Happy Tuesday!
This might be the beefiest release week we’ve had in a while. In fact, the entire month is looking pretty full with amazing books. Uh oh!
Which new releases are you excited for? Tell us in the comments!
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Bad Words
Author: Rioghnach Robinson
Released: October 6, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance“The rare kind of book I can’t believe doesn’t already exist . . . [a] clear, clever voice and incisive social commentary elevate the book’s irresistible will-they-won’t-they romance to a once-in-a-lifetime read about truth, art, vulnerability, and all the sticky places they intersect. BAD WORDS LEFT ME BUZZING.” – EMILY HENRY, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Great Big Beautiful Life
A sharp and deeply felt debut about art, ambition, and the connections that both inspire and undo us.
Parker Navarro’s debut novel was meant to define his career – until critic Selina Chan’s blistering review made it the flop of the decade. Four years later, his new book is his shot at redemption; for Selina, reviewing him again is a professional risk she can’t refuse. When her second takedown ignites a viral feud, both their fortunes shift overnight. But as the literary world feeds on their public sparring, a quieter dialogue begins – one that challenges everything they thought they knew about success, sincerity, and each other.
Both incisive and tender, Bad Words lays bare the costs of creation – the pull between ambition and integrity, the vulnerability of being seen, and the unexpected closeness that can grow in the space between critique and care.
When words can make or break us, how do you stay true to what matters most?
Dahlia: I’ve been a huge fan of the author’s since her YAs as Riley Redgate, but I was truly blown away by not just the chemistry and banter of this adult debut but the thoughtful, nuanced, evenhanded, and well-crafted conversations about the roles of both author and critique, the function of critical media, and mental health and other elements of the online sphere. This is one of the biggest books of fall, and that role is absolutely earned.
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Broken Rival
Author: Tessa Bailey
Released: October 6, 2026 by Avon
Genre: New Adult, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyFrom #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey comes a gripping, heated romance about a girl trapped in a new reality, forced to make a choice between two brothers—one who is the high school golden boy, the other sworn to hunt down her kind—time travelers. This is Tessa Bailey as you’ve never seen her before.
Magnolia Brown loves Friday night football games, volunteering, and dominating at high school swim meets. Just your average everyday eighteen-year-old. Except for one thing:
She’s from fifty years in the future.
Magnolia’s parents, two brilliant scientists, are the inventors of time travel, but due to widespread destruction and rampant abuse of the technology from a corrupt few, time travel is outlawed and punishable by death. When Magnolia’s parents are seized and executed for illegally traveling to the past, they leave Magnolia stranded in 2026 without a way to get home.
Now Magnolia has nowhere to turn but a complicated Kansas family with two sons—Fallon, her high school sweetheart with secrets of his own, and Ramsey, the brooding militia commander who hunts and kills criminals like her. Magnolia knows Ramsey resents and hates her, but how can he be her true enemy when he looks at her with such hunger, despite his callousness, and guards her with his very life? Which brother can she trust and is the real danger coming from inside the house?
Tessa Bailey is doing something a little different with this new adult, dystopian, time travel romance.
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Dark Reading Matter
Author: Jasper Fforde
Released: October 6, 2026 by Soho Press
Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Thursday Next #8The final novel in the New York Times bestselling series: Will literary Special Ops agent Thursday Next find her happy ending?
The Dark Reading Matter is a theoretical realm that suggests that the observable bookverse can only account for 20 percent of the calculated total readable mass. Out there somewhere, possibly, is a larger and more expansive and unseeable “Dark Bookverse” that contains millions of deleted novels, slush-pile manuscripts, lost poems, forgotten pop culture references, long unheard oral tradition, stories and ideas that were still in people’s minds when they died.
The Goliath Corporation hopes to exploit the Dark Reading Matter for profit, and Thursday Next is once again pitted against a familiar foe. A visitor named Roger Thatt who purports to be from Fourth Wall Publishing has some peculiar ideas of his own that require careful thought. Is Thursday and everyone she knows living in a simulation? Was her world created from scratch Last Thursday as Roger supposes, and are the books she reads the only direction in which books can be read?
