September 2026 list by Donalee Jacobs |
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Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II
by Various Authors
The team that brought you the bestselling dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night has risen, hungry, from the grave to summon more dark delicacies for your delectation. In these twenty-one brand-new, groundbreaking stories by established and newly unearthed Indigenous talent, the contributors are fully embracing horror. Featuring stories of unspeakable yet satisfying terror, from twisted psychological tales to monster hunts, this new selection of sinister stories will sate your darkest appetites.
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The Birthing Tree
by Amanda Peters
Born under the shadow of a birthing tree sacred to generations of Mi'kmaq women, Aliet Paul grows up in Nova Scotia with her grandmother Kiju. As Aliet comes of age she becomes a nurse trained in modern medicine, yet she carries Kiju's teachings close. When Kiju dies, Aliet returns home to a past she thought she'd outrun. As she digs to uncover who her family really is, each revelation pulls her deeper into a web of long-guarded silences, dangerous loyalties, and generational wounds that refuse to stay buried. This sweeping novel follows one woman's journey to protect the land, the traditions, and the memory of the women who came before her -- and to decide which parts she will carry into the future.
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The Calamities
by Chuck Wendig
Mourning Mayne knows he'll one day bear the duty of managing his family's vast empire. But he has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination, and exploitation … and something even darker. Because the Maynes are the fiends -- half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls. But when Mourning's estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world. Book One of The Fiends.
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Crocodilopolis
by John Manuel Arias
Once a powerful, cold-blooded politician in Costa Rica, Seth Oreamundo is now living in exile in Washington, DC – and his younger brother Osario is to blame. Osario must pay, and Seth decides the only way to do so is to return home to Costa Rica and feed his brother to the infamous river of crocodiles from their childhood. What follows is a spellbinding story of revenge alternating between Seth's murderous plans and memories of the brothers' upbringing. With the wisdom of biblical myth and the soapy wit of a telenovela, Crocodilopolis is a masterful interrogation of power, masculinity, destiny, and legacy from a literary star on the rise.
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The Darling's Daughter
by Sydney Schmied
Angelica Woods takes a job painting at the Majestic Theater -- the very place her famous actress mother warned her to avoid. When she discovers cryptic notes and evidence of an old murder, Angie realizes her mother may have meant to protect her. Architect Trace Ackerman has built a quiet life far removed from his former mistakes. Renovating the Majestic is meant to be a fresh start -- until Angie awakens feelings he never planned to risk again. But with a killer determined to silence them both, Angie and Trace must decide if uncovering the truth is worth risking their own lives and hearts. Set in 1912 Ohio, this romantic suspense weaves together murder, betrayal, and the redeeming power of faith and forgiveness.
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The Devil Knows Her Name
by C. N. Vair
Attacked and at the brink of death, Tess Wynne vowed she would do anything to live -- and the devil heard her. Their bargain meant she would remain tethered to the land at the edge of the Appalachian town of Burrsville. Her home is now a wildlife sanctuary, and the spells she's woven keep the land and community safe. When a new pastor comes to town and begins chipping away at the trust she's gained, threatening the sanctuary and its animals, the careful edges of Tess's world begin to fray. The devil whispers in her ear that he can save the sanctuary if she'll just pay his price, and Tess must decide if she'll trust in her own magic to save what she loves -- or surrender to his will.
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The Dungeon Book: (As Told by Cornelius the Skull)
by Gareth Hanrahan
A young girl is left to die in a wizard's dungeon but finds a new home with the monsters around her in this humorous and heartfelt standalone epic fantasy from acclaimed author Gareth Hanrahan.
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The Grapevine
by Craig Robertson & Alexandra Sokoloff
When her nineteen-year-old daughter Abby disappears, Lou Gomersall embarks on a reckless road trip in the family RV, scouring the highways and back roads of California. Through desert and mountains, into the woods, and to the ocean's edge. A year later, the police don't believe Lou's theory that four other missing young women have been taken by the same elusive predator. So, when another college sophomore vanishes, Lou jumps on the fresh trail, enlisting #vanlifers, entrepreneurs, RVers, truck stop prostitutes, and everyone in between in her do-or-die mission to rescue her daughter.
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Heart of Glass
by Jennifer Hillier
Twenty-five years ago in Seaside, Washington, a drifter named Sam met three teenage girls at the local amusement park. Days later, one of them was dead. Barb and Nicolette were shocked to learn that the man they met at Wonderland was the Carnival Killer. After he's arrested for the murders of five women -- including their friend, Lorelei -- Nicolette moved to the city and Barb stayed behind in Seaside. But when the Carnival Killer recants his confession and a body washes ashore on the eve of Wonderland's grand reopening, the secrets Barb and Nicolette have buried resurface, threatening to destroy everything in their carefully constructed lives.
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Heir of Prophecy
by Analeigh Sbrana
Audra's a woman bound by fate, torn between two prophecies. He's the Prince of the underworld, fated to either claim her or end her life. Defying destiny is one thing ... the heart, another.
