The Best New Book Releases Out March 25, 2025

Once college student Jane Sharp’s father dies, her drive to find a distraction leads her down a true crime rabbit hole, and soon, she’s obsessed. She befriends other amateur sleuths, finding comfort and friendship through them. Then three girls in Delphine, Idaho, are killed, and the world is captivated. Jane and her friends want to be the ones to solve the crime, but everything about the case is off — police are acting weird, there’s beaucoup media hype for some reason, and the overall case is getting more odd by the day. Then, Jane and friends realize that the killer they’re looking for may be more prolific than they first thought, and they themselves may be walking into a trap.

I feel like rich people and their…extracurricular proclivities are getting skewered lately in books, movies, and shows. And here’s the latest. Thirty years ago, Sarah Lingate was found dead off the cliffs of Capri. Though her death was ruled an accident, the wealthy Lindgate family she’d married into was always looked at with suspicion. When the Lingates return to Capri this most recent time, they’re met with the necklace Sarah was wearing when she died. The family, naturally, freaks out, and Sarah’s daughter Helen plans an escape with family assistant Lorna Moreno. But then Lorna disappears, and Helen has to consider whether her controlling father, out-there aunt, or even distant uncle really did do something to her mother all those years ago.

If seeing a book about Harriet Tubman by thee Bob the Drag Queen isn’t enough to make you get it, let me add that it’s the story of Harriet Tubman coming back to life to put on a Hamilton-esque show about her life. To write it, she taps the low-key washed-up hip hop producer Darnell Williams, who was outed at a BET Awards ceremony. They don’t have long to write the Broadway show, but as they come together, they realize they’ll have to contend with the horrors of both of their pasts.

Resigning herself to being the token ne’er-do-well of her family makes Sybil Sweet crave some carbs, so one late night, she ventures to the late-night donut store after getting a lottery ticket. Turns out this store is run by Kiran Anderson, the wannabe doctor who gave up on his dreams in order to save his family’s failing business. The two flirt — heavily — but the next day, Sybil is gone. All she leaves behind is her lottery ticket. He tries to return it as a grand romantic gesture, which goes viral and puts his store on the map. All that publicity has her family invested, so they start fake dating, and…you know how that goes.

This Malaysian Chinese-inspired fantasy promises The Witcher + Squid Game realness. Reading the official blurb is also giving me hints of Netflix’s Arcane. It follows Lythlet and her friend Desil, who are bound to a seemingly inescapable life of poverty and debt, and who sign up as arena combatants out of desperation. Well, turns out they both have a talent for it — Desil is a capital B brawler, and Lythlet has excellent fighting IQ. And so match-master Dothilos takes Lythlet under his wing but leaves Desil out in the dust. Soon, Lythlet can envision a life outside of the crushing desperation she’s so used to, but the cost of her ambition includes politics, sacrifice, and deception. It may even leave her a different person.

The author of Bad Feminist has brought together 672 pages of feminist thought — starting in antiquity and continuing on to modern times — that criticizes as much as it endorses. Writers include everyone from Henricus Cornelius Agrippa to Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mona Eltahawy, and bell hooks.