Most Anticipated 2026

Upcoming: GODFALL by Van Jensen (Grand Central / Bantam)

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In January 2026, readers will be able to read Godfall, the latest novel (and first in a series) by Van Jensen. Actually, readers will be able to read it in a new edition. After a buzzy Hollywood bidding-war (won by Ron Howard), the novel is getting re-published. In a weird coincidence, I stumbled across both of the new editions on the same day. Both of the covers are certainly eye-catching, and they led me to the book’s synopsis, which ultimately made me put this on my To-Read shelf. (The option news also helped pique my interest.) Jensen also wrote some of the DC New 52 series that I read, back when they all kicked off (The Flash and Green Lantern Corps).

Really looking forward to it. Here’s what it’s about:

When a massive asteroid hurtles toward Earth, humanity braces for annihilation — but the end doesn’t come. In fact, it isn’t an asteroid but a three-mile-tall alien that drops down, seemingly dead, outside Little Springs, Nebraska. Dubbed “the giant,” its arrival transforms the red-state farm town into a top-secret government research site and major metropolitan area, flooded with soldiers, scientists, bureaucrats, spies, criminals, conspiracy theorists — and a murderer.

As the sheriff of Little Springs, David Blunt thought he’d be keeping the peace among the same people he’d known all his life, not breaking up chanting crowds of conspiracy theorists in tiger masks or struggling to control a town hall meeting about the construction of a mosque. As a series of brutal, bizarre murders strikes close to home, Blunt throws himself into the hunt for a killer who seems connected to the Giant. With bodies piling up and tensions in Little Springs mounting, he realizes that in order to find the answers he needs, he must first reconcile his old worldview with the town he now lives in — before it’s too late.

Van Jensen’s Godfall is due to be published by Grand Central Publishing in North America (January 13th, 2026) and Bantam in the UK (January 8th).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE by Jordan Harper (Mulholland)

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Next year, Mulholland Books will publish the latest novel from Jordan Harper! I haven’t read nearly as many of his novels as I would like to have (so many books, so little time…), but thus far everything of his that I have read has been superb — most recently, Everybody Knows and The Last King of California — and this is an instant pre-order/buy. A Violent Masterpiece looks like it’ll be another gripping, gritty crime novel set in Tinseltown. Can’t wait. Here’s the synopsis:

A story of Los Angeles power brokers and those at the edge, and a single shattering incident that threatens to bring it all crashing down.

Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein’s monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city. 

A city ready to explode: A Hollywood pedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing — and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake. Three people trying to keep their heads above the dirty water will find themselves coming together to unite these strands into one enormous, unspeakable crime…

JAKE DEAL is a gonzo live-streaming nightcrawler, beaming the city’s chaos straight to his audience of blood-hungry subscribers, giving them the view from the top of the mushroom cloud — until a job he can’t refuse drags him back into his old life of Hollywood glamour, drugs, sex and sleaze. Armed with cameras and hidden mics, he’ll infiltrate private clubs, gather high-class dirt — and stumble onto a conspiracy woven into the center of LA’s most powerful men, who call themselves “The Kids in the Candy Store.”

DOUG GIBSON is a street lawyer, who fights for his clients against the army of cops, prosecutors and judges – he is the knife they bring to the gunfight. But when he’s hired by a Hollywood pedophile ready to sell out his friends for a chance for freedom, he’ll take on a fight bigger than he could have imagined. And when his client “commits suicide” in prison, Gibson will have to stop being a weapon – and become a warrior.

KARA DELGADO works for an underground private concierge company – a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich. She scores drugs, makes connections, and plans multi-million dollar sex parties.She has learned the secret truth of this world: there are no rules, only prices. Her best friend Phoebe has gone missing, and Kara’s the only person who knows that Phoebe’s place was wiped clean of evidence by men in black rubber gloves. But when she begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to Phoebe, and its connection to the killer known as the LA Ripper, it will drag her into the dark heart of the city.

