February 24 Book Releases

February 24 New Books
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Travis Williamson

Editor in chief

Published

February 19, 2026

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February 24 new book releases top book this week is And Now, Back to You by B.K. Borison, the second book in the Heartstrings series.

Alongside this weekโ€™s new releases, we published a few more posts that are worth checking out:


And Now, Back to You

Author B.K. Borison
Genres Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Fiction, Adult, Enemies To Lovers, Rom Com
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Two competing meteorologists are forced to find common ground in this opposites attract, When Harry Met Sally inspired romance, from New York Times bestselling author B.K. Borison.

Jackson Clark and Delilah Stewart have had their fair share of run-ins over the years, often ending in disaster. While Jackson thrives on routine and organization from the comfort of his radio booth, Delilah loves the spontaneity and adventure out in the field. When theyโ€™re partnered against their will to cover the snowstorm of the century, they find themselves scrambling to figure out how to work together.

Eager to be taken seriously as a journalist, Delilah offers Jackson a deal. If he can help her ace this assignment, sheโ€™ll help him rediscover his long-lost fun side. With an undiscovered chemistry burning beneath their clashes, the unlikely partnership quickly tumbles into an easy and surprising friendship.

But when other feelings start to enter the equation, can Jackson and Delilah withstand the storm? Or does what happens in the mountains, stay in the mountains?

The Red Winter

Author Cameron Sullivan
Genres Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Historical, Adult, LGBT, Queer
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power, and redemption.

In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gรฉvaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake.

Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel โ€“ who takes payment in living hearts โ€“ it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.

Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel dโ€™Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.

But Gรฉvaudan is not as he remembers it, and Sebastianโ€™s unfinished business is everywhere he looks. Years of misery have driven the people to desperation, and France teeters on the edge of revolution. Sebastianโ€™s arcane activities โ€“ not to mention his demonic counterpart โ€“ have also attracted the inquisitorial eye of the French clergy. And the Beast is poised to close his jaws around them all and plunge the continent into war.

Debut author Cameron Sullivan tears the heart out of history with this darkly entertaining retelling of the hunt for the Beast of Gรฉvaudan. Lifting the veil on the hidden world behind our own, it reimagines the story of Europe, from Imperial Rome to Saint Jehanne dโ€™Arc, the madness of Gilles de Rais and the first flickers of the French Revolution.

โ€œAn absolute feast of a book: rich, red, sinfully delicious. I've rarely been this satisfiedโ€”or this hungry for more.โ€ โ€”Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of Starling House

โ€œSo bloody good. The Red Winter is absolute ripper entertainmentโ€”miss it at your peril!โ€ โ€”Shelley Parker-Chan, bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun

โ€œA gorgeous tangle of history and fresh-made myth. You'll eat this one up.โ€ โ€”Cassandra Khaw, bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth

โ€œCharming, haunting, ambitious, and a great deal of fun.โ€ โ€”T. Kingfisher, New York Times bestselling author of A Sorceress Comes to Call

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Cleopatra

Author Saara El-Arifi
Genres Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Mythology, Fiction, Retellings, Adult
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Queen, Legend, Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic Cleopatra, from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife .

YOU KNOW MY NAME.
BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.

Your historians call me seductress, but I was always in love's thrall.

Your playwrights speak of my witchcraft, but I was gifted my talents by the gods.

Your poets sing of my blood-lust, but I was protecting my children.

They cannot credit that a mere woman could be powerful, strategic, divinely blessed to rule.

Death will silence me no longer.

This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.

The Girls Before

Author Kate Alice Marshall
Genres Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Adult, Suspense, Audiobook, Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods, No One Can Know, and A Killing Cold, a new novel about a search & rescue expert, a kidnapped woman, and the lost girls who haunt them both.

There is a girl in a basement.
The door has stopped opening.
The light is gone.

Stranger is trapped in the dark, with only her imagination and the scribbles on the wall left by long-dead girls to keep her company. Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape. But if the door opens at last, will it mean salvation, or only the beginning of her fight to survive?

Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, thereโ€™s always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the townโ€™s most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.

How to Get Away with Murder

Author Rebecca Philipson
Genres Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Adult, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
This fresh debut thriller finds a Scotland Yard detective trying to find the author of a self-help book that promises quite literally to teach readers how to get away with murder, which seems to have inspired London's newest murderer.

Detective Inspector Samantha Hansen has been on leave for six months, recovering from a breakdown she suffered at work, but when a fourteen-year-old girl is murdered in a local park, Sam jumps at the chance to return to the job and prove that she's still got what it takes to be the Yard's most successful homicide detective. One of the cases only leads is a copy of a self-help book found in the victim's backpack called How To Get Away With Murder by a man named Denver Brady.

Brady claims to be the most successful serial killer of our time, which is why no one's ever heard of him. Chapter by chapter, he details his methodology and his past victims, and as Sam's investigation progresses and the details of the book go viral, Sam begins to suspect that thereโ€™s more to the author than what heโ€™s revealed. But in order to find a killer and get justice for young Charlotte, Sam must learn to trust her instincts once again, before Denver Brady--or someone else--really does get away with murder.

Quiet Ones

Author Penelope Douglas
Genres Romance, Dark Romance, New Adult, Contemporary, Dark, Mystery, Contemporary Romance
Publication Date February 24, 2026
The third installment in the Hellbent series is coming Feb. 24, 2026!

Quinn
Iโ€™ve always had too many men in my life. My overbearing father. My domineering older brothers. My invasive nephews. The Trents and Caruthers run this town, and although Iโ€™ve never given them a reason to worry, they treat me like Iโ€™m made of glass.

Theyโ€™re wrong, though. At twenty-one, I finished college in record time, I own my own business, I pay taxes, I donโ€™t party, and Iโ€™ve never broken a law.

But I have one secret: I raced to grow up in case he ever came back home.

Lucas Morrow grew up with my brothers and my family, but he left when I was thirteen. Iโ€™ve waited to see him again, making sure everything is perfect.

But Iโ€™ve realized Iโ€™m waiting my life away. Itโ€™s time to move on. Maybe get my own place.

And I think Iโ€™m going to make some new friends, too.

Itโ€™s summer. Cookouts, Fourth of July, the Night Rideโ€ฆ I want freedom.

I mean, I am my brothersโ€™ sister. Did they really think the apple fell that far?

Lucas
She thinks her family are the only men watching her. So innocent.

