Discover these authors at the upcoming Tucson Festival of Books

Salman Rushdie … Erik Larson … Brad Thor.

As always, the festival marquee will feature some of the biggest names in books, but a lot of the fun comes from discovering authors we hadn’t encountered before.

Looking for suggestions? Volunteers from the festival’s Book and Author Committee were invited to share some of the books and authors they would recommend, many of whom will be making their first appearance here:

• “Finlay Donavan Crosses the Line” is the seventh installment in a series that has lifted Elle Cosimano into the top tier of authors writing modern mysteries. It will be released at the festival. The story centers around Finlay’s nanny and partner in crime, Vero, who has been arrested, extradited to Maryland and charged for a theft she says she didn’t commit. — Tricia Clapp

• “The End of My Life is Killing Me” by festival first-timer Annabelle Gurwich is a warm, witty, often hilarious meditation on life after the actress learned she had Stage 4 cancer. She disputes the notion we should live each day as if it’s our last, arguing you can carpe too much diem. — Dave Silver

• “The Westerners” by festival first-timer Megan Kate Nelson is a historian’s look at the settlement of the American West, debunking many of the myths that became widely accepted by the generations that followed. Nelson features seven remarkable people whose stories capture the true history of the frontier. — Bruce Dinges

• “Joy Prescription” by Tiffany Moon, M.D., is just what the doctor ordered for readers looking to find new meaning in their lives. A practicing anesthesiologist, Moon decided she needed more. She started a candle business, appeared on “Real Housewives of Dallas,” tried standup comedy and became an influencer with 1.5 million followers on TikTok. — Lynn Wiese Sneyd

• “The Teacher of Nomad Land” by Daniel Nayeri won last year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Written for middle-grade readers, the story follows two Iranian children orphaned and on the run during World War II. — Kathy Short

• “Firestorm” by festival first-timer Jacob Soboroff is a first-person report from last year’s wildfires in Los Angeles, a conflagration that leveled Pacific Palisades — where the NBC News correspondent grew up. Soboroff’s brother lost his home in the fire. — Bill Viner

• "An Oral History of Atlantis" by Ed Park is an insightful, often funny collection of stories that explore some of the shared truths of our lives. This will be the first Tucson appearance by an author whose “Same Bed Different Dreams” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2024. — Emily Walsh

• “Indian Country” by Shobha Rao introduces us to a young, seemingly ill-matched couple forced into an arranged marriage in India. When the husband, a hydraulic engineer, is transferred to Montana, they both become outcasts. Rao last appeared at the festival in 2019. — Meg Files

• “Separation of Church and Hate” by festival first-timer John Fugelsang takes a long, hard, irreverent look at far-right religion, using the Bible to show how fundamentalists have corrupted Christian teaching. Fugelsang has an interesting perspective. His mother was once a nun, his father a Franciscan friar. — Pamela Treadwell-Rubin

• “When Trees Testify” by plant biologist Beronda Montgomery is a personal and botanical study that explores how the histories of seven American trees intertwine with Black history and culture. The tale is told with science, history and Montgomery’s personal experience as she moved into a career in botany. — Jennifer Casteix

• “Into the Hush” by U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze is an insightful and lyrical look at such large-scale issues as climate change, racial marginalization and our nuclear age. This will be Sze’s first visit to the festival. — Estella Gonzalez

• “Everybody Loses” by festival first-timer Danny Funt is a deep dive into sports gambling, and how such online casinos as FanDuel and DraftKings built a multi-billion-dollar industry that has become a pervasive partner in American sports. — Jack Siry

• “Reckon” by Tucsonan Logan Phillips is a memoir that recounts a life he began in Tombstone, but his different approaches to telling the story — with poetry, prose, historical text and grainy old photos — make it a delightful visual read. — Pam Clarridge

• “The Scammer” by Tiffany D. Jackson is a young adult thriller that follows a college freshman whose life is rattled when her roommate’s ex-convict brother moves in. — Kathy Short

• “The River’s Daughter” by festival first-timer Bridget Crocker recounts growing up on the banks of the Snake River in Wyoming. The river became the one constant in her life, the one place she could be totally herself, and that was before she discovered the joys of white-water rafting. — Brett Muter

• “Ride” by Kostya Kennedy is an in-depth study of Paul Revere’s famous ride from Boston to Lexington at the outset of the American Revolution, 250 years ago. Revere wasn’t the only rider that night, nor was that his first ride. — Abby Mogollon

To see the full list of festival authors, visit tucsonfestivalofbooks.org.