It’s March, and the pollen has returned. It’s an interesting month for books — though to be fair, it’s a rare month that isn’t interesting in some way — with everything from experimental horror to incisive takes on pop culture hitting the “new releases” table. What are we most excited about? Read on and find out, gentle reader.

Mike Corrao, Leopold’s Labyrinth
(March 1, Astrophil Press)

Formally inventive and viscerally unsettling, Mike Corrao’s new book explores the gulf between digital and tactile reality, and the blurred spaces somewhere between the two. B.R. Yeager’s blurb for this concludes by asking, “Will you uncover the end? Does this path truly belong to you? Can only the dead reach forward?” We’re on board.

Linda N. Masi, Fine Dreams
(March 1, University of Massachusetts Press)

Linda N. Masi’s previous work has covered a lot of ground, including works of poetry and books for younger readers. With the novel Fine Dreams, she heads into a very different space, chronicling a quartet of young women who are kidnapped and find themselves in a situation at once deeply contemporary and disquietingly mythological.

Jennifer Croft, The Extinction of Irena Rey
(March 5, Bloomsbury)

You’ve read Jennifer Croft’s memoir and her work as a translator; now, her first novel is out in the world, and — lo and behold — it’s about a translator. Well, eight of them, plus the author they’re translating — whose disappearance sets this book in motion. Who doesn’t love a good literary mystery?

Katie M. Flynn, Island Rule
(March 5, Gallery/Scout Press)

In a 2020 interview, Katie M. Flynn described this book, then in progress, as featuring characters who reckon with “environmental disaster and failed marriage, an accelerated evolution and a trio of teen witches, the ire of a paranoid dictator and their own vanity.” We are suitably intrigued — and a great cover doesn’t hurt.

Rachel Lyon, Fruit of the Dead
(March 5, Scribner)

Perhaps it’s this month’s position between winter and spring that’s responsible for it, but: March seems to abound with mythical retellings. In Rachel Lyon’s second novel, she approaches the tale of Persephone and Demeter and updates it to the present day — a moment where power means something very different than it did in the time of ancient gods, and yet means plenty of similar things as well.

Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., Pour One for the Devil
(March 5, Lanternfish Press)

A Gothic novella set in the Sea Islands, you say? By Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., who recently co-edited the standout anthology Never Whistle At Night?  This combination of author, setting, and style has piqued our interest in countless ways.

Margaret Wappler, A Good Bad Boy
(March 5, Simon & Schuster)

We’re great admirers of Margaret Wappler’s work over here, and as fans of her 90s-set novel Neon Green, we’re intrigued that she’s revisiting that decade — albeit in a very different way — this time out. Her new book explores the life of the actor Luke Perry — and what he meant to the generation that came of age watching 90210.

Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
(March 12, Viking)

Also in the realm of “writers whose work we’ve enjoyed for many years” is Rita Bullwinkel. Her new novel focuses on the lives of several young women making their forays into the world of boxing — and if ever there was a sport that raised the stakes of a narrative, it’s that one.

Gabriel Palacios, A Ten Peso Burial For Which Truth I Sign
(March 12, Fonograf Editions)

A few quick notes about Gabriel Palacios’s debut collection of poetry: first and foremost, there’s the title, which abounds with rich imagery all its own. There’s a blurb from Mathias Svalina, who says it’s “for everyone who gives a shit about what poetry can say that words cannot say.” And there’s the grand literary tradition of the American Southwest, which this work taps into. The combination makes for a very promising literary work.

Christina Tudor-Sideri, Schism Blue
(March 12, Sublunary Editions)

Another running theme this month: writers who also translate. Christina Tudor-Sideri definitely falls into that category, and publisher Sublunary Editions describes this book as “a novel about intimacy and dressing absence in reinterpretation as an act of love.” It’s a grand subject navigated by a writer with deft command of language.

Nicole Haroutunian, Choose This Now
(March 15, Noemi Press)

File under: books we’ve been thrilled about ever since they were first announced. Haroutunian’s new novel tells the story of two friends over the course of several years as they balance artistic fulfillment, familial responsibilities, and the nature of work. It’s a welcome return from a writer we’ve long admired.

Jason McCall, Razed By TV Sets
(March 26, Autofocus Books)

We’re up for essay collections that invoke everyone from CM Punk to Hector (the one from The Iliad). Throughout this book, McCall reckons with questions of the self, of race, and of identity — and in raising these issues also explores countless pop culture permutations along the way.

Note: all release dates and cover artwork are subject to change.

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