And I want to keep her that way. Even though Iโ€™m twelve years older, we were always the odd ones out around her family. She gravitated to me, and I always made sure she wasnโ€™t alone. When I left, I told myself sheโ€™d be fine without me. They all would.

But really, it was just an excuse to escape the guilt.

I only meant to come back for a few days, but I never entertained the thought that sheโ€™d grown up. Her brothers are distracted, and one bad decision after another is circling her.

A motocross racer who canโ€™t stop whispering in her ear.

A criminal from across the tracks who canโ€™t stop looking.

Old ghosts.

And old enemies.

She doesn't want a babysitter anymore, and if she ever finds out why I left town, she'll know why I'm not the best role model.

But I'm still the older one.

And she still needs supervision.

*Quiet Ones is suitable for readers 18+ and should be read after Falls Boys and Pirate Girls.

Kin

Author Tayari Jones
Genres Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, African American, Book Club, Adult Fiction, Historical
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriageโ€”Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her motherโ€™s death, Vernice leaves Atlanta at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and marries into an affluent family. Annie, abandoned by her dissolute mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, and culminate in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

A Secret in the Garden

Author Jeneane O'Riley
Genres Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Gothic, Mystery, Adult, Mystery Thriller
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From USA Today bestselling author Jeneane O'Riley comes the first in a series of deliciously dark and whimsical standalone romances.

Some secrets were never meant to be unearthed.

Perched on a windswept cliff, Blackwood Manor looms like a dark monument to a mysterious family. Behind its grand iron gates, one part of the estate has been left to rot since the tragic death of Hester Blackwood: the once-glorious conservatory, now choked by vines and shattered glass. The rest of the family is goneโ€”only her brooding son, Jasper, remains, the heir to a weapons empire.

Desperate to save her job and out of options, botanist Eliza Arnold makes a bold gambleโ€”drive to the manor and beg the elusive millionaire for a donation. Jasper agrees...on one chilling condition: restore the conservatory. Alone. No help. No leaving.

But the manor is not empty.

As Eliza battles thorns and secrets, a magnetic tension builds between her and Jasperโ€”dark, dangerous, and impossible to ignore. And something else stirs among the roots and ruins...whispers in the walls, confusing disturbances, and a presence watching her every move.

The deeper Eliza digs, the more she uncovers a garden of grief, longingโ€ฆand desire. Because in Blackwood Manor, even buried things can bloom again.

The Wicked and the Damned

Author Rebecca Robinson
Genres Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Adult, Fantasy Romance, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy
Publication Date February 24, 2026
In the exhilarating second romantasy novel in Rebecca Robinsonโ€™s Dark Inheritance Trilogy, a fiery couple forced apart must navigate a deadly maze of politics and power to reunite across a continent at war.
Torn from her husband Reidโ€™s arms and dragged back to her homeland in chains, Vaasa is no longer a ruler, but a political pawn. Now under the control of Ozikโ€”a cunning Zetyr witch with a stranglehold on her magicโ€”she faces annulment, forced betrothal, and a kingdom that no longer feels like her own. As Ozikโ€™s machinations aim to install himself as the true power behind the Asteryan throne, Vaasa is forced to take part in his game.

Meanwhile, across the continent, Reid is done playing politics. But waging war is never simple, and a soldierโ€™s fury cannot stand up against Icruriaโ€™s bureaucracy. With allies fading and time slipping away, Reid may have no choice but to infiltrate Asterya on his own to find the woman he loves and bring her home.

As Vaasaโ€™s magic begins to flare, she desperately seeks control, even if Ozik is the only one who can offer it. She then finds a cryptic final message from her mother about a precious missing necklace that might just be the answer to finally freeing her magic from Ozik. Yet when a ghost from Vaasaโ€™s past reemerges among the suitors vying for her hand, escape might be within reachโ€”but will it demand a betrayal that real love may not survive?

Nowhere Burning

Author Catriona Ward
Genres Horror, Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Adult, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Set in the unforgiving maw of the Rocky Mountains, Nowhere Burning is the latest harrowing novel from bestselling author Catriona Ward, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and the hit series Yellowjackets.

A refuge for lost children may also be their prison.

In the middle of the night, Riley pulls her younger brother Oliver out of bed, and the two run away from home. Riley is intent on joining a group of teenagers squatting in the abandoned ruins of an infamous movie starโ€™s ranch, Nowhere. For actor Leaf Winham, Nowhere was a place to hide from his fame, and to hide his crimesโ€•until a fire ravaged his home and exposed him as a murderer.

It is rumored that the ranch nestled in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains is now home to group of feral children, a place where adults cannot enter, and Riley hopes to find a new family there. But the Nowhere Kids are fierce in defending their turf and their clan, and Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have left the devil they knew, this group is a new type of diabolical.

For something dark lives in the burned shell of Nowhere, something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary...

Behind Closed Doors

Author Shain Rose
Genres Romance, Dark Romance, Dark, Contemporary
Publication Date February 24, 2026
With the scandalous intrigue of Desperate Housewives and the decadent spice of 365 Days, this first standalone in a sizzling new series from USA Today bestselling Booktok sensation Shain Rose welcomes you to Paradise Grove, a luxurious, ultra-private billionaire enclaveโ€”where the stakes are high, and the secrets are buried deep. Perfect for fans of Ana Huang, Rina Kent, Marni Mann, LJ Shen, and JT Geissinger.

*DELUXE LIMITED EDITION PAPERBACK featuring stenciled edges, cover effects, designed interiors, and special character art!*


Heโ€™s the forbidden enigma I wanted to ignore . . . but instead Iโ€™ll be forced to share a home with him.

Jameson Knight arrives at precisely the same time every day to pick up his young daughter from school, smiling as she runs into his open arms.

Itโ€™s the only time I see him smile.

I donโ€™t ask questions because itโ€™s not my place. Iโ€™m just his daughterโ€™s favorite teacher, nothing more. . . . Until the first bullet flies by us at recess.

Suddenly, Iโ€™m risking my life to protect her. And then Jameson drags me back to his estate, claiming itโ€™s a matter of life-or-death.

Now Iโ€™m in the most beautiful home Iโ€™ve ever seen, faced with an offer from a man whoโ€™s just as gorgeous: Be the temporary live-in nanny until he can ensure my safety and find a more permanent solution. Itโ€™ll be easy, he promises.

Yet, the arrangement is anything but simple.

Not when Jamesonโ€™s hungry stare is all consuming and his touch pulse racing.

