2026 Book Releases I'm Excited About

Hello, everyone! Even though we are halfway through February, it's not too late to talk about all the new releases we're excited to read. So, I've compiled a list with all the 2026 books that caught my eye (plus an extended list). As you will find, some are already out, but some are still months away. 

So, here are the 2026 book releases I'm looking forward to reading:

#1 Sisters in Yellow, by Mieko Kawakami

Publication Date: March 17th, 2026

This is the second year that this about appears in my most anticipated books list. But 2026 is finally the year that this book will get translated and published. Mieko Kawakami is an author I'm very interested in, so it's only natural that I will pick any new release we have from her. 

Blurb:

All of them are fleeing something. Growing up without a father, Hana’s tired of the pity in her classmates’ eyes, and finds a flashier mother figure in Kimiko. Kimiko is older than Hana's mother but seems much younger, chatting easily about school and boys and wanting a better life. Fate throws them together with two more young women—bruised but not broken by life. Together the four set out to remake their lives, fighting predatory lenders, organized criminals, and plain bad luck as they open a bar called Lemon.

Keeping the business going, and trying to take care of each other, forms the core of this enrapturing novel. It is a story of startling reversals and vivid portraits of the matriarchy of Tokyo nightlife and its adjacent criminal underclasses. From the bar owners to the aging hostesses to the young street touts coaxing people off the street to places like Lemon, everyone wants a chance at renewal, but can everyone get it?

#2 Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep, by Paul Tremblay

Publication Date: June 30st, 2026

Last year was the year that I tried Paul Tremblay for the first time. In fact, A Head Full of Ghosts landed in my best books of 2025. So, I'm excited that in 2026 I will be reading his latest release as a fan. Plus, I have read and loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and I'm curious to find how Paul Tremblay got inspired by Philip K. Dick.

Blurb:

Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn’t like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world’s largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can’t refuse. One sham interview later, she’s offered the to chaperone a man in a vegetative state—one with proprietary AI implanted in his head—from California to the East Coast.

To sum up in Julia’s own “You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country.” In a word, yes. But he’s not dead dead.

Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he’s trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn’t remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can’t remember.

Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls “Bernie” from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was—and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.

#3 Cathedrals, by Claudia Piñeiro

Publication Date: May 26th, 2026

I am actually surprised that Cathedrals will only get published this year. You see, this book has been translated to Greek for a couple of years, and I've only heard the best things about it. I will try to read it before its published in English, so that I can tell you about it. 

Blurb:

Lia fled her home after a brutal crime decades ago, but family, and the truth, will never let you go.

Thirty years ago, in an empty plot of a quiet neighbourhood, a teenage girl's body was found quartered and burned. The investigation ended with no arrests and her family – middle class, educated, Catholic – quietly disintegrated. Three decades later, the hidden truth comes to light thanks to the father's enduring love for the victim. That truth will reveal the raw realities lurking behind appearances, the cruelty of those who prioritize obedience and religious fanaticism, the complicity of the fearful and the indifferent, and the loneliness and desperation of those who seek to follow their own path, ignoring the dictates of their elders.Just as she did with Elena Knows and A Little Luck , Claudia Piñeiro delves into family ties, social prejudice, and the ideologies and institutions that affect our inner worlds to deliver a brave, moving novel that strikes at the heart of these private dramas.

#4 I Know A Place, by Nat Cassidy

Publication Date: May 5th, 2026

There is no surprise that another 2026 horror release is among my most anticipated books. In fact, I'm already reading this book as the publisher was kind enough to send me an ARC. This is a short story collection that also includes Nat Cassidy's novella Rest Stop.  

Blurb:

There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.

A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes... A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk... A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen... A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment... A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming...

These supernatural and sinister locations are your destination, and bestselling author Nat Cassidy will be your guide. Featuring the Bram Stoker Award–nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop (one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of 2024), along with a number of other original short stories, some which have never been published before, I Know A Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes...and teeth.

Let’s hope you make it home in one piece—if the ghosts, gory visions, and splatterpunk nightmares don’t get you first.

#5 Vigil, by George Saunders

Publication Date: January 27th, 2026

Ever since the release of this book last month, I've been debating reading it. Despite the reviews though, I really really want to pick it up as it discusses themes that I usually love. Is this the best way to get started with George Saunders? I'm not sure, but we will find out. Plus, if I like this one, I will know that I will love Lincoln in the Bardo that is themetically similar. 

Blurb:

Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion.

She has performed this sacred duty three hundred and forty-three times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the The powerful K.J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it?

Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of an epic, complicated life. Crowds of people and animals—worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead—arrive, clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room, a black calf grazes on the loveseat, a man from a distant drought-ravaged village materializes, two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s post-death future.

#6 Black September, by Sandro Veronesi

Publication Date: June 18th, 2026

This is an author I've never heard of before, but this cover made me stop. And when I read the synopsis, I just knew that I have to read this book. It just sounds so up my alley, hitting the themes that I usually love in a book. It will be a perfect read for the summer. 

