17 Must-Read Books Releasing in September 2025 By Asian Authors
Happy September (aka Tiffany’s birthday month!!) This month feels extra special with an incredible release line up of new stories to fall into love with, perfect for the changing of the seasons:
By Invitation Only by Alexandra Brown Chang
A hard-working teen hoping to land a college scholarship and a nepo baby looking to prove herself collide at the world’s most high-profile debutante ball in Paris in this young adult romance perfect for fans of American Royals and Better Than the Movies.
Every year, a hand-selected group of young women travel to Paris to make their debuts into high society at La Danse des Débutantes, the most exclusive debutante ball in the world. Being wealthy, royal, or famous gets you into the pool of potential debutantes, but only La Danse decides who is truly worthy of attending.
Chapin Buckingham, the daughter two Hollywood legends, is one of the lucky few chosen to attend. Chapin’s not usually a society girl, but she has her reasons for wanting to be crowned Debutante of the Year. Her chances seem good…until a fellow debutante creates a PR nightmare that has the eat-the-rich cohort calling for La Danse’s cancellation.
Enter Piper Woo Collins. As the daughter of an EMT and winner of the International Science Fair Prize with a profile in Teen Vogue, Piper is the perfect, down-to-earth person who could restore La Danse’s reputation. But Piper isn’t interested in becoming a debutante—until they offer her a college scholarship…if she wins Debutante of the Year.
In competition for the crown, Piper and Chapin have every reason to clash. But at La Danse, everyone wants something. Piper and Chapin might just need each other to go from pawns in a game to ruling the board…
Publication date: September 2, 2025
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction
Pages: 368
We'll Prescribe You Another Cat by Syou Ishida, E. Madison Shimoda (Translator)
The Kokoro Clinic for the Soul reopens in this delightful follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel We’ll Prescribe You a Cat.
It’s time to revisit the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul.
Though it’s a mysteriously located clinic with an uncertain address, it can always be found by those who need it. And the clinic has proven time after time that a prescribed cat has the power to heal the emotional wounds of its patients. This charming sequel introduces a new lovable cast of healing cats, from Kotetsu, a four-month-old Bengal who unleashes his boundless energy by demolishing bed linens and curtains, to tenacious and curious Shasha, who doesn’t let her small size stop her from anything, and the most lovable yet lazy cat Ms. Michiko, who is as soft and comforting as mochi.
As characters from one chapter appear as side characters in the next, we follow a young woman who cannot help pushing away the man who loves her, a recently widowed grandfather whose grandson refuses to leave his room, the family of a young woman who struggle to understand each other, and an anxious man who works at a cat shelter seeking to show how the most difficult cats can be the most rewarding. This moving, magical novel of interconnected tales proves the strength in the unfathomable bond between cats and people.
Publication date: September 2, 2025
Genres: Japanese Translated Fiction, Magical Realism
Pages: 304
It Had to Be Him by Adib Khorram
Heartstopper meets Eat Pray Love in this swoony, spicy, second-chance romance from USA Today bestselling author Adib Khorram about two former classmates unexpectedly reuniting in Italy.
Ramin Yazdani's marriage proposal has just gone bottoms up: his ex dumped him in public for being boring. Bent on proving him wrong, Ramin books a spontaneous solo trip to Italy. When he runs into his high school crush while in a gelateria, however, his resolve to reinvent himself is put to the test.
Noah Bartlett’s in a rut. Since his divorce, he's become a bit of a homebody. So when his ex-wife insists he join her and their son on an Italian holiday, Noah reluctantly agrees. But his reticence turns to excitement when he sees his former classmate, who's aged just like a fine wine. As a teenager, Ramin fascinated him—and since Noah now knows that fascination was code for crush—all those feelings are quick to come rushing back.
Soon Ramin and Noah are tumbling headfirst into a relationship. Only Ramin fears Noah’s feelings won’t last without Ramin’s adventurous new persona—and Noah's not sure he can be the supportive partner Ramin deserves. With the days counting down to the end of their trip, can their love last without the magic of Italy?