And definitely not when I find that nothing in this neighborhood is as it seems, including Jameson.

He may be powerful, possessive, and protective. But heโ€™s also dangerous, demanding, and calculating.

As more of his secrets come out, I should run but . . .

How do I escape the enigma of Jameson Knight if heโ€™s already captured my heart?

Trust No One

Author James Rollins
Genres Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Adventure, Suspense, Action
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From the #1 New York Times bestselling master of international intrigue comes a shocking new stand-alone thriller that thrusts a group of university students, falsely accused of murder, into a treacherous hunt across Europe, all to unlock the secrets buried within a centuries-old book that could change humankind forever.

Knowledge can be magicโ€”until it falls into the wrong hands.

The ritualistic murder of a British professor at the University of Exeter points to a startling cast of his own students. All are enrolled in a postgraduate program covering the history of witchcraft, folklore, and spiritualism.

All evidence points to Sharyn Karrโ€”an American student. Prior to the professorโ€™s death, he had thrust a centuries-old book upon her. It appears to be the handwritten and encrypted diary of an eighteenth-century mystic and occultist, the Comte de Saint-Germain. The professor begged her to keep the text safe, ending with a warning.

Trust no one.

Such a responsibility forces her into cooperation with Duncan Maxwell, a fellow postgrad and the sixteenth in line to the British Crown. Already, Duncan has proven himself a savant with encryptions. Unfortunately, the pair clash at every level, but they both need one another. Especially when they discover the bookโ€™s opening Herein lies the secret to my immortality. Come find me, if you dare.

As dark forces close upon the pair, she and her friends are forced to flee, pursued by law enforcement and hunted by a powerful cabal. In an explosive chase across Europeโ€”from the Tower of London to Parisian chateaus to a fortress in the Italian Alpsโ€”Sharyn must learn the true secret hidden in Saint-Germainโ€™s text. It will send her and the others across history and deep into the heart of one of the worldโ€™s greatest mysteries, a secret buried at the roots of Western Civilization, a discovery that could topple empires and change humanity forever.

For what lies at the end of Saint-Germainโ€™s diary is as shocking as its opening words.

Dollface

Author Lindy Ryan
Genres Horror, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Adult, Fiction, Mystery, Contemporary
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Barbie meets Scream with a 90s nostalgia twist in this horror romp from Bless Your Heart author Lindy Ryan.

Horror author Jill has just moved to suburban New Jersey, hoping to fit in with the new PTA moms and maybe not weird everyone out with her Final Girl coffee mug. You know. Make some real friends.

But then a plastic face-masked serial killer begins slashing their way through town, one overly made-up mom at a time. The police are incredulous. The moms are indignant. And Jill is slowly wrapped into a killerโ€™s murderous spree, until she might just be the last woman standing.

A delightfully murderous novel that is equal parts scathing and salacious, Dollface will win you over with its gossip and gore, one body at a time.

โ€œA whimsical, bloody, unsettling suburban slasher with an unexpected twist." โ€“ New York Times bestselling author Delilah S. Dawson

The Fall of Iris Henley

Author Jennifer Graham
Genres Thriller, Mystery, Young Adult, Mystery Thriller, Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
For fans of Megan Lally and Kara Thomas, a twisty thriller about a Texas teen accused of murder who's desperate to clear her name.

All it takes to ruin someoneโ€™s life is the stroke of a key. Just ask Iris Henley. Her life is destroyed when someone posts an anonymous message on her high schoolโ€™s subreddit thread: โ€œIris Henley is a killer. Iโ€™ve been too scared to come forward until now, but I saw her murder Rocky and Lynette last summer.โ€

Just like that, Iris loses everything. Her reputation. Her friends. Her hope of getting into college on scholarship. Even, possibly, her freedom, once the police start to investigate. After all, sheโ€™s the perfect suspect: Rocky was her boyfriend, and Lynette was her ex-best friendโ€”and the girl he was cheating on her with. But Iris didnโ€™t do it, and now itโ€™s up to her to clear her name by finding out who didโ€”before itโ€™s too late.

Propulsive, sharp, and absolutely twisty from the New York Times bestselling author who brought readers the Veronica Mars duology, Jennifer Graham's YA thriller is unputdownable.

More Than Enough

Author Anna Quindlen
Genres Fiction, Book Club, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction, Family, Family Drama, Friendship
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A woman finds herself asking surprising questions about her family and friends in this wise, wonderful novel of life, loss, and moving onโ€”from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of After Annie

High school English teacher Polly Goodman can talk about everything and anything with the women in her book club, which is why theyโ€™ve become her closest friends and, along with the support of her veterinarian husband, the bedrock of her life. Her private school students, her fraught relationship with mother, her struggles with IVFโ€”Pollyโ€™s book club friends have heard it all.

But when they give Polly an ancestry test kit as a joke, the results match her with a stranger. Despite it seeming clear that this match is a mistake, Polly cannot help combing through her own family history for answers. Then, when it seems that the book club circle of four will become three, Polly learns how friendships can change your life in the most profound ways.

Written with Quindlenโ€™s trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, More Than Enough explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us.

Weavingshaw

Author Heba Al-Wasity
Genres Fantasy, Gothic, Romance, Romantasy, Adult, Fantasy Romance, Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
In this debut gothic fantasy, the first book of an enthralling fantasy romance trilogy, a young woman who can see the dead strikes a deal with a magnetic and dangerous purveyor of dark secrets to save her brotherโ€™s life.

Three years ago, Leena Al-Sayer awoke with a terrible power.

She can see the dead.

Since then, she has hidden herself from the world, knowing that if she ever reveals her curse she will be locked away in an asylum.

When her beloved brother, Rami, falls fatally ill, Leena is faced with a terrible Let him die or buy the expensive medicine that will save his life by bartering the only valuable thing she hasโ€”her secret.

The Saint of Silence, a ruthless merchant who trades in confessions and is shrouded in unearthly rumors of cruelty and power, accepts her bargain, for a deadly price. Leena must find the ghost of Percival Avon, the last lord of Weavingshawโ€”or lose her freedom to the Saint forever.

As Leenaโ€™s search takes her and the Saint to Weavingshaw, she finds the estate and the surrounding moors to be living thingsโ€”hungry for blood and sacrifice. Fighting against Weavingshawโ€™s might, Leena must also fight her growing pull toward the enigmatic Saint himself, whose connection to Percival Avon remains a mystery.