With existential questions the least of her troubles and a family to take care of, Thursday must defeat the Goliath Corporation, ensure that a tear in the fabric of the Bookworld does not suck all literature from hers, and conclude her own series so she can enjoy a comfortable retirement, while dodging the threat of the worse fate imaginable for a story: The Scooby Doo ending.
The Thursday Next series finally reaches its conclusion. What a ride!
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Dive Bar at the End of the Road
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Released: October 6, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Genre: Horror, Paranormal, Mystery/ThrillerFinal Destination meets The Cabin at the End of the World in this supernatural horror from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, in which a series of car accidents traps a group of strangers at a dive bar.
A forested road at night, slick from the pounding rain and eerily illuminated by flashes of lightning. Just before midnight, a car swerves to avoid something—or someone—mysteriously standing in the road, only to slam into a fallen tree instead. In the pitch black, four more cars follow in a pileup no one can seem avoid.
Stumbling out of the wreckage, soaked from the rain and nursing various injuries, five strangers find themselves in a backwoods dive bar, waiting for daybreak and hoping for cell service. But as tensions rise and the storm rages on outside, the occupants of the dive bar start to notice that not everything is as it seems. Time is moving differently, and they quickly learn that going outside—whether to assist another accident victim or to hike for help—is a very bad idea.
There’s something in the woods, something that isn’t natural. Could the figure in the road have been a warning? Or something more sinister? None of this is normal, and they’ll need to work together to figure out what’s happening if they have any hope of surviving through the night.
Armstrong always nails a creepy mystery.
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Hallowed Bones
Author: Lucy Smoke
Released: October 6, 2026 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Gothic, Paranormal, Romance
Series: Sons of Salem #1The first in the Sons of Salem series— a seductive, dark why-choose romance filled with cursed bloodlines, secret societies, and a powerful heroine destined to save the coven.
Four cursed heirs. One forbidden witch. A desire that burns bright.
I was warned to stay away from the Sons of Salem. Not because they’re monsters—but because they’re broken enough to recognize one.
Ezra Bishop.
Cameron Goode.
Lyall Corey.
Reyes Scott.And me—Haven Wardwell.
Legacies. Witches. Something far worse than myths.
Now that I’m here, there’s no telling what Now that I’m here, there’s no telling what the Dark Gods will ask for in return.
Ghosts haunt the corridors of Ipswich College, and if I’m not careful, I might just become one of them.
Amanda: Still on my Why Choose kick!
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The Haunted Librarian
Author: Auralee Wallace
Released: October 6, 2026 by Ace
Genre: Paranormal, Mystery/Thriller, RomanceA lonely librarian finds love, friends, and a few ghosts between the shelves in this cozy, paranormal tale from beloved bestselling author Auralee Wallace.
It’s a dark and stormy night…and Amelia Bates is caught in the rain. Life hasn’t always been kind to her, and being a ghostseer certainly doesn’t make things any easier.
Glowing warmly through the autumnal downpour is her safest the library. Amelia, the newly hired librarian, has always relished the comfort of curling up with a novel, vastly preferring it to the company of humans (alive or ghostly).
But Amelia is shocked to discover the building is full of more than quiet stories and warm cups of tea. There are curious, talkative patrons, a shy, bespectacled head librarian who makes her heart skip a beat, and three quirky spirits causing paranormal havoc that endangers the future of the library.
To help the ghosts and save the building, Amelia will have to gather all her bravery and wits, because learning to trust others might just be the first step to a happily ever after she only thought was possible in books.
Sarah: The new librarian sees ghosts, also the head librarian is hot.
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The Housekeeper
Author: Rose Tremain
Released: October 6, 2026 by Harper
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Literary FictionIn this enthralling novel—already in production as a major movie starring Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter, Catriona Balph and Emma Laird— the award-winning author of Absolutely & Forever and The Road Home brilliantly reimagines Daphne du Maurier, and the origins of her timeless bestseller Rebecca.
