Here we go again! I feel like I just did my list of September 2026 book releases, which isn’t too far off base since I posted that one late. But now it’s already time for my round of October 2026 book releases that I’m interested in. I’m ready to be disappointed in the lack of SEO reach. But I’m reminding myself that I make these types of lists for myself. So, take that, AI-powered searches and bots from China. Anyway, here’s a list of a dozen upcoming books I hope to one day read!
- Anticipated October 2026 Book Releases
- The Shattered Tempest by Thea Guanzon
- A Wall Is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz
- The Southern Sorority of Superstitious Witches by Katie Ortiz
- Written in Starlight by Sloane Brooks*
- Perilous Enchantment by Sarah Clegg
- Beatrix Potter’s Botanical by Marta McDowell
- As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
- Wench by Erynne Rivers
- Bogland by Merritt R. Turetsky
- The Slantwise Histories by Alix E. Harrow
- The Killing of a Chestnut Tree by Oliver K. Langmead
- A Court of Splintered Harmony by Sarah J. Maas**
* = I have an ARC of this book.
** = I preordered this book.
Anticipated October 2026 Book Releases
The Shattered Tempest by Thea Guanzon
Series: The Hurricane Wars, #3
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publish Date: October 6, 2026
Print Length: 496
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
The highly anticipated conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Hurricane Wars trilogy makes landfall— and as the winds of war sweep through Lir, Talasyn and Alaric must confront the truth of their hearts and decide whether duty or desire will lead them forward.
When the storm swallows the world, who will be left standing?
Throughout their political marriage, Alaric and Talasyn struggled to resist the undeniable pull between them, even as rising tensions forced them on opposite sides of a looming war. Hand in hand, they vanquished the cataclysmic threat of the Moonless Dark—and started to hope for a future together.
That hope is shattered when a devastating attack sets off a chain of events that tears them apart once more. Now, as two rival nations prepare for a final, decisive clash, the Master of the Shadowforged Legion and the last Lightweaver fight to find their way back to each other. But the odds are stacked against them, and time is running out…
Is love enough to rewrite destiny? Can a new beginning rise from the ruins of the past? Or are Alaric and Talasyn doomed to meet as enemies on one last battlefield? This explosive third and final book brings the beloved Hurricane Wars series to a stunning conclusion—where passion and power collide, and the fate of a divided world hangs in the balance.
A Wall Is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz
Series: None
Genre: Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBTQ+
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Tor Books
Publish Date: October 6, 2026
Print Length: 304
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Bestselling author Annalee Newitz invites us to explore a large and not-so-lonely universe in this science fiction adventure about what happens when the alien becomes familiar–and beloved.
Gardenpath is a graduate student. They also happen to be an amoeba–a slime mold, to be exact–from an ancient civilization that dwells in the space between the stars. And when they turn their many eyes to researching a remote spot on one spiral arm of the galaxy, they stumble upon a discovery that will change everything they thought they knew: a mysterious planet teeming with unexpected life, language, and culture.
One of these alien animals is a creature named Murtis, who lives in a city she calls Pompeii and works in a brothel known as “the lupanar.” Unfazed when her strange visitor says she’s from the stars, Murtis takes Gardenpath into her care, introducing her to the seaside tourist town full of immigrants and shopkeepers who are just trying to get by.
Before they met Murtis, Gardenpath expected to finish their research, present their discovery, and return home to become an acclaimed scientist. But as they look into their new friend’s bizarre sensor bulbs from within the suit that allows them to survive and blend in on her surprising planet, they are beginning to wonder if there’s more to life than academic achievement.
They’re not sure what it is, but they’re going to use science to find out.
A thought-provoking and heartwarming novel about science, the meaning of life, and love, perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, Ryka Aoki, and Martha Wells.
