How Are Books Nominated For The National Book Critics Circle Awards?

Maeve Edgar's life plan was simple: survive until Selection Day, then disappear forever. As the pack's favorite scapegoat, she's spent years perfecting the art of being invisible. But when she gets kidnapped and dumped in front of the most dangerous prince in the kingdom, invisible stops being an option. Prince Riven is everything the rumors say - cold, lethal, and absolutely not interested in playing nice. So why does he choose her for some mysterious academy that nobody's ever heard of? And why does being near him feel like remembering something she never knew she'd forgotten? Turns out the Blood Moon Academy is where pack heirs compete in brutal trials to earn a place in the Royal Court. Now she's stuck fighting alongside the same spoiled brats who used to torment her, trying to prove she belongs somewhere she was never supposed to be. The connection between them grows stronger with every moment they're in the same room. It's the kind of bond wolves used to have before the Great War - the kind everyone says is just a myth now. But people are asking questions about her family, her past, her dreams of faces she's never seen. The wrong kind of people. And some of them seem very interested in making sure she doesn't get the answers she's looking for. The Academy was supposed to be about earning her place in the world. Turns out it might be about remembering who she used to be.

Nora Ellison has spent her whole life not knowing where she came from. Adopted as a baby, and raised by her grandmother Ruth. Until Ruth dies and leaves behind a tin box containing a birth certificate she has never seen, a letter and a photograph of a woman she does not recognise with the words Chiang Mai, 1998 written on the back. She flies to Thailand to find answers. On her first night she locks herself out of her rented cottage, falls into a fertilizer trench in the dark, and ends up stranded on a deserted road in a soaked sundress with nowhere to go. A car passes by and stops. “What the actual hell do you think you are doing out here looking like that?” Arlo Reeves is arrogant, sarcastic, and impossibly handsome. She is convinced she hates him. He takes her in for the night anyway. What Nora does not know is that Arlo was partly sent to Chiang Mai to keep an eye on the cottage she is renting. What neither of them knows is that the secret buried in that cottage is the same secret Nora came to Thailand to find. As Nora starts her investigation, she and Arlo keep ending up in the same places. But the closer Nora gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. When she finally finds it and as the pieces start to fall into place, a hard slap cuts across her face before she can say a word. “You think you belong here? You were given away. You were never wanted then and you are not wanted now.” The slap stings and tears fall as she hears those words. Meanwhile across the city, Arlo Reeves has a choice to make.

The tale of a widow's harrowing journey through grief and peril into the cold remnants of a dead world. Damon Sharpe had in part found victory, he believed, in his battle to unearth a truth obscured by time. By autumn, he was dead, leaving to his wife Anne a house of unfulfilled wishes, remnants, and the key to the enigma of his obsession, the Mourner’s Cradle. A journey through grief and peril delivers Anne Sharpe from her home in St. Charles to the faraway skeletons of a long-dead civilization where she will find the desperate answers she seeks…or die trying. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Nick Horden was the kind of man everyone in New York’s elite circles whispered about. He was rich, reckless, and a little unhinged. But for all his chaos, he only ever cared about one person: Lisa Winters, a girl with nothing to her name, the half-starved homeless girl he once pulled off the streets. From fifteen to twenty-five, he gave her everything. His love, his devotion, and every bit of tenderness a man like him was capable of. Then one day, another woman appeared. Nick said she was different. She had been through hell, fought her way back, and refused to break. And little by little, she took Lisa’s place…

The Untitled Love Story is a slow-burn romantic drama centered on Eiran, a young man living with amnesia after a traumatic incident, and Theron, a reserved, emotionally guarded man whose life becomes intertwined with Eiran’s through proximity, routine, and quiet care. As Eiran rebuilds a life he does not remember, fragments of his past and secrets Theron tried so hard to keep hidden begin to surface threatening the fragile stability they found. The novel explores love that grows patiently, the weight of unspoken grief, and whether healing requires full remembrance or the courage to choose who you are now.

When Nyx Calder enrolls at Briarcrest Academy, she has no intention of climbing its gilded social hierarchy. The school is built on legacy, power, and unspoken rules, and Nyx is there only to survive it. But survival becomes impossible when she collides with Alaric Moore. Briarcrest’s most untouchable student, the unchallenged ruler of its academic and social elite… and the stepbrother she never asked for. Alaric thrives on control. Nyx thrives on defiance. Their rivalry ignites in classrooms and spills into whispered confrontations after hours, each encounter sharpening the tension between them. Forced into constant competition by the academy’s ruthless merit system, they become obsessed with outdoing one another, until hatred begins to feel dangerously like something else. Something forbidden. Something that could destroy them both. Behind Briarcrest’s pristine halls lies a system designed to crush anyone who threatens its order. As Nyx uncovers how deeply the academy manipulates its students, Alaric is forced to choose between the future he was raised for and the girl who refuses to kneel, and when the rules say she should. At Briarcrest, love is forbidden, rebellion is costly, and bloodlines matter more than truth. But how far does the academy’s power really reach? What happens when loyalty to legacy collides with forbidden desire? And when the system demands one of them fall… who will it be? At Briarcrest, breaking the rules could cost them everything, but not breaking them might cost even more.