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Spring Reading 2026

Spring Reading

Spring Reading 2026

Spring is in the air! We’ve caught the fever --- and it’s being fueled by some wonderful new and upcoming releases.

Our 15th annual Spring Reading Contests and Feature spotlights many of these picks, which we know people will be talking about over the next few months. We are hosting a series of 24-hour contests for these titles on select days through mid-April. You will need to check the site to see the featured book and enter to win.

We also are sending a special newsletter to announce each title, which you can sign up for here.

Our next contest will be up on Tuesday, March 24th at noon ET. The prize book will be THE FORTUNE TELLERS OF RUE DARU by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore. A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust when an exiled Romanov princess and her brother come to her seeking answers about a decades-old mystery.

» Click here to see the winners of this year's Spring Reading contests.

Daughters by Corinne Demas - Fiction


When Meredith flies home to New England with her daughter, Eloise, she leaves her husband and a life back in LA. A heartbreaking loss is killing their marriage. So she looks to her mother and siblings for the support she desperately needs. Meredith's mother, Delia, is thrilled by their sudden arrival at the family farm. But her husband braces for the chaos his stepdaughter and granddaughter will surely bring. Meredith’s announcement that she’s moved home for good takes the whole family by surprise and turns everything upside down. While wrestling with her future, artist Meredith is forced to confront her past --- and the disappointment she believes her mother, a violin teacher, felt when musically gifted Meredith abandoned the violin. As Meredith works to repair relationships with members of her family, an old flame turns up and further complicates her life.

Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line by Elle Cosimano - Mystery/Humor


Finlay Donovan’s nanny and partner-in-crime, Vero, has been extradited from Virginia to Maryland, where she’s facing criminal charges for a theft she swears she didn’t commit. A prisoner to an ankle bracelet as she awaits her trial, Vero is forced to live with her overbearing mother and nosy aunt. Threatening messages keep arriving on her mother’s door, demanding that Vero “turn over the money…or else.” But proving her innocence might be an impossible feat. Vero was the treasurer of her sorority when the money went missing --- one of the only people who had access to the cash. And her alibi is a date who ghosted her. With her court date quickly approaching, and her mysterious stalker on her tail, she needs to clear her name fast. Finlay sets off on a mission to suss out the real thief and bring Vero home.

The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore - Gothic Horror/Historical Mystery


Zina and her grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea. But when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele. Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for knowledge about the disappearance of their father, the exiled Grand Duke, cousin of the last Tsar of Russia. Zina performs the séance and is able to summon the Grand Duke. But to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop and seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death. As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening the home and tearoom Zina and her grandmother have worked so hard to build, not to mention their very lives.

The Lost Summer by Wendy Corsi Staub - Psychological Thriller


Detective Sergeant Midge Kennedy and her lifelong pals, Talia and Kelly, have reunited on the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of their friend, Caroline. But as the season draws to a close in Mulberry Bay, Midge is plunged into a missing person case with unsettling ties to the past. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t suspect foul play when a 16-year-old girl is just a few hours late getting home. But her investigation yields a shocking glimpse of a familiar face, and mounting coincidences link Sarah Greene’s vanishing to Caroline’s. The clues lead to Haven Cliff, an abandoned Gilded Age estate that’s been the stuff of cursed legend for generations. It’s also Kelly’s new home. Midge suspects that the wooded grounds hold the key to Sarah’s fate and Caroline’s. But will Haven Cliff --- and Midge herself --- give up long-buried secrets?

Midnight, at the War by Devi S. Laskar - Fiction


Foreign correspondent Rita Das has left New York for the war-torn Middle East, a reassignment she asked for after learning she is pregnant but uncertain if the father is her husband or her lover. As she strives to shed light on the fallouts of the war, Rita finds herself embroiled in her own conflicts with her interpreter and her news editor, her sources and her colleagues. She is unable to accept the loss of her mother and deal with her guilt for not being by her side when she died. As she goes into the field to report on the war, she grapples with the physical and emotional tolls of her pregnant body and a turbulent region. When her news editor delivers urgent orders for her to return to New York, Rita is faced with a choice about how she wants to live her life as a journalist and a soon-to-be mother.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman - Fiction

Most people don’t even notice them --- three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that unexpectedly will be placed into 18-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it.

That's What Friends Are For by Wade Rouse - Fiction


Theodore Copeland has created a fabulous life in the desert oasis of Palm Springs, where he shares a fabulous pink mid-century home with three fabulous friends: Barry, a former actor still clinging to the memory of the dream role that killed his career; Ron, an uprooted Christian with a big heart but no one to give it to; and Sid, who, after coming out late in life, has never found love. Teddy is the caustic, unspoken leader of “The Golden Gays,” the foursome’s monthly drag tribute to “The Golden Girls.” But the harmony of their desert enclave becomes a carousel of emotional baggage when Teddy’s estranged sister, Trudy, shows up on their doorstep, her dramatic teenage granddaughter in tow. While Teddy keeps Trudy at arm’s length, she manages to wheedle her way into the lives of the Golden Gays, until the real reason for her visit is revealed.

The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline - Psychological Thriller


One awful night, Julia Pritzker witnesses the murder of her beloved husband during a mugging on a Philadelphia street. Her luck seems to change when stunning news arrives from Italy, informing her that she’s inherited a fortune, a Tuscan villa, and a vineyard. But she’s mystified by her Italian benefactor, a total stranger named Emilia Rossi. She flies to Tuscany for answers. There, Julia learns that Rossi suffered from delusions of grandeur, believing herself to be a descendant of Caterina Sforza, a powerful Renaissance duchess. Julia doubts that is true, but she can’t deny the uncanny resemblance between her, Caterina and Rossi. She starts to unearth eerie parallels between them --- and disturbing secrets. Before long, Julia suspects she’s being followed and soon finds herself in a harrowing struggle for sanity and survival.