Hide Your Wallet: August 18th Release Week

Welcome back!

It’s a super brief week for us when it comes to new releases, though next week is looking pretty beefy. We have a fantasy romance, contemporary romance, and sci-fi romance.

Which new releases are on your radar? Let us know in the comments!

The Fall Affair

Author: Vi Keeland
Released: August 18, 2026
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Vi Keeland comes an all-new summer romance. Set against the sun-soaked hills of Tuscany, this is a story about legacy, second chances, and learning that sometimes, the most important pieces are the ones we never knew were missing.

She’s counting down the days until she leaves Tuscany. He’s counting on making her stay.

Some people go to Tuscany to find themselves. Allegra Bianchi goes to escape—New York, her ex’s new relationship, and a career that derailed the moment she was passed over for partner.

Her plan is simple: settle her eccentric Italian grandmother’s estate, sell whatever isn’t nailed down, and return to the life she’s worked too hard to lose.

Instead, she walks into a mess—a crumbling antique shop, two hundred acres of leased vineyard land, and one infuriating clause in the will: live and work in the shop for three months, or inherit nothing.

Then there’s the neighbor she clashes with instantly. Matteo Lucchese is the infuriatingly handsome winemaker who leases her family’s land and refuses to be impressed by her credentials—or her attitude. He’s rugged and stubborn, stuck living in a time that feels long past, and the word rush isn’t part of his vocabulary. Basically, they’re exact opposites.

But as the days stretch into weeks, Tuscany chips away at the armor Allegra doesn’t realize she’s wearing, and Matteo shows her the appeal of slowing down, of staying rooted, of wanting something other than climbing the corporate ladder.

She goes to Tuscany to escape.

But now that the countdown to going home is on, Allegra isn’t sure she’s ready to leave.

And the life she’s falling for comes with a looming expiration date.

The newest Vi Keeland with a heroine on a timeline in Tuscany and a yearning neighbor.

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I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy

Author: Kimberly Lemming
Released: August 18, 2026 by Berkley
Genre: Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Cosmic Chaos #2

A zany and sexy romance about a woman who finds herself stranded on a far-off planet and mated to the warlord alien king, from USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Lemming.

It’s not in Blair’s nature to just give up. Not when she’s beamed up to a spaceship and then dropped on an alien planet. Not even when she’s in the middle of a forest fire surrounded by dinosaurs. And definitely not when she’s captured by an arrogant alien king. If King Osid thinks he can break her, he’s in for a shock. Blair lives by one If you stay ready, you never have to get ready.

But absolutely nothing could have prepared her for finding out that she’s that arrogant King Osid’s mate.

Despite recent hiccups, the alien researchers are determined to get their breeding program back on track. With that in mind, Blair and Osid are bundled off to the research center for what they’re told is couples counseling. As they face a series of increasingly dangerous challenges, it soon becomes clear the research aliens may have confused an episode of The Bachelor with Survivor. Bonding over their common enemy, and shall we say…encouraged by love darts, Blair and Osid let down their walls (and take off their clothes). When they discover that there are—somehow—even more secret plans in the works, another hilarious, steamy, over-the-top adventure is in store.

Who’s reading for the next Kimberly Lemming?

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The Poison Daughter

Author: Sheila Masterson
Released: August 18, 2026 by Zando
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy

To err is human. To avenge is Divine.
Every person Harlow Carrenwell kisses dies immediately, and that’s the way she likes it. The poison-lipped youngest daughter of Lunameade’s magical founding family has used her power to annihilate their opposition.

Her first husband is in the ground. Her new betrothed is next.

But the merry widow has a secret. When she’s not acting as an assassin at her parents’ whims, she moonlights as a vigilante for abused women in their walled-off city.

Meet a man. Lure him in. Kill him with a kiss. Until one night Harlow kisses a mark and he doesn’t die.

Worse, her invincible partner in passion is her new betrothed, Henry Havenwood, and now he knows about her double life. Instead of selling her out and bringing the rival families to blows, he does something much more sinister—whisks her away to wed in his wild mountain fort.

Harlow doesn’t trust Henry, but the only way to protect her family and the city of Lunameade is to figure out what his family is planning.

Cursed with a husband she can’t kill and trapped in a fort miles of vampire-infested woods from home, Harlow’s survival requires her to do the impossible: Make the man who knows she’s a killer fall in love with her anyway.

The Poison Daughter is a standalone dark fantasy romance that combines the vigilante justice for abusive men of Promising Young Woman with a romantasy arranged marriage and a dash of vampires.

Amanda: A bit of a bait and switch as this has been around digitally for a bit, but is now getting a hardcover release. Love an arranged marriage plot!

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