As Jake, Doug and Kara all investigate these crimes, they’ll encounter ketamine-addled sitcom stars, bloody riots, homeless gangsters, a killer cop on death row, secret vaults in Beverly Hills, tech-bro orgies, medical cannibals, true crime junkies, private security wet-work teams, reality shows, street takeovers, car chases, coyotes, a sadistic Tarzan, and a three day, fifty million dollar wedding, before everything is revealed and they must each make their choice about how to fight back in this violent world before the bloody, blazing conclusion.

Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece is due to be published by Mulholland Books in North America, on April 28th, 2026.

Also on CR: Review of Everybody Knows

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Upcoming: FROM THE DUST by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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Next year, Mulholland Books are due to publish From the Dust — the next novel from David Swinson, the author of the excellent Frank Marr novels (which I highly recommend). A “soulful, rural noir story about belief”, here’s the synopsis:

When a murder occurs in a small town in Upstate New York, retired police detective Graham Sanderson, is drawn back into a vortex of violence, deception, and a series of murders which get dangerously personal.

Graham Sanderson thought he’d left it all behind. His years as a Washington, DC, homicide detective, his tragically dead wife, pain, violence. Taking over his father’s house in the remote Finger Lakes region of rural New York, and looking after his shut-in brother, Tommy, seemed like a respite. That is, until the first body is found.

The chief of the town’s small police jurisdiction, who is also a family friend, asks for Graham’s assistance. Graham’s instincts immediately kick in and he soon discovers there’s more to the area — the people, its brutally quiet, sophisticated hierarchies — than he or his family ever knew.

David Swinson’s From the Dust is due to be published by Mulholland Books in North America and in the UK, on March 31st, 2026.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Second Girl, Crime Song, and Trigger; Excerpt from Sweet Thing

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Upcoming: THE EDGE OF DARKNESS by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)

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Next year, Hodder & Stoughton are due to publish the sixth novel in Vaseem Khan‘s superb Malabar House series: The Edge of Darkness. I’ve been a fan of the series since the first book, 2020’s Midnight At Malabar House, and have eagerly anticipated each new book. Anyone who likes mid-20th Century mysteries (and mysteries in general) should check it out. Here’s the synopsis for the latest instalment:

India, 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders from her superiors, Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, has been exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous state of Nagaland. As India’s first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Victoria Hotel, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in ruins.

But when a prominent local politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria Hotel, his head missing — a case appears quite literally on her doorstep. As the political situation threatens to explode into all-out havoc, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness…

Vaseem Khan’s The Edge of Darkness is due to be published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, on January 15th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: THE FUTURE SAINTS by Ashley Winstead (Atria)

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In January 2026, Atria Books are due to publish The Future Saints, the next book by Ashley Winstead — author of the acclaimed In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and This Book Will Bury Me, among others. Pitched as “perfect for fans of Daisy Jones and the Six and In Five Years“, the synopsis caught my attention, and also made me think of a few other music-related novels of recent years (a sub-genre that I am very happy is getting larger), such as The Lightning Bottles. I haven’t read any of Winstead’s previous novels, but I have picked up the two I mention above. Really looking forward to this new book — shame it’s five months away… Here’s the synopsis:

A transportive new novel about a music executive desperately trying to bring a rock band back from the brink…

This is a love story, but not the one you’re expecting.

When record executive Theo meets the Future Saints, they’re bombing at a dive bar in their hometown. Since the tragic death of their manager, the band has been in a downward spiral and Theo has been dispatched to coax a new — and successful — album out of them, or else let them go.

Immediately, Theo is struck by Hannah, the group’s impetuous lead singer, who’s gone off script by debuting a whole new sound, replacing their California pop with gut-wrenching rock. When this new music goes viral, striking an unexpected chord with fans, Theo puts his career on the line to give the Saints one last shot at success with a new tour, new record, and new start.