Publication date: September 2, 2025
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Queer
Pages: 384
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer.
Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.”
“Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.
With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.
Publication date: September 2, 2025
Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction
Pages: 352
Honey and Heat by Aurora Palit
She’s known as the Ice Princess. He’s got a reputation for melting hearts...except hers. Let the rivalry begin.
Cynthia Kumar always wins. She’s successful, competitive, and knows exactly what she to be the heir to her father’s multimillion dollar business.
Except, her father just chose his successor and it’s not her…it’s her one-night stand.
Rohit Patel can’t believe his luck. He’s just landed the opportunity of a lifetime, his future is once again on track, and the woman he just spent the night with could be the love of his life.
Except, she’s his new boss’s daughter and now she hates him.
When Kumar Constructions falls under scrutiny, both Cynthia and Rohit are determined to see its tarnished reputation restored to its original glory. As they each try to swoop in and save the day, their game of one-upmanship fails spectacularly, leaving them no choice but to set their differences aside and work together. But as their partnership to save the company—and their feelings for one another—blossoms, they’ll have to decide what’s more important…their careers or love?
Publication date: September 16, 2025
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Adult
Pages: 368
The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli by Karina Yan Glaser
Breathtaking suspense, unforgettable characters, and a pinch of magic combine in the dual stories of two young people—one in 731 China, and one in 1931 Chinatown—on perilous journeys to save their families. An instant classic from the beloved and bestselling author of the Vanderbeekers series.
In ancient Chang’An, Han Yu sells steamed buns in a bustling market full of whispers about his ability to summon tigers.
In New York’s Depression-era Chinatown, Luli gazes out from the roof of her parents’ restaurant, dreaming of dim sum and Chinese art.
Familiar rhythms rule the contained-but-contented lives of Han Yu and Luli. But when plague strikes Chang’An and financial crisis threatens Luli’s family, Han Yu and Luli must each venture out into the larger world—and into danger-filled adventure—to save what they love most. Filled with wondrous caves and conniving thieves, desert storms and magical lakes, Karina Yan Glaser’s epic and rewarding novel is a testament to the bravery required to face the unknown and the power of art to connect us through the ages.
Publication date: September 16, 2025
Genres: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade
Pages: 432
For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran's Women-Led Uprising by Fatemeh Jamalpour, Nilo Tabrizy
A moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists
In 2022, in response to the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab, thousands of Iranians – mostly women – took to the streets in protest. Fatemeh Jamalpour had just returned to the country after working in London, and despite the threat of imprisonment or death for her work as a journalist, joined the throngs of people fighting to topple Iran’s religious extremist regime.Across the globe, Nilo Tabrizy, who emigrated from Iran with her family as a child, was covering the protests and state violence in Iran, knowing that spotlighting the women on the frontlines and the systemic injustice of the Iranian government meant she would not be able to safely return to Iran in the future.
Though they had only met once in person, Nilo and Fatemeh corresponded constantly, often through encrypted platforms in order to protect Fatemeh's privacy and security. As the protests continued to unfold, the sense of sisterhood they shared led them to embark on an effort to document the spirit and legacy of the movement, and the history, geopolitics, and influences that led to this point. At once deeply personal and assiduously reported, For the Sun After Long Nights offers two perspectives on what it means, as a journalist, to cover the stories that are closest to one's heart—both from the frontlines and from afar.
Publication date: September 16, 2025
Genres: Nonfiction, History
Pages: 336
A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2) by Hafsah Faizal
The epic conclusion to the #1 bestselling A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal; the gritty fantasy duology about an orphan girl and her crew who get tangled in a heist with vampires, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.
She's had her tea, now she's out for blood.
White Roaring is sharpening its fangs after the deadly night that left the city in shambles. The press are dead, the public calls for justice, vampires are in danger, and amid the turmoil, the Ram announces a celebration.
