The Best Autumn Reads of 2026

Autumn reading can mean a witch with a difficult inheritance, a house with an unexplained problem or a romance that asks someone to begin again. For this year's selection, we have chosen eight books first published in 2026, with ghosts, magic and changing lives connecting the choices. The emphasis is on paranormal romance and seasonal comfort, with a darker historical story and a young adult haunted-house romance alongside them. If you want something new for the evenings drawing in, this is a place to start.

Choose by the kind of company you want for the evening. A Time of Witches brings family history and danger; Grim Tidings and You'll Be the Death of Me make the afterlife unexpectedly romantic. Elsewhere, a witch is asked to create a haunting, a sceptic joins a ghost hunter, and two contemporary romances offer a change of pace. The first publication date appears with each recommendation, and the young adult title is identified separately from the adult romances.

Eight new books for autumn evenings

A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin

First published: September 1, 2026.

After her mother's death, Lilith Legare begins experiencing things she cannot explain, and her search for answers takes her from Savannah to a decaying English manor. In another strand of the story, a wealthy widow named Sybil Brantham faces an accusation of witchcraft in Suffolk in 1645, with her younger sister's safety also at stake. Their connection gives the novel a family mystery as well as a historical one, with women's independence at the centre of the danger. Choose this for the darker end of the pile: ancestral secrets, an unsettling house and a past that refuses to stay put.