

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