As the house begins to entomb them, time is running out on their desperate hunt for answers.

For Leena has come to see that here in Weavingshaw, the dead are not hushedโ€”and some secrets are better left buried with them.

A Good Animal

Author Sara Maurer
Genres Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A heart-wrenching coming-of-age debut novel by a stunning new voice in fiction, for readers of Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett.

In the farm country outside Sault Ste. Marie, Michiganโ€”a border town where life moves slow and dreams run fastโ€”most kids want out. Not Everett Lindt. Heโ€™s set on staying put, rebuilding his familyโ€™s sheep farm, and carving a future from the land he loves.

Then he meets Mary, a new girl in town with restless energy and bigger plans. When their relationship reaches a crossroads, Everett sees a life together; Mary, however, is desperate to find a way out. Together, they make an impulsive choiceโ€”one that will change everything.

Tense, lyrical, and deeply felt, Sara Maurer's unforgettable debut breathtakingly captures the ache of first love, the beauty and brutality of rural life, and how one decision can echo through generations and shape who we become.

A Crown of Stars

Author Shana Abe
Genres Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Adult, 20th Century, Adventure, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A sumptuously vivid and poignant account of the Lusitaniaโ€™s fateful last days, drawn from the true story of an extraordinary young actress who survived the unthinkableโ€”for fans of Marie Benedict, Louis Bayard, Fiona Davis, Kate Quinn, and HBOโ€™s The Gilded Age.

In turn of the century England, the Jolivet family lives a charmed existence. Daughter of a wealthy vineyard owner and a French pianist, vivacious Marguerite, the eldest of three, loves spinning stories and entertaining her familyโ€™s well-connected friends. No one is surprised when she announces, at 18, that she intends to become an actress. Her sister, Inez, a virtuosa violinist, moves to London with her. Soon the two beauties are being celebrated in the highest social circles.

Marguerite takes the stage name Rita, and quickly draws the attention of legendary theater producer Charles Frohman. From the West End to Broadway, and then in the new medium of silent film, Rita is known for her โ€œsultry eyes, her mystic smile,โ€ and her star burns brighter with every role. While filming in Italy, sheโ€™s courted by a charismatic aristocrat and Rita feels on the verge of a life even better than her dreams. Inez, meanwhile, has already found love, and travels the world with her adored husband.

Yet soon, war is raging across Europe. Rita, in New York for the premiere of Cecil B. DeMilleโ€™s The Unafraid, receives word from Inez that their brother is about to enlist. Hoping to see him before he departs, Rita books a ticket on the fastest steamer the RMS Lusitania. But the ship sails under a British flag, and the German government warns that all such vessels are fair game. Few believe Germany would risk attacking a ship carrying Americans, certainly not one as swift and imposing as the Lusy.

Once aboard, Rita is delighted to discover both Charles and her brother-in-law as fellow passengers.The days pass in a haze of parties and pleasurable pursuits, and the comforts of the luxury ocean liner are almost enough to calm Ritaโ€™s ripples of unease. But as the ship nears Liverpool, every assumption will be tested, and Rita, her family, and the world, will be changed forever by the voyageโ€™s infamous and catastrophic end . . .

Unread: A Memoir of Learning (and Loving) to Read on TikTok

Author Oliver James
Genres Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Books About Books, Adult, Education, Audiobook
Publication Date February 26, 2026
As a result of childhood learning disabilities and educational neglect, Oliver James graduated from high school and became one of over eight million functionally illiterate Americans. However, at age 34, with big dreams and few tools to actualize them, he dedicated himself to learning the key skill that had evaded him his entire reading.
Oliver become a TikTok/BookTok sensation for the way heโ€™s candidly documented his decision to learn to read as an adult, and his struggles and triumphs along the way. Here, he tells the full story behind his journey for the first time through the 21 key books that shaped and informed his experience. His story reveals the ways in which reading can teach each of us how to be better, more empathetic people. In just 365 days, Oliver went from barely being able to read a restaurant menu to closing in on his goal of finishing 100 books in a year. This Book Saved My Life is a moving reminder to all of us that words and stories have power, and that, no matter our past, it's never too late to grow.

Crown City

Author Naomi Hirahara
Genres Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Historical, Japan, Suspense
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Two young Japanese American men hired to investigate an art theft discover something much more sinister in turn-of-the-century Californiaโ€”from the Mary Higgins Clark Awardโ€“winning author of Clark and Division

Pasadena, 1903: Eighteen-year-old Ryunosuke โ€œRyuiโ€ Wada staggers off the boat from Yokohama, Japan, ready to reinvent himself after the untimely deaths of his parents. Though battling loneliness and culture shock, Ryui does his best to settle into his work as an antique dealerโ€™s apprentice while adjusting to his new home. From his enigmatic photographer roommate, Jack, to the beautiful seamstress living downstairs, Ryui finds himself surrounded by colorful characters and unbelievable opportunities and is soon utterly swept up in all โ€œCrown Cityโ€ has to offer.

But tensions are seething under Pasadenaโ€™s bustling prosperity. Ryui is the victim of an anti-Japanese attack, and a painting is stolen from the studio of Toshio Aoki, Pasadenaโ€™s most successful Japanese artist, who then hires Ryui and Jack to investigate. Itโ€™s not long before their investigations lead them into real danger. Ryui is a naive young man in a foreign countryโ€”has he bitten off more than he can chew?

In this fish-out-of-water mystery, studded with cameos by real historical figures, Edgar Awardโ€“winner Naomi Hirahara brings to life a fascinating slice of California history.

The Trident and the Pearl

Author Sarah K.L. Wilson
Genres Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Fantasy Romance, Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A desperate queen makes a deal with the gods to save her land in this spellbinding romantasy debut from Sarah K. L. Wilson.

Queen Coralys rules the Kingdom of the Five Isles, but when disaster strikes, killing her husband and destroying half her nation, she pleads with the gods for salvation. And they do save her, turning back the terrible winds and tide and snatching her islands from the brink of destruction.

But the gods have a wicked sense of justice and they demand an exchange for their help: Coralys must marry the first man to set foot on her pier. Coralys expects the fleet of a neighboring country to come to rescue her people, led by its prince, a loyal ally. What she gets instead is a fisherman so sunburnt and stinking that her court can barely keep their breakfast down.