The Southern Sorority of Superstitious Witches by Katie Ortiz
Series: None
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Gothic, Literary Fiction
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Alcove Press
Publish Date: October 6, 2026
Print Length: 352
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
In this spellbinding Southern Gothic novel, three women weave together old Southern folklore and magic to fight sexism and educational discrimination in post–Civil War Alabama, perfect for fans of Hester Fox and Louisa Morgan.
When Lucille, Catherine, and Victoria are invited to participate in a trial semester for women at Alabama’s most prestigious university, they each have their own reasons for accepting. Lucille wants freedom from both her father’s control and reminders of her traitorous first love. Catherine wants to escape an arranged marriage meant to halt her attraction to women. And Victoria wants to run from the guilt that haunts her after the death of one of her fellow mill girls.
The trial semester will determine whether or not women across the state will be allowed to attend other universities. But the enrolled women quickly learn that success is not guaranteed, and some of their male cohorts are determined to see them fail. When the men’s pranks go too far Lucille, Catherine, and Victoria form a coven under the guise of a sorority and call upon witchcraft steeped in the traditions of Southern folklore to fight back.
As they gather their fellow witches, they discover there is something darker at work at the university, a force that is determined to expel all the women at the university, and they’ll need all the allies they can get if they want to succeed.
For fans of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls and Weyward, this historical speculative novel explores the darker side of human nature and the ways in which women navigate—and survive—oppressive, male-dominated societies.
Written in Starlight by Sloane Brooks*
Series: None
Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Atria Books
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 384
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
A storybook chambermaid’s and an intergalactic bounty hunter’s worlds—and hearts—collide through a magical book, threatening to rewrite fate in this romantic portal fantasy with a cosmic twist. Perfect for fans of Tusk Love and The Spellshop.
Della Farley has always known her place: scrubbing floors, keeping her head down, and dreaming of something more. But when she stumbles upon a strange book that seems to be writing itself—a story about a man named Ansel Tulzok, a wanted fugitive traveling the stars—her quiet life turns extraordinary.
Light-years away, Ansel finds a mirror copy of the same book. Page by page, the story unfolds with details of a woman he’s never met—one whose words feel achingly familiar. As the two begin writing to each other through the mysterious pages, they open doors not just to each other’s worlds, but to their most vulnerable hopes and fears.
But every story has its price. And as their worlds entwine and their hearts collide, Della and Ansel must decide how far they’re willing to go to change the ending fate has written for them.
Perilous Enchantment by Sarah Clegg
Series: None
Genre: Fantasy, Spirituality & Religion
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Atria Books
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 336
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
A compendium of fairies and fairy lore through the centuries, told through a magical year in search of the fae from the author of the “remarkable” (Literary Review) Woman’s Lore.
Fairy stories and fae lore are ancient—yet fairy stories continue to transform and enthrall our imaginations generation after generation. From Tolkien’s elves to Sarah J. Maas’s high fae, storytellers have reinterpreted the same set of traditions and texts over and over again.
Perilous Enchantment presents a definitive new cultural history of the fairy, from ancient times to now, across Europe and North America. By visiting a different fairy site each month—including fairy hills in Yorkshire, to a nymph’s cave in Delphi, to a contemporary fairy ball in Los Angeles—Cambridge PhD and folkloristSarah Clegg illuminates all the facets of the elusive, capricious figure.
Clegg shows us how shifts in culture, technology, and avenues of storytelling have shaped the image of the fairy and fairylands. Within, you’ll trace how hyper-localized nature spirits in the first century BC became otherworldly tricksters and temptresses, then scions of purgatory or the devil, to adorable Victorian children’s book characters, and ultimately, our contemporary romantasy love interests.
For fans curious for some of the inspiration behind their favorite novels to storytellers interested in adding their own twists to this rich lore, Perilous Enchantment provides a nuanced look at fairyland, from its most extraordinary tales to its darkest corners, showing us just how much faerie has always been a mirror to our own human imaginations, fears, and desires.
Beatrix Potter’s Botanical by Marta McDowell
Series: None
Genre: Nature, Biography & Memoir
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 304
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
A rare collection of Beatrix Potter’s own botanical art, and an exploration of the role these plants played in her personal and literary life.
