6 of the Best New Book Releases Out August 18, 2026

Fall hasn’t officially started, but we’ve already started shifting over. Goodreads, for instance, has already compiled and shared a lists of its readers’ most anticipated books of the season. There’s a multi-genre list, a horror one, a romantasy one, and one for sci-fi and fantasy. As for this week, there’s the YA dark academia fantasy Bound By Fury by Noelle Monét (which was mentioned in our monthly roundup); Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr, a collection of Indigenous dark fiction that is right on time; and TikTok legend Reesa Teesa’s memoir What (TF) Do I Do Now?. The books below have serial killers in Hollywood, alien romance, a queer Syrian man’s story, and more. Dreamland by Olivie BlakeBestselling author Olivie Blake’s latest features an L.A. that is currently experiencing a “summer of exsanguination.” Or at least, that’s what the news is calling it. Someone is murdering girls, and an odd energy is blowing in from Santa Ana. Even with all that going on, Anya Morris is just trying to focus on an acting career that seems to grow more and more unlikely. But then she catches a break: she gets invited to work for the de...