New Book Releases: March 22, 2022

Each week, I’ll catalog the biggest and most exciting adult and YA fiction — and the occasional nonfiction — coming out that Tuesday.

THE TOWN OF BABYLON, Alejandro Varela. A gay Latinx professor of public health returns home when his father falls ill and decides to attend his twenty year high school reunion, where he reunites with his high school sweetheart. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly calls it “an incandescent bildungsroman.” Bookshop.

CURFEW, Jayne Cowie. In a future in which men are electronically tagged, monitored, and can’t leave their homes after 7pm, two women grapple with the negative effects of the policy on their own lives. Bookshop.

DON’T KNOW TOUGH, Eli Cranor. A born again Christian football coach attempts to shepherd his team to the playoffs after the abusive stepfather of the team’s star player is found murdered — an act that will nearly tear apart the town. “A searing and stunningly poignant study in what makes us and what breaks us and ultimately what brings us to a place of peace. Eli Cranor is that rare writer who can make you gasp, cry and cheer often in the same paragraph,” says S.A. Cosby. “One of the best debuts of 2022,” writes Sarah Weinman in the New York Times. Bookshop.

THE BONE ORCHARD, Sara A. Mueller. When someone attempts to murder the emperor, a necromancer and imperial concubine is tasked with discovering which of the emperor’s sons was the mastermind behind the violence. Read an excerpt here. Bookshop.

HAMMER, Joe Mungo Reed. A young art auctioneer ingratiates himself into the family of Russian oligarchs. “Richly textured, compulsively readable, and brilliant throughout,” writes Kirkus in a starred review. Bookshop.

HER LAST AFFAIR, John Searles. Three apparently disconnected characters thousands of miles apart discover their links to each other, even as they attempt to…