Coralys marries the fisherman just as she promised the gods, and sets out with him in his unkempt dinghy, with nothing but hopes of revenge against the gods to keep her from despair. But what she does not know is that the fisherman is actually the god of the sea. And he stepped on her dock for a reason.

His own kingdom besieged, his body terribly wounded, and his place as a god threatened, the fisherman has plans to turn the tides set against him and finally offer a place of refuge for his people. But working the magic he needs will require the help of the one woman bent on his destruction.

Saoirse

Author Charleen Hurtubise
Genres Fiction, Ireland, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Family Drama, Audiobook, Irish Literature
Publication Date February 24, 2026
For readers of Colm Tรณibรญn and Claire Keegan, Saoirse is a powerful novel set between the United States and Ireland about a woman who runs from her traumatic past and the secrets she carries to survive.

In Michigan, Sarahโ€™s childhood was defined by fear and silence. As a teenager, she saw a chance to escape and took it. Now, in 1999, she is an artist living on the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she is known as Saoirse (pronounced Sear-sha)โ€”a name that sounds like the sea and means freedom in the language of her adopted country. And free is precisely how she is finally beginning to feel. Her partner and two beloved daughters are regular subjects of her paintings, and together they have made the safe home she always longed for. But Saoirse's secrets haunt her. No one must learn of the identity she has stolen in order to survive; they cannot know of the dangers that she crossed an ocean to escape.

When her artwork wins unexpected acclaim at a Dublin exhibition, the spotlight of fame threatens to unravel the careful lies that hold her world together. Journalists and admirers begin to ask questions about the mysterious artist from Donegal, and she fears the unwanted publicity will expose all that she has done.

Saoirse is an evocative, suspenseful exploration of the intimate relationship between art and life and the lies we tell ourselves in the name of reinvention.

The Iron Garden Sutra

Author A.D. Sui
Genres Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Adult, Fantasy, Mystery, Space Opera
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Klara and the Sun meets S. A. Barnesโ€™s Dead Silence with a touch of Becky Chambersโ€™ A Psalm for the Wild-Built in Nebula Award-winning author A.D. Suiโ€™s darkly philosophical murder mystery, as a death monk and a team of researchers trapped onboard a spaceship of the dead encounter something beyond human understanding.

Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the Starlit Order, performing funeral rites for the dead across the galaxy and guiding souls back into the Infinite Light. Despite the comfort he wants to believe he brings to the dead, his relationships with his fellow Vessels are distant at best, leaving him reliant on his AI construct for companionship.

The spaceship Counsel of Nicaea has been lost for more than a thousand years. A relic of Earthโ€™s dying past, humanity took the ship to the stars on a multi-generation journey to find another habitable planet yet never reached its destination. Its sudden appearance has attracted a team of academics eager to investigate its archeological history. And Iris has been assigned to bring peace to the crewโ€™s long departed souls.
Carpeted in moss and intertwined with vines, Nicaea is more forest than ship.

But the ship's plant life isnโ€™t the only sentience to have survived in the past millennia. Something onboard is stalking the explorers one by one. And Iris with his AI construct may be their only hope for survival. . .

Pinky Swear

Author Danielle Girard
Genres Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, Suspense
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From Danielle Girard, the USA TODAY bestselling author who โ€œeffortlessly ratchets up the tensionโ€ (J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author), comes a pulse-pounding thriller about a young woman whose surrogate disappears just days before the babyโ€™s due date, leading to a frantic search that uncovers dark truths and the power of a motherโ€™s love.

Lexi thought she knew everything about Mara Vannatta. Best friends since middle school, they drifted apart after a tragedy derailed their senior year. But when Mara shows up on Lexiโ€™s doorstep sixteen years later fleeing an abusive husband, Lexi takes her in without question. Lexiโ€™s own marriage has been strained by her desire to have a baby, and when Mara offers to become her surrogate, their friendship feels stronger than ever.

But four days before the due date, Mara disappears.

Lexi is shocked but certain there must be something wrongโ€”Mara would never willingly leave with her unborn child. Or would she? As she embarks on a perilous cross-country hunt for the truth, Lexi is forced to reconsider a friendship she thought she knewโ€”and what really happened that terrible night their senior year. How many secrets lie in their shared past, waiting to be uncovered? And just how far will Lexi go to bring her child safely home?

The Ghost Women

Author Jennifer Murphy
Genres Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Historical Fiction, Horror, Witches
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A mysterious art academy in the woods, a deck of ancient tarot cards, a centuries-old secret

On a hot August morning in 1972, the body of Abel Montague, a student at St. Lukeโ€™s Institute of the Arts, is found hanging from a tree in the forest. An ancient Hanged Man tarot card is found in the back pocket of his pants and his body has been positioned into the exact pose illustrated on the card.

When Detective Lola Germany arrives at St. Lukeโ€™sโ€”a former monastery that once housed a secret order of monks who carried out witch trials and executionsโ€”she believes they are dealing with a ritualistic murder. While interviewing school administrators and Abelโ€™s classmates, Lola discovers Abelโ€™s live-in girlfriend, Pearl, seems shaken but also might be hiding somethingโ€”along with her group of friends who call themselves witches.

When more students are found dead, each body arranged like a tarot card, Lola realizes she is trapped in a web of power and ambition that spans centuries. Soon the lines between past and present, spiritual and tangible, begin to blur, and the only way to survive is to seek answers from places she never imagined.

The Heir of Whitestone

Author Catherine Coulter
Genres Mystery, Romance, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
A brilliant young innovator with a mysterious past and a boldly sharp-witted Lady uncover deadly secrets in #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulterโ€™s thrilling, new Victorian-era romantic mystery filled with daring escapes, exciting twists, witty humor, and characters you wonโ€™t soon forget.


When Alex Ivanov was 12, someone tried to kill him. Now, 11 years later, they still want him dead.


England, 1842. Queen Victoria reigns, Buckingham Palace is overrun with rats, and the streets of London are filled with intrigue.

Alex Ivanov is a brilliant young innovator, designing cutting-edge train engines. But Alex has a secretโ€”he isnโ€™t really Alex Ivanov. As a boy, he was pulled from the Thames, presumed drowned, with no memory of who he was. Rescued and raised by the formidable Ryder Sherbrooke, Alex has built a new life, but his past is catching up with him.

Lady Camilla Rohman has problems of her own. Trapped by a scheming stepmother and a family determined to see her married off, she is as clever as she is desperate. When fate throws her into Alexโ€™s path, their connection is undeniable.

