September 2026 list by K. Pearson |
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Again Behold the Stars
by Jessie Latimer
Rigby Rhymes has always dreamed of adventure — secret passageways, magic spells, dashing sword-wielding heroes — but she dies before any of it can happen. Then an eccentric angel offers her a deal: enter the story-world of her favorite novel and save the brooding villain, Wick, from his fate at the end, and she'll get a second chance at life.
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All the Queens' Curses
by Alyssa Hollingsworth
Kit is a chronically ill princess abused by her stepfather, finding comfort only in her stepsister Catharine — until their mother's fae bargain accidentally swaps their bodies. Fleeing to break the curse, they find the prince they seek is cursed too. He offers to help, but the closer Kit grows to him, the less she wants to switch back — even if staying means living a life that was never hers.
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A Clash of Carnivores
by Liselle Sambury
August Black fought to bond herself to a Monster partner, Virgil — and now their connection keeps growing despite a forbidden kiss he wants to forget. As they prepare for the Monster's Ball, a brutal tournament where pairs battle for the title of Master, August is consumed by her quest to find her mother's killer. Her vendetta leads her to accidentally bond with Nolan, a Wild Monster who wants nothing to do with her. Now the three must work together to survive the tournament — but August's obsession with revenge threatens to break both bonds and cost her everything, including herself.
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Cursed by the Dawn
by Logan Karlie
Freeing Erebus from his five-hundred-year prison didn't end Esmer's nightmare — it started a new one. Now bound as Shadow Weavers, they face Raelion, a demon king whose corruptive curse twists dreams into nightmares and humans into monsters. To survive, they must forge an army from the broken and unravel ancient horrors in time. But when they're cast from the Dream Realm into a crumbling kingdom, they discover something monstrous has already slipped through — and it may devour their love before they can stop it.
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A (Dead) Thing Like Me
by E. G. Young
When Hot Dog, a lonely ghost haunting a New York food cart, is accidentally summoned, she is ecstatic that Logan, an eighteen-year-old senior grieving the loss of her best friend, can see her, but as the two become friends, a sinister presence in Logan's house threatens to pull them both into darkness unless they face their pasts.
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The Hardest Ones to Fool
by Christina Li
Amelia Wu has three boyfriends — a debate team captain, an indie filmmaker, and a tennis star — and none of them know about each other. To each, she's someone different: Amy, Ellie, Mia. It works perfectly, until her best friend turns up dead and her carefully constructed web of relationships starts to unravel. In desperation, Amelia teams up with Jackie, her academic nemesis and true crime obsessive, to uncover the truth. Keeping her boyfriends close and her enemies closer was always the plan — now it might be the only thing keeping her scam, and herself, alive.
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The Harrow Home for Wayward Girls
by Jessica Spotswood
The Harrow Home has housed hundreds of young women hidden away during their pregnancies — and Grace has grown up in the middle of it all. When the estate is sold and she forms an unlikely friendship with the new owner's eldest daughter, Rose, they begin unraveling the Home's dark legacy together. But one former resident never left, and she wants the truth exposed. Grace's father will stop at nothing to keep it buried — and the fallout could destroy both families.
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Heartbreak and Other Organ Failures
by Taylor Hobbs
There is no one in the world that Kaley loves more than her older sister Zoey, who has developmental disabilities and medical complications. When the sisters learn that Zoey needs a new kidney but is at the bottom of the transplant list, they set off on a madcap family road trip to find their estranged father, who might agree to donate. Nothing will stand in Kaley’s way―with Zoey’s health stable, Kaley can follow her boyfriend to an out-of-state college next fall. Then Kaley learns that her mom has her own plans for the sisters’ futures. Kaley must reconcile the caretaker role she was born into with the desire to discover her own identity, and decide what she’s willing to do for the person she loves most.
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Heavensent & Hellbent
by Sara Jafari
Roxana wants to relax for the rest of summer. Moving from England to Colorado was exhausting. Especially when she's been avoiding her dad, grieving her mom, and failing to conquer sleep paralysis. Life couldn't possibly get any more complicated. Then Roxy bumps into a beautiful and familiar boy. Zain. In her nightmares, they're being burned together at the stake. And in the real world, she watches him kill a man, altering life as she knows it. She quickly learns that not only do jinn--demons--exist, but angels too.
