New Book Releases: May 18, 2021

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

YES, DADDY, Jonathan Parks-Ramage. An aspiring playwright falls for an established writer, but when he visits the older man’s sprawling Hamptons estate, the relationship turns unsettling and violent. “A well-formed coming-of-age story, both erotic and chilling,” writes Kirkus. Bookshop.

THE ALBUM OF DR. MOREAU, Daryl Gregory. In this sci-fi novella, a Las Vegas detective has only 24 hours to uncover who murdered Dr. M., the manager of the world’s only genetically-engineered human-animal hybrid boy band. Bookshop.

UNSETTLED GROUND, Claire Fuller. Middle-aged twins living in rural isolation face a reckoning when their mother dies. Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which calls it “a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival.” Bookshop.

THE BETRAYALS, Bridget Collins. An elite and secretive magical academy that teaches its students how to compete in an arcane competition hires its first woman…