This daring and emotional tale of an illicit affair is narrated by a Mrs. Danowski, known as Danni, who is hired as housekeeper at Manderville Hall, Lord Grenville-Whithers’ mansion on the wild coast of Cornwall. A loyal and lonely woman troubled by childhood memories of alienation, Danni dreams of finding love.
Those dreams are fulfilled when Daphne du Maurier arrives at Manderville Hall for lunch with Grenville-Whithers. Succumbing to her secret sexual desire for women, Daphne begins a love affair with Danni, meeting on the housekeeper’s days off in the secluded boathouse at Manderville Cove. For both women, this forbidden passion is both beautiful and terrifying.
But of course such a love cannot last—and both Danni and Daphne must deal with the aftermath of their passion. While Danni struggles to find a new place in the world, Daphne reconfigures the experience into her most famous work, Rebecca, with surprising results.
Elyse: A sapphic historical fiction novel about the author of Rebecca.
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Reap & Sow
Author: Charlotte Plumb
Released: October 6, 2026 by Berkley XO
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, RomanceA young woman bargains with a demon to save her brothers, only to lose her heart in this slow-burn romantasy about dark magic, unlikely love, and the imperfect beauty of mortality.
The penniless in Blackbridge have only two sell the body or sell the soul. And thanks to Eda Shaw, business is booming.
Indentured to a capricious demon known as Mr. Night, Eda and her brothers arrange illicit Pacts on his behalf, luring the city’s most desperate into trading years of their lives for their deepest desires. When a Pact goes awry and her brothers are arrested, Eda realizes she’ll need an infernal ally of her Kit’rath, a demon with a curious penchant for humanity, an infuriating wit, and is the only being in Blackbridge Mr. Night seems to fear. As they race to rescue her family and save the city from ruin, an undeniable connection sparks between mortal and demon.
But Kit’s help doesn’t come cheap. Now, Eda risks losing her heart to the one who claims her years—and saving herself may prove the steepest cost of all.
Rich with gothic atmosphere, sharp wit, and simmering romantic tension, Reap & Sow is a fantasy debut perfect for fans of Rachel Gillig, Hannah Whitten, and Heather Fawcett.
Amanda: Sarah and I did a podcast about our most anticipated reads for the second half of 2026 and this was on my list.
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The Scarlet Ball
Author: Nghi Vo
Released: October 6, 2026 by Tor Books
Genre: Gothic, Historical: American, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyFrom USA Today bestselling author Nghi Vo, this all-consuming tale of ballrooms and bloodshed weds The Gilded Age with the Gothic vision of Guillermo del Toro.
Pick a face, pick a fate.
Judith Ban, former convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief, is on the lookout for her next identity. The daughter of a Vietnamese adventuress and a French naval officer, she’s no stranger to risk, but she’s unprepared for the secrets of New York’s legendary Four Hundred, or for the women who build their power at the city’s heart through blood-soaked, gold-etched rituals of demonic marriage.
In exchange for enough wealth to outrun her past, Judith strikes a deal with the matriarch of the powerful Howard family: she will stand in for the missing Howard granddaughter, who was poised to make her debut when she disappeared. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith is white, rich, and about to risk body and soul in the deadly games that determine which girls will find a match—and which will be devoured. If she can keep her wits and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power who will be hers to command… so long as she can keep his infinite hungers fed. But to survive the season, Judith will have to seduce a storm in the shape of a man, before the night to which everything has been leading—the Scarlet Ball where the demons choose their brides.
A razor-sharp subversion of romance tropes and nightmare of manners, Vo’s fusion of history and fantasy does for Edith Wharton what her acclaimed debut The Chosen and the Beautiful did for F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Elyse: I really enjoyed the author’s Singing Hills Cycle.
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Secrets of Everlight
Author: Julie Hall
Released: October 6, 2026 by Ace
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyA thief turned spy must unravel an assassination plot against the fae prince by disguising herself as a princess competing for his heart in this entrancing romantasy by USA Today bestselling author Julie Hall.
For nineteen years, Rowan has fought to first scavenging for scraps after being cast out of the orphanage, then trapped in a ten-year contract with a corrupt master. She longs for freedom but spends her days stealing trinkets from the highborn to pay off her servitude.