But as their whirlwind romance turns into marriage, danger follows. On their honeymoon, a series of deadly attacks make one thing clearโ€”someone wants Alex dead. As they race to uncover the truth, old enemies and long-buried secrets come to light, leading them to a shocking revelation that will change everythingโ€ฆ

After the Fall

Author Edward Ashton
Genres Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Dystopia, Adult, Humor, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire


Would humans really make great pets?

Humans must be silent.
Humans must be obedient.
Humans must be good.

All his life, John has tried to live by those rules. Most days, itโ€™s not too difficult. A hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick the last dregs of humanity out of the wreckage of a ruined world, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the "good" grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but heโ€™s always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend. Itโ€™s a better deal than most humans get.

But when Martok puts Johnโ€™s bond up as collateral against an abandoned house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martokโ€™s friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss who thinks Martok is something that he very much is not, a girl who was raised by feral humans and has nothing but contempt for pets like John, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him.

Also, not for nothing, something in the woods has been killing people.

John has sixty days before Martokโ€™s loan comes due to unravel the mystery of how humans wound up holding the wrong end of the domestication stick and find a way to turn Martokโ€™s half-baked plans into profit enough to buy back his life, all while avoiding getting butchered by feral humans or having his head crushed by an angry gray. Easy peasy, right?

Away to Me

Author Patricia B. McConnell
Genres Mystery, Dogs
Publication Date February 24, 2026
The vivid, immersive nature writing of William Kent Krueger and Peter Heller meets the taut suspense of Louise Penny against the lush, sprawling landscape of rural Wisconsin in the first of a new mystery trilogy by internationally renowned animal behavior expert Patricia McConnell, bestselling author of The Other End of the Leash and The Education of Will.

Maddie is living her best second life on a 40-acre sheep farm in rural Wisconsin. In addition to her passion for training sheepdogsโ€”including her spirited border collie Jackโ€”she sees all manner of dogs with behavioral problems ranging from biting to thunder phobia as part of her local practice. No stranger to trauma herself, Maddie has worked hard to recover from the ordeal of her previous marriage.

But things take a turn when Maddieโ€™s friend and mentor, George, is inexplicably killed by a rifle shot fired from the woods during a sheepdog trial. Maddie is devastated and also baffledโ€”itโ€™s not hunting season, and who could mistake a man, standing alone in a field, for a deer?

Sheโ€™s still reeling from Georgeโ€™s shooting when a shelter calls her for help with a German shepherd found half dead beside the highway whoโ€™s too aggressive to feed and care for. The dog flourishes at the farm, but when Maddie returns one day to find her house invaded, itโ€™s clear that she has stumbled into a situation far more complex and sinister than she realized. And her romantic involvement with an enigmatic young shelter worker soon leads to even more trouble. As Maddie continues to search for answers to Georgeโ€™s death, it quickly becomes apparent that her own life is once again in danger . . .

I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right

Author Matt Kaplan
Genres Nonfiction, Science, History
Publication Date February 24, 2026
An energetic work of popular science about various scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be acceptedโ€”from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners.

The Contrarians is a critical history of the scientific community, past and present, as Matt Kaplan shows how scientific breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the scientific community. Alternating between the past and the present, the book is anchored by the story of Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who helped discover germ theory by realizing Puerperal feverโ€”a devastating infection that most often strikes women who have recently given birthโ€”was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault. Semmelweis as a prime example of the inefficiency of scientific progressโ€”how hard the scientific community fights new ideas and new research, even when the facts are staring them in the face.

In snappy, accessible prose, Kaplan presents the cases of Galileo being threatened with torture, Charles Darwin facing social ostracism, and more recently, Katalin Karikรณ losing her job and her funding on the brink of discovering uses of mRNA โ€“ a discovery that would directly lead to the fast creation of a vaccine for Covid-19, and to a Nobel Prize for Karikรณ. With decades of first-hand reporting under his belt as the lead science reporter for the Economist, Kaplan makes the argument that science is hampered by the communityโ€™s resistance to younger scientists and new ideasโ€”making it exceptionally difficult or outright impossible for critically important findings to gain recognition.

Employing persuasive examples spanning history, The Contrarians makes a compelling argument that the scientific community can work faster and better, if only it is open to change.

Every Last Liar

Author Kate Francis
Genres Thriller, Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller
Publication Date February 24, 2026
They are all guilty. They all have to play the game. But only one can survive the night. 

Seven teens with a terrible secret are caught up in a deadly game of revenge. Every hour, one of them must sacrifice themselves until only one survivor remains. Otherwise, they all die.

On the first anniversary of a tragic fire at their high school, seven teenagers jump at the chance of a luxury desert retreat. But when they're left at a ramshackle motel and a sinister text message accuses them of complicity in the fire, they realize someone is playing a deadly game of revenge.

The rules? Every hour, one of them must sacrifice themselves, leaving the motel grounds to be killed, until only one survivor remains. Otherwise, they all die.

As the countdown begins, the stranded students confront the trauma of the previous year and decide who among them deserves to live, and who to die.

With time running out, can they work together to uncover who's running the game before the bodies pile up? Or will it be survival of the fittest?

The Fox Hunt: A Novel

Author Caitlin Breeze
Genres Fantasy, Dark Academia, Fiction, Contemporary, Science Fiction Fantasy, College
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Behind closed doors at Englandโ€™s most ancient university, a circle of privileged students enter into a dark pagan ritualโ€”one that holds tantalizing power and comes at a terrible price.

When practical, unassuming second-year student Emma Curran wins an exciting research fellowship, she is ushered into the glittering debauchery of the University elite. There, she falls for the devastating, aristocratic Jasper Balfour, leader of the all-male Turnbull Club: a shadowy secret society that has created centuries of Britainโ€™s leaders, power brokers and history-makers.

One night, the Turnbulls propose a sinister little game: a fox hunt. The women run. The men chase. And Emma finds herself fleeing for her life through the streets, hunted by the boy she loves.

Torn from her ordinary life and trapped in a dangerous, otherworldly realm, Emma awakens transformed. No longer mortal, she's become something beastly. And now she must summon every ounce of cunning and ferocity to save herself.

The Crossroads

Author C.J. Box
Genres Mystery, Fiction, Westerns, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Family
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Game warden Joe Pickett fights for his life as his daughters try to uncover who shot him and left him for dead in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C. J. Box.

Marybeth Pickett gets the call she has always her husband Joe is in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head.

