Hi book friends, I know, we are still in the middle of summer and and it doesn’t end until September but my kids start school in August, so I’m wired to think Fall is basically here (and I live in Hawaii so we don’t really have a Fall season ๐
).
As we approach August I feel like all the spooky reads start being published, and you know the stores will start having their Halloween stuff because they always put it out early. ๐คฆ๐ปโโ๏ธ So I wanted to showcase some books I have for my Fall TBR – these are going to be thrillers, suspense, horror, paranormal, and dark …๐. And like two romances! ๐
Gingerbread Bones by. Lindsay Lovise
Release Date: 8/4/26
They’re being huntedโฆ
When sixteen-year-old Georgie and her troublemaking brother are shipped off to the wilderness for their stepmotherโs newest reality show, Georgie is convinced itโll be the worst experience of her life. Two weeks. No phones. Hiking. Camping. Cameras catching every humiliating second.
Then she meets Mack Gray. Tattooed, unreadable, andโamong a cast of kids already branded as troubleโheโs the one sheโs sure is dangerous.
One night, the counselors are chanting affirmations around the fire. By morning, theyโre gone.
But the kids are not alone.
Georgie can feel it, stalking them from the shadowsโwatching, waiting, picking them off one by one. Whatever it is, it isnโt just hunting.
Itโs playing.
And in this game, there seems to be only one ending: no one gets out alive.
The Killing Rules by. Bree Despain
Release Date: 8/4/26
Seventeen-year-old Harper Westbrook isnโt afraid of monstersโฆshe is one.
For the past three years, sheโs been one of the Blood Boundโgirls and women cursed with a bloodlust only satisfied by killing terrible men. Once every three months, she trades in her pom-poms for a lethal throwing axe. Her life is led by a strict set of rules to keep her dark secret as hidden as the bodies she buries.
And her number one rule? Stay away from Grayson Jones.
The boy she was totally falling for until the night her curse manifested, everything went horribly wrong, and she killed his father. It was self-defense. Or at least thatโs what she keeps telling herself.
Grayson is an investigative reporter for their school paper, and heโll stop at nothing to find the truth behind his fatherโs gruesome death.
As he follows new clues down darker and darker pathsโto an unbelievable world of mythical beasts and the men who hunt themโGrayson doesnโt realize heโs on a collision course with Harperโs biggest secrets. Now, she must stop him before he exposes her family to the Hunters, even if it means risking her life and heart.
Because who could ever love a monster like her?
The House That Eats the Dead by. Max Doty
Release Date: 8/18/26
A family moves into their dream homeโonly to discover that it hides an insatiable hungerโin this dread-laced and darkly outrageous domestic horror novel.
The new house is a fresh start for Claire and her family. It’s a move away from the cityscape of a declining San Francisco and towards the quiet suburban life she has craved since her turbulent childhood; a step up the corporate ladder for her husband, Tom; and a safe haven for their two children.
Yet as they unpack their boxes, she senses something is wrong. Fresh flowers dry up, store-bought eggs are inexplicably hollow, and her daughter’s favorite toy disappears. Claire soon confronts a series of impossible The house is hungry. It’s devouring anything that was once alive. And only Claire and Tom, the owners of the house, will remember that this “food” ever existed.
When Claire exploits the house’s power in a moment of weakness, she and the house forge a fragile bond. But as its hunger intensifies and Claire loses control, she fears who else might be drawn to her homeโand what sinister appetites theyโll bring.
Nest of Tongues by. Randy Ribay
Release Date: 8/11/26
A lyrical, evocative horror about vampires from the Philippines . . . and a hunter on their tail. A brother and sister fight to protect their secrets, their community, and most of all, each other, in this evocative novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Patron Saints of Nothing.
As Filipino vampires known as manananggal, Lily and her brother Caleb understand the value of a secret. After all, to hide is to survive. To lie is to live. Theyโd never harm another personโbut people only believe their worst fears around creatures of myth. So the siblings stay quiet. They follow their communityโs rules.
Until a monster hunter turns up and kills a fellow manananggal, anyway.
Until Caleb is marked as the hunterโs next prey.
Suddenly, he and Lily realize thereโs always been more at stake than the lives of their people. Because when doing everything “right” is still a death sentence, what can they take as truth? As the hunter nears, the siblings must decide if theyโll be driven from the only home theyโve ever known . . . or fight to protect a community that may already be lost.
The Calamities by. Chuck Wendig
Release Date: 8/18/26
The heir to one of the worldโs most influential families reckons with the demonic secret to their power, in this contemporary dark fantasy that melds occult magic with shocking family drama from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.
Mourning Mayne knows heโll one day bear the duty of managing his familyโs vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy, which is one of cruelty, domination, and exploitation… and something even darker.
Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiendsโhalf-human, half-demon, and possessed of dark magic born from buying human soulsโand the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families.
But when Mourningโs estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that he return to the fold, Mourning has to make a decision 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.
Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their fiendish nature… but together, they might find a path out of the shadows.
Want Me, Take Me, Haunt Me, Make Me by. Isabel Crowley
Release Date: 8/11/26
Hazel Lewis has a serious problem. The guy who hired her to conduct a seance before he died turned out to be a serial killer with a demonic contract, and the seance itself was a trap. Hazel escaped with her life, but not as she knew it: the bite of a demon is spreading through her body, letting the supernatural bleed into the world around her, and the now-dead serial killer is waiting to take over her body if she dies.
Hoping to contain the damage, Hazel moves to a small house in a remote location. She figures she’ll stay on her own until she gets a handle on her new dark reality, but she soon finds out that she’s not alone. There’s the reporter demanding answers, the friendly neighbor with chemistry she doesn’t need and problems he can’t talk aboutโฆand the mysterious face she sees beyond her window, watching her every night with glowing red eyes.
Making her hunger.
Hazel knew a little bit about the world beyond the physical. Now she’s learning how much she doesn’t know, including who she can trust…and who she can become if she trusts herself enough to give in to the shadows stalking her dreams.
The House of Gardenias by. Isabel Caรฑas
Release Date: 9/29/26
A debut gothic YA from the USA Today bestselling author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba Dรญaz
Sixteen-year-old Minerva has spent her whole life in the slums of the capital city of an unnamed country that resembles colonial Mexico. Though she lives in the shadow of constant government turmoil, her empty belly and her fatherโs brutality donโt leave time for politicsโespecially since her older brothers ran away. Minerva canโt take another beating or miss another meal, so she steals flees to a wealthy loyalist neighborhood to win a job as a ladyโs maid to an elderly widow.
Minerva and Encarnaciรณn del Valleโthe proud and acerbic widowโform an unlikely duo. They are both survivors in their own ways, stubborn and used to being underestimated. For a time, Minerva is happy. She has food and safety in a house lit and warmed by magical chispa. Why should she care who runs the country or how her employer afford the magic?
But when the viceroy sweeps back into power on a wave of horrific bloodshed that sweeps away any hope Minerva had of seeing her brothers again, Encarnaciรณn retreats to the del Valleโs mountainside estate, the Casa de la Gardenias. Minerva finds herself surrounded by dozens of more experienced servants and the cruel, scheming younger del Valles, but the living are the least of anyoneโs worries at the Casa de las Gardenias, and soon Minerva discovers that this ancient estate is home to forces far older and more bloodthirsty than the fascist del Valles or the liberal guerrillas amassing in the surrounding wilderness.
Bonfire & Bliss Bookstore by. Brittanee Nicole
Release Date: 8/11/26
Sparks fly as the leaves fall this autumnโฆFrom the superstar romance author of The Boston Bolts hockey series comes a swoony friends-to-lovers fake dating delight.
These old flames are ready to catch fire.
For Penny Darling, love is best enjoyed between the pages of a book. After a very public failed engagement, sheโd rather cozy up by the fire with a book boyfriend than a real one any day. And as the owner of Bonfire & Bliss Bookstore, she has her pick.
Then Jake โMontyโ Montgomery returns home. Her high school best friend, now a struggling author with inked forearms and wicked green eyes. And he needs her help.
His proposal is Sheโll teach him to write the perfect book boyfriend and heโll pose as her real boyfriend, keeping Hope Harborโs busybodiesโand their obsession with Pennyโs love lifeโat bay.
But when their lessons begin, the line between fiction and reality grows dangerously thin. As pretend kisses in the apple orchard turn into searing ones beneath the autumn moon, Penny begins to wonder if Monty could really love her, or if sheโs destined for another broken heart.
Trust Fall by. Lynn Painter
Release Date: 9/29/26
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies, Lynn Painter, comes a rags-to-riches rom-com about a small-town girl whose family inherits a fortune and moves to New York City, where she meets a big-city boy hiding an explosive secret.
Julia is just a small-town girl from Nebraska who loves her peaceful life. But when her elderly next-door neighborโwho just happens to be a secret multi-millionaireโleaves everything to Julia and her family after his passing, Julia is swept away to live in a historic brownstone in New York City and attend an elite private school for the super-rich.
It should be a dream come true. Wrong. Julia doesnโt fit in at her new school; worse, sheโs failing. Enter Damion, the mysterious and handsome tutor who will get Julia back on track. Except Damion has a secret. He is the great-nephew of the man who left everything to Juliaโs family. Damion doesnโt buy for a second that the person who was like a father to him would leave his home to strangers. And heโs determined to prove it.
To uncover the truth, Damion schemes to earn Juliaโs trust. Not an easy task with Julia unsure about this rich boy with a rebellious personality. But the more time Damion spends with Julia, the more his plan begins to backfire. Because he is falling for the enemyโand the enemy is falling for him.
As Damion and Julia figure out where they belong, can they see past their differences and act on their feelings, or will the trust Damion has worked so hard to gain fall apart?
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