Just like that, autumn is fully upon us, and September will be behind us in the blink of an eye.
It’s practically October, which means stepping into all of the cozy comforts of fall, and looking forward to all things supernatural and haunting as we creep toward Halloween.
That, of course, also influences our reading, and October doesn’t disappoint with its upcoming releases.
Whether you’re in the mood for a YA thriller about a teenage girl doggedly working to prevent her own murder, a supernatural romance at a school for witches or the tale of a smitten writer who defies all odds in a world where books have been outlawed, the month is about to deliver.
Yet again, our favorite publishers gave us the opportunity to preview these exciting stories early, so keep scrolling to learn about three October 2026 releases we adored best and discover which ones you’ll want to devour, too.
Sincerely, Your Murderer by Ravena Guron – Oct. 13
What would you do if you believed you might have just one week to live?
That’s a question that 17-year-old Kay Gill never imagined she’d have to consider. It’s been just over a year since a bizarre accident resulted in the death of her friend Ivy, followed not long after by the loss of her beloved Aunt Sandra to cancer. She, along with her parents, moved away from the tiny, quiet English town she grew up in, leaving behind her cousin, Nikki, and uncle, and things have never been the same between them since.
So when Kay’s parents head off on an anniversary vacation, leaving her to stay with the family Aunt Sandra left behind, she’s nervous about returning to them. She knows she’ll have to confront some challenging feelings in their presence, and that otherwise, the week is probably going to be an utter bore.
Instead, Kat’s met with a dead rat and a threatening anonymous letter on her bed. It promises that there will be a thrill on Tuesday, a wreckage on Wednesday, treachery on Thursday, a fire on Friday, sabotage on Saturday, a stabbing on Sunday and finally, her murder on Monday.
At first, she thinks it must be a prank, but as these events unfold one by one, day by day, Kay realizes that if she doesn’t discover the identity of the sender soon, she won’t live past Monday. Unfortunately, her past in a small town means she knows just about everyone, and that anyone tied to her might be a suspect. Stranger, it seems that the fates of both Ivy and Aunt Sandra seem tied to mystery.
Sincerely, Your Murderer is a story that’s positively packed with suspicious suspects, red herrings and unexpected events that disprove every one of Kay’s theories, making her question everything to start from scratch again and again. It perfectly ties together the mundane with unbelievable events, making them seem even that more shocking.
We’re typically pretty good at piecing together stories like this, but we found the solution to the mystery to be entirely expected without coming out of nowhere, with all of the cleverly placedd threads trying together in an extremely satisfying way by the end of the tale.
(Sincerely, Your Murderer via Sourcebooks Fire)
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Nightcurse by Emma Hinds – Oct. 13
After falling in love with the world of Emma Hinds’ Witchlore, we couldn’t be more excited to see another story take place in the same universe with the upcoming release of Nightcurse.
This time around, the tale focus on Emrys Swift, an immortal Revenant cursed to be 17 years old forever. He’s been dead for 157 years already, but because he’ll never be an adult, he’s never been allowed any real responsibility, maintaining a secretive existence as a witchlore librarian at NeverEnd library.
He’s the type who’d be happy to maintain the status quo forever, but when the youngest-ever Revenant arrives, and he’s expected to supervise her, things start changing fast. He’s forced to tutor the young girl alongside his rival, the shapeshifter Aubrey Vale, who he can’t stand—in part being he’s so good looking he seems to get everything he wants.
But when powerful artifacts begin to go missing from their places in libraries across the U.K., Vale recruits Emrys to help him find them. Emrys is hesitant, but soon he has no choice, as a bit of magic gone wrong leaves the pair magically bonded with a promise to each other, with an irritating itch in their hands whenever they’re apart.
As the two embark on their journey, they discover that there is, indeed, a much larger conspiracy afoot, putting his continued place at NeverEnd at risk, and that it involves other nightcursed like Emrys—as well as some not like him at all. Along the way, they’ll deal with ghosts, sirens and a being called The Huntmans as they tussle with their growing feelings for each other, made even more impossible by Emrys’s inability to get over his first love, Michael.
To make matters worse, he doesn’t remember his death, and upon learning that he and Michael died together, he begins to wonder if it was their forbidden love that got them both killed (and him cursed) in the first place.
Lovers of dark academia and all things witchy will quickly fall in love with the world that Emma Hinds has built in both of these books. It’s an entirely new twist on magical schools with a compelling focus on the outsiders within them, and how they’re willing to risk it all to change the status quo and make things right.
They’re easy to root for, and though we as readers never found Vale to be even half as annoying as Emrys made him out to be, we couldn’t get enough of their enemies-to-lovers love story, set against a dark tale of serious stakes.
(Nightcurse via Wednesday Books)
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The Last Love Story by Katharyn Blair – Oct. 26
We’ll never get sick of dystopian teen romance stories, especially ones that take place in worlds as messed up as the one in Katharyn Blair’s The Last Love Story.
Ripley Hart lives in a warped version of the United States overrun with pollution, where students go to school to train A.I. models all day and when you turn 18, you’re sent off to fight in a war or to work at a data farm.
She’s the rebellious type who mostly manages to avoid getting in trouble, though she refuses to play by the rules, and with a little help from classmate Huxley Finn, sabotages the Administration and their weird rules as often as she can. The two have always been allies, though he’s insisted they can never be friends.
But everything changes when the Administration bans all books. As an avid reader, Ripley can’t help but feel overwhelmed but this huge, invasive rule change, and it leads her back to a story she wrote and posted online years prior.
The love story is a thinly veiled retelling of her own real-life feelings for the boy next door. She never did manage to confess her love, and now, she’ll never get the chance—especially because that boy happens to be the son of the horrible President Graves.
Of course, now, the story is illegal. It’s also gone completely viral, and it’s not just catching the attention of bibliophiles.
Ripley’s writing has two vigilante groups vying to recruit her. On the one hand, there are the rebel librarians called Lyceum. On the other are the Machs, considered by most to be ruthless terrorists, who are willing to go to any lengths to ensure their rebellion succeeds.
In the middle of it all, Ripley finds herself mysteriously whisked away to the White House and thrust into the middle of a media frenzy. Suddenly, she’s being asked by Callum Graves, the son of the president and her first love, to pose as his fake fiancée. At first, she’s more than happy to oblige, but as the president’s plans become more clear and she discover’s Hux’s involvement with the Machs, she’ll have to make some big choices and use her creativity to rewrite the nation’s history the way only she can.
The Last Love Story boasts excellent worldbuilding, an engrossing heroine and a story that kept us on our toes, pivoting as soon as we thought we knew what was about to happen next. As lovers of classic tropes, we loved seeing fake relationships mixed up with a love triangle in the middle of this deadly dystopian world, and it’s easy to cheer for the person fighting to make books legal again.
(The Last Love Story via Avon)
If you missed all of our very favorite stories from last month, click HERE to discover our most beloved book releases of September 2026.