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The Hill in the Dark Grove
by Liam Higginson
In this gripping debut, steeped in Welsh folklore, a husband and wife living in the beautiful but isolated mountains of Snowdonia stumble upon a buried Neolithic ruin -- awakening a mysterious, ancient presence with its own dark designs. Enthralling and atmospheric, Liam Higginson expertly weaves together myth, psychological suspense, and supernatural horror, heralding a sparkling new literary talent.
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Immortal Rose
by Alexandra Bracken
Members of the Rosebourne family have a gift born of a fairy ancestor: the ability to infuse fragrance with magic capable of manipulating mind, body, and emotion. When a murder leaves the kingdom of Albion vulnerable to a coup, royal spymaster Hugh Thornton seeks the one person who can help: Viola Lockwood, the last living Rosebourne. In exchange for crafting the perfume capable of saving Albion, Viola can seize the life, and fortune, that should have been hers. As Hugh and Viola race to find the perfume's lost fairy ingredient, neither can deny the attraction building between them. But a terrible truth lurks in their kingdom -- and while every bargain has a cost, Immortal Rose may demand more than Hugh and Viola can ever pay.
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The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass
by Leslye Penelope
In April 1995, Zahara watched her twin sister, Annica, get kidnapped -- only to return to a world where no one remembers Annica ever existed. Now, as the world braces for the looming Y2K crisis, Zahara finds evidence that proves her sister was real. She hires a private investigator and begins digging into her family's past. When the investigation leads to men who served with her father in Vietnam, Zahara must face the truth about her family, her memories, and the power lurking within her. But the sisters' reunion comes at a price -- one that could unravel reality and bring about the end of the world.
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Massif
by Garth Nix
From bestseller and master of speculative fiction Garth Nix comes his first foray into adult science fiction with a brilliant and poignant stand-alone story of sentient starships, galactic warfare, and the bonds a crew forms far, far from Earth.
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The Matchmaker's Cottage
by Kat Sloane
Julia Schaeffer runs a romantic bed-and-breakfast in Upstate New York that is teetering on the edge of a financial cliff. Ethan Duchamp has a plan to pair up his celebrity clients at her dreamy, autumnal inn. Ethan needs this to work. It's the only way to save his PR career. He knows the inn and Julia's warm, homemade touch inspires real feelings -- he just didn't expect them to be his. But as old wounds reopen, and their connection rekindles, Julia and Ethan have to decide if they can rebuild what was lost -- or if their second chance will be derailed by scars that have yet to heal.
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Mother Daughter Sister Stranger
by Hank Phillippi Ryan
The sole survivors of the plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister Bea share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to pick up her daughter from a sleepover at Eliza's. Now, Eliza discovers she's the only one who can protect her niece from the legacy of her family's sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in flames once again. But someone knows the deadly key to their shared past, and won't stop until they've written a devastating final chapter. Mother, daughter, sister -- stranger.
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Mutual Discord
by Liana De La Rosa
Sofia Mendoza has had enough. No one knows she's the brains behind a popular video series celebrating women in history who've been erased from their own inventions and discoveries. Keeping her online persona a secret is lonely, but when she sparks a virtual friendship with an anonymous follower --A-- first in her comment section, then in their private video chats, the chemistry between them ignites. But when her old friend, Caitlin, arrives for a visit, Sofia's lies threaten to unravel. A is Alex Castillo, her best friend's boyfriend. Alex doesn't reveal that he knows her, and Sofia realizes he may be keeping secrets, too. With their friendship now in real life, can they keep their attraction in check?
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Nearshore
by Steve Hawk
Daybreak. West Virginia. A small nuclear bomb detonates beside an Appalachian highway. The death count is low, but the act threatens to change the world. Months later, lifeguard Jamie Palmer is patrolling a treacherous stretch of California coast, when he responds to a nearshore boating accident. The victims are Palmer's best friend, a brilliant professor, and the man's teenage son, Luca. Luca survives, leaving Palmer as the boy's guardian. Soon after, Chelsea Wu, a math prodigy, confides to Palmer that she and the professor found a link between a megacorporation and the nuke in West Virginia. When a second device is detonated, this unlikely team must persuade investigators that the bombmakers are homegrown and hiding in plain sight.
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Not a Word
by Linwood Barclay
When Reece visits his parents' house, he's shocked to find them in bed, dead. At first it looks like a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, but the crime scene suggests otherwise. Reeling from the day's events, Reece finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew about his parents and whether he and his own family are in danger. While the authorities work to untangle the crime scene, Reece is pulled into a web of secrets linked to the pharma company his father worked for years ago. In order to protect the people he loves most, he'll have to dig deep into his own past to understand who his parents were, what they did, and who they hurt -- before he ends up paying for their sins.
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One for the Road
by Elliot Fletcher
Opposites attract in this Scottish romance between a grumpy doctor and the single mother who lives next door. Burned-out GP Alistair Macabe never planned to return to his tiny hometown on the Isle of Skye. Especially not to live next door to Isla, a newly single mom with zero time for grumpy doctors. But when Alistair needs a popularity boost in order to start taking on patients again, and Isla wants to ruffle her smug ex's feathers, a fake relationship seems like the perfect solution. With the pair taking their roles very seriously, they might just forget they are pretending after all.
