This month, we’re ready for novels with hidden motives, layered tension, conflicting goals, misunderstandings and the different ways characters experience and understand what’s happening, as offered by multiple points of view.
The Pearl Farmers by Stacey Gordon
(She Writes Press, November 2026)
Three estranged sisters — Helen, Anna, and Penn Lockshire — are bound by the shimmering but fragile legacy of their family’s freshwater pearl farm in rural Tennessee. When the business that once made them famous faces collapse, the sisters are pulled back into each other’s lives and forced to reckon with old betrayals, unspoken resentments and the complicated truth of their inheritance. Soon, what began as a fight for survival becomes a reckoning with the myths that shaped them and the secrets buried in the family’s past.
From the discovery of a rare pearl in 1981 to the struggles of a failing farm in 2008, the Lockshire sisters must navigate love, loss, ambition and forgiveness to decide whether their heritage is a blessing to preserve — or a burden to escape.
The Mentor by Angela Douglas
(EOB Publishing, September 2026)
Professor Karla Dobbs has everything: literary acclaim, a bestselling novel and a film adaptation on the horizon. Until a former student accuses her of plagiarism.
Natalie Silva claims that the novel is based on a real tragedy and insists the film be stopped, or there will be consequences. Certain that she has done nothing wrong, Karla dismisses her. But as the world slips into lockdown, the truth unravels, and the people behind the real story emerge, demanding answers. Threats and public scrutiny follow. And then come the submissions.
Through a desperate attempt to keep her online mentorship program afloat, Karla receives work from an anonymous writer known only as The Protegé. Each excerpt is disturbingly personal. Intimate and predictive, with chilling precision. And as people around her begin to die, Karla realizes the most dangerous story she’s never told … may be her own.
Across the Earth and Sky by Elissa Grossell Dickey
(Red Adept Publishing, September 2026)
At the end of the world, they lost everything but found each other.
As Lilly Franklin prepares to board a shuttle with her husband and son in the face of an impending asteroid strike, she’s approached by a child, alone and scared. In a moment of weakness, Lilly gives up her seat to the girl and searches for a safe haven.
Hundreds of miles away, Maggie Keller, Lilly’s former best friend, regrets the marriage she left college for. With disaster looming, her volatile husband disappears to join a dangerous organization that formed in the shadows of this changing world. Maggie sets out on a mission to find him.
Both Lilly and Maggie navigate back to the Minnesota Northwoods, where they attended college together. There, they unite with others who have stayed behind, including Lilly’s cousin Zane, who has strong feelings for Maggie. He also has tickets for another shuttle launch. For Lilly, this means one last chance to get back to her family. But they must get past Maggie’s husband and his dangerous group, which could give Maggie an opportunity to reclaim all he has taken from her.
The Forest Becomes Her by Jullie Carrick Dalton
(St Martin’s Press, Macmillan, July 2026)
In historic, bucolic Concord, Massachusetts, a centuries-old forest has been removed to make way for a new, eco-friendly housing development. The locals are upset by the destruction, but out-of-towners like Hazel Stoddard are flocking to put down roots in their new guilt-free dream homes.
Soon a tragedy leaves Hazel unmoored in her new life, and she begins to feel the pull of the absent forest. Hazel is not alone ― her neighbors, real estate agent Stella Flint and teenage environmentalist Polly Bauer, each have their own trauma and relationship to the land. The three women are drawn together to save the last remaining oak tree, or they risk losing themselves to lingering shadows that only they can see.
The Forest Becomes Her is a timely, unforgettable novel about three women from different generations navigating the complexities of family, grief, the impacts of our choices and our deep connections to the natural world beneath our feet.
Regret No More by Wendy Haller
(Stillwater River Publications, June 2026)
You can’t rewrite the past. But you can choose what comes next.
Becca Flannigan believed distance was the only way to survive her complicated relationship with her mother. But when Justine asks her to come home and help during her radiation treatments for breast cancer — swearing her to secrecy from telling her sisters — Becca is pulled back into the role of the oldest daughter.
For Justine, having Becca back under her roof stirs memories of her own troubled childhood and the painful choices she made as a mother. As she faces her illness, regret and fear sit heavily on her heart.
Regret No More is a moving story of forgiveness, generational healing and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. As long-buried truths rise to the surface, both women must decide if their bond can be repaired — or if some wounds are too deep to heal.
Eve’s Daughters by Pat Valdata
(Secant Publishing, October 2025)
Two classical myths, given a feminist spin.
Eve’s Daughters puts a feminist spin on the classic myth of The Fall, times two. Many creation stories depict a cosmic conflict between good and evil. But what if the conflict was something simpler, an earthly divide between men and women?