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Little Monsters
by Máire Roche
In this modern supernatural middle grade retelling of the beloved classic Little Women, the March sisters have a monstrous secret Meg will do anything to protect--especially with another beast lurking in the woods threatening to expose them. Meg March and her three sisters are monsters. No, really. Meg has teeth that are a little too sharp. Jo gets furry under the full moon. Beth goes night flying on wings that are impossible to hide under her sweaters. And Amy? Well, don't let her near a body of water or she'll start sprouting her mermaid's tail.
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A Lovely and Deadly Dance
by Claire Andrews
Someone is killing off Queen Victoria's closest allies, leaving cryptic messages at every crime scene — and Irene Adler is called back to England to find out why. Reunited with Sherlock Holmes, she follows leads deep into the secrets of England's wealthiest families, the spark between them growing harder to ignore. But the closer Irene gets to the truth, the more she dreads it. Proving herself an Adler — not a Moriarty — may cost her the worst heartbreak of her life.
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Lucy in Between
by Sarah Callender
When thirteen-year-old Lucy's older brother commits suicide, she and her mother travel to Peru to stay with the father she has never really known to try and cope with their grief.
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Monster, Monarch, Maiden
by Rae Carson
Bria Angarsold is just an innkeeper's daughter with a Gift she's never found much use for — until raiders destroy her family and she's taken captive. A chance encounter with a brooding, secretive traveler named Titus changes everything. His quest is perilous and the odds are grim, but Bria finds herself following him to the Edge of the World anyway. She's no chosen one. But she is a survivor — and this is her story.
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Practically Magic
by Jen Calonita
When Kat Hadley discovers her sister cast a curse to shield her from heartbreak, her fury breaks more than their bond — it breaks magic itself. Now every spell ever cast by a Hadley witch is reversing, the veil between worlds is thinning, and Halloween in Mystic Hollow is looking truly dire. Oh, and every boy who ever rejected Kat is suddenly head over heels for her. It's a lot to untangle — especially when she's not sure she wants to.
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The River She Became
by Emily Varga
When scholar-turned-thief Yaseema crosses the River into the fae world in search of a relic to save her conquered people, she forms an uneasy alliance with a captain hiding his own rebellion, and together they must survive curses, monsters, and a dangerous bond as each fights to claim the same relic for their own.
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Such Great Heights
by Rajani Larocca
Siya Kumar joins her school's mock trial team to honor her late mother — a lawyer who believed truth burns away every lie. But when a team bonding mishap puts her relationship with soccer star Raj in jeopardy, and the details of their mock trial case start echoing the circumstances of her mother's death a little too closely, Siya has to ask a harder question: is the truth always worth chasing? A contemporary retelling of the Ramayana about love, grief, and the cost of looking back.
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Waiting on a Miracle
by Anika Fajardo
When little Antonio sneaks out of the Encanto to fix the family's faltering magic, Mirabel has no choice but to drag Luisa and Isabela into the outside world to bring him back. What begins as a frantic rescue mission turns into something bigger — a magical quest, a band of strangers with a surprising connection to the Madrigals, and the slow realization that the cracks in the family run deeper than anyone knew. A "what if" that sends the sisters beyond everything they've ever known, and asks whether the magic was really the most important thing holding them together.
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Wayfarers
by Jeff Zentner
Sylvie is running from something. Knox is searching for something. When a runaway golden retriever and a broken arm throw them together on the open road, what starts as an apology ride becomes a journey neither of them expected. Told in verse and conversation, Wayfarers layers two very different kinds of loneliness — a girl with too much past and a boy with almost no present — into a slow-burn road trip romance that asks whether you can really let someone in when you're still figuring out who you are. Cowritten by Jeff Zentner and Brittany Cavallaro, it's a love story built from miles, secrets, and the courage to stop writing yourself in vanishing ink.
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Whenever You Are
by Martine Leavitt
Clem caused an accident that landed him in juvenile detention. Inside, he meets Finn — a boy with an even darker history — and the two form an unlikely bond. But when solitary confinement pushes Finn to the edge, he starts raving about a portal in his cell, a way to rewrite their mistakes. Then he vanishes. Told through Clem's interrogation by officials and one unnerving stranger, this poetry-threaded mystery asks a haunting question: if you could undo the worst thing you ever did, would the person you fought to become disappear with it?
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Wings of Reverie
by Anna Bright
Frost fairy Periwinkle has never dreamed before — so when vivid, terrifying visions of the Pixie Dust Tree's destruction begin haunting her sleep, she doesn't know what to make of them. Enter Weaver, an infuriatingly handsome sparrow man who claims to be the last dream-talent fairy alive. He believes he can spin Peri's dreams into protective magic — but only if they venture together into the uncharted heart of the Winter Woods to find ancient, lost tools of his kind.
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