Fresh New Books May 15, 2026 | Kiss Your $ Goodbye!
New Books This Week!
This is where I spotlight the sparkling new releases that are tempting me so you can succumb to temptation too. The focus will be on dark fiction and romance with the occasional thriller tossed in that catches my eye.
This week has been far too busy but I managed to find a good mix of horror, thriller, romance and fantasy romances. If only there were enough hours in the day to read them all!
HORROR, HORROR-Adjacent & THRILLERS
Not Your Final Girl by Mikayla Randolph
A feminist slasher novel fueled by female rage and haunted by gruesome murders, in this contemporary reimagining of Tess of the D’Urbervilles there can only be one Final Girl.
Darcy and her high school friends haven’t gathered together in seven years. After a tragic murder on prom night, the group graduated and never looked back. But when the lakeside cabin they spent their summers at is put up for sale, they reunite for one last hurrah.
Darcy hopes it will be an inspiring weekend that will help them all move on from their shared trauma. But Ashley, her biggest tormentor and the group’s manipulative self-appointed leader, is sure to stir up trouble. After a first day filled with jealousy, heartbreak, and unexpected guests, tensions are bursting, and the feud between Darcy and Ashley resurfaces.
The reunion takes a sinister turn when a masked killer slaughters one of their own. Cut off from the outside world with the death toll rising fast, the terrified friends turn on each other and uncover long buried secrets. Someone is seeking justice for their past betrayals and with friends like these no one is safe in this dark-femme slasher for fans of Maeve Fly by CJ Leede and The Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones.
Learn more at Goodreads
Honey by Imani Thompson
A dark, provocative, adrenaline-rush of a novel about a graduate student who murders bad men and justifies it in the name of feminism, by a bold new voice in fiction
Yrsa is in a funk. She’s bored of her PhD program, bored of her research on Afropessimism, bored of the entitled undergrads she has to cater to. But most of all, she’s bored of the men in her life—especially the bad ones.
When her best friend, Nina, confesses to having an affair with her professor, and that he’s stolen her research, Yrsa is mad. On the quad, Yrsa bumps into the professor and witnesses his death: an unfortunate incident involving his San Pellegrino and a bee allergy. What she sees that afternoon awakens something in her: a taste for murder.
Emboldened, Yrsa decides to chase that high, and soon, no sexist, misbehaving man within commuting distance is safe.
With each murder, Yrsa feels a greater sense of meaning and purpose—finally, her doctoral research feels useful. But how long can killing in the name of feminist and racial solidarity justify her actions? Will her rampage ever assuage her feelings of rage and revenge? And how long until her actions—and buried family secrets—come back to haunt her?
Learn more at Goodreads.
Abyss by Nicholas Binge
Severance meets Lovecraft in this surreal tale of corporate horror and existential dread.
Joe always had potential, but he doesn't expect much, and he hopes that his new job as an admin assistant won't expect much of him. But when he enters the offices of Ponos—a company he's never heard of and knows nothing about—he discovers that potential is exactly what they want from him.
A feverish dive into the inhumanity of both late-stage capitalism and the crippling anxieties of modern life, Abyss adds a new level of meaning to 'wage slave'.
Learn more at Goodreads.
The Bone Door by Frances White
How far will you go to open The Bone Door?
When Hop awakens in an ancient labyrinth, he has no memory of his life, or how he got here. He does not recognise the mysterious girl trapped with him. And he certainly cannot identify the shadowy figure stalking him, whispering terrible things...
But there is one thing he is certain He must escape.
The only way out of the labyrinth is through The Bone Door. But it lies behind a series of locked doors hidden across an array of strange realms. To open the way, Hop must complete impossible tasks before his time runs out.
As Hop travels deeper into the maze, he discovers that he and his companions may be more connected to the place and its horrors than he could ever imagine.
Unless Hop is able to unravel the true mystery of the labyrinth, and his own role within it, the Bone Door and any hope of escape will be lost forever.
For Dark Fantasy readers who Horror/Fantasy crossover Found family Misfit groups of heroic children like in Stranger Things Fantasy based on myths and folklore LGBTQIA+ representation Stories with fat positivity
Learn more at Goodreads.
The House of Whispers by Tom Carter
After the death of his estranged mother, Jimmy Manning returns to his hometown of Broadoaks for the first time in twenty years. He hasn't come back to pay his respects, but to make sure she is finally gone for good. That, and the fact he’s inherited the family home he hasn’t set foot in since he was sixteen. With his older brother, Jason, missing, and his younger brother, Thomas, the permanent resident of a mental facility, the arrangements all fall on Jimmy.
He would like nothing more than for the house to be gutted and burned down, but when he experiences strange goings on, he wonders if it's his emotions getting the better of him, or if something paranormal is happening in the house that caused him so much misery.
