There are so many great books being released in 2026. I’m sharing my top 10 most anticipated for the year – including debut novels, sequels and new books from some of my favourite authors.
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
Blurb:
Mr Korgy, with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films that she doesn’t? Or are they actually kindred spirits, sharing the same filter 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.
Release date: 20 January 2026
Esther is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney
Blurb:
You have one new follower.
Esther first sees Ted walking in a park in London. They lock eyes and for a fraction of a second, she feels something she’s never felt before.
She starts by reading up about his life in Canada and his work as an actor. Then she watches every interview with him online. It isn’t long before she’s joined Ted’s fan site online where her and the ‘Tedettes’ stalk his every move.
When Ted gets a new celebrity girlfriend, Esther decides that things have gone far enough. She leaves her husband, takes all their savings, and buys a one-way ticket to Canada.
After all, Ted might not know it yet, but they are meant to be together – he just needs a little bit of persuading.
Release date: 29 January 2026
Cleopatra by Saara El-Arifi
Blurb:
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 wilfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, divinely blessed to rule.
Death will silence me no longer.
This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.
Release date: 26 February 2026
The Wolf and the Witch by Lindsey Kelk
Blurb:
Since arriving in Savannah, Emily Bell has faced prophecies, werewolves, family secrets and her own grandmother’s attempt to take her life.
But, strangely, surrounded by her friends and new family, Savannah has never felt more like home.
Now, faced with the absence of her love, Wynn, as he wrestles with his new abilities as a werewolf, and burdened with the task of finding her fellow witches to avert the prophecy that surrounds her, Emily is attacked by a new threat. A lone wolf that will stop at nothing to destroy her.
Emily must act fast and find out the wolf’s identity before it kills her and all those she cares about. She will soon find out she can’t do everything alone, and that a burdened shared is a burden halved…
Release date: 26 February 2026
Kin by Tayari Jones
Blurb:
Vernice and Annie are ‘cradle friends’, born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle.
Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her.
Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant, richly told story about mothers, daughters, and a lifelong friendship that is as dangerous as it is unbreakable.
Release date: 26 March 2026
Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola
Blurb:
Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She’s a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren’t doing much better.
Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.
Sola’s unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents’ Thanksgiving table, a decade’s worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore. In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other.
Release date: 14 April 2026
Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood
Blurb:
After losing her job and learning her sister is engaged to the worst man alive, Annie needs a win. Thanks to her best friend and her own inability to take no for an answer, she manages to talk her way into an opening on another team working on data strategy – whatever that means. So what if she doesn’t know how to write code? How hard can it be? Surely Connor – the team’s overworked, aggravating, and distractingly hot leader – will soon realise how capable Annie is and be delighted to have her on board.
Annie sets her sights on nailing it at her new job… even if it means ignoring the chemistry building between her and Connor. Also on her to do list is trying to (gently! supportively!) convince her sister to reconsider her engagement, not to mention trying to figure out why her roommate and best friend are acting weird. But with sparks flying at work and at home, she begins to see how complicated taking matters into her own hands can be.
Release date: 7 May 2026
My review can be read here.
Change of Plans by Sarah Dessen
Blurb:
Finley has always felt most comfortable in someone else’s shadow. Fortunately, she’s got Colin, her magnetic boyfriend, who sweeps her along for activities, friendships, and future plans. Then she goes on a last-minute trip with her distant mom to a family vacation house that Finley didn’t know existed and is now about to be sold.
Her mom was estranged from her own parents and siblings since leaving home for college, and it’s a novelty for Finley to see her aunts and cousins. There’s also the handful of teens who work at the Egg, her aunt’s diner, and make up a found family of their own–including undeniably handsome guitarist Ben.
Then her relationship with Colin goes into freefall, and Finley’s roadmap for life after high school is gone. She has no choice but to live, for the first time, without plans. The longer Finley stays, the closer she gets to the truth about why her mother stayed away–and why she’s brought Finley here now.
And the closer she grows to new friends at the Egg, the more she starts to fall for charmingly awkward, soulful Ben and to realize how much of herself she’s been missing. By the end of the summer, nothing will be the same–for this community or for Finley herself.
Release date: 13 May 2026
Queenie is Working on It by Candice Carty-Williams
Blurb:
How is it possible for one woman to hold it together when she’s:
Confronted with a racing biological clock when she doesn’t even know if she wants kids.
Trying to act normal when her heart is smashed into a million pieces.
Ten times smarter than the people she’s working for.
Priced out of the housing market in the place she grew up.
Stuck in a situationship when all she wants is the love of her life back . . .
Bigger. Not better. Older. Not wiser. Queenie Jenkins is working on it.
Release date: 2 July 2026
Heartstopper Volume 6 by Alice Oseman
Blurb:
Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. The final installment in the bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel series about life, love, and everything that happens in between.
Everyone in school knows Nick and Charlie. Everyone knows they’re going to be together forever.
But Charlie’s busy with his bid to become head boy. And while Nick is preparing to leave for uni, he’s starting to wonder who he’ll be . . . without Charlie.
Release date: 2 July 2026
What are some of your most anticipated releases of 2026? Let me know in the comments. I’m also on Instagram, Twitter and Threads – @bookwormgirl_24
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