Beatrix Potter’s Botanical collects and showcases 65 plants and fungi that Beatrix Potter made special study of in her often-overlooked career as a botanical artist. For each species we see Potter’s original pencil and watercolor renderings, learn about the specimen’s role in her various beloved gardens, and hear the stories of how it inspired or appeared in her literary work. The result is a new look at the celebrated illustrator as a pioneering botanical artist and budding scientist. Beatrix Potter is a beloved author and illustrator and this gorgeous exploration of her work will appeal to a wide array of fans.
As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
Series: None
Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Romance
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Orbit
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 416
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
A future that is already broken. A paradox that must be solved. A love that can never be erased.
An extraordinary tale of time travel, betrayal, and queer romance, from Claire North, the multi-award-winning author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
In the beginning, the world will end. This is the story of what happens next.
When Cal meets a soldier of the French Revolution, he knows his lover is destined to die. But what’s the point of being a time traveler if you can’t make a few small tweaks to the course of history? A little paradox here, an alteration there–nothing Cal can’t fix, to save the man he loves.
When Fadimatu walks into a museum in 2018, she stumbles upon her own mummified corpse, setting her on the path to a betrayal that has already killed her, and a murder that has not yet come to pass.
And when a sudden rupture in the fabric of history rips through the lives Cal and Fadimatu have built, breaking both past and future, they must reckon with death foretold, love forsaken, and a secret that will shatter time itself.
Wench by Erynne Rivers
Series: None
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Legends & Mythology
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Avon Books
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 400
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Maid Marian’s life is over.
Her cowardly father has betrothed her to the most reviled man in the land: the Sheriff of Nottingham. Devastated, she’s sent on the quickest path to meet her husband, through the fae-infested Sherwood Forest.
But everything changes when her carriage is attacked by the most feared fae of all: the Merry Men, followers of the infamous Robin Hood. Kidnapped and waiting on the Sheriff’s rescue, Marian finds herself surrounded by the magical creatures she’s been raised to fear. But the more time she spends in their presence, Marian realises that not everything she’s been taught by her family is true.
And Marian can’t help but find herself drawn to her captor – the sinfully handsome Robin, who stands between her and returning to life amongst the humans.
As the Sheriff’s men close in on Marian’s location, she will soon be faced with the ultimate choice: the family she’s always known, or the love she can choose for herself…
Bogland by Merritt R. Turetsky
Series: None
Genre: Nature, Science & Technology
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 240
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Not quite land and not quite water, boglands have long been dismissed as wastelands–too sodden to farm, too perilous to cross, too unruly to be considered beautiful. Come closer, however, and a strange truth emerges: These wild, eerie landscapes stretch our minds, hold the history of humanity, and will shape the future of our planet. In Bogland, acclaimed ecologist Merritt R. Turetsky invites readers to discover the elusive magic and surprising power of these misunderstood places, where the boundaries blur between life and death, past and present, refuge and peril.
Venturing from the boreal forests of Canada to the jungles of Borneo, and from the planet’s oldest bog in Greece to some of its newest in Greenland, Turetsky unveils bogs as marvelous paradoxes that defy categorization and their own systemic undervaluation. Here, radical life forms–acid-flinging mosses, amphibian-eating plants–spring from layers upon layers of dead matter. The past and present commingle with uncanny intimacy as peat safeguards artifacts for centuries, along with ancient lives unearthed later as “bog bodies” so remarkably preserved they are sometimes mistaken for the recently missing. Proverbially dangerous, bogs have offered shelter throughout history to the marginalized and resistance movements from Virginia to Vietnam. Crucially, they also regulate the planet’s climate, sequestering nearly one-third of Earth’s soil carbon while covering just 3 percent of its surface–even as accelerating exploitation risks transforming them from climate allies to climate foes, and erasing these ecosystems just as we’re learning to appreciate them.