But Hannah’s grief has larger consequences for the group, and her increasingly destructive antics become a distraction as she and her sister Ginny — her lifelong partner in crime — undermine Theo at every turn. Hannah isn’t ready to move on or prepared for the fame she’s been chasing, and the weight of her problems jeopardize the band, her growing closeness with Theo, and, worst of all, her relationship with her sister — all while the world watches closely. The Future Saints’s big break is here — if only they can survive it.

Ashley Winstead’s The Future Saints is due to be published by Atria Books in North America and Aria in the UK, on January 20th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

Upcoming: LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (Ecco)

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Some great news: there’s a new novel on the way from Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney! Some bad news: it’s not out until March 2026! I’ve been a fan of D’Aprix Sweeney’s work since her debut, the internationally-bestselling The Nest, and also very much enjoyed her second novel, Good Company. Ever since finishing the latter, I’ve been eagerly anticipating whatever D’Aprix Sweeney wrote next; so, I was very happy when I saw Lake Effect announced. I just have to be patient, now… Pitched as “a wry and tender portrait of two families forever changed by one lovestruck decision that will reverberate for decades”, here’s the full synopsis:

It’s 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York, a place long fueled by the booming fortunes of Kodak and Xerox and, for some, the mores of the Catholic church. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible — but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.

Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down. Written with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humor and insight, Lake Effect is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s Lake Effect is due to be published by Ecco in North America (March 3rd, 2026) and Borough Press in the UK (March 12th).

Also on CR: Review of Good Company

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Upcoming: THE LAST KINGS OF HOLLYWOOD by Paul Fischer (Celadon)

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Early next year, Celadon Books are due to publish The Last Kings of Hollywood by Paul Fischer: a new biography of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, “and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema”. As a movie-lover born in the early-1980s, these three directors have been responsible for an incredible number of movies that I have watched many, many times. So this, combined with my love for behind-the-scenes books, means Fischer’s new book became a must-read as soon as I saw it in the publisher’s catalogue. I really can’t wait to read this.

Here’s the synopsis:

The untold, intimate story of how three young visionaries—Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg — revolutionized American cinema, creating the most iconic films in history while risking everything, redefining friendship, and shaping Hollywood as we know it.

In the summer of 1967, as the old Hollywood studio system was dying, an intense, uncompromising young film school graduate named George Lucas walked onto the Warner Bros. backlot for his first day working as an assistant to another up-and-coming, largely unknown filmmaker, a boisterous father of two called Francis Ford Coppola. At the exact same time, across town on the Universal Studios lot, a film-obsessed twenty-year-old from a peripatetic Jewish family, Steven Spielberg, longed to break free from his apprenticeship for the struggling studio and become a film director in his own right.

Within a year, the three men would become friends. Spielberg, prioritizing security, got his seven-year contract directing television. Lucas and Coppola, hungry for independence, left Hollywood for San Francisco to found an alternative studio, American Zoetrope, and make films without answering to corporate capitalism.

Based on extensive research and hundreds of original interviews with the inner circle of these Hollywood icons, The Last Kings of Hollywood tells the thrilling, dramatic inside story of how, over the next fifteen years, the three filmmakers rivaled and supported one another, fell out and reconciled, and struggled to reinvent popular American cinema. Along the way, Coppola directed The Godfather, then the highest-grossing film of all time, until Spielberg surpassed it with Jaws — whose record Lucas broke with Star Wars, which Spielberg surpassed again with E.T. By the early 1980s, they were the richest, best-known filmmakers in the world, each with an empire of their own. The Last Kings of Hollywood is an unprecedented chronicle of their rise, their dreams and demons, their triumphs and their failures — intimate, extraordinary, and supremely entertaining.

Paul Fischer’s The Last Kings of Hollywood is due to be published by Celadon Books in North America and in the UK, on February 2026.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, BlueSky