March 2026 list by Donalee Jacobs |
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Adrift
by Will Dean
Peggy and Drew, both aspiring writers, move to an isolated canal boat with their fourteen-year-old son. Peggy is the glue that holds their family together, even as their son is bullied relentlessly for his physique and his family's lack of money. But when Drew becomes frustrated by his wife's sudden writing success, he moves their boat further and further from civilization. With their increasing isolation, personal challenges become harder to ignore, even as they desperately try to break toxic generational patterns. But when Drew's gaslighting becomes too much for Peggy to take, it sets off a catastrophic series of events.
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An Unconventional Lady
by Sarah E. Ladd
Ella Wilde has long dreamed of opening a school for girls at Keatley Hall. However, unless she marries before her father dies, Keatley Hall will pass into the hands of a distant cousin, leaving Ella destitute. Before her death, Ella's mother tried to expose the science of phrenology as a fraud and was exposed herself. Now, a renowned phrenologist will speak at the Natural Philosophers' Society gathering, and Ella embraces the opportunity to clear her mother's name. Working with her childhood friend and solicitor Gabriel Rowe to unmask the truth, their attraction becomes impossible to ignore and, as the lines between professionalism and relationship blur, they must decide what they're willing to risk for happiness.
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Anderson in Bloom
by Jennifer Dugan
From the author of Love at First Set, a hilariously sexy enemies-to-lovers, second-chance rom-com about a reclusive former child star turned florist whose quiet life is turned upside down when her annoyingly hot ex (and former costar) shows up in town, with plans to write a tell-all memoir.
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Brawler: Stories
by Lauren Groff
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 theme: the ceaseless battle between humans' dark and light angels.
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The Best Little Motel in Texas
by Lyla Lane
A charming, edgy mystery about a young woman who unexpectedly inherits the best little motel in Texas - replete with a feisty set of golden working girls, a poisoned priest, and a sleepy hometown thrown into chaos.
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Cleopatra
by Saara El-Arifi
Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative historical epic from the bestselling 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 ever in love's thrall. Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves. Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children. How willfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule. Death will silence me no longer. This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.
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A Far-Flung Life
by M. L. Stedman
From the author of The Light Between Oceans, comes a sweeping story of a family, a tragedy, and the aftermath that reverberates for decades. 1958: Remote Western Australia, the MacBrides have lived on a vast sheep station, Meredith Downs, for generations. One day patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire family are shattered. Tragedy revisits with the loss of one sibling and then another gives up everything for the sake of a child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no guide. The secrets at the heart of this gutting story force him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.
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Heir of Illusion
by Madeline Taylor
Blessed with the power of illusion, Ivy Pomeroy has many tricks up her sleeve. However, none of them are a match for the enchanted collar at her throat that keeps her bound to a ruthless king. Forced to play the role of his obedient pet, she plots in secret to destroy him and claim her freedom. When a mysterious reaper arrives in the city with his sights set on the same weapon Ivy needs, she must decide how far she's willing to go for her freedom. With a tenuous alliance tying them together, Ivy learns there is more to her reluctant companion than meets the eye. But will their newfound connection lead them to triumph? Or will the secrets they harbor destroy each other?
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Her Last Breath
by Taylor Adams
After years of excuses, Tess has finally agreed to go caving with her best friend Allie, a self-made travel influencer. As Tess and Allie descend into the depths, they realize they're not alone. A stranger who claims to be a fellow caver harasses them. Allie insults the guy, and he retaliates. Soon, Tess is trapped inside a narrow crawl space hundreds of feet underground, fighting to stay alive. Twenty-four hours later, as a hospitalized Tess recounts her harrowing story of survival, the detective interviewing her shares new and shocking secrets about Allie's true past. Together, they begin to suspect the brutal attack wasn't so random after all. Who was Allie, really? Why did this man target them? And did Tess really leave the danger behind when she escaped the cave?
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How to Get Away with Murder
by Rebecca Philipson
When a teen girl is murdered in a local park, Detective Inspector Samantha Hansen jumps at the chance to prove she's still the Yard's most successful homicide detective. One of the case's only leads is a book found in the victim's backpack called How To Get Away With Murder by a man named Denver Brady. As Sam's investigation progresses and the details of the book go viral, Sam suspects there's more to the author than what he's revealed. But in order to find a killer and get justice for the teen, Sam must learn to trust her instincts again before someone else gets away with murder.
