Book Buzz: Reissued Classics, Roman Mythological Fiction, Island Fiction, Science Fiction Metafiction, Vermont Mysteries, Historic Flights, The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, and Monarch Butterfly Migrations

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For March, we’re looking at a re-release of Shogun, a retelling of the founding of Rome, two different novels set on remote islands, a unique science fiction novel about a science fiction novel, a new historical mystery series set in 1960s Vermont, an audiobook about a race to fly across the Pacific in the 1920s, Western true crime about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and a chronicle of following the over 10,000-mile annual monarch butterfly migration on a bicycle.

If you love historical fiction:

James Clavell’s Shogun (1975, 2023)*

I usually try to focus on newer releases for the Book Buzz, but I couldn’t resist recommending this stunning re-release of Shogun. It’s a tie-in with the hit TV adaptation from last year, but it’s a really gorgeous book to behold in person. And, of course, it’s also a gripping read in its own right as it follows John Blackthorne, an English navigator who washes ashore in 17th century Japan and must navigate the resulting culture clash and a highly complicated political situation.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Leon Uris, Shusaku Endo, and Amitav Ghosh.

*Also available as an audiobook and ebook on Libby.

Lauren J. A. Bear’s Mother of Rome (2025)

If you prefer your historical fiction to be more mythologically oriented or just even more ancient than Feudal Japan, check out Lauren J. A. Bear’s latest novel. Fictional retellings of ancient Greek mythology have been popular for years now, but this book instead focuses on the myths about the founding of Rome. Rather than centering on the famous twins Remus and Romulus, it’s about their mother, Rhea.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Madeline Miller, Natalie Haynes, and Pat Barker.

If you prefer conservation-themed contemporary-ish fiction:

Francesca Segal’s Welcome to Glorious Tuga (2024)**

Charlotte accepts a fellowship on the small tropical South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study gold coin tortoises. She genuinely does want to study the tortoises, but she also has her own complicated personal reasons for leaving her native England. All her best efforts to study the local wildlife is quickly derailed, though, by an immediate attraction to the new town doctor and all the locals who would much rather she be a vet to their pets than a wildlife researcher. Think All Creatures Great and Small, transported to a very different setting than 1930s Yorkshire.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of James Herriot.

**Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Hoopla.

Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore (2025)

If you prefer your contemporary island fiction to be broodier than Welcome to Glorious Tuga, consider this book instead. It also features characters fleeing their regular lives for an isolated island, though this time around, it’s the Salt family who, years earlier, decamped to Shearwater, off the coast of Antarctica. Shearwater was once a research center, but now, the only inhabitants are Dominic Salt and his teen-aged children. They’ve been caretakers for the island’s seed bank for years, but just as they’re packing up to leave for good due to rising sea water, a mysterious woman washes ashore. Complications ensue.

Recommended for those who enjoyed Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate.

If you enjoy science fiction:

Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author (2025)

Zelu is struggling. She’s lost her job at a university, and her publishers have rejected her latest novel. Her family judges her for her personal and professional setbacks, and she’s just generally feeling very down. She decides to write a very different novel in the middle of all this. It’s science fiction about AI and androids in a post-human world. The narrative integrates both the story of Zelu’s life and the science fiction story she writes.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Karen Lord, N.K. Jemisin, and Octavia E. Butler.

If you want mysteries:

Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Agony Hill (2024)

It’s the summer of 1965, and Franklin Warren has left Boston to accept a position as a state police detective in the small town of Bethany, Vermont. On his first day, another transplant is found dead under mysterious circumstances, and Franklin quickly realizes that everyone has secrets in Bethany. This is the first book in a series about Franklin.

Recommended for those who enjoyed Wiley Cash’s When Ghosts Come Home, Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River, and/or Jess Montgomery’s The Widows.

If you need an audiobook:

Sara Ackerman’s The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West (2024)***

Based on a true story, this historical fiction audiobook follows the adventures of daring 1920s female pilot Olivia West. She is eager to participate in the Dole Air Race, which will have pilots flying from the West Coast to Hawaii. Her story of trying to participate in the race is juxtaposed with that of Wren, who inherits some Hawaiian property in the 1980s and sets out to learn what happened to Olivia.

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Julia Kelly, Kristin Harmel, and Susan Meissner.

***Also available as a physical book in the system.

If you like nonfiction:

Tom Clavin’s Bandit Heaven: The Hole-in-the-Wall Gangs and the Final Chapter of the Wild West (2024)

Tom Clavin has made a career out of writing histories of the Old West. In his latest, he turns his attention to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with a special focus on their infamous hideouts in what was once known as Bandit Heaven. (Fun fact: My first cousin once removed grew up on one of those ranches in Utah back in the 1910s and 1920s!)

Recommended for those who enjoy the work of John Boessenecker.

Sara Dykman’s Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration (2021)

The annual monarch butterfly migration is one of nature’s most awe-inspiring phenomena, and science educator and researcher Sara Dykman chronicles her own phenomenal journey of following the butterflies one year on her own homemade bicycle. Dykman writes of what ended up being a 9-month journey that spanned 3 countries and over 10,000 miles as she cycled from Mexico to Canada and then back.

Recommended for those who enjoyed Trish O’Kane’s Birding to Change the World.

What’s your favorite new-ish books? What books are you buzzing about for 2025? Have you read any of these books? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.