“Books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.”
The year 2026 is shaping up to be an exciting one for book lovers, with a host of highly anticipated releases across every genre. From gripping thrillers and sweeping romances to imaginative fantasy and thought-provoking literary fiction, us readers have plenty to look forward to. Whether you’re a seasoned fan of an established author or eager to check out new voices, these upcoming books of 2026 promise unforgettable stories, compelling characters, and buzz-worthy plots. Today at What We Reading, we’re rounding up the most anticipated books of 2026, highlighting releases that are already generating excitement across the reading world. If you’re planning your reading list for the new year or hunting for the next page-turner to devour, this list of hyped 2026 books is the perfect place to start. Get ready to mark your calendars and add these must-read titles to your shelves!
Half His Age – Jenette McCurdy
Launching our list of the most anticipated books of 2026 is Jennette McCurdy’s upcoming novel, Half His Age. Waldo is ravenous. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr Corgi, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid, and the mortgage, and the bills. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similarities with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Startling perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles – or attempts to overcome them – in an effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
Release date: 20 January 2026
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The Astral Library – Kate Quinn
Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood: unlike people, books never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favourite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate escape to new lives… inside their favourite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped to protect. Alix and the Librarian flee through the drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws closer. But who does their enemy really want to destroy?
Release date: 17 February 2026
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Operation Bounce House – Matt Dinniman
All colonist Oliver Lewis ever wanted to do was run the family ranch with his sister, maybe play a gig or two with his band, and keep his family’s ageing fleet of intelligent agriculture bots ticking as long as possible. As a fan of Earth culture, he figures it will be a good thing when the transfer gate finally opens all the way and restores instant travel between Earth and his own planet, New Sonora. But there’s a complication.
Even though the settlers were promised they’d be left in peace, Earth’s government now have other plans. The colossal Apex Corporation is hired to commence an “eviction action.” But, with profits in mind, why would Apex deploy its own AI soldiers when they can turn it into a game? Oliver and his friends soon find themselves fighting for their lives against machines piloted by gamers who have paid a premium for the privilege.
Release date: 10 February 2026
The Caretaker – Marcus Kliewer
Macy Mullins can’t say why the job posting grabbed her attention – it had the pull of a fisherman’s lure, barbed hook and all – vaguely ominous. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she’s not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay, groceries to buy, and a younger sister to provide for. Besides, it’s only three days’ work…
Three days, cooped up in a stranger’s house, surrounded by the Oregon Coast wilderness. What begins as a peculiar side gig soon becomes a waking nightmare in this hyped 2026 thriller book. An incomprehensible evil might dwell on this property – and Macy Mullins might be the only thing standing between it and the rest of humanity.
Release date: 21 April 2026
The Night We Met – Abby Jimenez
One of the most hyped romance books of 2026, Abby Jimenez’s The Night We Met is all about the split-second decision that shapes everything. For Larissa, it came when choosing who to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she had met the perfect man. She and Chris are great friends, co-parenting a slightly unhinged rescue Yorkie, sharing their favourite books, and judging bread. For the first time amid all her side hustles to scrape by, things finally feel easy.
But she didn’t choose Chris to drive her home all those months ago – she went with his best friend, and he became her boyfriend. All Chris wants for Larissa is for her to be happy. Standing by on the sidelines is slowly killing him, but making a move would destroy someone else. How can something that feels so right be absolutely impossible?
Release date: 31 March 2026
A Vow In Vengeance – Jacyln Rodriguez
Rune Ryker has nothing left to lose. Everything has been stolen by the Immortals. But she’s done playing by the rules. Each year, humans are forced to journey into the Immortal Realms, but Rune orchestrates her own selection, determined to find her family and destroy anyone who stands in the way. When Rune’s magic reveals itself to be the rarest and most powerful, she must live with its only other wielder – Prince Draven. As arrogant as he is ruthlessly ambitious, he’s the last person she can trust.
Rune’s abilities have also drawn the eyes of the most dangerous druids in the realms. Some want to use her. More want her dead. Draven offers to train her… for a price. As Rune becomes ensnared in Draven’s dangerous games, she learns there are secrets at the heart of the kingdom that some will kill to protect. And Rune and Draven’s growing attraction may be the spark to ignite a brewing war.
Release date: 13 January 2026
The Escape Game – Marissa Meyer And Tamara Moss
Six months ago, season four of The Escape Game ended in horror when contestant Alicia Angelos was found murdered on set. Now season five is underway, and new contestants are ready to put their skills to the test, solving the show’s trickiest escape rooms. Among them is Sierra Angelos, the girl who got away with her sister’s murder. Or so everyone thinks. But Sierra isn’t just here to win. She’s here for justice.
When the contestants begin uncovering clues that hint at the identity of Alicia’s true killer, it becomes clear that the stakes aren’t high in this competition; they’re deadly. If these teens want to win – and survive – the game, they must solve the biggest mystery of who killed Alicia Angelos. From bestselling author Marissa Meyer and rising voice Tamara Moss, The Escape Game is one of the most anticipated books of 2026, brimming with sabotage, betrayal, and puzzles to die for.