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The Iron Garden Sutra
by A. D. Sui
Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the Starlit Order, performing funeral rites for the dead across the galaxy. The spaceship Counsel of Nicaea has been lost for more than a thousand years, its passengers reduced to dust and bone. Its sudden appearance has attracted a team of academics eager to investigate its archeological history. Iris has been assigned to bring peace to the crew's long departed souls. Carpeted in moss and intertwined with vines, Nicaea is more forest than ship. But the plant life isn'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 enhancement may be their only hope for survival.
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The Jills
by Karen Parkman
Virginia and her best friend Jeanine are Jills -- professional Buffalo Bills cheerleaders -- living the life they've always dreamed of. But one Sunday, Jeanine fails to show up for a game. Aided by a worried network of Jills, ex-boyfriends, and seedy fixtures of Buffalo's criminal underground, Virginia embarks on an investigation into Jeanine's disappearance. But as her search grows increasingly dangerous, disturbing questions about who Jeanine really is begin to emerge. Soon, Virginia finds herself wondering how well she knows her friend and if she can trust the people and institutions she thought were protecting her.
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Just Friends
by Haley Pham
Blair and Declan were inseparable growing up, but when an impulsive kiss took them from friends to something more, everything changed. Just as quickly as their romance started, one moment shattered it all, leaving them with nothing but heartbreak and silence. Four years later Blair is back in their coastal hometown of Seabrook to support her mom and care for her great-aunt Lottie. To make ends meet, Blair applies to work at a coffee shop and discovers it's managed by Declan, the boy she loved and lost. The boy who still makes her heart race. As Blair's path keeps crossing with Declan's, old wounds resurface, secrets are revealed, and sparks reignite. But could their future ever be free of their past?
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Kin
by Tayari Jones
Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends since childhood. Raised by an aunt determined to give her a stable home, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on finding her, sets off on a journey into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life. This novel explores mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South.
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Laws of Love and Logic
by Debra Curtis
Lily Webb is in love with a college-bound quarterback whose athletic talents are matched only by his fierce devotion. But their dreams of a life together end when his protectiveness leads to a choice that tears them apart. As the years pass, Lily finds solace and a new beginning with a renowned ornithologist whose love is as steadfast as the migration patterns he studies. But when the boy who was once everything to Lily reappears in her life, she struggles with questions around that terrible night in high school. Can she reconcile the wonder of her first love with the comfort and safety of her second? Laws of Love and Logic explores love's enduring power and the human spirit's capacity for forgiveness and redemption.
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Nightshade and Oak
by Molly O'Neill
When Malt, the goddess of death, is accidentally turned human by a wayward spell, she finds she's ill-equipped to deal with the trials of a mortal life. After all, why would a goddess need to know how to gather food or light a fire? Unable to fend for herself, she teams up with warrior Bellis on a perilous journey to the afterlife to try to restore her powers. Frustrated by her frail human body and beset with blisters, Malt might not make the best travelling companion. But as animosity slowly turns to attraction, these two very different women must learn to work together if they hope to survive their quest.
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No Matter What
by Cara Bastone
Sometimes love sends you back to the drawing board. After a traumatic accident threatens the foundations of their happy marriage, a couple tries to rebuild and find their way back to each other--and themselves--in this tender, slow-burn romance by the bestselling author of Ready or Not and Promise Me Sunshine.
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Now I Surrender
by Álvaro Enrigue
A woman flees the borderlands between Mexico and the United States after a raid on her dead husband's ranch . A lieutenant colonel in service to the Republic discovers he's on the trail of an abduction. Decades later the American and Mexican militaries try to maneuver Geronimo, the legendary Apache warriors, into surrender. In our own day, a family travels through the region in search of a truer version of the past. Written with both historical and fictional characters, across multiple eras, Now I Surrender is part epic, part alt-Western, weaving past and present, myth and history, into a searing exploration of liberty and freedom.
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The Obake Code
by Makana Yamamoto
After the heist of a lifetime, Malia has it all, but she's bored out of her mind. So what's the harm in rigging a few cybernetic prizefights and making a little cash on the side? When Malia's scheme runs afoul of Jeongah Song, the dangerous leader of a local gang, Malia gets an offer she can't refuse: take down the local politician leading a clean up the streets campaign ... or die. Without another way out, Malia takes the deal. But as Malia digs deeper into the politician's shady dealings, she finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy that might be too big for her to handle. One that has roots in her own rise as the Obake. Faced with threats on all sides, Malia may finally be in over her head, or stuck -- forever -- inside her own mind.
