A few upcoming releases crossed our desk, sparking interest if not a full review. Consider this a quiet nod.
1. He’s the Devil by Tobi Coventry
In He’s the Devil, Simon has always tried to do right by everyone, keeping his darker impulses carefully hidden.
When his longtime roommate moves out, a handsome stranger named Massimo takes his place. But with him come strange sounds, unsettling scents, and dreams that blur the line between desire and dread.
Across the city, violent murders unfold, and soon, Simon finds a more restless, treacherous side of himself awakening. What Massimo has brought with him could mark an ending—or a startling new beginning.
The novel opens with sharp, comic energy, fueled by the cramped intensity of shared living. Its exploration of somatic desire is wonderfully daring, alive with the friction between fear and arousal.
But as the narrative evolves, that pulse softens; humor gives way to a pensive stillness that slows any real movement.
The protagonist’s descent, deliberate and abrasive, can feel both intimate and repellent. And as introspection takes hold, the story begins to circle rather than progress, making the performance of innocence gradually untethered from momentum.
An ambitious debut—stylistically confident and initially exhilarating, though the loosening of its narrative may test the reader’s endurance.
An advance copy was provided by Abrams Press.
Genres
General Fiction (Adult) | Humor & Satire | LGBTQ+
2. My Lover, the Rabbi by Wayne Koestenbaum
In My Lover, the Rabbi, a self-abjecting narrator becomes obsessed with a mercurial rabbi. Their affair is intense, volatile, and full of both desire and manipulation.
As the narrator seeks to unravel the rabbi’s mysterious past, intimacy and obsession intertwine, and questions of truth, reality, and consequence emerge.
The novel’s prose moves with a ritualized intensity: ornate, rhythmic, and inward-looking. Its cadence, at first hypnotic in its repetition, mirrors the narrator’s fixation until the very act of telling becomes its own rite.
For some, this will read as arresting; for others, the density may feel cumbersome and self-contained, its energy folding in rather than unfolding outward. The work’s ambition is clear, though its formal precision can distance more than it draws in.
An advance copy was provided by FSG Originals.
Genres
General Fiction (Adult) | LGBTQ+ | Religion & Spirituality
3. Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw by Eric LaRocca
Following the death of his husband, Simeon Link turns to an unusual support group, seeking solace in their addictive, dangerous rituals.
There, he encounters Porcelain Khaw, a mysterious figure who can grant those in mourning one final, intimate moment with a lost loved one—for a price.
Tonally, Wretch opens in LaRocca’s familiar register: quietly eerie, restrained, and precise. There’s a subtle unease beneath the stillness, one that keeps its distance while dictating its own unhurried pace.
The novel’s deliberate, elusive chill may either intrigue or alienate, depending on the reader’s pull toward rumination and atmosphere over motion.
An advance copy was provided by S&S/Saga Press.
Genres
General Fiction (Adult) | Horror | LGBTQ+