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Plant Lady
by Kang Minyoung
Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits' end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. As men begin to disappear will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady? A highly acclaimed novel from South Korea, Plant Lady brings atmospheric tension and delicate humor to a story of obsession and misogyny that will keep you rooted right to its simmering last page.
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Promise Me Never
by Liv Constantine
From the bestselling author of The Next Mrs. Parrish comes a thriller about a woman who becomes embroiled in the mystery of her husband's deceased first wife and terrifying family secrets. Aspiring writer Savannah's scheme to meet horror novelist Bennett Bryson turns out better than she ever imagined. After a whirlwind romance, Savannah says yes to marriage, and the two settle into Bennett's secluded upstate home. But just as Savannah thinks she has it made; cracks appear in her perfect new life. As these two writers will learn the hard way – the past really is prologue. With memorably complicated characters, deliciously devious betrayals, and truly shocking twists, this edge-of-your-seat novel will keep you guessing until the last page.
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The Secret Dinner
by Raphael Montes
The internationally acclaimed bestselling thriller, now in English. Dante, Piglet, Miguel, and Hugo are average students trying to make ends meet with part-time jobs in Rio, excited about their bright futures. When their rent skyrockets, they struggle to keep their new lives and big dreams afloat. In order to keep their apartment, the friends adopt an unorthodox plan and are soon sucked into a dark world of secret dinner parties catering to the twisted fantasies of Rio's elite. As the four friends fall deeper into this dark underworld, the stakes get higher and the consequences deadlier, revealing the devious depths that lurk within each of them and threatening not only their friendship but also their lives.
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A Summer of Stars
by Liana Cincotti
After a messy breakup, it feels like the entire world hates tennis superstar Luna Aldridge. With her reputation ruined and her career at risk, the only way to repair it is a PR stunt: fake-dating Hollywood's golden boy, Kieran Alexander. There's just one problem -- they can't stand each other. He's about to lead a big-screen love story, but his dating history is jeopardizing the film's success. His team believes the world needs to see him wildly in love. And who better than Luna? So Luna and Kieran spend the summer posing for cameras, sharing red carpets and flying around the world for the tennis circuit. But the more they pretend, the more they question if they can keep their hearts, and their careers, together.
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A Tender Age
by Chang-Rae Lee
Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids, getting into and out of trouble. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family. Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away -- then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
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These Walls Remember
by Del Sandeen
When two estranged sisters inherit a home possessed by the horrors of its dark past, they must work together to survive in this viscerally chilling Southern gothic novel from the critically acclaimed author of This Cursed House.
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Under Story
by Chloe Benjamin
Biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she's ever known at an isolated research base in Antarctica. When a strange light appears across the ice, her ex-husband, Eli, arrives to study the phenomenon. Laurel is captivated by the Arc and convinced it leads down a rabbit hole into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade Eli to risk everything to turn back the clock and live their story a second time? A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us.
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When Lemons Give You Life
by Anna Johnston
Retired chef Griff Barlow has lost his appetite. He's done with grief, guilt, and the beige slop they call food at Sunny Glen Aged Care Facility. So he breaks into the nursing home kitchen to bake one last tart as his final meal. But the act of cooking stirs a dormant joy, and soon he's serving up flavor and comfort to fellow residents, all while hiding a lie big enough to destroy the one thing he has left to protect. Lisa, Griff's younger sister and sole visitor, has unexpected news that could change everything. Despite their fractured relationship, she hopes for reconciliation long buried in the silence between them. But the truth has a way of boiling over, and when secrets and second chances collide, Griff and Lisa may discover a recipe for forgiveness.
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The Whitechapel Full Moon Society
by Elizabeth DeLozier
When Caroline Foster becomes a maid at the Whitechapel Full Moon Society in Victorian London while searching for her brother, she finds a dilapidated façade belying an opulent interior. But when it is revealed that the previous maid was murdered and her brother has left behind no answers, only more questions, Caroline begins to suspect her hosts might be hiding something. As more bodies turn up, Caroline fears she may have stumbled into a story, the kind with monsters and curses, family secrets and ancient lore. Tantalizing and pulsing, Elizabeth DeLozier’s sophomore novel gives an exciting alternative look into the infamous Jack the Ripper story with a major, supernatural twist.
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You'll Love It Here
by Natalie Sue
From the bestselling author of I Hope This Finds You Well comes a sharply funny, tender novel about a woman stuck in place, her neighbors, and the journey to find where she belongs. One day is all it takes for Mona's life to implode. She was supposed to be getting promoted at her marketing firm. Instead, she's jobless, aimless, and stuck in a space barely big enough for a yoga mat. Then her landlady asks Mona to step in as the building's reluctant super. The deal is simple: help prep the place for sale, and she can secure the upgrade she's been chasing. But that's easier said than done. As Mona gets pulled deeper into the building's chaos -- and closer to the people inside it -- she's forced to confront what, and who, she's really been trying to outrun.
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