![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/819bE6frrPL._SL1500_-674x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIn our latest roundup of book recommendations from Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan, Florida-centered stories dominate. With summer reading season in full swing, add these titles\u2014from surreal psychodrama in the Everglades to an illuminating history of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker\u2014to your list. All are available for purchase at Books & Books at the links below.<\/p>\n
FICTION<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Florida Palms: A Novel by Joe Pan<\/a><\/p>\n Set amid the underbelly of biker culture, \u201cFlorida Palms\u201d has earned comparisons to the hit drama \u201cSons of Anarchy,\u201d combining its mucky vibes with the coming-of-age pathos of classics like \u201cThe Outsiders.\u201d It\u2019s set on the Space Coast of Florida, where author Pan grew up, and follows a trio of friends\u2014Eddy, Cueball and Jesse\u2014during the recessionary summer of 2009. Out of high school but with no job prospects and an economy on the brink, the friends join a furniture-moving company run by Cueball\u2019s ex-con biker father. The business, as the young lads discover, is not entirely on the level, and as their paychecks grow, so do their drug habits and involvement in Florida\u2019s shadier corners, patrolled by methed-out zombies, hitmen, gangsters and con artists. \u201cFlorida Palms\u201d is the debut novel from Pan, and it\u2019s a New York Times Editor\u2019s Choice. Pick up a signed copy at Books & Books.<\/p>\n Mayra: A Novel by Nicky Gonzalez<\/a><\/p>\n Mystery abounds in \u201cMayra,\u201d another debut novel with a Florida focus. Gonzalez was raised in Hialeah, where the protagonists of her book, Ingrid and Mayra, also became best friends in childhood. They lost touch after high school, but a surprise phone call from Mayra, who had moved to the Northeast for college, opens the door to a reunion that\u2019s close to Ingrid\u2019s neck of the woods: a weekend getaway at a secluded, labyrinthine house in the Everglades. Struggling with unclear directions and without cell service, Ingrid enters the swamp, where Mayra\u2019s transfixing beauty remains but little else feels grounded in reality. As lizards and alligators threaten to invade their idyll, and buried disagreements between the friends start to surface, time itself begins to feel illusory. A psychological horror story that eschews blood and guts for an unnerving, hallucinatory ambiance, \u201cMayra\u201d has earned glowing comparisons to the great horror novelist Shirley Jackson.<\/p>\n CHILDREN\u2019S BOOKS<\/p>\n Watch Out for Falling Iguanas by Edwidge Danticat<\/a><\/p>\n The vision of a stunned iguana plummeting from a tree during a cold front is a sight to behold for all South Floridians\u2014a bizarre vision of climatic confusion that, given the invasive nature of the species, shouldn\u2019t happen at all. But this is Florida, where beastly weirdness is baked into the DNA. This latest children\u2019s picture book from acclaimed Haitian-American novelist Danticat follows Leila, a pint-sized Miamian navigating an unusually cold day in her tropical paradise, and whose walk to school includes an encounter with the titular phenomenon. Supplemented by color-saturated illustrations from Jamaican artist Rachel Moss, Danticat explores the scientific reasons why the cold-stunned reptiles fall from trees while painting a tender picture of intergenerational connection between Leila and her grandmother, whose knowledge of iguanas initially confounds our protagonist.<\/p>\n NONFICTION<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/91X1-tFwE9L._SL1500_-678x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/81EPx5X-bBL._SL1500_-1024x870.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/7182zBZE2hL._SL1500_-660x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n