PW2021 Adult #29: WHEN YOU KISS A STRANGER (Contemporary Romance)

HOW TO FAIL AT FLIRTING meets THE HAPPY EVER AFTER PLAYLIST. Allie, a young widow, knows most love stories end with a kiss. But when she kisses a stranger to save him from a blind date, she discovers a kiss can be just the beginning. Trevor is sweet, smart, and sexy, and has her feeling things she hasn’t felt in years. He’d be perfect if he wasn’t her new boss. But Trevor has a secret. He’s hiding his recent cancer diagnosis, because he knows love-shy Allie won’t risk falling for someone she could lose at a young age—again.

PW2021 Adult #30: THE CONQUESSOR (Fantasy – #OwnVoices)

SQUID GAME meets THE WITCHER in a South East Asian-inspired setting.

Debt-ridden and unemployed, a sentimental book thief and an ex-brawler with a heart of gold enroll in the conquessing arena to pay off their bills. But the monsters they battle are far from the worse things they encounter—and the arena’s manipulative match-master just might top the list.

PW2021 Adult #31: HOW TO SAVE BLACK BOYS (Horror – Black #OwnVoices)

Jordan Peele’s US meets MY SISTER THE SERIAL KILLER

Calla thinks it’s impossible to keep a black child safe. She’s right. Still, she does her best to raise her youngest brother, Jamie, with the fickle support of her middle brother. She’s finally getting used to parent-teacher conferences and teenage theatrics when Jamie’s Black Lives Matter activism starts with an explosion and ends with a very dead cop. 

Her brothers think they can trust Calla to save them again when she takes them on the run to a remote cabin. They’re wrong. Calla is fed up with their secrets and her sacrifice.

It’s just so hard keeping black boys alive.

PW2021 Adult #32: SUNSHINE AND SPICE (Contemporary RomCom #DiverseVoices – South Asian)

Incense and Sensibility x The Marriage Game

When struggling brand consultant Naomi lands a career-saving job she’s culturally unequipped to handle, she makes a deal with Dev, the grumpy, anti-marriage son of her traditional, Bengali client: she’ll help him thwart his mother’s matchmaking efforts if he helps her meet the matriarch’s exacting standards. But the line between reality and rumour blurs as Naomi is pulled deeper into lies that could end her career and break her heart.

PW2021 Adult #33: DIAL C FOR CARNOTAURUS (Mystery/Science Fiction, #OwnVoices Neurodiversity)

FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT meets JURASSIC PARK

Neurodivergent Kassie Hummingbird has a mask for almost everything. So when her boss asks her to time-travel from 2215 to a Mesozoic settlement to fix its crops — and earn enough money to buy her dream home — she agrees. There's just one teensy-weensy problem: she has no idea how to fix prehistoric crops because she might have fibbed about her qualifications. Paleobotanist? Phlebotomist? Same difference. But when someone destroys the time portal and murders the only man who can fix it, Kassie needs more than a mask. Stranded in the past with man-eating dinosaurs and rapidly-depleting food stores, Kassie must find the culprit before the future she’s fought for goes extinct.

PW2021 Adult #34: SUNDOWNING (Psychological Horror)

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST in a locked memory care home

When ninety-year-old Caterina Aosta suspects a sinister force is harming her fellow residents, she plots to expose its evil and redeem herself for a long-buried secret before she becomes the next victim.

PW2021 Adult #35: A RECKONING OF FLOOD AND FLAME (Fantasy; BIPOC)

JADE CITY x JASMINE THRONE

As the brown-skinned adoptive daughter of the Governor, Poppy Sutherland has always been an outcast, rejected by high society and alienated from the people her father colonized. When she discovers her fiancé intends to frame her to further his career, Poppy allies herself with the city’s most notorious gang leader, who promises her a place as heir to their colonized nation–in exchange for his captured brother.

PW2021 Adult #36: WATCH ME (Psychological Thriller)

YOU meets MY FAVORITE MURDER. YouTuber Darby reenacts famous murders with Tinder matches for her popular dating channel. When it gets demonetized amid scandal, she's forced to return to her hometown to reenact the unsolved murder of her high school boyfriend for clicks. But she wakes up to a new body in her backyard and a serial killer convinced he could be her perfect match. As the body count rises, Darby launches her own investigation to catch the killer — and ensure her dark secrets stay buried.

PW2021 Adult #37: BLOOD ON THE ICE (Speculative Thriller)

For nine years Nina has lived in Antarctica, caring for a freshly thawed, thirty-foot sabertooth cat, the only creature she’s ever truly loved. But when a billionaire big-game hunter arrives—just days after Nina’s estranged sister dies, thrusting a child into Nina’s care—Nina finds herself trapped in mortal combat: fighting for her cat, her niece, and her life, and battling not just her enemy, but her own past. Godzilla vs. Kong meets the interiority of Severance.

PW2021 Adult #38: I’M SURE SHE’S FINE (Psychological Suspense/ Thriller)

Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her meets the TV series Dirty John. 

“They’re after me.” That's the last thing Hailey’s mother says to her before she disappears. Hailey isn’t concerned though—her paranoid mom always does shit like this, and everything’s fine.

But when she finds a bloody mess in the basement two days later, she worries it’s more than just another “mom-cried-wolf” scenario. To find her mom, Hailey must unravel the truth—deciding who and what to believe—before they both end up imprisoned or dead.