Still reeling from the bloodshed, Arthie Casimir has no time to mourn the death of anyone, let alone her own. She has no time for love, either, but it had saved her life. As Arthie navigates new emotions and new allies, she must reassemble her scrambled crew and scrape what little they have left to fight one last time – and she will need to face the ghosts of her past to do it.
In Ceylan.
After the jaw-dropping ending of #1 bestselling A Tempest of Tea, Arthie and her crew still have plenty of hearts to break and crimson-red secrets to uncover. Hafsah Faizal crafts a deliciously twisty and seductive sequel that will leave readers breathless until the very last page.
Publication date: September 23, 2025
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal
Pages: 448
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
The spellbinding story of two young people whose fates will intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss
Behind every love story are the myriad stories of two families.
In the snowy mountains of Vermont, Sonia is lonely. A college student and aspiring writer homesick for India, she turns to an older artist for inspiration and intimacy, a man who will cast a dark spell on the next many years of her life. In Brooklyn, Sunny is lonely, too. A struggling journalist originally from Delhi, he is both beguiled and perplexed by his American girlfriend and the country in which he plans to find his future. As Sonia and Sunny each becomes more and more alienated, they begin to question their understanding of happiness, human connection, and where they belong.
Back in India, Sonia and Sunny's extended families cannot fathom how anyone could be lonely in this great, bustling world. They arrange a meeting between the two—a clumsy meddling that only drives Sonia and Sunny apart before they have a chance to fall in love.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
Publication date: September 23, 2025
Genres: Literary Fiction
Pages: 688
107 Days by Kamala Harris
For the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.
Your Secret Service code name is Pioneer.
You are the first woman in history to be elected vice president of the United States.
On July 21, 2024, your running mate, Joe Biden, announces that he will not be seeking reelection.
The presidential election will occur on November 5, 2024.
You have 107 days.
Written with candor, a unique perspective, and the pace of a page-turning novel, 107 Days takes you inside the race for the presidency as no one has ever done before.
Publication date: September 23, 2025
Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Memoir
Pages: 320
You've Found Oliver (You've Reached Sam #2) by Dustin Thao
A new story, a new love, an impossible divide. The much-awaited companion to the New York Times bestselling You’ve Reached Sam will break your heart open.
I’ve missed you every day since you left. But I’m sure you already knew that. It’s time to let you go now. I’ll miss you all the time, Sam.
It’s been a year since his best friend, Sam, died. Even though Oliver knows he won’t get a response, he can’t stop texting Sam’s number, especially as the anniversary of his death approaches.
Then one day he accidentally hits the call button, and someone picks up.
The voice on the other end isn’t Sam—Sam’s number was reassigned and a stranger has been reading Oliver’s private and vulnerable messages for months. But Ben, an astronomy student in Seattle, won’t remain a stranger for long.
When they finally meet in person, their spark is undeniable. Everything seems perfect until Oliver discovers something strange that could keep them from being together.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Romance, Young Adult, Queer
Pages: 288
What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang
A deeply moving and often hilarious novel that follows a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her to fame and influence just as she’s finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past
Lola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, she’s unemployed, she’s back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse, unspeakably worse, one of her closest friends has just died. So, nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her she stars in a Very Viral Video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru.
With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi—still alive, thank god—Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find she’s grieving, she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise, and she’s full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and has now totally disappeared.
Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen. What a Time to Be Alive asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary
Pages: 304
Midnight Timetable: A Novel in Ghost Stories by Bora Chung, Anton Hur (Translator)
From the author and translator of the National Book Award finalist and Booker Prize shortlisted Cursed Bunny, comes a new novel-in-ghost-stories, set in a mysterious research center that houses cursed objects, where those who open the wrong door might find it’s disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they’re running from are their own…
The acclaimed Korean horror and sci-fi writer’s goosebump-inducing new book follows an employee on the night shift at the Institute. They soon learn why some employees don't last long at the center. The handkerchief in Room 302 once belonged to the late mother of two sons, whose rivalry imbues the handkerchief with undue power and unravels those around it. The cursed sneaker down the hall is stolen by a live-streaming, ghost-chasing employee, who later finds he can’t escape its tread. A cat in Room 206 reveals the crimes of its former family, trying to understand its own path to the Institute’s halls.
