These are among the new titles released by local writers, listed in alphabetical order by author names:
“Lessons in Magic and Disaster” by Charlie Jane Anders
Tor Books, 320 pages, $30, Aug. 19, 2025
San Francisco’s Charlie Jane Anders has mastered many forms: the novel, short story, non-fiction, comics and podcasting. Her short story collection is “Even Greater Mistakes” and “Never Say You Can’t Survive” is a book about how creative writing can help people navigate hard times. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus awards, Anders co-created the transgender superhero Escapade for Marvel Comics. The latest novel from author of “All the Birds in the Sky,” “The City in the Middle of the Night” and the young adult “Unstoppable” trilogy is “Lessons in Magic and Disaster.” It’s a about an English lit graduate student (who is trans and a witch!) who teaches her troubled mother to cast spells. The Kirkus reviewer says, “This compact novel is about many things: a literary treasure hunt that strongly recalls A.S. Byatt’s ‘Possession’; the struggle to negotiate obligations to parents, spouses and oneself; moving forward from grief; and a self-taught witch’s fraught journey toward understanding her own magic.”
“Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure” by Rhys Bowen
Lake Union Publishing, 377 pages, $29 hard cover, $17 paper, Aug. 5, 2025
Rhys Bowen, a British transplant and longtime part-time Marin resident, writes the Molly Murphy mysteries set in early 1900s New York City and the Royal Spyness mysteries set in the 1930s, as well as as numerous bestselling historical novels. They include 2024’s “The Rose Arbor,” 2023’s “The Paris Assignment,” 2022’s “Where the Sky Begins” and 2021’s “The Venice Sketchbook.” A prolific writer, her books have sold nearly 10 million copies in some 30 languages. She has been nominated for every major mystery award and has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity honors. Her latest is 2025’s “Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure” about an woman, who, after being blindsided by her husband’s betrayal in pre-World War II England, dares to chart a new course in the South of France. The Kirkus review calls the novel “a delightful story of a heroine whose inner strength triumphs over adversity.”
“Typewriter Beach: A Novel” by Meg Waite Clayton
Harper, 320 pages, $24, July 1, 2025
Part-time Bay Area resident Meg Waite Clayton has written nine novels. including the international bestsellers “The Postmistress of Paris” and “The Last Train to London,” and her Palo Alto-set “The Wednesday Sisters” was named in Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of All Time. Her books, whose protagonists are women defying the odds to make large and small differences in the world, have been published in 24 languages. A short story writer and essayist as well, Clayton’s new title “Typewriter Beach,” a USA Today bestseller upon publication, is set in 1957 and 2018 Carmel-by-the-Sea and Hollywood. It’s the story of a blacklisted screenwriter and a young actress poised to be a studio star, and, decades later, the screenwriter’s granddaughter, who uncovers his secrets when she prepares to sell his house. Alta Journal’s review says, “Questions of love, femininity, work, power, family and future abound in this compelling tale of old Hollywood and new.”
“The Grateful Dead by Jim Marshall: Photos and Stories from the Formative Years, 1966–1977” by Amelia Davis and David Gans
Chronicle Books, 288 pages, $50, Aug. 5, 2025
San Francisco photographer Amelia Davis, longtime personal assistant to legendary rock and roll photographer Jim Marshall, has handled his estate since his death in 2010. She has edited six Marshall monographs, curated yearly exhibitions of his work and executive produced the documentary “Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall.” Oakland resident and music journalist David Gans, a trusted member of the Grateful Dead’s extended family, has written several books about the band and hosts radio’s The Grateful Dead Hour. Davis and Gans are co-authors of “The Grateful Dead by Jim Marshall: Photos and Stories from the Formative Years, 1966–1977,” a collection of exclusive never-before-seen photos accompanied by commentary from contemporaries, collaborators, the wider Dead community and essays that put the images into context. A five-star review from a contributor on Goodreads says, “Deadhead or not, this is a terrific reflection of a band that helped change American music.”
“Lake Crescent and Other Spirits” by Pamela Gullard
Galileo Press, 225 pages, $18.95, July 1, 2025
Menlo Park writer Pamela Gullard, who teaches literature and humanities at Menlo College, says she “read everything indiscriminately” as a youngster growing up in Seattle in a family of six children. Her new collection “Lake Crescent and Other Spirits” of 11 stories, set in the Bay Area and Seattle, offers characters seeking love and intimacy, but things go wrong: conversations end, people leave, or make an outrageous demand, or begin an affair. Jacqueline Berger, author of “Left at the Ruin,” says, “Pamela Gullard is generous and tough with her characters, making them carry the sometimes violent, sometimes neglectful burden of their histories but giving them as well the sense to walk inward. The pull of heart is at the center of these stories. A relationship may cave under ‘inexplicable disenchantment,’ but love insists on itself.”
“Your Actual Life May Vary” by Linda Lenhoff
Santa Fe Writers Project, 286 pages, $15.95, Aug. 5, 2025
East Bay editor-writer Linda Lenhoff, a contributor to Local News Matters —and former copy editor at Diablo Magazine and associate director of communications at Saint Mary’s College, among many jobs — is the author of four comic novels: “Life a la Mode,” “Latte Lessons,” “The Girl in the ’67 Beetle” and 2025’s “Your Actual Life May Vary.” In the new book, Lenhoff, a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles with a master’s degree in creative writing from San Diego State University, takes on darker themes than in previous books. Her main character is a 31-year-old California graduate student who literally steals a young boy who is tethered to a doghouse in a yard in her neighborhood; they move together to a town where they find a new community. Allison Larkin, author of “The People We Keep,” called the book “both slightly surreal and so honestly, intimately human, it will leave you with a greater understanding of the quiet corners of your own heart.”
Uncorked: A Memoir of Letting Go and Starting Over by Mary Alice Stephens
Sibylline Digital First, 335 pages, $20, Aug. 8, 2025
Marin County resident Mary Alice Stephens is a former writer and producer for news and reality television, working on “Bay Area Backroads,” HGTV, Food Network and National Geographic. Her first book, “Uncorked: A Memoir of Starting Over,” details how she secretly battled alcoholism for decades, though from the outside her life appeared perfect. She describes her struggles in early recovery and comes to terms with how her hard-shell identity was brought on by trauma. At age 45, she started life anew. Kim Culbertson, author of the young adult book “The Wonder of Us,” says of “Uncorked”: “Don’t be fooled into thinking this funny, open-hearted, soulful howl of a book is only for those on a sober journey —this is a universal grab-you-by-the-collar-and-hold-you-wide-eyed-close kind of memoir that can inspire all of us.”
“Rehab: An American Scandal” by Shoshana Walter
Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $29.99, Aug. 12, 2025
Oakland resident Shoshana Walter, who covers health care, criminal justice and child welfare for the Marshall Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization, previously was a senior reporter at The Center for Investigative Reporting. She led the investigative podcast American Rehab and has reported on issues from erroneous hospital drug testing to sexual exploitation in the marijuana industry. Her new book, “Rehab: American Scandal,” tackles the question of why rehab doesn’t work. The exposé, which follows four people through the treatment industry, reveals that only certain people get a true chance to recover. As the rate of overdose deaths rises, lawmakers’ default response is to punish, while rehabs exploit patients for profit rather than provide adequate resources. Beth Macy, author of “Dopesick,” says, “’Rehab’ is propulsively plotted, meticulously researched, and told with an authority that is both heartfelt and hard-won. A thorough critique of the so-called treatment industry and a playbook for real recovery.”