What Your Astrological Sign Needs to Read This Month

Taurus, this “cli-fi” (climate science fiction) by award-winning author Claire Vaye Watkins will appeal to your sense of urgency about the Earth. Set in the future, after perpetual drought has changed Southern California for good, features a couple squatting in an abandoned Hollywood mansion to avoid the government’s internment camps. Together, they decide to take an illegal and dangerous quest East, where they have heard legends of a dowser (a water diviner) who has found water in the desert and formed a colony of followers.

Gemini, as the sign of twins and siblings, When We Were Sisters may speak to you. Kausar, Aisha, and Noreen are left to raise themselves after their parents die. The three do their best, with Noreen, the oldest, playing the role of sister-mother, and Kausar, the youngest, navigating gender as she mourns the loss of her parents. The story follows Kausar as she grows up and must chart her own path, individuating from her sister-family in all its complexity.

Cancer, you’ll love the way Brooks weaves history and imagination in her newest novel. The story is based on the truth of Lexington, a record-breaking thoroughbred. Brooks writes about the enslaved groom who formed a bond with the remarkable horse, the oil painter turned Union Army soldier who made his name painting the horse, and in contemporary times, the gallery owner, scientist, and art historian who are piecing the story back together with bones and old paintings.

Leo, American expats Zoe and Hailey will entertain you with their dazzling, and ultimately dangerous, jaunt through bohemian Berlin. The girls are art students who sublet an apartment from a well-known author of thrillers. The two spend their nights in Berlin’s club scene, and when they become convinced that the author is watching them to gain inspiration for her next novel, they vow to amp up the glamor and become worthy of the main characters they aspire to be. They begin hosting a popular nightclub every week, in the apartment…until events spiral out of control.

Virgo, this debut novel has already been pronounced a best book of the summer by NPR, LitHub, The Rumpus, and more. In All This Could Be Different, Sneha begins to build a life for herself in the wake of a recession, snagging an entry-level corporate job against the odds. The job is tough, but it allows her to send money back to her parents in India and take friends out to dinner: a dream of financial security come true. She even falls in love, with a beautiful dancer named Marina. All is well, until secrets are unearthed and the trouble begins.

Libra, if you haven’t already read it, you’ll love this gilded mystery set in one of the most exclusive enclaves of Manhattan. Nero Golden, a foreign billionaire with an improbable name, moves with his three sons to “the Gardens”, a neighborhood within the neighborhood of Greenwich Village. Their neighbor Rene, a young filmmaker who is intrigued by their eccentricity and mystique, becomes a part of their household, and as a result learns their terrible secrets. Meanwhile, American politics undergo a dramatic shift, as a certain presidential race changes history forever.

Scorpio, in this imaginative epic, Hamid asks intense and probing queries about race, transformation, and redemption. Across the country, people are waking up with their skin color transformed, suddenly getting used to a new reflection in the mirror. Anders is one, who suddenly found himself with dark skin, and shares the secret of his mystical reincarnation only with his lover Oona at first. As reports continue to surface, people wrestle with fears, loss, unease, and love.

Sagittarius, this novel will speak to your vagabond heart. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, where those who differ from established norms because of their sexuality, poverty, or spirituality are literally outlawed, Vagabonds! follows characters who make lives for themselves in the underground. A celebrated fashion designer who has an otherworldly experience, the driver for a corrupt politician, a lesbian couple with ties to the sex worker community, and a woman attending a secret spiritual gathering–all contend with the darker spirits of the city as they attempt to overcome their various tribulations.

Capricorn, the urgency of this historical and political fiction will keep you reading. A Black couple flees the FBI after an unlucky encounter in a parking lot in 1960s Alabama. Disguised with new identities, they travel to Ghana, seeking the help of an old college friend who happens to be the president of the country. By chance, they meet a popular musician who is also on his way to Ghana’s president, to perform for him. As the country’s politics spiral into chaos, the three travel together, forming a love triangle that sparks confrontation and sets off another series of events.

Aquarius, you’ll have fun with this enchanting and imaginative novel. Nora Seed travels to the outer edges of the universe, to the Midnight Library, with its infinite books of alternative realities. These books will tell her the stories of the lives she might have lived, if only she’d made different choices. Nora has some decisions to make. Should she go back to undo old breakups, or follow a different career path–exchanging her old life for an entirely new one? As she explores the infinite number of possible worlds she could choose, she has to reckon with what truly matters in life.

Pisces, you’ll appreciate the fantastic elements of this otherworldly murder mystery. Dr. Miranda Ecouvo is a forensic therapist who just completed an investigation into seven murders and locked up the serial killer involved. But a near-death experience transports her into a spirit realm, where she learns that the true mastermind behind the murders is far from done. She travels the labyrinthine world with brothers Chance and Trickster, following threads to find and stop the real killer.