Then he hears it. The Whisper. Dig.
Jimmy has a decision to make. Turn and leave like he did twenty years ago, or listen to the whisper and trawl through the chaos of his youth to discover the demons buried there.
Fans of “The Burning Girls” by C.J. Tudor and “The Haunting of Ashburn House” by Darcy Coates will enjoy “The House of Whispers” by Tom Carter.
Learn more at Goodreads.
Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller
1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and—delightfully— some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.
But as Sue’s behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry—for food—and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. It's a decision that will haunt her for decades.
Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.
From critically acclaimed and award-winning author, Claire Fuller, Hunger and Thirst is a compelling and chilling tale of loneliness and female friendship, of the dangerous line between wanting and needing, and of how far a person will go to truly belong.
Learn more at Goodreads.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
You were pure once. You can be made pure again.
Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family―to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.
Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef -- she will find herself.
She’s ready to be healed. She’s ready to be transformed.
She's ready to believe.
Learn more at Goodreads.
Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou
With the consequences of her murderous actions closing in, Lady Macbeth turns to the three witches for help. She’s given a brew that transports her to an unknown realm. Desperately lost, she opens a door and comes face to face with a beautiful woman drenched in blood.
Klytemnestra, Queen of Mycenae, is exacting bloody vengeance on her husband. Yet as she revels in her triumph, an otherworldly door appears and a strange woman steps in. Thinking this stranger a spirit, she chases Lady Macbeth into the realm of stories.
Hunted by screaming wraiths into worlds that are hell bent on their demise, this murderous pair are forced to form an alliance or perish. Yet the realm’s goddess, The Mistress of the House of Books, claims to hold the key to saving them. But can they trust this ancient goddess?
As every threat brings our vile lady villains closer, turning ill intentions into fiery attraction that no author dare write, they have a remain within the confines of their original tales … Or burn down the world to pen a new story together . . .
Learn more at Goodreads.
The Anniversary by Alex Finlay
Every Year He Comes For Them.
On one fateful night in 1992, the lives of two seventeen-year-olds are changed and intertwined forever. Quinn Riley, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested after he innocently tries to break up a fight but ends up nearly killing someone. Jules Delaney, high school royalty, survives an attack by the elusive and terrifying May Day Killer—a serial predator who strikes every May 1st in midwestern small towns.
A year later, Jules is struggling with trauma and guilt, tormented by one question: Why was I spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to fresh the unsolved murder of his mother.
Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each year—May 1st. As secrets unravel and the paths of Quinn and Jules collide, two mysteries edge closer to the truth. All the while, the May Day Killer is still out there—and the clock is racing toward another May 1st.
The Anniversary is an utterly compelling story of the hunt for a serial killer. But it’s also a heartfelt—and heartrending—novel about fate, innocence lost, and two souls who find that sometimes being broken is the only way for the light to get in.
Learn more at Goodreads.
New Skin by Sarah Wang
A scalding, darkly humorous debut following an enmeshed mother-daughter duo, both best friends and enemies, and the plastic surgery addiction that warps their lives into a perilous spiral
At twenty-six, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, just when Linli has been accepted into a prestigious graduate program, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home.
For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery, getting bargain procedures in the basements of LA’s bootleg beauty industry. Now Fanny’s disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables.
But even as Linli wades through the wreck of family finances and juggles her mother’s medical care, Fanny has another secret in store. Fanny has won a spot on America’s Beauty Extreme, a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that has already claimed her mother’s face, she must at last confront the corrosive reality of American success that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
Learn more at Goodreads.
ROMANCE
The Last Lady B by Eloisa James
Lady B may have married Bluebeard; she may have fallen in love with a gorgeous, grumpy solicitor; she may have met a ghost and survived to tell the tale! New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Eloisa James delights with witty historical romance with a gothic twist.
In the depths of winter, Lady Genevieve Hughes, her pet piglet, and her septuagenarian husband travel to a haunted abbey in the Scottish Highlands. Evie is excited to meet a ghost (perhaps one of her husband’s three previous wives), but didn’t expect the funny, quirky guests to become the friends she’s never had. And she certainly didn’t imagine meeting Sir Godric Everly, a sardonic, witty solicitor who loathes her husband.
Yet as secrets and lies turn Evie’s world upside down, Sir Godric becomes the one person whom she can trust.
When ghosts, multiple wills, and a shocking marriage certificate bring Lord Burnsby’s past crashing into his present, Burnsby promptly dies, leaving Evie free to remarry…though as a virgin wife, now a virgin widow, she is more unnerved by the marriage bed than a spectral visit.
