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It's the last few weeks of summer, which means you've only got a limited amount of time to hit the beach with a new read and before the fall's biggest titles hit bookshelves.
August is nonetheless very exciting in the book world—brand new stories are within reach this month, from thrillers to romantasy, so we've rounded up 24 picks by Libby, Book Riot and Amazon editors to give you a solid list of the most-anticipated titles. They're in order of release date, so the more you scroll, the longer you will have to wait to read them. Luckily, they'll all be out by the end of the month!
RECOMMENDED: BookTok’s summer 2026 reading list: 10 titles to read right now
Now, without further ado:
1. Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
Publish date: August 4
“HR Update: The position of “adversary to the villain” has been filled. Evie Sage does not recall applying. Evie has always tried to be helpful, loyal, and only mildly involved in treason. But with a dangerous prophecy threatening the very magic of Rennedawn - not to mention the race to claim its necessary artifacts before King Benedict does - things are starting to feel...less like a career path and more like a serious problem. The prophecy won’t stop pointing in Evie’s direction. The Villain’s magic keeps choosing her. And honestly, if you’re going to be accused of evil anyway, you might as well commit.”
2. Lost and Found by Tarah DeWitt
Publish date: August 4
“Bea always wanted to be a mom. But she never expected she’d have to lose her best friend to do it. Armed with nothing but her best friend’s eggs and a bucket list to complete, Bea’s world is a sea of changes. When she needs a place to stay, her longtime friend Silas steps in to help. A firefighter grappling with the aftermath of an accident, Silas has his own challenges to work through that have left him cautious and vulnerable. At first, they expect nothing. But as these two former sunshines knit together in a love that has been unfulfilled until now, a new beginning comes out of the ashes of the past - one that will lead to a love that can withstand all the slings and arrows, joys and triumphs, that life can throw.”
3. The Unknown by Riley Sager
Publish date: August 4
“Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot. Because New Avalon isn’t your ordinary island. A century ago, it was a commune for spiritual mediums - until they all vanished in 1926. Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates, including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters, begin to realize all is not right with New Avalon.”
4. Freyja by Margrét Ann Thors
Publish date: August 4
“Unnur is a 30-something mother living in Reykjavík whose childhood trauma is catching up to her, threatening to ruin the delicate world of safety she’s cultivated for herself and her young daughter. Decades earlier, Unnur's best friend Freyja disappeared following a fight between the two girls and was never seen again. The case made headlines—and Unnur ran as far away as she could from the drama. But now photographs of her and Freyja are showing up at her front door, and long-buried memories begin rising to the surface as Unnur is forced to confront the greatest mystery of her life.”
Photograph: Courtesy Simon & SchusterThe Nightingales by Emil Wilson
5. The Nightingales by Emil Wilson
Publish date: August 4
“It’s the spring of 1985 and Lou Miller is weeks away from graduating high school when her father, Donald, invites his coworker, Jim, and his two dogs, Henny and Penny, to move into their home. Jim has been evicted from his apartment and fallen on hard times, but there is more to the situation than Lou or her mother, Annemarie, realize. Jim’s arrival upends the lives of this small-town Oregon family. As Annemarie grows increasingly uneasy about sharing her home with a stranger, Lou finds herself drawn to Jim’s warmth, humor, and quiet resilience. Their unlikely bond carries Jim through the most difficult months of his life and gives Lou the courage to imagine a future beyond the bounds of her hometown.”
6. Sunlight Finds You by Laura Moriarty
Publish date: August 4
“It’s 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For 17-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident, even as he remains tender and caring. Leonard's sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives. When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood.”
7. The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn by Dave Zirin
Publish date: August 4
“This deeply researched biography of Howard Zinn, the beloved author of the classic national bestseller, shows his presence on the great canvases of the 20th century: from the Depression to World War II to the Civil Rights Movement to the war in Vietnam all the way until his death in 2010. With intimately researched stories from Zinn’s life and career, such as the way Atlanta's small Spelman College, where Zinn taught as a young professor, helped launch the Civil Rights Movement, Zinn's work traveling to Hanoi to engineer the release of POWs, and his continuing influence in the emerging Democratic Socialist movement, The People’s Historian explores Zinn’s past while also demonstrating how his 75 years of political engagement with the social struggles of his time informs our perilous present.”
8. The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian
Publish date: August 4
“Eighteen-year-old Mira Winston drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net, but it tears through the net at 150 miles per hour and slams into the temple of a high school junior named Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives. In the wake of this terrible accident—and everyone, at first, agrees it was an accident—Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong places: In her lover, Theo Catton, a married man three decades her senior. In her mother, a well-kept woman with secrets of her own. In the dead caddy’s little sisters, girls bewildered by grief. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman.”