The debut of an extraordinary nature writer, Bogland is an ode and a call to action: to defend bogs’ strangeness and stillness from rising destruction, to value them precisely for their refusal to conform, and to learn from them new ways to adapt, endure, and belong on our changing planet–before it’s too late.
The Slantwise Histories by Alix E. Harrow
Series: None
Genre: Fantasy, Short Stories
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Tordotcom
Publish Date: October 20, 2026
Print Length: 304
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Dive into a dazzling collection of short fiction from Alix E. Harrow, the New York Times bestselling author of The Everlasting and Starling House.
These are stories about the past as it wasn’t quite, but might have been—or could still be.
These are stories about dreamers and liars and lovers and ghosts; people just like you.
These are stories about places the world has seen, and some that hide just beyond the periphery of possibility.
Most of all, these are stories for anyone who ever wanted more.
What’s a legend, except a history told slantwise?
The Slantwise Histories: Collected Stories presents the best known short fiction of Alix. E. Harrow, including the Hugo-award winning “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” as well as five all-new stories. The collection also includes the author’s preferred text of previously published stories “The Long Way Up”, “Roadside Attraction”, “Mr. Death”, “The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly”, “The Sycamore and the Sybil”, “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, “The Whisper in the Weld”, “Dustbaby”, and Amazon Original short stories, “The Six Deaths of the Saint” and “The Knight and the Butcherbird”.
The Killing of a Chestnut Tree by Oliver K. Langmead
Series: None
Genre: Cozy Fantasy, Mystery, LGBTQ+
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Tordotcom
Publish Date: October 27, 2026
Print Length: 176
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Be gay, solve crimes!
“I loved this book! Havelock and Sebastian are such great company, brilliant, approachable, fascinating, their relationship is real and touching and relatable. And the mystery is riveting.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author LOUISE PENNY
Meet Havelock Harper, gentleman detective. Dapper, delightful, and decidedly queer, he’s here to solve your most magical mysteries.
Everyone in England knows Havelock Harper, the celebrated consulting detective from the papers. But if any of them read his private files, they would discover secrets that must never reach the public eye—extraordinary cases, impossible crimes, and a committed love affair with his formidable companion Major Sebastian Wright.
And their next case might be the queerest yet.
Havelock and Sebastian have been summoned to investigate the murder of the Duke of Farleigh. When they arrive at the scene of the crime — a secluded, enchanting forest — they discover that the victim is a tree!
The trees of Farleigh have begun to write words in their bark and branches, expressing themselves for all to read. The Duke is an ancient chestnut, cruelly chopped down, and to the villagers of Farleigh, he is a beloved friend. They want justice.
Havelock and Sebastian must use all their wits and wisdom to find the murderer who has shattered the peace of Farleigh.
A Court of Splintered Harmony by Sarah J. Maas**
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses, #6
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publish Date: October 27, 2026
Print Length: 352
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis
Romance, danger, and intrigue await you in the breathtaking sixth book in the #1 bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series.
What was broken will be remade.
Deep in the heart of the continent, Koschei the Deathless is stirring. Though he’s been bound to a mountain lake for millennia, the insidious threat of his return now spreads across the Fae territories, attracting powerful allies hell-bent on reclaiming what was once theirs: the human lands.
The Night Court will not stand idly by while innocents are attacked. But with Prythian still piecing itself together in the wake of the devastating Hybern War, the task of uniting is proving more difficult by the day.
To make matters worse, those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths. The rifts dividing them seem insurmountable.
But to defeat Koschei’s creeping shadow, they must find a way back to each other and resurrect their former alliances. To survive, they must find a way to repair the splintered harmony all around them.
And that’s a wrap for my anticipated October 2026 book releases! Are any of these also on your reading list?


I’m currently about 25% of the way through Shattered Tempest and it is brilliant. I so want to rush through it and find out how it all ends but I’m trying desperately to savour the writing which is brilliant.