2026 has now entered the history books. Well, not exactly, as it will be decades before historians have enough perspective to analyze WTF just happened. Still, it’s over, and everything feels like it’s starting fresh. Whether it actually is or not, time will certainly tell.
In the bookish world, we’ve all posted our “Best Books of the Year” list for the old year, and now it’s time to look at what’s coming for us – or at us – in the new.
But before I do that, I always take a look back at which books I was looking forward to this time last year, to see how they – or I – did – and the answer is not too badly, all things considered.
Out of last year’s list of 20 “most anticipated” titles, I read 17. And for the most part, had a great time doing so. (A Drop of Corruption was one of my A++ reads in 2025 and is on my – and a lot of readers’ – best books lists for 2025. The first book in the series, The Tainted Cup, won the Hugo for Best Novel this past year and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see A Drop of Corruption do the same this year. The ONLY thing that would have stopped the third book from being on this Most Anticipated List would be if it were not coming out in 2026. But it is and it is – although there’s no cover image YET.
About those books I didn’t get around to, one (Gryphon’s Valor) seems to be indefinitely delayed – or until 2033, which amounts to the same thing. I’m still interested, but it’s just not happening at the moment. One book, A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, I bounced hard off of twice and probably won’t go back to. The third, The Sea Eternal, I’m still very interested in reading/listening to because I loved the first book AND I enjoy fantasy/SF reworkings of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, but it’s a book I planned to listen to – like the first – and the 19 hours that’s going to take haven’t materialized – at least not yet.
Which leads me right back to the books I’m most looking forward to for this coming year – not that I haven’t already teased you a bit.
But first, the books that are teasing ME this year that aren’t on the list because…reasons. The reason that they are not certain for this year, at least not yet, no matter how much I want them to be. I hope for/expect a fifth book in Tracy Clark’s Harriet Foster series at the end of 2026 but there is no announcement as yet. Louise Penny’s next book, The Last Mandarin, is not in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, which means that while I’m anticipating reading it, it doesn’t make the “most anticipated” list as Gamache himself would. And finally, L.E. Modesitt Jr.’s final book in his Grand Illusion series, titled Premier, has been turned into the publisher but will not be published until late 2026 or sometime in 2027. Damn, both that it’s the last and that it’s not here yet.
Without further ado, because there’s been plenty of that already, here are the books that I’m most looking forward to reading in 2026 that I have reasonable expectations will be released this year – regardless of the availability of even preliminary covers to ooh and ahh over. Whether each of the titles listed will turn out to be good, great, terrible or terribly great is something that we’ll all get to discover in the year ahead.
I hope at least some of the books on this list will spark anticipation for your reading year to come as well!
Brimstone Hollow (Annie Gore #2) by Archer Sullivan (August)
Daggerbound (Swordheart #2) by T. Kingfisher (August)
A Deadly Episode (Hawthorne & Horowitz #6) by Anthony Horowitz (April)
Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons (March)
Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (June)
Inside Man (PAR Unit #2) by John McMahon (January)
Lightning Runes (City of Shadows #2) by Harry Turtledove (March)
A Lion’s Ransom (Owen Archer #16) by Candace Robb (January)
A Long and Speaking Silence (Singing Hills Cycle #7) by Nghi Vo (May)
Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler (May)
Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries #8) by Martha Wells (May)
A Pretender’s Murder (Eric Peterkin #2) by Christopher Huang (January)
Radiant Star (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie (May)
The Shadow Carver (Inspector Angelica Henley #4) by Nadine Matheson (March)
The Tailor (DS Cross Mysteries #8) by Tim Sullivan (July)
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Maggie the Undying #1) by Ilona Andrews (March)
A Trade of Blood (Shadow of the Leviathan #3) by Robert Jackson Bennett (August)
Villain (Hench #2) by Natalie Zina Walschots (May)
When the Wolves are Silent (Sebastian St. Cyr #21) by C.S. Harris (April)
Zyon (Haze #2) by Katharine Kerr (August)
Except for the next Murderbot book, I haven’t heard about any of these books. Most of them are new to me series and authors. But thank you for making me aware that there is a new Hawthorne and Horowitz book coming out in April. Totally missed that one. I might check out some of the others as well.
I didn’t know about the Horowitz either, but I thought he was due and it turned out that he was! I hope you find some other good ones from the list!
Marlene Harris recently posted..Most Anticipated Books of 2026
I find I don’t tend to be super aware of upcoming books too far in advance… I am not sure why, as I really should. I do love seeing that there is an upcoming book from a favorite author or the next part in a series. I could also add them to my anticipated book TBR list that way…
It’s an addiction, I tell you!
Marlene Harris recently posted..Stacking the Shelves (686)