Release date: 7 April 2026
Whistler – Ann Patchett
When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the course of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.
Ann Patchett’s newest novel is about two adults looking back over the choices they’ve made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, and the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all.
Release date: 2 June 2026
This Story Might Save Your Life – Tiffany Crum
Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with different “against all odds” survival stories. Since their first episode, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend. The problem is, their next survival story might just be their own.
When Benny arrives at Joy’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Both a heart-pounding thriller and a heart-melting romance, This Story Might Save Your Life promises to be one of the most exhilarating and memorable new books coming this year.
Release date: 10 March 2026
Where The Wildflowers Grow – Terah Shelton Harris
Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because she watched them all die. Grief never truly fades, and even as tragedy haunts her, Leigh carries on because survival is in her blood. So when the transport bus taking her to prison careens off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what’s in her nature. She survives.
Whilst searching for a place to hide, Leigh happens upon an unexpected sanctuary: a flower farm in rural Alabama tucked away from the world. Slowly, Leigh finds peace with the hard pace and soft nature of the farm, taking comfort in life blooming around her. Yet, no matter how much she heals, the past is not so easily outrun. And when the ghosts of the Wildes catch up to her, Leigh will need to truly face what she can survive.
Release date: 17 February 2026
The Radiant Dark – Alexandra Oliva
It’s March 1980, and Carol Girard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of new parenthood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. These beings are eleven light-years away. And thus begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilisation.
As humanity reels from a shifting understanding of its place in the universe, we follow the stories of the Girard family. Tracing five decades of love, loss, ambition, and self-discovery, The Radiant Dark is a stunning new 2026 novel charting a family navigating their lives with the knowledge that we are not alone.
Release date: 28 April 2026
Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter – Heather Fawcett
Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organised 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 disorganised, self-absorbed, yet irritatingly handsome failed Dark Lord Havelock Renard, the shop draws magical clientele from around the world. 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, Agnes will need 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?
Release date: 17 February 2026
The Ending Writes Itself – Evelyn Clarke
Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s bestselling novelists, is a reclusive genius known for his iconic protagonists and fiendish twists. When six struggling authors are invited to spend a weekend on his private Scottish island, they arrive to discover a shocking secret: Arthur Fletch is dead, and his last book remains unfinished.
Desperate to publish the novel, Fletch’s agent and editor have summoned these writers in the hope that one of them will imagine a worthy ending for his final work. To sweeten the deal, they are offering an irresistible prize: they will also help the lucky winner successfully re-launch their own career, guaranteeing future bestsellers. The catch: the writers have only seventy-two hours to finish Fletch’s magnum opus. Starting is often the hardest part. However, getting to the end could be murder in this hyped 2026 mystery-thriller novel by Evelyn Clarke.
Release date: 7 April 2026
Our Perfect Storm – Carley Fortune
Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong, they’ve always clashed… and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man. Then, at the start of the festivities, George walks in. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving just a note for an explanation.
Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests of Tofino. Frankie agrees, seeing the trip as the last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long-buried feelings, neither of them quite knows how to handle.
Release date: 5 May 2026
You Did Nothing Wrong – C.G. Drews
Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family home he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect.
Then Jude claims he hears voices in the walls, that the renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it – something strange is happening. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son? Then the one secret Elodie is hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore. One of the most anticipated books of 2026, You Did Nothing Wrong is a pulse-pounding new take on the haunted house novel, examining the complexities of motherhood and the twisted bonds of family.
Release date: 17 March 2026
A Far-Flung Life – M.L. Stedman
Western Australia, 1958. A truck rumbles along a lonely outback road. A moment’s inattention, and in a muddled second, the lives of the MacBride family are shattered. Instead of leaving them to heal, fate comes back for them in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child.
Set in the vast and flat expanse of a landscape, where the weather is a capricious force and a million-acre sheep station is barely a dot on the map, A Far-flung Life is a new 2026 book that explores the hearts of a handful of isolated souls and the secrets they must shield in order to survive.
Release date: 3 March 2026
The Shippers – Katherine Center
After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighbourhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss, and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Her sister is a little preoccupied with it being her wedding, so she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wingman. The same Cooper who is JoJo’s biggest heartbreak.
Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance – as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over again before finally getting it right in the most blissful, swoony way.
Release date: 19 May 2026
It’s Not Her – Mary Kubica
Courtney Gray’s tranquil family vacation is shattered when she hears a blood-curdling scream from the lakeside cottage next door. There, she finds the lifeless bodies of her brother and sister-in-law. Her teenage niece, Reese, is nowhere to be found, while her nephew Wyatt lies asleep upstairs, totally unharmed…
As the police descend on the quiet resort town, disturbing secrets about Courtney’s family start to emerge. When she learns that the town has secrets of its own, it makes her wonder if Reese is another victim of a brutal crime or whether she might be a killer. As Courtney begins to unravel the terrible mystery, she discovers that everyone around her has something to hide. And the closer she comes to the truth, the harder it is to see…
Release date: 3 February 2026
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
