Top 10
American Pope: Leo XIV’s Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow. Flatiron, Oct. 6 ($32.99, ISBN 978-1-250-44605-3)
Drawing from extensive archival research and interviews, NPR reporters Burke and Detrow chronicle how Robert Prevost rose from his working-class roots to the papacy.
Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy
Robert P. Jones. St. Martin’s, Sept. 8 ($30, ISBN 978-1-250-43113-4)
Bestseller Jones unpacks why the American evangelical church has embraced Christian nationalism and shares a road map for reviving its democratic principles.
Gaslit by God: How I Unlearned Shame and Reclaimed My Faith
Desirée Elder. Broadleaf, Jan. 5 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-5064-9812-6)
Recounting how she broke free from a controlling church culture, pastor Elder advises women who have been harmed by patriarchal Christianity to embrace a faith that centers their autonomy.
Into the Quiet: Following Jesus in a World of Noise
John Mark Comer. WaterBrook, Oct. 6 ($30, ISBN 978-0-593-19380-8)
Mining the contemplative Christian tradition, bestseller Comer outlines how readers can bypass daily distractions to reconnect with their spirituality.
My Battlefield: A Life Broken and Made Whole
Joyce Meyer. Faithwords, Sept. 15 ($30, ISBN 978-1-5460-0884-2)
Bible teacher Meyer aims with this account of overcoming her abusive upbringing to illustrate how God can redeem even the darkest, most challenging circumstances.
Not My Circus: Living with Courage, Conviction, and Compassion in a World of Chaos
Mark Batterson. Multnomah, Oct. 20 ($29, ISBN 979-8-217-15214-8)
Pastor Batterson argues that strong spiritual principles can inoculate readers from an angry, anxious culture.
Ordinary Altars: How to Love the World (Even When It Breaks Your Heart)
Sarah Bessey. Convergent, Jan. 26 ($27, ISBN 978-0-593-59372-1)
True faith can be found in the “ordinary altars” of daily life—the unassuming places, people, and relationships in which the divine resides—according to Bessey.
Polarized: Why American Jews Are Divided and What to Do About It
Roberta Rosenthal Kwall. Bloomsbury Academic, Oct. 1 ($32, ISBN 979-8-8818-4250-5)
Legal scholar Kwall outlines how an increasingly fractured American Jewish community can heal itself while sustaining its capacity for productive disagreement.
Pretend You Believe: How to Enter Religion
Noa Kushner. Schocken, Oct. 13 ($28, ISBN 979-8-217-20780-0)
Rabbi Kushner invites readers to embrace an action-oriented faith that makes room for imperfections, doubts, and questions.
The Stories We Live By: Seven Cultural Myths That Fail Us and the Story That Never Will
Timothy and Michael Keller. Zondervan, Sept. 22 ($29.99, ISBN 978-0-310-37129-8)
The late Keller and his son, both pastors, argue that Christian values of grace and forgiveness can provide a sense of fulfillment not offered by today’s individualistic culture.
Religion & Spirituality Longlist
Fiction
Barbour
Murder, Plainly Written by Mindy Steele (Sept. 1, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-89151-407-2). Englischer Sadie Lynch is excited to start over after inheriting a candle shop in Ohio Amish country—until she discovers the local minister’s dead body behind the counter on opening day.
Not So Very Sensible by Carolyn Miller (Oct. 1, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-89151-420-1). In this contemporary take on Sense and Sensibility, two sisters—one a romantic, the other incurably pragmatic—have their expectations of love upended at a weekend murder mystery retreat.
War-Torn Love by Angela K. Couch (Dec. 1, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-89151-447-8). This WWII-set historical traces the fallout after Evelyn Watson’s lover, Gabriel Bailey, returns from fighting on the front with an abandoned German baby.
Bethany House
The Home Front Sisters: A World War II Novel of Little Women by Amy Lynn Green (Nov. 17, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7642-4300-4). This spin on the Louisa May Alcott classic finds Philadelphia-based sisters Joan and Amelia caught between duty, sisterhood, and romance as WWII encroaches on their lives.
A Marriage by the Sea by Jody Hedlund (Oct. 20, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7642-4633-3). Marissa Axton reluctantly enters a marriage of convenience in the hopes it’ll persuade her father to give her the deed to the family farm, but real feelings and family drama complicate things.
The Resurrection of Evania James by Jaime Jo Wright (Oct. 6, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7642-4625-8). In this gothic-tinged suspense novel, a house once privy to the shady dealings of grave robbers links two women across time.
Good Books
A Christmas Surprise: An Amish Romance by Linda Byler (Sept. 22, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-964219-36-3). As the holidays approach in a tight-knit New England Amish community, Nate and Laura strike up an unexpected friendship that might become more—if financial and family problems don’t get in the way.
Kensington
E Is for Englischer by Shelley Shepard Gray (Nov. 24, $28, ISBN 978-1-4967-5885-9). An unlikely romance blooms between a spirited young Englischer woman who’s helping to manage an Amish couple’s farm and the quiet, devout carpenter remodeling their kitchen.
Revell
Fatal Pattern by Kate Angelo (Sept. 15, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-4664-3). When she becomes the target of a stalker, forensic pathologist Tori Crew teams up with a homicide detective for an off-the-books investigation that unearths surprising truths about Tori’s past.
The Saint and the Spy by Laura Frantz (Jan. 19, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-4657-5). After her sea captain father vanishes without a trace, Samera Sayre sets out on a search and crosses paths with a love interest who may have something to hide.
Things We Cannot Keep by Amanda Cox (Aug. 18, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-4662-9). A 36-year-old watchmaker is forced to confront her troubled past after she receives an anonymous package addressed to her real name, an identity she thought she’d left behind.
When the Silence Breaks by Elizabeth Goddard (Aug. 4, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-4768-8). Government secrets, a deathbed confession, and a desperate race to climb a mountain stir up drama in this kickoff to the Mercy Ridge series.
Tyndale Fiction
Every Given Day by Cathy Gohlke (Sept. 8, $32.99, ISBN 979-8-4005-0859-2). An early-20th-century schoolteacher tries to keep her family together amid chaos wrought by Spanish influenza and her nephew’s diabetes diagnosis.
In These Hills by Tamera Alexander (Sept. 8, $32.99, ISBN 978-1-4964-7562-6). Suffragist Josephine Dunham flees Atlanta and starts anew in small-town Lynchburg, Tenn., where she must rethink her black-and-white feelings about love and life.
WaterBrook
Where Wilted Flowers Bloom by Johanna Rojas Vann (Aug. 25, $19 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-60316-1). After moving from New York City to East Nashville, Tenn., Sandra works to overcome the grief she thought she’d left behind through an unexpected friendship with an elderly neighbor.
Nonfiction
B&H
Nobody Can Be You Better Than You: Loving the Person God Created You to Be by Dacey Triplett (Oct. 13, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-3845-3440-2) encourages believers to stake their self-worth in God rather than external circumstances.
Baker
Walking Lois Home: Living Out Our Christian Call to Love the Sick and Dying by Michael and Tracy Balboni (Oct. 20, $21.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5409-0543-7). The married authors, a doctor and a pastor, outline how to help the dying grapple with emotional and spiritual challenges that arise during end-of-life care.
Behrman House
Spiritual Belonging: How 40 Faith Leaders Are Reimagining Community, Connection, and Belief by Benjamin Spratt and Joshua Stanton (Jan. 5, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-68115-100-7) spotlights leaders from across religious traditions who are creating new spaces for meaning, often outside the strictures of institutional religion.
Belknap
The Practice of Wisdom: Five Quests by Davíd