Happy Tuesday!
Here are the titles we’re excited for this week. Lots of magical elements in this one.
What are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!
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A Study in Sparkling
Author: Jodi McAlister
Released: September 15, 2026 by Atria Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceThe author of the “brilliant” (Library Journal) An Academic Affair returns with a steamy romance about a recently separated single mom who’s absolutely not looking for another relationship…only to fall for the younger owner of her favorite wine bar.
Fiona Fisher thought she had it all: a loving husband, three kids, and a life far away from the suffocating expectations of her family. But when her husband reveals that he’s leaving her for his secret second family, Fiona is left devastated and humiliated.
Satoshi Tsukamoto wants it all. He’s the owner of a popular wine bar, and he’s studying for the hardest test in the world: the Master Sommelier exam. There aren’t enough hours in the day for anything else—except maybe for Fiona, his favorite customer, and the woman he’s absolutely, head-over-heels in love with.
On paper, Fiona and Satoshi make no sense. He’s eight years younger than her and has no time for romance. She’s a single mother and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to trust anyone again. But how can Fiona resist when Satoshi suggests they give into their mutual attraction and let off some steam? And how can Satoshi resist when the woman he adores is finally within his grasp—even if they’ve agreed to keep things casual?
A new Jodi McAllister is out!
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Bodies of Magic
Author: Freya Marske
Released: September 15, 2026 by Tor Books
Genre: LGBTQIA, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/FantasyGrey’s Anatomy meets A Deadly Education in this dark academia fantasy from USA Today bestselling author Freya Marske.
At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam—a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future.
The list of exam rules includes:
• You will perform five practical cases.
• Your exam group is chosen at random.
• You pass together, or fail together.It does not include:
• On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate’s dead body in the exam hall.And as they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide… and all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class.
Five scholars. Five secrets. Five days in which to solve a murder, pass the most important exam of their lives, and uncover a secret larger than all of their own combined. One with the potential to change the world.
Are you ready?
Let’s begin.
Freya Marske has a new release. This is not a drill!
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Dead Beat
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Released: September 15, 2026 by Flatiron Books
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Ninth House Trilogy #3The highly anticipated, explosive conclusion to the Ninth House trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here…
Alex Stern made it to hell and back more than once, but this time she left the door open behind her. Demons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus, feeding on the souls of the living, terrifying the dead. Alex and her allies can hunt them, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it, they’ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies, and discover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood.
While she struggles to hold onto the dream of a future Yale once offered, Alex must contend with the machinations of a corrupt Lethe Board and a deadly vampire with his own connection to the societies. But for the first time in her life, she won’t have to face the fight alone. Dawes, Turner, Mercy, and even Tripp will have a role to play, none more so than Alex’s mentor Darlington, the golden boy who lived so long in her head, now back in the flesh and cursed with dangerous powers of his own. Hell itself is stalking the delegates of Lethe House, and they’re all about to learn that demons don’t play by human rules.
Elyse: Planning a re-read for this release. I love dark academia and Bardugo.
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Doomsdate
Author: Laura Piper Lee
Released: September 15, 2026 by Dell
Genre: Horror, Paranormal, RomanceWhen a first date between a doomsday prepper and a nerdy film professor goes horribly, zombie-apocalypse-level wrong, the mismatched pair team up on a road trip to safety in this delightfully feral rom-com.
With a new virus spreading and a lockdown on the horizon, Maisie Bennett is determined to check one item off her bucket list: Get laid. But that’s no easy feat for an anxious doomsday prepper who’s never made it past a first date. So when a handsome, stubbly-jawed professor swipes right and agrees to meet up, Maisie vows to act normal—and to leave her taser at home.
Dr. Everett Greer has lost all lust for life after a personal tragedy, but he doesn’t have the heart to stand up the poor woman his best friend catfished to force him back “out there.” Maisie turns out to be surprisingly lovely, but there’s something off about her, too, with her clinking cargo pockets, shy smile, and utility belt full of—are those weapons? Unfortunately, their awkward first date goes from bad to doomed when the GI virus that’s trapped half of America in the bathroom starts claiming its first casualties, then reanimates them into flesh-eating zombies. And this is precisely why Everett doesn’t date anymore.
