Twelve short stories written by twelve authors is the perfect collection to give you a break …in a manageable length for the Chaos that is advent. Ranging from sweet to SPICY, this book has a bit of everything, like a fictional Christmas stocking full of surprises. Thanks to Atria and NetGalley for this holiday treat! The Twelve Loves of Christmas published September 29, 2026.
I’m a sucker for a Christmas town, animals and characters with passion, and not just the Steamy kind. Noah is a grinchy vet who left his small town to make his own mark at his clinic and Eloise is a Jolly… Noah’s term for people who love the holidays. The story of how Eloise tries to turn Noah into Mr. Christmas, and save his family’s farm, is as entertaining as it is joyful. It was a great way to get into the spirit! Thanks to Atria and NetGalley for the review copy! Mistletoe All the Way was released on October 6, 2026.
Tyler was the one who actually escaped from the mountain he was raised on, leaving behind all his friends, lover and family, such as it was, to become a famous rock star. He named his band after the mountain and his first hit was an elegy to the friends he left behind. When his manager books his comeback tour to begin on that same mountain, it’s clear there will be a reckoning.
Unlike many reviewers, I found the characters to be deep and authentic in that small town, closed community way. It could have been set in the Midwest, the deep south, or a ranch in Montana and the sensibility would be the same. That’s what makes a Russo novel special…the characters are people we know.
That said, the tragedies of the novel, particularly after the crash, seem to be a bit much. The original one was enough to carry the narrative, and the latter half of the book took on more themes that are less conducive to the literary genre… particularly the police corruption and racism. Still, it was a joy to read Russo again. Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, the publisher and to NetGalley for the review copy. Under the Falls was published August 11, 2026.
We can always count on Debbie Macomber to get us in the holiday spirit. In A Date with Santa, Clare, an ambitious ad exec is in the running for the management position at her firm. All she has to do is beat her competition, Troy, who is not as good as she is. She has to be careful not to give him anything to derail her though.
She’s gone on a couple of dates with the Account Manager, Ethan and while she really likes him, decides to put the brakes on their relationship so Troy can’t argue “office romance.”
What she doesn’t count on is being called on to babysit her young nephew, Ricky, while his mother is deployed for disaster relief through the holiday. Unable to turn her down, Clare learns that there is more to taking care of a young boy than microwave meals and Uber Eats.
One person is a natural though, and that’s Ethan. As Clare determines to make it Ricky’s best Christmas, her own values and emotions are charged up by the Christmas spirit.
Christmas at Honeycombe Bay by Lilac Mills is a sweet
holiday romance featuring senior citizen main characters! Eloise decides to find a place to sit out
Christmas, feeling bad about her life after being made redundant in her
longtime job. She never took time for a family of her own, and her parents are
long past. She seeks out Honeycombe Bay,
where she’d spent a pleasant summer holiday, and is delighted to find that her
BnB choice has no intention of celebrating Christmas. 
Bart, the owner of the Bnb, has nearly given up on …everything. His wife of nearly forty years has been gone for two years, and he’s not opened up the BnB since she got sick. His son, Ross, is urging him to sell, but all Bart’s memories live in the huge old house. When he picks up the phone just before Christmas, he expects it to be Ross, but instead it is Eloise. Since she wants a no-Christmas holiday, and since Bart needs the money, he agrees to rent her a room for three weeks.
All goes well between the two of them until a fire leaves a sweet young woman and her young son homeless. Christmas spirit revives in the characters, and the holiday works its magic.
Christmas at Honeycombe Bay will be released September 29, 2026, by Ballantine/Dell. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.
Chad Harbach returns to fictitious Westish College, first visited in his debut novel, The Art of Fielding. While the two books contain overlapping characters, the focus of The Brightness is not on the male relationships we loved in The Art of Fielding, but on women.
While the writing was splendid, only the strength of the words and my memory of how loving the first novel kept me reading. Centered on three primary women, Pella, Irma and Judy were so complex and well-drawn that they each deserved our full attention. But we are introduced to these women as a unit, and I just didn’t buy it. They were too different for me to believe in their authenticity, their great literary salon-type connection, and as it turns out, neither did they. By the end of the book, the bosom buddies sabotage one another, in ways that felt frankly, more male than female.
This novel nearly 700 pages, and maybe that’s why it lost me. The author tries so hard to cover popular culture, feminist issues, academic, sports, Bro culture and even an over-the-top wedding that I just felt we’d drifted into fantasy land. Adding “cute” metafiction aspects (Using his own book as the book of one of the main characters?) felt like the author was trying hard to remind me that he’d done this before. It actually made me go back and read Harbach’s biography to see if he’d actually inserted himself in the book along with his bestseller.