But Chung's haunted institute isn't just a chilling place to play. As in her astounding collections Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia, these violent allegories take on the horrors of animal testing, conversion therapy, domestic abuse, and late-stage capitalism. Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political, Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction
Pages: 208
Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada, Philip Gabriel (Translator)
A whimsical, charming novel about a mysterious library in Tokyo that opens after dark, following the employees who bond each night over special meals inspired by the books on the shelves
The Night Library on the outskirts of Tokyo isn't your ordinary library. It's only open from seven o'clock to midnight. It exclusively stores books by deceased authors, and none of them can be checked out -- instead, they're put on public display to be revered and celebrated by the library's visitors, akin to a book museum.
Otoha Higuchi, the newest employee, has been recruited to work at the library by the mysterious anonymous owner. There, Otoha meets the other staff, comprised of former librarians and booksellers who, like her, have been damaged in some way by the rocky publishing industry – yet none of them have ever given up on their dedication to books.
Night after night, Otoha bonds with her colleagues over meals in the library café, each of which are inspired by the literature on the shelves. When strange occurrences start happening around the library that may bring the threat of closure, it forces Otoha and the library staff to rethink their entire relationship with work and what they really want in life.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Japanese Translated Fiction, Magical Realism
Pages: 320
Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei
From the acclaimed author of The Stardust Grail comes the epic tale of two sisters who sail across oceans to find their missing third sister―and Earth’s environmental salvation.
In Earth's not too distant future, seas consume coastal cities, highways disintegrate underwater, and mutant fish lurk in pirate-controlled depths. Skipper, a skilled sailor and the youngest of three sisters, earns money skimming and reselling plastic from the ocean to care for her ailing grandmother.
But then her eldest sister, Nora, goes missing. Nora left home a decade ago in pursuit of a cure for failing crops all over the world. When Skipper and her other sister, Carmen, receive a cryptic plea for help, they must put aside their differences and set out across the sea to find―and save―her. As they voyage through a dying world both beautiful and strange, encountering other travelers along the way, they learn more about their sister's work and the corporations that want what she discovered.
But the farther they go, the more uncertain their mission becomes: What dangerous attention did Nora attract, and how well do they really know their sister―or each other? Thus begins an epic journey spanning oceans and continents and a wistful rumination on sisterhood, friendship, and ecological disaster.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy
Pages: 384
Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa
From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.
Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complex power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.
Told over a single day, with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Literary Fiction
Pages: 192
The Enduring Universe (Rages #3) by Kritika H. Rao
The explosive and reality-shattering Rages trilogy, started by The Surviving Sky, concludes as Ahilya and Iravan fight one last time to save everything they've ever loved—the survivors of humanity, their families, their home and each other. A powerful, immersive and sweeping epic fantasy like no other.
The worst has happened. The Conclave has crashed into the jungle, and humanity builds one last city, clinging to survival in the ruins.
Forced into a deadly alliance with the Virohi, Ahilya alone can communicate with the cosmic creatures – but she is growing weaker with every encounter. Equally revered and feared by her council, Ahilya desperately tries to balance the needs of her people with the untameable desires of the trapped Virohi.
Iravan does not believe reconciliation is possible. All he sees is a crumbling bastion being eaten from the inside out. Answering to no law, he would destroy the Virohi before they can destroy humanity.
As Ahilya and Iravan wage war, the planet itself rebels, unleashing new rages of untold power. Caught between a wounded planet and the cosmic creatures, all screaming to exist, the last survivors of the human race confront the approaching maelstrom.
At the last, Ahilya and Iravan must face up to their mistakes to forge peace between themselves – to save each other and humanity.
Publication date: September 16, 2025
Genres: Fantasy, Adult, Science Fiction
Pages: 512
