I know you probably have a bunch of unread books at home that you already own - maybe entire bookcases full of them - but what fun is that!? Our Scary Mommy team of voracious readers have done all of the research for you and compiled a list of the very best and most exciting new releases coming our way in 2026.
They are also chock-full of almost every kind of conspiracy theory you can think of. In the fiction of Assassin's Creed, humanity is descended from ancient aliens, and this knowledge is suppressed throughout history; the tide of world events is influenced by a shadow war between two secret societies; the media exists to manipulate the public. This makes for an exciting series of video games with a near-limitless scope. It also echoes uncomfortable real-world conspiracy theories that have proven consequential in our lifetime.
The tropes of these stories have found particular success in franchises like The Hunger Games and Squid Game, but you can only replicate a formula so many times before even the best stories feel boring. Thankfully, Netflix just dropped a new take on the story, and it's pushing the genre into the future by taking it over a century into the past.
In this powerful and original epic, a girl ventures from her remote Polynesian island to try to save her people from doom. After Norse invaders slaughter almost everyone on a small Scottish island, a mead wife, a monk and an elderly Norseman find themselves the only survivors. This mystery is filled with fascinating glimpses of mid-18th-century London, where the recently widowed Hannah Cole runs a confectionery shop.
The novel begins with the rediscovery of the Ibn Tulun Mosque in 1918 and recounts Ibn Tulun's life and legacy in the ninth and tenth centuries. Bassiouney presents Ibn Tulun's benevolent vision to unify all Egyptians in a new city, Al-Qata'i. He becomes so focused on his vision, however, that he cannot see the impact it has on his family or the fate of Egypt. When a betrayal leads to his demise, the rival Abbasid caliph threatens to regain control of Al-Qata'i.
Audiences are generally used to a little bending of the truth with most historical fiction. Matt Damon's character in Air never drove to Michael Jordan's family home before signing the young basketball player to Nike. I doubt that Napoleon ever oinked at Josephine like she does in Ridley Scott's 2023 film, and I don't think random soldiers on the battlefield during the American Civil War in Lincoln were learned to recite the Gettysburg Address by heart.
Once in a while, mistakes happen. I mention this mistake because it testifies to something powerful about Patrick Ryan's new novel, Buckeye. When I made a late request for an advance review copy of Buckeye, the copy I received looked fine, but when I opened it I realized it was mistakenly bound backwards. The title page was at the very end of this over-450-page novel.
Gone are the heady days of the beach read, summarily swapped for the kinds of books a school board can really get behind. At least, that's true for the lucky folks who still get to make learning their primary occupation. For everyone else, there's a consolation for the drudgery of the day job: those happy off-hours when, instead of The Great Gatsby, say, you can still crack open whatever you darn well please.
In a remote monastery perched perilously on top of a crag in Piedmont, Italy, an old man lies dying. Thirty-two monks stand vigil at the deathbed; Mimo Vitaliani has lived among them for 40 years, yet few of them know exactly why. Nor did Vitaliani come alone, but with a mysterious statue that is kept under lock and key in the depths of the Sacra di San Michele,
In David Park's latest novel, time blurs as past and present intertwine, reflecting the evolution of personal struggles within the backdrop of Northern Ireland's rich history.
Knowing she would narrate it later back in the house, Florence would have to tell the story a different way. That instinct to reshape the unbearable into something legible sits at the core of Nightingale.
"The lure of travel, I thought, is only the lure of illusion, the mistaken belief that in a new country with different people and different ways, we can escape the confines of ourselves..."
In the early 17th-century wilderness, a servant girl flees a smallpox-ridden settlement, embracing survival through her resourcefulness against frigid conditions and patriarchal violence.