9. Triage by Claudia Rankin
Publish date: August 4
“Triage follows the turbulent friendship between two composite characters, the narrator and the theorist, self-identified sisters struggling to define their wounded histories and their shared but separate lives. During college, they invent a game of collapse: Every time they see each other, they have to stop and fall to the ground. As their kinship continues off and on for decades, ‘collapse’ takes on new meanings that are seen and felt in the violence of their pasts, artworks depicting couches where someone might ease their exhaustion, the ongoing devastation in Gaza, and the antagonism of their conversation and their love for each other.”
Photograph: Courtesy MacmillanThe Infinite State by Richard Swan
10. The Infinite State by Richard Swan
Publish date: August 4
“The Infinite State begins at a flashpoint in the lives of a widowed party member, a disgraced investigator, and a hypersled pilot—entangled in a plot to escape the suffocating authority of a fascist state.”
11. Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir by Kiyoshi Tanimoto
Publish date: August 4
“Tanimoto was one of the survivors featured in John Hersey’s New Yorker piece and book, Hiroshima, which changed the American public’s understanding of the event. But Tanimoto also wrote his own story. Hiroshima, 8:15 is Tanimoto’s never-before-published firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, written in the immediate aftermath, in his own words. This singular memoir is both an invaluable addition to the historical record and an urgent eyewitness testimony of one of the most calamitous events to befall humanity. At a time when the threat of nuclear war still looms, Tanimoto’s message of peace and his vision of a better path forward for humankind is of vital importance.” Translated by Koko Tanimoto Kondo.
12. (Mostly) Human Resources by Grace Viall
Publish date: August 4
“Working in human resources was not what Alexys had in mind when she joined Entity, the private company that categorizes and manages the world’s cryptids. She dreams of climbing the corporate ladder while managing the Appalachian Wardens and sparring with Nic, the frustrating (and annoyingly attractive) Director of Research and Cataloging. But when one of Alexys’s new Wardens goes missing after inquiring about a mysterious and highly dangerous monster, her chances of promotion disappear along with him. Determined to save her career—and to shield the Warden’s family from the trauma she experienced after losing her father on the job—she marches off into the monster-infested wilderness to find him herself.”
13. Murder at the End of the World by Akane Araki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Publish date: August 4
“A meteor is on a collision course with Earth. The entire human race has 3 months to live. Uncontrollable panic has set in across the globe, but 23-year-old Haru is still determined to finally get her driver’s license. When Haru and her ex-cop driving instructor Isagawa open their car trunk one day to find the corpse of a murder victim inside, they feel duty-bound to investigate. Together, they set off on a road trip through the crumbling landscape around them to hunt for the killer.”
14. A Trade of Blood: An Ana and Din Mystery by Robert Jackson Bennett
Publish date: August 4
“The heir to one of the Empire’s most powerful families sits in jail, accused of murder. His hands are covered in the victim’s blood, and he can neither deny his guilt nor explain his actions. But if the great detective Ana Dolabra cannot save him from the noose, the farming canton of Sapirdad will explode into war, threatening to plunge the whole Empire into starvation and chaos.”
Photograph: Courtesy Penguin Random HouseThe Butcher Legacy by Alaina Urquhart
15. The Butcher Legacy by Alaina Urquhart
Publish date: August 11
“Two months after the life-altering events of The Butcher Game, Wren is back in the place she knows best: the New Orleans morgue. She buries herself in routine, surrounded by both familiar and new company, John Leroux and Maya Rodriguez, trying to convince herself that normalcy can be rebuilt. But in the weeks leading up to Halloween, shadows begin to move again as young girls vanish in both cities where Jeremy Rose once ran rampant. Hundreds of miles away, the pastor to a close-knit congregation in Massachusetts Philip Trudeau is back behind the pulpit. But beneath his practiced composure lies something sinister - gruesome secrets and a hunger that did not die when Jeremy was caged. With Jeremy behind bars and Philip suddenly nowhere to be found, Wren and Leroux must mobilize, and this twisted triangle clashes at every turn.”
16. Dreamland by Olivie Blake
Publish date: August 11
“The headlines are calling it the ‘summer of exsanguination’ in LA - girls are being murdered, the Santa Ana winds are blowing a strange energy into the city, and all signs point to fire season. But Anya Morris receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, an invitation to work for the de Witt family, one of LA’s most influential film dynasties. Soon, she’s spending her days and nights at their strange villa high in the Hollywood hills, where she meets Jude, a recluse who is both the family’s heir apparent and its most closely guarded secret. In this city, everyone cuts a deal with the devil. When Anya comes face to face with a devil of her own, she’ll learn just how far she’s willing to go to get everything she’s ever wanted.”