In short, the writing kept me reading; the story left me annoyed.
The Brightness will be released October 27,2026, by Little Brown and Company. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced review copy.
Pining for You by Stef Ferrari
Bennie is a high school senior who believes in magic, especially Christmas magic. When she stumbles into a lovely girl while working at the local Christmas tree farm, she is convinced that the sparkles she feels are those of true love. Magical true love. With the assistance of her three best friends, she sets off on a quest to find the stranger, and perhaps her own purpose for the future. The four of them encounter enough obstacles to fit any romance lover’s expectation.
This queer holiday romance will be released September 8, 2026, by Simon and Schuster Children’s publishing. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.
We can "count" on Emily Stone to provide a twist on the usual Christmas romance tropes. Counting Down to You is traditional fake relationship story, but it’s also the story of friendship that is too important to lose, even when it is gone
Ali and Robyn have been best friends forever. Each year, they create a special Advent type calendar for each other, with both serious and whimsical challenges for the year. The idea is to complete them by Christmas, but at before the year is up.
Counting Down to You will be published on October 6, 2026, by Ballantine/Bell. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.
Part memoir, part love letter to language and part advice, Unsayable is a gift from beloved author and professor, Michael Cunningham. The book reads as if we are being told a fascinating story, with life advice, while respecting the magic and process of writing. I especially related to his description of the demons all writers face. Particularly the acknowledgment that as we write stories, the world around us goes on, and that terrible things are happening to people. Writer’s guilt is real, and it is encouraging that someone who’s contributed so brilliantly to the realm of literature feels is too.
Unsayable was released July 21, 2026, by Random House. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.
I was intrigued with this book from the beginning. Fiona is such a likable character, and when her less than likable husband Matt informs her that he has another family across the country, and that his “wife” was expecting, and that he was leaving her and their three children, we can only hope that she finds a way to land on her feet.
Then we meet Satoshi, the younger owner of her favorite wine
bar. Satoshi is amazing, and he is astonished to realize he is in love with
Fiona. But he knows he has to be careful, and Fiona needs him to be her friend.
Then, if it couldn’t be better, we realize that Jonah, who we fell for in An Academic Affair is Fiona’s beloved brother, and his new wife, Sadie, is her best friend. They characters are wonderful, the romance excruciatingly careful and it makes for a wonderful story.
A Study in Sparkling will be released September 15, 2026, by Atria books. Thanks for this delightful read to NetGalley and the publisher, who sent me a review copy.
Born the only child to a to a working-class family, Ruth is suddenly
sent from her home by a father grieving his wife’s—her mother’s---horrible and long-awaited
death from Cancer. Ruth has no direction—school is out and her mother is gone. They
had been very close and now Ruth is alone on Block Island, a place her mother
loved, but where Ruth has never been. She’s to stay with a woman her mother had
known when she was seventeen, coincidentally Ruth’s age when she died. 
Though she is grieving and afraid, Ruth goes to Dianna, a successful photographic artist, and serves as her intern. Dianna gives her a home, purpose and encourages Ruth’s own creativity. Even better, Dianna’s nephew Charlie comes to stay, and Ruth and Charlie become best friends.
But it is ten years later, and now Dianna has died. Ruth knows two things—she wants to stay on Block Island forever, and she’s in love with Charlie.
Grief is an overwhelming emotion in this book, and while it wants to be a meaningful summer read, it leaves the reader dreading every decision Ruth makes. The setting is wonderful—hard not to love the vacation atmosphere, and most of the characters are fun if a bit stereotypical. Ruth’s on again off again boy toy, Louis may be the steadiest of all the characters. Charlie’s new fiancée Natalie also seems a bit one dimensional. But they serve to lighten a book that seems to be wearing a shroud with little hope for recovery.
Garvey writes well, and I will look for something a little more hopeful in her future books. June Baby was published May 12, 2026, by Random House. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.
Bret Anthony Johnston encounters many strange animals in his thirteen story collection, Encounters with Unexpected Animals, but the one we gain empathy and insight to is the human one. Set in primarily impoverished south Texas, the characters in this collection try to make connections—parents to children, children to parents, teenagers to each other.
My favorite was Half of
What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses, where Johnston creates not only a
beautifully sad story, but takes the reader along to the joy of wild horses,
and the way we all survive. It’s a
wonderful collection by a talented writer.
Encounters with Unexpected Animals was published on February 24, 2026,
by Random House. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.
