I read so many books in 2025 that you’d think my TBR list would have gotten at least a little shorter. But as the book industry keeps publishing things that sound so interesting, my list has in fact gotten a lot longer. Here are ten of the many books I’m looking forward to in the first half of 2026.
1 She Made Herself a Monster by Anna Kovatcheva In nineteenth century Bulgaria, Yana rides from village to village eking out a living as a monster-hunter, impressing the locals with displays of her skills. But Yana is a con artist who makes up stories about the monsters in the woods and then “vanquishing” them to trick people into giving her money. When she reaches the tiny town of Koprivici, however, she discovers that there is a true curse upon the place. Illnesses strike the children and few of them survive infancy. One survivor, Anka, is a girl on the brink of womanhood who faces perils of her own until Yana arrives. The two hatch a plan to invent another monster that will allow them to escape the confines of their lives. Plans change when their imagined monster takes on a horrific life of its own in this debut novel that blends Bulgarian folk tales, ghost stories, witchery, and women’s power to tell a gothic tale of female agency and the ability to change the course of your own story.
2. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett 1920s Montreal.
3. Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity Three years ago, Leena Al-Sayer woke with the power to see the dead. She has kept this secret from everyone, but when her brother becomes gravely ill, she faces a terrible choice. She can either keep her secret and watch her brother die, or sell her secret and get the money she needs to buy the medicine he needs. Unable to stand by and do nothing, Leena goes to the so-called Saint of Silence, a ruthless purveyor of secrets and other strange goods in order to strike a terrible bargain: find the ghost of Percival Avon, the last lord of Weavingshaw manor, or lose her freedom forever. Together, Leena and the Saint travel to Weavingshaw and discover that the estate and surrounding moors are full of creatures hungry for blood, for the dead rest uneasily at Weavingshaw and many truths are best left buried.
4. The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu The death of her mother has left Eleanor unmoored. While she focused on her career as an online therapist, Eleanor’s mother controlled everything else- meals, laundry, finances. It was all up to her mother, and without her, Eleanor doesn’t know how to function. With her inheritance, she follows her mother’s last directive: to buy a house. She buys one on impulse in a beautiful valley that’s being devoured by a housing development. Everything seems fine until it starts raining and doesn’t stop. As the water seeps into the house, the edges of reality begin to blur. Between her clients’ unsettling stories, untrustworthy people all around her, and the ghosts of her past, Eleanor’s sense of reality begins to unravel, forcing her to finally face the truth of herself and the decisions she’s made throughout her life.
5. Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar This collection of short stories draws upon folklore, literary ephemera, and sharply told fairy tales told with El-Mohtar’s signature lyrical prose, and includes such award-winning stories as “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” “The Green Book,” “Madeleine,” “The Lonely Sea in the Sky,” “And Their Lips Rang with the Sun,” “The Truth About Owls,” “A Hollow Play,” “Anabasis,” “To Follow the Waves,” “John Hollowback and the Witch,” “Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers,” “Pockets,” and more.
6. Thistlemarsh by Moorea Corrigan Orphaned Mouse Dunne had dreams of becoming a Faerie anthropologist, but those dreams were shattered during the Battle of the Somme, when her cousin was killed and his body disappeared into the mud, and her brother suffers from debilitating shell-shock. When her uncle dies and leaves Mouse the sprawling manor of Thistlemarsh, it seems as though some of her problems might be solved- except for one condition: she must rehabilitate the crumbling manor in one month’s time or else lose it. When it quickly becomes clear that there is no earthly way to repair the place in such a short span of time, Mouse accepts a bargain she knows she shouldn’t take, for no mortal is safe where faerie bargains are concerned, but she has no other choice. Now she must face the dark things in the house and confront the ghosts of her past or else lose everything- including herself.
7. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker October 2026: Lee doesn’t remember killing his roommate, but he does know he has to flee the country and find refuge in his father’s remote house in Japan. Something is wrong with the house, though, and no animals will come near it. By night, Lee’s bedroom window shows a strange woman with a sword in the moonlight. October 1877: Sen is a samurai in exile, hiding from imperial soldiers in a house among the sword ferns. Her life was turned upside down when her father came home from the war and proved to be more monster than man, but Sen will still do anything for him- including turning her sword on her family. With the soldiers homing in on them, Sen begins to see a strange foreign man outside her window. One of these people is a ghost, and one of the stories is a lie. Something is hiding beneath the house, and Sen and Lee soon wish they’d never come there in the first place.
8. The Temptation of Charlotte North Charlotte North lives on a remote island that has more sheep than people, and even less promise for a spirited young woman. Though marriage would provide the opportunity for a better life, it’s hard to find someone when there’s hardly anyone around- which is part of why she falls hard for a man who has recently arrived. Then a haunted old tower crumbles and releases a restless spirit that develops an affinity for Charlotte. Though most of the rest of the people of the island are afraid, Charlotte wonders if the spirit might give her the chance to get everything she has wanted out of life.
9. The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden Anne of Brittany was a child when her home was besieged and her father was driven to his death. Now that she is an adult, she has few resources and the King of France is pressuring her to marry him so he might take her lands– a thing Anne promised her father she would never allow, and so Anne secretly becomes betrothed to France’s greatest enemy. To solemnize this union in secrecy away from the French court’s spying sorcerers, Anne proposes a hunt deep into the forest to track down a legendary unicorn. But when a stranger and a unicorn actually appear, Anne finds herself in the midst of magical intrigue that could save her kingdom or leave her lost in the shadows forever.
10. Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes Mississippi, 1927. East Cobb seems like the perfect place for Black southerners. Wealthy and untouched by white oppression, the town is where Thea Elliott and her husband plan to live out their ambitious dreams. What neither of them knows is that East Cobb is haunted by horrors only the women can see. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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