Book One, based on the Sumerian tale of the goddess Inanna and her lover Dumuzi, takes us back to the Early Copper Age when a matriarchal, agricultural community encounters patriarchal nomads for the first time.
Book Two, set in the 20th century, retells Milton’s version of the Adam and Eve story, filling in details of what happened after they were thrown out of that famous garden. The fall from grace was pinned on Eve in the Bible and in Paradise Lost. With heartbreaking storytelling, Eve’s Daughters reminds us of what happens when women are blamed and punished in a patriarchal society. Pat Valdata also examines how peace and hope can be found in matriarchal clans and colonies in these linked novellas of a time we do not know and a time all too familiar to twenty-first-century readers.
The Best Advice by Amy Dressler
(Egret Lake, July 2025)
Rosalind is an advice columnist who is far more comfortable fixing other people’s problems than dealing with her own.
Meddling in other people’s business is kind of her thing. Rosalind writes a popular advice column in a magazine. When she butts heads with her editor over a controversial letter response, she loses her job and byline. To keep writing, Rosalind establishes a fake identity with a male pen name at the dubious suggestion of her friends.
Retreating to a small town on the water, she starts a new column for a local newspaper. The unexpected online success of her advice writing only serves to exacerbate her bad habit of meddling in real life. This threatens to damage her relationships with family and friends.
It also complicates her budding romance with ruggedly handsome travel television star Andy Arden. He’s gorgeous, he’s outdoorsy, and he writes her (terrible) poetry. But he also thinks “Gavin,” the guy giving him relationship advice via text, and his new love interest are two different people …
Rosalind juggles it all because her advice is ALWAYS right. Usually right. Would you settle for sometimes right? Can she outgrow her game-playing and confront her grief in time to untangle the mess she’s made of her personal and professional life?
Higher Love by Joanne Kukanza Easley
(Red Boots Press, May 2025)
Some secrets don’t stay buried. They wait for the right moment to change everything.
Lauren Eaton has finally built the life she once believed impossible. Twenty-five years sober and happily reunited with Brett, she’s settled into a peaceful life in Austin — until a 16-year-old stranger appears at her door.
Stephanie claims to be the granddaughter Lauren never knew existed — the daughter of the baby Lauren surrendered for adoption 45 years earlier. Betrayed by the family who kept the truth from her, Stephanie arrives carrying anger, grief and emotional scars of her own. What begins as a reluctant reunion slowly becomes a fragile bond built on honesty, trust and the hope of belonging.
But when Stephanie’s future is suddenly threatened, Lauren must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to give this young woman the family she never had. As old wounds resurface and long-buried secrets come to light, Lauren discovers that healing sometimes asks us to risk everything for the people we love. A deeply moving family drama about redemption, forgiveness and the unexpected ways love can heal generations of broken hearts.
What Lies Buried by Leslie Kain
(Atmosphere Press, May 2024)
What lies buried … doesn’t stay buried.
Scarred by a lifetime of emotional abuse and traumatic violence, Gavin battles the triggers of complex PTSD. His wife, Katie, is determined to support him despite the strain his unpredictable reactions put on their marriage.
But returning to Boston to settle his father’s estate reactivates Gavin’s childhood scars. Then when he uncovers his family’s mob history, his volatile reactions put him in the crosshairs of dangerous people. Worried for his safety, Katie packs up their toddler and joins him. While there, she begins sorting through her late parents’ keepsakes, finding evidence of the artistic talent she abandoned after her father died, when she became caregiver to her disabled mother. Eager to revive her unfulfilled past, Katie copes with Gavin’s increasingly unstable behavior through painting and new friendships that encourage her journey to self-discovery.
As Gavin resists treatment and goes off the rails, his family’s past threatens them all. The generational dysfunction in Kain’s award-winning Secrets In The Mirror continues, as Katie faces her own emotional wounds and must choose between saving her marriage or saving their child … and herself.
The Silver Cowgirls by Alicia Stephens Martin
(Year of the Book Press, January 2024)
The Women
Four women — Presley, Rachel, Wheezy and Gigi — are facing midlife transformations. Each has a life complicated with diversity and challenges: a cheating husband, a life-threatening illness, an empty nest and a devastating career backlash.
The Reunion
Feeling powerless both physically and mentally, the four begin to question their existence. After over three decades of separation, one memorable photo and a chance meeting help them bond over their shared love of horses. They decide to reinvent the year from their early 20s when they felt most alive.
The Ride
Can their friendship and passion for horses bring healing? Under the guidance of once-renowned trainer Gertrude Steele, now a recluse in fear of her own disability, can these women reunite as friends, or will their quest for the lost Silver Spur championship drive an even deeper wedge between them?
