Indie/Literary

C.J. Farley’s Who Knows You by Heart opens with a premise that’s immediately gripping: a disappearance that’s less about physical absence and more about the tangled emotional histories people carry with them. Farley wastes no time establishing an undercurrent of unease—friendships drifting at odd angles, secrets humming beneath everyday interactions, and a community that seems…

Callie Hart’s Brimstone begins with a jolt of atmospheric tension: a protagonist whose life is stitched together by trauma, desire, and a past that refuses to stay buried. Hart doesn’t waste time with soft edges—the opening situates the reader in a volatile emotional landscape where every interaction feels loaded and every silence hints at something…