As the country spins out of control, Maisie and Everett find themselves an unlikely team of two—well, three, if you count Everett’s cat, Chicken—as they travel north to hopeful safety. Along the way, Maisie and Everett make a deal: she’ll teach the soft, liberal arts professor how to survive, and he’ll teach her how to live—through movies, travel, and, to Maisie’s delight, sex lessons. But when their growing feelings are put to the test, they’re in danger of losing not only their brains to the zombies, but worse, their hearts to each other.
Lara: With a title like that and a cover like that, who wouldn’t want to read this one?
Dahlia: This is the author’s second book of the year and the first one (Pot Shot) was one of my absolute favorites, so I’m excited to read her again, especially because I love this kind of personality pairing.
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The Emperor’s Enemy
Author: Jasmine Mas
Released: September 15, 2026 by MIRA
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The Unsurvivable Love Duet #1When the hunter is hunted… who becomes prey?
The Emperor’s Enemy is an addictive true enemies-to-lovers dark romantasy with a heroine who doesn’t need saving, an enemy she can’t escape, and a war neither of them plans to lose.
Welcome to the Unsurvivable Love Duet, the all-new series by Jasmine Mas, bestselling author of Blood of Hercules.
Zora Ravenal didn’t join the Crimson Army to be a hero. She joined to destroy the empire.A skilled hunter hardened by loss with a concerning capacity for stubbornness, Zora claws her way into becoming a Knight Mage: the Commonwealth’s deadliest defense against the Empire’s storm magic and her people’s only hope.
It almost works.
Now she’s stuck in a war she can’t walk away from, hiding dangerous secrets, and shoved into very close quarters with the one man she should never be alone with.
He’s a Royal Mage with a body count, a temper, and an unsettling obsession… with her.
Now they’re partners.
Sort of.
If “partners” means being forced to train together, trust each other with their lives, and somehow not kill each other in the process.
But the Royal Mage isn’t just dangerous—he’s paying attention. And the longer they’re forced to remain in each other’s orbit, the more twisted everything becomes. Who’s hunting who?
Amanda: I have this one preordered because there were some gorgeous incentives.
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Grim Tidings
Author: B.K. Borison
Released: September 15, 2026 by HarperCollins
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Paranormal, Romance
Series: Ghosted #2From #1 New York Times bestselling author B.K. Borison comes a new whimsical, haunting romance. When a runaway grim reaper tries to save a life, she clashes with a skeptical Guardian, forcing them to form an unlikely partnership beyond the grave.
Darcy Moore is tired of death. Which would be fine and good … if she wasn’t a Grim Reaper. Determined to outrun her designation as the villain, Darcy decides she won’t be dragging her next assignment to the underworld. She’ll be saving him instead.
Unfortunately for Darcy, there’s a complication in her plan. Guardian Angel Gabriel Aetos doesn’t tolerate threats to his little corner of the world, and a Grim Reaper showing up at his bar is as deadly as it gets. But when he realizes Darcy is not as she seems, Gabriel must decide if he can trust his growing feelings or hold on to his long-standing grudge.
Amanda: It’s nice to see the heroine as a reaper this time.
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Live Laugh Love
Author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Released: September 15, 2026 by Liveright
Genre: NonfictionFrom the New York Times best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne, a revelatory history of white Christian womanhood in the United States.
In Jesus and John Wayne, a book that has changed how countless Americans understand their faith, historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez showed how evangelicals made Jesus into an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism. Now she unearths the roots of the glittering, Instagram-ready culture of white Christian femininity.
Opening in the late nineteenth century, Live Laugh Love traces how New Thought, a movement that championed the power of the mind to shape reality, combined with holiness evangelicalism to create the world inhabited by millions of Christian women. Du Mez introduces us to religious innovators who taught that positivity was the secret to spiritual and material success and reveals how they worked through consumer culture: mommy blogs and romance novels, Hobby Lobby aisles and pastel-scripted wall art. Marketed as empowerment, these products and slogans elevate vulnerability and domesticity, and in the process draw women into systems prone to manipulation and abuse. In this brilliant recasting of modern American Christianity, Du Mez unearths the hidden origins of our reactionary moment.
Amanda: Jesus and John Wayne was such a good read and I’m excited for this follow-up, especially if there’s a section on romance.
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