“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
If you’re looking for new books to read this week, you’re in the right place. Every week brings a wave of fresh book releases, and it can be hard to know which titles are truly worth your time. That’s why we’ve rounded up the best new books to read from this week – from gripping thrillers and emotional historical fiction to heartwarming romances and unforgettable debuts. These latest book releases are already making waves with readers and critics alike, offering something for every kind of book lover. Whether you’re in the mood for a fast-paced story or a slow-burning character study, these new books are the ones to have on your radar. So, grab a cup of coffee and explore the best new reads of the week – your next favourite story might just be waiting here.
Cursed Daughters – Oyinkan Braithwaite
First up on our list of new books this week is Oyinkan Braithwaite’s sharp and explosive story, Cursed Daughters. When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin, Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.
When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?
Release date: 4 November 2025
Empire Of The Dawn (Empire Of The Vampire #3) – Jay Kristoff
Gabriel de Leon has lost his family, his faith, and the last hope of ending the endless night – his surrogate daughter, Dior. With no thought left but vengeance, he and a band of loyal brothers journey into the war-torn heart of Elidaen to claim the life of the Forever King.
Unbeknownst to the Last Silversaint, the Grail still lives – speeding towards the besieged capital of Augustin in the frail hope of ending Daysdeath. But deadly treachery awaits within the halls of power, and the Forever King’s legions march ever closer. Gabriel and Dior will be drawn into a final battle that will shape the very fate of the Empire, but as the sun sets for what may be the last time, there will be no one left for them to trust. Jay Kristoff delivers the epic conclusion to his internationally bestselling Empire of the Vampire series with his new novel, Empire of the Dawn.
Release date: 4 November 2025
Only Son – Kevin Moffett
Florida, 1982. A nine-year-old watches as his dead father’s possessions are hauled away. Everyone in his life now tries to teach him a lesson, but he is, it seems, a slow learner. Meanwhile, with each passing day, his father recedes, growing less and less plausible, almost a myth.
Twenty-five years on, adrift in Southern California, married with a son of his own, he’s still trying to sort through the fragments of his father’s death, whilst imparting his own sketchy education onto his son. After discovering a travel journal he didn’t know his father kept, he and his son light out on a road trip, retracing the father’s mystifying journey. They drive up the Pacific Coast, foggy, overtaken by beauty. As he strains to decipher his father’s notes, his relationship with his son begins to take on new heft and shape. With wit and compassion, Kevin Moffett delivers a bracingly intimate account of fatherhood and discovery, and the experiences of two men far from home.
Release date: 4 November 2025
Seven Deadly Thorns – Amber Hamilton
In the cursed Kingdom of Aragoa, the punishment for magic is death. Even the students at Vandenberghe Academy aren’t spared. When Viola Sinclair’s deadly shadow magic is discovered, the queen gives her assassin a new assignment and a new cursed seven-thorned rose on his arm for the seven days he has to hunt Viola down and kill her. If he doesn’t, he will be the one to die.
The assassin is Roze Roquelart – entitled prince, arrogant fellow student, and the one person Viola hates more than anyone. Roze should revel in the chance to end her life, but he desperately needs something from Viola and her magic. And he’s willing to spare her life – and fake their engagement – to get it. Forced to work together, Viola and Roze must contend with deadly threats, dangerous secrets, and an impossible attraction. Will they give in to their deepest desires, even if it means destroying Aragoa – and risking both their lives?
Release date: 4 November 2025
Palaver – Bryan Washington
In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor, drinking his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he’s estranged from his family in Houston. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the son’s mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.
Separated only by the son’s cat, Taro, the two of them bristle against one another immediately. The mother works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. But as life starts to steer them in unexpected directions, the two of them begin to see each other more clearly. Sharing meals and conversations and an eventful trip to Nara, both mother and son try their best to define where “home” really is – and whether they can find it in each other in this tender, open-hearted new novel of family, love, and the beauty of a life among others by Bryan Washington.