17. A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee
Publish date: August 11
“Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.”
18. Crownsville by Rodney Barnes and Elia Bonetti
Publish date: August 11
“Founded at the turn of the 20th century outside of Annapolis, Maryland, the Crownsville Hospital was a notoriously segregated, all-Black psychiatric institute. After decades of overcrowding and neglect— alongside darker, more persistent rumors of patient abuse and illegal medical experiments—it was finally closed. Today, it stands condemned—a crumbling testament to a legacy of all-too-real terror inflicted on a marginalized and vulnerable community. But even as a ruin of its former self, Crownsville still casts a long shadow. . . . When an unexplained death inside the abandoned hospital is ruled a suicide, Annapolis police detective Mike Simms and journalist Paul Blairare are compelled to dig deeper, only to discover the reality of the horrors that once took place there . . . and the powerful connection they share to the anguished spirits of the dead that are still locked within its walls.”
19. The Ladies Hall by Vanessa Miller
Publish date: August 11
“1880s, Ohio. When Mary and Anna enter the Bachelor of Arts program, also known as the “gentlemen’s course” of study, at Oberlin College, they have little in common other than the color of their skin and their passion for education. While Mary was raised in luxury, attending presidential inaugurations with her wealthy father, Anna is a schoolteacher, likely the daughter of her enslaved mother’s former owner, and works a second job to pay for her room and board. But despite their differences, both women share strength, ambition, and a deep yearning for change. If they can bridge the gaps between them, they just might build a lasting legacy.”
Photograph: Courtesy Macmillan PublishersA Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young, translated by Sophie Bowman
20. A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young, translated by Sophie Bowman
Publish date: August 11
“While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Mu-young gets a disaster alert on her phone. Screens throughout the station report breaking news of a massive earthquake on the coast. Despite the danger, Mu-young boards the train with her niece: she’d rather face the earthquake than leave the girl in her mother’s care. That choice haunts her for the rest of her life. Three years later, Haewon Village is home to horrors. The earthquake unleashed an ancient plague that transforms its victims into fishy monsters, and the government’s lockdown has cut off any hope for help. Mu-young’s niece is dead, and all that’s left for her is to hunt villagers who break isolation. When an officious bureaucrat from Seoul arrives in the village, he stirs up even deeper trouble. Will Mu-young survive? Does she even deserve to?”
21. Bound By Fury by Noelle Monét
Publish date: August 18
“Harper grew up loving her grandma Gigi’s stories about pretty brown girls with magic from the stars, but they were just that—stories…until Gigi’s sudden death awakens a dangerous power building beneath Harper’s skin. Desperate for answers, Harper finds herself drawn to an elite boarding school in the Appalachian Mountains.”
22. Mutual Discord by Liana de la Rosa
Publish date: August 18
“Sofia Mendoza has had enough. She’s done watching male co-workers steal credit for her talent, and now she’s going to do something about it. No one knows she’s the brains behind a popular video series highlighting and celebrating women in history who’ve been erased from their own inventions and discoveries. Keeping her online persona a secret is lonely, but when she sparks a virtual friendship with an anonymous follower—A—first in her comment section with his insightful perspective, then in their private video chats, where he proves to be witty and catfish-level good-looking, the chemistry between them ignites. But when her old friend, Caitlin, arrives for a visit, Sofia’s lies threaten to unravel. A is Alex Castillo, her best friend’s boyfriend. Alex doesn’t reveal that he knows her, and Sofia realizes he may be keeping secrets, too.”
23. Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty
Publish date: August 25
“In this highly anticipated sequel, Liane Moriarty examines the complexities of modern women’s lives, shining light on family dynamics and long-hidden truths with wit and compassion. The women of Big Little Lies - Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata, and Bonnie - are now navigating all of the drama that accompanies teendom. When the high school principal receives a threatening package in the mail, word quickly spreads throughout the community and parents are in an uproar. Celeste’s mother-in-law, Mary Louise, is behaving oddly and Madeline is facing perhaps the biggest challenge of her life. Jane is at a dangerous fork in her marriage and Bonnie has realized there’s only so much solace in yoga. And Renata is living her best life.”
24. Etna by Paul Yoon
Publish date: August 26
“Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside and return home - to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that proves, even in peacetime, to be just as precarious as in war. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are trying to resume their lives again.”