Joe was found in his pickup at Antler Creek Junction, a crossroads connecting three ranches. Each road leading to a dangerous family. Each family with a different bone to pick with the local game warden. Marybeth and the new sheriff assume that Joe was ambushed by one of the families, but they have no idea which one since Joe didnโ€™t say where he was going or why.

With Joe unconscious and fighting for his life with Marybeth at his side, Sheridan, April, and Lucy split up and investigate each of families to uncover the truth of what happened to their father, before itโ€™s too late.

The Violin Maker's Secret

Author Evie Woods
Genres Fiction, Music, Historical, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Adult
Publication Date February 24, 2026
The Brand New Book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!Hewn by a master and passed down through generations, one violin charts its own course through historyโ€ฆ

Baggage claim agent Devlin, retired teacher Walter, and appraiser Gabrielle should have nothing in common, but when a single choice sets in motion a new chapter in the violinโ€™s story, they finally feel a part of something โ€“ something that matters, and which makes them matter.

Because as their search for the violinโ€™s origins unlocks a mystery stretching back decades, the instrument teaches them a melody they never expected.

All in Her Hands

Author Audrey Blake
Genres Historical Fiction, Fiction, Victorian, Historical, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From USA Today bestselling author Audrey Blake comes a story of love, hope, and perseverance, following one woman's fight against an invisible enemy.

One woman physician. A group of talented midwives. A deadly disease spreading.

1849. Dr. Nora Gibson is the only female surgeon in London. In all of England, even. After earning her medical degree and overcoming the prejudice of those who wished to see her fail, she's finally earned her place at the Great Queen Street Hospital alongside her newlywed husband and her eccentric but ailing adoptive father, the great Dr. Horace Croft.

But peace is hard to come by as a physician, and for one like Nora, it's almost impossible. When Nora takes up the fight to bring midwives into the medical field, her already fragile reputation comes under fire by colleagues and London society itself. And if the possibility of losing her rights to practice medicine wasn't enough, a dangerous enemy has made itself the deadliest cholera epidemic in over a century. It's a swift disease that wreaks havoc and tragedy across the city, especially amongst the working classes, and Nora will do anything she can to help. Soon, she finds herself on the frontlines of the disease, and as those around her begin to fall, she'll have to find the strength to stand alone and maintain her greatest to save lives. Whether she'll make it through, though, is up to fate.

Hormone Healthy Eats: 100 Recipes to Balance Your Hormones, Support Your Cycle, and Feel Your Absolute Best

Author Lauren Chambers
Genres Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Cooking, Self Help
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Discover how simple it is to eat in tune with your cycle with this groundbreaking cookbook from nutritionist and hormone health coach Lauren Chambers, featuring 100 crave-worthy, nutrient-dense recipes and color photography throughout.

Our hormones play a major role in our lives, yet so many women in their reproductive yearsโ€”defined as being from first period through menopauseโ€”struggle with hormonal imbalances, and the uncomfortable, embarrassing, and painful symptoms that come with them. Nutritionist Lauren Chambers has dedicated her life to helping women optimize their hormones, health, fertility, and lives, with impactful results through focusing on rotating in a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods depending on where you are in your cycle. 

Nutrition is one of the best hormone balancing tools you have at your disposal. In Hormone Healthy Eats, Chambers outlines the four core principles of hormone imbalance and teaches you how to support the ebbs and flows of your hormones and menstrual cycle through delicious recipes, simple tips, and natural remedies. Whether youโ€™re looking to get your cycle back on track, improve your fertility, or simply connect with your body, the advice and recipes in this book will help you to listen to your bodyโ€™s cues, preserve energy, replete lost nutrients, reduce and reverse your symptoms, and thrive.

Featuring 25 easy-to-prepare, whole foods, gluten-free recipes per phase (menstrual, follicular, ovulation, and luteal) like Green Goddess Chickpea Smash Toast, Cozy Autumn Harvest Bowls, and Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter PMS Brownies, Hormone Healthy Eats makes it easy to make eating and supporting your body through food and cooking for your hormone health a ritual.

The Second World

Author Jake Korell
Genres Science Fiction, Humor
Publication Date February 24, 2026
Mars has declared its independence from Earth. But building a country takes more than a new flag, an arena-worthy anthem, and naming Pluto the donkey the national animal. As the Red Planet spirals into political upheaval, Flip Buchananโ€”the irreverent, reluctant son of the most powerful man on Marsโ€”stumbles through two tumultuous decades of alien discoveries, killer clones, and the chaos of a new nation still working out the kinks.

Always second-best in a family obsessed with being first, Flip must grapple with the absurdity of Martian society and the gravity of legacy to step out of his fatherโ€™s shadow and define self-worth on his own termsโ€”a feat that can feel as impossible as climbing Olympus Mons.

For fans of Andy Weir and Kurt Vonnegut, this satirical coming-of-age space epic blends sharp wit, surprising emotional depth, and bold worldbuilding. Equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, The Second World navigates found family, generational divides, and the outrageous struggle to make your finite life matter in an infinite universeโ€”with poignant reflections on power, sensationalized media, and fractured culture.

The Twelve

Author Joey Graceffa
Genres Fantasy, Witches, Young Adult, Paranormal
Publication Date February 24, 2026
From New York Times bestselling author and renowned creator Joey Graceffa comes a pulse-pounding YA fantasy where witches hunt witches, magic has a price, and sisterhood is the only thing standing between light and darkness.

Welcome to the coven.

Each month, a Zodiac Witch is born, her magic written by the stars.

Ophelia and Serenaโ€”twin sisters born on the cusp of Pisces and Ariesโ€”are trapped in the cold confines of an orphanage until fate rips them from obscurity. Suddenly, they are invited into The Twelve, a powerful coven. To join, they must swear to hunt Dark Witches, creatures of spectral beauty and razor-sharp teeth who survive by siphoning magic from young witches.

On a secret island, protected by their new sisters, Ophelia and Serena train to use their powers. Serena commands Lightning, raw and untamed. Ophelia wields Water, quiet and waiting. Their paths shiftโ€”one chasing power, the other resistingโ€”as the sisters find themselves caught between two destinies. Some choices can never be undone but they must decide, because magic does not wait, and the darkness is coming for them in ways they could never imagine. After all, the stars never shine without casting shadows.

Brawler: Stories

Author Lauren Groff
Genres Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, 21st Century, Literature, Adult Fiction
Publication Date February 24, 2026
One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with a fierce new story collection, her first since the award-winning and bestselling Florida .