When a mysterious fae buys out her contract, Rowan jumps at the chance to escape. But his promise of freedom comes with a uncover the assassin targeting Prince Dryden of the Ember Kingdom. To succeed, she must disguise herself as a princess, for the would-be killer hides among the royals vying for the prince’s heart and, more importantly, his hand in marriage.
Thrown into a world of silks and finery, Rowan has mere weeks to learn to play the part of a princess before hunting the killer. Sneaking through gilded halls and eavesdropping come naturally, but the bonds she forms with the other princesses—and the prince’s growing attention—are complications she never saw coming.
When whispers of enemies beyond the kingdom surface, Rowan realizes her mission may be bigger than she imagined. Yet every stolen glance with Dryden rips her apart and draws her closer to the one distraction she cannot desire. Desire that could shatter not only her chance at freedom but the kingdom itself.
Amanda: I feel like it’s getting harder and harder to find standalone fantasy romances, but thank god for this one.
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The Undercover Bookshop
Author: Katherine Reay
Released: October 6, 2026 by Harper Muse
Genre: Historical: European, Mystery/ThrillerDuring the winter of 1950 in the small Cotswold village of Great Rollright, amateur sleuth Gemma Brown starts to suspect that the town’s best baker, Ursula Beurton, is a Soviet spy, tumbling her headlong into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse that ends with a decision that will lead her to the Undercover Bookshop and change her life forever.
Recently moved to the English Cotswolds, Gemma Brown desperately wants to create the kind of idyllic life she’s read about in her favorite mystery novels, with herself as the leading lady. But fitting in proves difficult as Gemma is more adept at solving mysteries and setting up the village’s first bookstore than she is at baking cakes or grasping social niceties. Nevertheless, she finds a friend in Peggy, a young woman recently moved to town herself, and Ursula Beurton, who is not only the village’s best baker but an enigmatic figure who sparks controversy in the small-town gossip network.
As Gemma spends more time with Ursula, she begins to suspect all those novels are affecting her thinking. The oddities she starts to notice must be her imagination because, if not, they point to something far more dangerous than winning the local baking contest or being placed on the church committee. Could her neighbor be a real spy?
Following her instincts and a few skills learned through fiction, Gemma soon becomes embroiled in an international intrigue involving the village’s mysterious benefactor, Lady Marchmont, MI5, and the KGB. In an unexpected twist, however, Ursula asks Gemma for a favor which may endanger all their lives as their next chapter unfolds in Gemma’s new venture, the Undercover Bookshop.
This sounds like a mystery that will appeal to the Bitchery!
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Victorious
Author: V.E. Schwab
Released: October 6, 2026 by Tor Books
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Villains #3The triumphant conclusion to the Villains trilogy from V.E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.
Eli Ever. Victor Vale.
Two men, first best friends, then mortal enemies, each destined to be the other’s shadow.
One left standing—but the game isn’t over yet
Against all the years—and the odds—a group of allies and archrivals meet on a chessboard set by an opponent they couldn’t have predicted….to see who will be victorious.
V.E. Schwab releases the third and final book in the Villains series. How many of you were waiting for this one?
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The Night Market
Author: C.A. Byford
Released: October 8, 2026 by HQ Digital
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Urban FantasyPerfect for fans of the Threadneedle series, lose yourself in this brand-new paranormal fantasy. Pepper Montgomery is a mortal woman on a desperate quest to save her dying sister. When a trail of cryptic breadcrumbs leads her to the elusive Night Market – a hidden bazaar where the supernatural thrives – she discovers a world of vampires, ancient relics, and dark bargains.
But the Night Market is not just a place of wonder; it’s a battleground for power among the vampire families. As Pepper navigates this treacherous underworld, she finds herself entwined with Laik Hewer, a brooding Enforcer cursed with a monstrous secret of his own.
As tensions rise, Pepper must make a choice that could cost her everything. Will she risk it all to save her sister and the man who has become her closest ally?
Elyse: I’ve been reading a lot of “historical” romantasy so I’m looking forward to switching back to urban fantasy for a minute.
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