More importantly, she has to figure out whose identity is false, whose vows are dishonorable, whose truths could destroy her reputation—and where her heart belongs.
Learn more at Goodreads.
The Last Page by Katie Holt
A bookseller with a dream of running her beloved bookstore vs. the owner’s out-of-touch grandson who inherits everything. Game on.
From the author of Not in My Book comes another irresistible, bookish contemporary romance.
Ella has grown up at The Last Page, a charming local bookstore in New York City where she now works. Her first kiss was in the women’s health section. A boyfriend dumped her in comedy. The owner is like a second father to her and has begun training her to take over the store. So when he unexpectedly dies and his estranged grandson is left everything in the will, Ella is devastated.
Henry doesn’t know the first thing about running a bookstore. With his aging mom back in Tennessee, he plans to stay in New York just long enough to ensure things are running smoothly and then head back home. What he never could have counted on was the beautiful, funny bookseller who loves The Last Page more than any place in the world—and who sees him as the villain who’s come to ruin her life.
But when it becomes evident that the store is in deep financial trouble and Henry and Ella are both at risk of losing everything, they have no choice but to put their differences aside and team up—despite the inconvenient chemistry blossoming between them.
Fans of Christina Lauren and Ali Hazelwood will adore this rivals-to-friends-to-lovers bookish romance!
Learn more at Goodreads.
A Game of Cat and Witch by Ruby Rune
Avery Alarch has always been the worst witch at Caerwyn University. Now she’s got twenty-four hours to conjure a familiar or get kicked out for good—a fate that means losing her magic forever and being stuck on a dreary island with nothing but regrets.
Desperate times call for desperate spells. So when Avery stumbles on a forbidden grimoire, she decides to risk it all. One little summoning later, she’s expecting a cute magical cat. Instead? She gets Felix, a six-foot-six cat shifter with a bad attitude and a knack for trouble. He’s her mortal enemy, magically bound to her by an illegal spell, and very much not purring.
He wants her dead. She wants him gone. Neither of them gets a choice.
The only way out? Solve a string of enchanted riddles before their magical link destroys them both. Of course, that’s easier said than done when Felix keeps tying Avery up in shadows, and their bickering is starting to feel a little less hostile and a lot more heated.
As they unravel puzzles and secrets, Avery and Felix find themselves at the heart of a conspiracy that could upend the supernatural world. And despite every rule and reason, sparks are flying in all the wrong (or right?) ways.
Get ready for claws, curses, and cat-astrophic chemistry in A Game of Cat and Witch, the first laugh-out-loud installment in the Monstrous Shifters series.
Perfect for fans of My Funny Demon Valentine and Assistant to the Villain, Ruby Rune’s debut is a magical, banter-filled paranormal rom-com you won’t want to miss.
Learn more at Goodreads.
How Not to Mesmerize Your Human Muse by A.K. Caggiano
Pretending to fall might come with benefits…until the very end.
Kat is terrified of almost everything except demons, not since they rescued her from slavers and gave her a proper job, unspoiled food, and a consistent roof over her head. Even if she’s one of only six humans in their sunless city, it’s a relief to spend her days sorting mail and hemming clothes instead of thieving. Hidden away at the post, she can’t bungle conversations or draw derision with her scarred face. But when her sister insists they flee their new untroublesome life, Kat is determined to prove they belong.
And who better to assist with belonging than a carefree demon who’s never glided into a room he didn’t immediately possess? As an adept magician from an aristocratic family, Azrion appears to have it all: talent, prestige, wealth. But just as the night sky changes, so does his fate—his mate breaks off their tenuous courtship, and that bodes ill for everything, including his father’s approval. Lucky Az, the stars also brought humans to his city, and he’s convinced any one of them will inspire enough jealousy to win back his ex. If only he could predict what would come of choosing Kat.
With a contract for their fraudulent courtship in place, Kat and Azrion agree to play at being mates. It’s a risky game, but it comes with more coin than Kat can count and the promise to reclaim Azrion’s orderly life. Perhaps coin loses a bit of its shine when held beside the brilliance of a certain demon’s grin, and maybe order isn’t quite so appealing when up against the delightful peculiarities of a specific human, but actually falling for each other wasn’t part of the deal. Developing mutual fondness was probably inevitable, though, and who could really blame them for practicing a kiss or two on their own? And if that kiss leads to more? Well, that’s just dedication to their bargain.
After all, when has a deal with a demon ever gone wrong?
Falling for Demons is a fantasy monster romance series set in a cozy and spicy shared world by authors Laura Winter and A.K. Caggiano. Each book can be read as a standalone novel but is interconnected, following six human women and their budding romances with the demons they once feared as they settle into a monstrously magical world.
Learn more at Goodreads.
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