Each story in Lauren Groffโ€™s electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. They hum in exhilarating resonance. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region -- from New England to Florida to California -- these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared the ceaseless battle between humansโ€™ dark and light angels.

โ€œIn every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death,โ€œ one character tells us. Among those we see caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult, a mother blinded by the loss of her family, and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by the double edges of other peoplesโ€™ good intentions, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can.

Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive. It is a timeless, stunning achievement from one of the very best short story writers working today.

A Rose of Blood and Binding

Author Claire Legrand
Genres Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Fantasy Romance, Fiction, Adult
Publication Date February 24, 2026
New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn, Claire Legrand, delights in this thrilling conclusion to the steamy, lush, and epic Middlemist trilogy, perfect for fans of Bridgerton and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

WAR IS RAGING IN EDYN.

The battered Middlemist can barely hold itself together. Olden monsters terrorize the land. The gods are awakening from their ancient slumber, but if the vengeful Kilraith destroys them, all will be lost. And it's up to the Ashbourne sistersโ€”demigods, daughters of the goddess Kerezenโ€”to stop him.

But the sisters are spread thin. Gemma and Talan travel the world in a desperate search for the gods. In the capital, Farrin and Ryder shelter countless refugees amid roiling unrest. And Mara Ashbourne, bound to the Middlemist and longing for a home she can never return to, is just trying to survive.

Every day is chaos as Mara battles invaders and fights to protect her fellow Roses. The presence of librarian Gareth Fontaineโ€”assigned to aid the Roses' war effortsโ€”doesn't help. Charming, brilliant, far too confident, and annoyingly reverent of the Rosesโ€”Mara most of allโ€”he's a distraction Mara can't avoid or afford. Especially since she can see the shadows of Mhorghast brimming underneath his dazzling smile. Shadows of violence and shame that she knows all too well. Shadows that terrify her more than any monster.

As Mara and Gareth search the Old Country for Kilraith's final three curse-anchors, a slow-burning passion born of sorrow and solace sparks between them, one that could finally bring Mara to the very home she longs forโ€ฆor drive her toward the dark fate she secretly craves, and bring both worlds crashing down alongside her.

Flame Theory

Author C.F.E. Black
Genres Fantasy, Dragons, Romantasy, Young Adult, Romance
Publication Date February 27, 2026
An imposter. A mafia heir. A dragon race that could kill them both.
The perfect mashup of Six of Crows and How to Train Your Dragon.

Itโ€™s illegal to own a wild dragon. Itโ€™s even more illegal to bond with one.

Iโ€™ve spent my life scraping by in the cityโ€™s underbelly, doing whatever it takes to give my family a better future. So when Iโ€™m offered a place at the kingdomโ€™s most prestigious dragon riding academy, I seize the chanceโ€”no matter that Iโ€™m diving headfirst into dangerous waters. To survive, I have to hide who I am and keep the truth about my dragon buried deep.

But at Cardan Lott College, secrets donโ€™t stay hidden long. Especially not from Rushland Covingtonโ€”the academyโ€™s golden heir whoโ€™s far too clever for his own good. Behind that perfect smile, heโ€™s chasing a forbidden mystery about dragonsโ€ฆand somehow, Iโ€™m the key to solving it.

Bound by secrets, we form a reluctant alliance that leads us down a path that will permanently alter our lives and possibly our entire world. Some secrets are meant to be uncovered, and others are meant to stay hidden. But the fire growing between us is the most dangerous truth of all.

If you loved Hiccup and Toothless, but this time you want it set in an elite academy like Maxton Hall where dragon racing is the school sport, then youโ€™re in the right place. The first in an addictive new YA fantasy series, Flame Theory features the start of a no-spice, swoon-worthy romance filled with banter, dragon races, rivalries, and hidden truths.

Welcome to the world of dragon racing.

First Witches Club

Author Maisey Yates
Genres Romance, Fantasy, Fiction, Paranormal, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Witches
Publication Date March 1, 2026
When three betrayed wives stumble into a magical apothecary shop, they discover that revenge is sweetโ€”but finding true love and their own power is even sweeter in this witty, romantic novel about second chances from New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates.

Nora, Daisy, and Soraya think their marriages are just fine. Until their husbands prove them wrong.

Noraโ€™s says he needs distance and flits off to a wellness retreat in Chile. Daisyโ€™s confesses to an affair with someone younger. And Sorayaโ€™s sends her a pic of that special part of himselfโ€”meant for another woman. At a loss for what to do, they follow their intuition right into Ladyโ€™s Mantle Apothecary.

As they embrace their untapped magic, their fortunes begin changing fast. Getting even with their exes is satisfying, but the real magic happens when they start opening their hearts to new possibilities. Nora discovers that true love might have been right in front of her all along in the form of her childhood best friend. Daisy finds herself falling for her ex-husbandโ€™s handsome business partner, a former TV star who sees the real her. And Soraya, who never dated before marriage, experiences an unexpected attraction to the mysterious owner of the game shop across the hall.

With the help of an enigmatic shopkeeper, these three women discover that the best revenge isnโ€™t just about hexes and karmaโ€”itโ€™s about finding your own path to love, friendship, and claiming your power. And that is positively magical.

Leave It Up To Love

Author Kristy Woodson Harvey
Genres Romance, Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Ebooks, Novella, Amazon
Publication Date March 1, 2026
From New York Times bestselling author Kristy Woodson Harvey comes a funny, feel-good taleโ€”a seaside romp about chasing dreams, losing illusions, and writing your own story.

Ready for her big break after publishing her first novel, Lila Everwood has two fresh book ideas and dreams of quitting her barista job. Sheโ€™s hopeful about her futureโ€”until her writing catches her literary idolโ€™s attention in all the wrong ways.

Elizabeth Lancaster, the queen of regency romance, hasnโ€™t written a word in three years. Her publisherโ€™s solution? A ghostwriter. Specifically, her favorite coffee server. Itโ€™s either brilliance or madnessโ€”and her literary agent son Grady thinks itโ€™s definitely the latter.

As the ideas begin to fly, so do the sparksโ€”between Lila and Grady. And, as Lilaโ€™s and Elizabethโ€™s worlds collide, the two writers must lean on each other, learning something vital in the In life, love, and publishing, sometimes you have to write your own happy ending.

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments down below.

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