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She Made Herself a Monster
by Anna Kovatcheva
In 19th century Bulgaria, Yana rides from one town to the next, telling villagers stories of vampires that stalk the night. Then she eliminates the threat, and sows seeds of hope in her wake. When Yana meets Anka, an orphan who the residents of Koprivci blame for their curse, she learns the village Captain is planning to marry her against her will. Together, the orphan and vampire slayer hatch a plan to conjure a monster so vile, it will provide cover for Anka to escape. Inspired by Slavic folklore, the author concocts a mix of witchery, ghost stories, heresy, and deception to spin a fable of two women who will stop at nothing to take control of their fate.
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A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage
by Mk Oliver
Lalla has a lot on her plate: She needs to guarantee her husband makes partner, secure her dream house, and get her daughter into prep school. And on the afternoon she stabs a stranger after he breaks into her living room, she has a birthday party to host. So, disposing of a body, framing a friend, and being a great mother can easily be managed alongside the usual domestic minutiae. But her husband Stephen seems distracted, her daughter drowned the class hamster, and then there is the unexpected intruder. Who is this man and what did he want from her? Because Lalla has a past she'd rather keep hidden.
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The Sorrowstones
by Felix Blackwell
A collection of wicked idols has appeared in Westmaple, falling into the hands of eleven-year-old Cole Graves. They come bearing wondrous gifts, and Cole quickly falls under their spell. Soon, horror descends upon the quiet town. One by one, the statues unleash ancient curses that throw the boy's world into chaos. Shadows encroach upon his mind as the people he loves meet hideous ends. At first a weird mystery, the arrival of the Sorrowstones sets off a nightmarish saga of death and madness-and Cole's dark quest to get rid of them.
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Star Shipped
by Cat Sebastian
Cat Sebastian's long-awaited foray into contemporary romance! A witty, emotional, and deliciously slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance between two costars on a popular sci-fi television series.
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Strange Buildings
by Uketsu
After receiving multiple tips from his devoted readership, a writer fascinated by the occult put together eleven case files, each featuring its very own strange building. Each of the eleven structures in this book has a floor plan that conceals a disturbing architectural quirk: from disappearing rooms to apartments with no means of escape. Each buildings tells its own chilling story. And each is part of a grander puzzle. Look closely and you'll see that everything is connected. All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won't want to believe it. Millions of readers have become addicted to solving Uketsu's dark mysteries. Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion.
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That's What Friends Are for
by Wade Rouse
In this poignant and hilarious story inspired by TV's beloved The Golden Girls, bestselling author Wade Rouse celebrates love, aging, finding your people, and the art of impeccably timed one-liners.
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The Violin Maker's Secret
by Evie Woods
On any given day, there are thousands of items slowly gathering dust in the Lost and Found of Heathrow Airport. Unknown to anyone, hidden among the clutter, is a very special object that can change the fortunes of those who possess it – a violin of rare beauty and power.Now, as if by chance, it has fallen into the hands of three strangers: Baggage claim agent Devlin, retired teacher Walter, and appraiser Gabrielle. Can these three unlikely guardians unlock the secrets of the violin? The brand new book from the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.
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The Wandering Queen
by Claire Heywood
When the King of Tyre dies, he decrees his kingdom will pass equally to both his children: Elissa, his daughter, and Pygmalion, her young half-brother. Elissa is quickly sidelined by a band of powerful merchants in favor of her more malleable brother. Forced out of her palace home, she forges her own path, transforming herself from a sheltered princess into a strong and formidable leader. When she leads her followers on an epic journey to a new home in a faraway land, she earns herself the name: Dido, the wanderer. One day, a mysterious stranger, Aeneas, arrives at the city gates. As Dido and Aeneas are increasingly drawn to each other, Dido is forced to make an impossible choice between power and love.
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Where the Girls Were
by Kate Schatz
It's 1968 and the future is bright for Elizabeth Baker Phillips. She's the valedictorian of her high school, with a place at Stanford and dreams of becoming a journalist. But the free-spirited San Francisco life calls and she ends up in love with a hippie named Wiley. Letting loose feels incredible until she finds herself pregnant. Her family, embarressed and ashamed, send her to a home for unwed mothers. Baker finds herself trapped with a group of girls who share her shame and fear. As she reckons with her changing body, lack of choice, and uncertain future, Baker finds unexpected community and empowerment among the girls who went away.
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