Blurb:

Black September tells the story of the blossoming of a twelve-year-old boy, Gigio Bellandi, during a summer in Versilia, Tuscany, in 1972: his discovery of music, reading, restlessness, desire, love - and then the unthinkable, lightning-fast interruption of it all. It reconstructs with vivid precision the images, smells, colours, and sounds that animated that lost season, and the irreversible event that overturns it.

But this is also a novel about the evocative power of words and the seductive power of language, as it tells the story of an explosion of a pure and surprising talent, also destined to last that of literature and translation.

#7 Hunger and Thirst, by Claire Fuller

Publication Date: June 2nd, 2026

A literary horror? Yes, please! Hunger and Thrist is one of the books that immediately drew me in from its blurb. I love anything that has to do with art and an art school. Plus, I would like to read more gothic literature, and this one seems to fit the genre. 

Blurb:

1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and—delightfully— some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.

But as Sue’s behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry—for food—and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. It's a decision that will haunt her for decades.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.

#8 How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates, by Shailee Thompson

Publication Date: February 3rd, 2026

All of the previous books so far have been too serious. But I also love fun and entertaining reads like How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates. Fortunately, this book is already out and I think that I'll be picking it up soon. What do you mean this is a horror and a romance? 

Blurb:

When Jamie Prescott and her best friend Laurie attend a speed-dating event, Jamie expects to meet a roster of mediocre men and indulge in some street food afterwards. She doesn’t expect one of her dates to have his throat slit at their table during a blackout. When the lights come back on and there are more bodies on the floor, it becomes clear that speed dating can be a very dangerous pastime.

Armed with makeshift weapons and Jamie’s extensive knowledge of what NOT to do in a horror movie, the remaining speed daters try to find an exit while the killer adds to their body count. As the night progresses and Jamie comes face-to-mask with the murderer, she begins to suspect he is committing the slayings to woo one of the daters and turn her into his real-life Final Girl. But Jamie has a different love story in mind, and as she fights for her life, she can’t help but find herself ensconced in a love triangle with two of the other speed-daters. Will she survive the bloodshed to find her happily ever after? Or does this machete-wielding psychopath have another Final Girl in mind?

#9 Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter, by Heather Fawcett

Publication Date: February 17th, 2026

This is the second year in a row that Heather Fawcett appears in the books I'm most excited to read. I had loved the Emily Wilde series and I'm a cat mom, so this book is for me (plus, look at this cover). I'm hoping that it will make me feel warm inside.

Blurb:

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life—and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a much-needed cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for lost cats.

But after she is forced to move the cat shelter, Agnes learns that her new landlord is using her charity as a front—for an internationally renowned and thoroughly disreputable magic shop. Owned by the disorganized—not to mention self-absorbed, irritating, but also decidedly handsome—Havelock Renard, magician and failed Dark Lord, the shop draws magical clientele from around the world, partly due to the quality of Havelock’s illicit goods as well as their curiosity about his shadowy past and rumors of his incredible powers. Agnes's charity offers the perfect cover for illegal magics.

Agnes couldn’t care less about the shop—magical intrigue or not, there are cats to be rescued. But when an enemy from Havelock’s past surfaces, the magic shop—and more importantly, the cat shelter—are suddenly in jeopardy. To save the shelter, will Agnes have to set aside her social conscience and protect the man who once tried to bring about the apocalypse—and is now trying to steal her heart?

#10 Good People, by Patmeena Sabit

Publication Date: February 3rd, 2026

This year, I'm planning on reading more literary fiction that I somehow failed to do in 2025. Good People sounds such a good book, even though I'm pretty sure that it's going to be a heavy read. However, I do enjoy reading about challenging topics and feel for the characters. This is another book that has already been published, so I can pick it up right away. 

Blurb:

Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask.

The Sharaf family is the picture of success. Successful, rich, happy. They came to this country as refugees with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. And now, after years of hard work, they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye.

When an unthinkable tragedy strikes, everyone is left reeling and the family is thrust into the court of public opinion. There is talk that behind closed doors the Sharafs’ happy household was anything but. Did the Sharaf family achieve the American dream? Or was the image of the model immigrant family just a façade?

Apart from these though, there are some additional 2026 book releases that I'm looking forward to. I don't want to make this post too long, so I'm going to briefly mention them:

• The Last Contract of Isako, by Fonda Lee (pub. May 5th, 2026)
• The Ending Writes Itself, by Evelyn Clarke (pub. April 7th, 2026)
• How to Get Away with Murder, by Rebecca Philipson (pub. February 24th, 2026)
• Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke (pub. April 7th, 2026)
• Caller Unknown, by Gillian McAllister (pub. May 5th, 2026)
• This Story Might Save Your Life, by Tiffany Crum (pub. March 10th, 2026)
• Japanese Gothic, by Kylie Lee Baker (pub. April 14th, 2026)
• Molka, by Monika Kim (pub. April 30th, 2026)
• The Caretaker, by Marcus Kliewer (pub. April 21st, 2026)
• Hunger, by Choi Jin-Young (pub. May 12th, 2026)
• Lost Lambs, by Madeline Cash (pub. January 13th, 2026)
• The Age of Calamities, by Senaa Ahmad (pub. January 13th, 2026)
• Just Watch Me, by Lior Torenberg (pub. January 20th, 2026) 

What are the 2026 book releases that you're most anticipating?