Release date: 4 November 2025
The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, And Kitchen Objects – Bee Wilson
One August day, months after her marriage had suddenly ended, a heart-shaped baking tin fell at Bee Wilson’s feet, the same one she had used to bake her wedding cake twenty-three years prior. The discovery struck a wave of emotions that propelled her in search of others who have invested in kitchen objects with magical and personal properties. A favourite wooden spoon or a saltshaker, items that become powerful symbols of identity, memory, friendship, grief, superstition, safety, and political resistance.
Crossing continents, cultures, and time periods, Wilson weaves her own family story into a wider narrative. Thoughtful, sharp, and beautifully written, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a profoundly moving examination of our relationship to the physical world – and the people around us – in an increasingly rational and secular age, making for one of the top new books to read right now.
Release date: 4 November 2025
Flat Earth – Anika Jade Levy
Avery is a young woman attending grad school in New York, working on a collection of cultural reports and flailing financially and emotionally. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, in which she was made to take care of her parents, she now seeks to be taken care of – and even infantilised – which she plays out by dating older men for money and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In an act of desperation, Avery applies for and secures a job at a right-wing dating app. The “reports” she is tasked to write for the startup eventually merge with her dissertation, resulting in a metafictional text that reveals itself on the very pages of this trending new novel.
Meanwhile, Avery’s best friend, Frances, an effortlessly chic emerging filmmaker from a wealthy family in the South, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish her first feature, Flat Earth. Frances’ triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery on a final tailspin, pushing her to make some of her most devastating decisions, but also ultimately pulling her back to her authentic self.
Release date: 4 November 2025
We Fell Apart – E. Lockhart
The invitation arrives out of the blue. In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never understood. Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, orphaned brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary.
With Kingsley nowhere to be found, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater. And everyone here is lying. #1 New York Times bestselling author E. Lockhart returns to the world of her BookTok sensation We We Were Liars with all her signature beachy gothic atmosphere, family intrigue, and high-stakes romance in her trending new book, We Fell Apart.
Release date: 4 November 2025
The Forget-Me-Not Library – Heather Webber
Juliet Nightingale is lucky to be alive. Months after a freak accident involving lightning, she’s fully recovered, but is left feeling like something is missing from her life. Something big. Impulsively, she decides to take a solo summer road trip, hoping that the journey will lead her down a path that will help her discover exactly what she is searching for.
Newly single mother Tallulah Byrd Mayfield is hanging by a thread after her near, tidy world was totally undone when her husband decided their marriage was over. In the aftermath of the breakup, she and her two daughters move in with her eighty-year-old grandfather. Tallulah starts a new job at the Forget-Me-Not Library, where old, treasured memories can be found within the new books. After a detour leads Juliet to Forget-Me-Not, Alabama, and straight into Tallulah’s life, the two women soon discover there’s magic in between the pages of where you’ve been and where you still need to go. And that happiness, even when lost, can always be found again.
Release date: 4 November 2025
Otherwise Engaged – Susan Mallery
When Shannon gets engaged, her beloved mum, Cindy, is the first person she wants to tell – and the last. Cindy’s engaged, too, and has already hinted at a double wedding. The image of a synchronised bouquet toss fills Shannon with horror. She’ll keep her engagement a secret until Cindy’s I-dos are done. Victoria has never been enough for her mother, Ava. So, she lives on her own terms, pushing Ava’s buttons. Ava loves but doesn’t understand her stuntwoman daughter. When a movie-set mishap brings Victoria home, Ava longs to connect finally.
Chance brings the four women together at a wedding venue, where a shocking secret comes tumbling out. Twenty-four years ago, desperate teenager Cindy chose wealthy Ava to adopt her baby – then changed her mind at the last minute. The loss rocked Ava’s world, leaving her unable to open her heart to the daughter she did adopt, Victoria. As Shannon and Victoria deal with the fallout from the choices their mothers made, they wrestle with whether who they are is different from who they might have been in this twisty, tender new novel.
Release date: 4 November 2025
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
