It’s really hard to believe we’re already halfway through 2026. I missed it at the beginning of July, but I’m not too far off. It’s time to talk about my Favorites Books of 2026, so far. These are the ones I read in 2026. Most of them were published this year, but not all of them. I’m listing them in the order I read them, beginning in January.
The Forgotten Book Club by Kate Storey is a book about grief and books. For three decades, Grace supported her husband Frank’s passion for books, despite not being a reader herself. Since his passing, their shelves echo longingly, and Grace’s heartache has only grown. When Grace’s grandson suggests joining Frank’s old book club to feel closer to him again, Grace reluctantly agrees. Yet, upon arrival, she discovers this isn’t a typical book club: here, members settle in for an hour of reading… in silence. Disappointed by the sparse attendance and confused by the lack of chatter, Grace flees. But when fellow member, Annie, convinces her to stay, Grace is determined to ensure that neither Frank – nor his beloved book club – are forgotten.
Four days after I read The Forgotten Book Club, I picked up Libby Page’s This Book Made Me Think of You. (You don’t know how many books I have at home about bookstores or book clubs.) This one is, again, about grief and books. Twelve books. Twelve months. One chance to heal her heart…When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her husband waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. But mainly because Joe died five months ago….When she goes to pick up the present, Alfie, the bookshop owner with kind eyes, explains the gift—twelve carefully chosen books with handwritten letters from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him. At first Tilly can’t imagine sinking into a fictional world, but Joe’s tender words convince her to try, and something remarkable happens—Tilly becomes immersed in the pages, and a new chapter begins to unfold in her own life. Monthly trips to the bookstore—and heartfelt conversations with Alfie—give Tilly the comfort she craves and the courage to set out on a series of reading-inspired adventures that take her around the world. But as she begins to share her journey with others, her story—like a book—becomes more than her own.
Kate Quinn’s The Astral Library is not at all like any of her other books. From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures. Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives…inside their favorite books.
Amy Rose Bennett’s Parasol Academy was one of my happy discoveries. The Governess’s Guide to Spells and Managing Misfit Marquesses is the second in the series, with the third due out in March. (It’s hard to wait.) Mary Poppins meets My Fair Lady in a feel-good blend of cozy fantasy magic, historical romance, humor, and Victorian era charm, as a recent graduate of the Parasol Academy for Exceptional Nannies and Governesses finds herself at sea on a ship commanded by a captivating Irishman. Hermina Davenport can hardly believe the audacious exploit she is about to attempt. To protect an orphaned young viscount, the prim and proper governess feels she has no choice but to break the rules of the Parasol Academy Handbook! When the lad’s guardian, a ruthlessly ambitious explorer, ensorcelled by the evil Fae Queen, spirits him away on a dangerous North Pole expedition, Mina employs an invisibility spell to snatch him from the ship. But a magical misfire whisks Mina and her charge onto a different vessel, that of a ruggedly handsome Irishman—a strapping prizefighter from Dublin’s backstreets—and Mina finds she’s at sea in more ways than one . . .
It isn’t all new discoveries. Deadly Force is the sixteenth Detective Inspector Bill Slider mystery by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. DCI Bill Slider and his team are plunged into a city-wide manhunt when the body of a police officer is found dumped in a canal. Murder is always treated seriously, but when the victim is a serving copper, the killer is going to find the whole London force on their tail – and there will be no let up until they’re caught. It’s a police procedural, but it’s a police procedural with dark humor, sometimes sly wit, and wonderful chapter headings. I’ve read all sixteen, and I’m always waiting for the next book.
Eloisa James is not a new discovery, but a rediscovery for me. I have stacks of her historical romances in one of my rooms. And, I debated which title to put on my list, but I ended up with The Last Lady B. There’s a strong heroine (as in all James’ books) and a great supporting cast. 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 Burnsby, 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.
Although we do learn more about DS George Cross and his family in The Bookseller, the latest release in Tim Sullivan’s series, I preferred The Teacher. Detective Sergeant George Cross has always been a good student—attentive, methodical, and careful to double-check his work. So when an elderly schoolteacher is found dead at home in southwest England, Cross knows the math isn’t adding up. The angle of the man’s neck suggests he fell down the stairs. But the stab wound on his body changes the equation. DS George Cross has a long list of suspects. Prickly and miserable, Moreton made life hell for his neighbors and former pupils. But every victim deserves justice—even one who never learned an important truth: If you go through life making enemies, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone decides to teach you a lesson.
The Tailor, the next in the series, will be released next month.
E.A. Jackson’s Missing is a debut with a fascinating twist at the end. A detective returns to a thirty-year-old case—an infamous disappearance in London—that has haunted her entire career and now may jeopardize her future. In August 1990, London is suffering through an unprecedented heatwave when baby Bella Carpenter is snatched through the open window of her hotel room. Detective Inspector Martha Allen is assigned the high-profile case and, knowing that it could make or break her career, is determined to find Bella. When a young woman named Nell Beatty walks into the police station with a baby who appears to be Bella, and whom Nell claims she found on a park bench, it seems that the mystery is solved, and her family is overjoyed. But DI Allen isn’t convinced, something about Nell’s story doesn’t ring true. As much as she wants to continue, however, now that the baby is safe, she’s ordered to close the investigation. Thirty years later, Nell Beatty is found murdered. Now a superintendent, Allen has never really gotten over her doubts about the Carpenter case and can’t resist doing a little digging, eager to find out what happened to Nell, and her involvement in the baby’s disappearance all those years ago.
After I complained about one ridiculous cozy mystery recently, I’ll put one cozy on my list of favorites, Dungeons and Danger, the second in Elizabeth Penney’s Ravensea Castle series. As Halloween approaches, Ravensea Castle is bustling with excitement as Nora Asquith welcomes the fall season guests to her family’s newly converted bed and breakfast. A historian studying the movements of the Vikings has traced their exploits to Ravensea. A certain Viking woman, known as the Red Maiden, landed here and the historian believes she buried a treasure hoard before the castle was built. He is hopeful he can find the hoard now. Nora can’t help but wonder if the enigmatic castle ghost she’s always referred to as the woman in red could be this very Viking. Meanwhile, a team of four ghost hunters is coming to stay at Ravensea for the filming of Britain’s Got Ghosts. Former students of the historian, the group arrives with their own rivalries and baggage. They try to see who can make the most paranormal contacts and end up getting more than they bargained for. When the historian is murdered during a Viking festival on castle grounds and his notes go missing, Nora can’t help but wonder if the treasure was why he was killed . . . and could it be connected to the visiting ghost hunters? Additional “accidents” befalling the hunters raise the stakes as Nora races to find the killer—and the treasure—before another death occurs.
Although I was tempted to put Ben Reeves’ debut, on the list, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, it was a July release and belongs in the second half of the year. So, I’m ending my list of favorites with ashley Ream’s The Peculiar Gift of July. Ebey’s End is a small town on an island off the Pacific coast, reachable only by ferry (assuming the gods are with you and it’s not a Tuesday). It’s a comfortable, familiar (but okay, fine, sometimes lonely) life for its resident grocer Anita Odom. That is, until fourteen-year-old July shows up on her doorstep. Taking in the recently orphaned daughter of an estranged cousin had not been on Anita’s to-do list. In fact, it’s a terrible idea. Anita is ill-suited, ill-prepared, and absolutely certain the entire enterprise will end in disaster—for both of them. From the moment she arrives, July seems to “know” what each customer at the Island Grocery needs. They’re small things: a housekeeping magazine slipped into old Mr. Daly’s basket or a coconut cream pie pressed into the hands of Pastor Chet. But one by one, these gifts start to change the lives of nearly everyone in town in ways much larger than they—or July—could have imagined.
Honorable mention goes to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because it got me through a period when I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read.
So, there are my ten favorites from the first half of 2026. We’ll see which of these titles end up on my Favorites list at the end of the year. Did I get you thinking about what books you’ve enjoyed in 2026?
