January 2026

New month, new books for our TBRs!

Happy New Year! A new year brings a ton of new books on top of reading goals and challenges. Here are just a few of the books I'm excited to add to my TBR this month!

	Love Goes Viral Alexandra Berman, Camille Stochitch, & Estelle Laure From the Publisher: Love Thompson went viral. Now she has it all—fifty million followers, brand deals, a Hollywood address, and the fast track to the music career she’s always dreamed of—until…she doesn’t. After Love takes the blame for her influencer boyfriend’s mistake, the fallout goes more viral than the video that rocketed her to fame. By the next morning, she’s already lost sponsorships, ten million followers, and her debut single. Love needs to rehab her image, and that means dating someone a little more homegrown. Enter Austin Grey. Austin is about as homegrown as it gets. His only followers are the regulars at his family’s struggling diner that he’s doing his best to save. But everything changes when he gets a DM from a star he never expected to cross paths with again. When Love walks back into Austin’s life, she thinks this is a purely online scheme with an expiration date. But as genuine feelings start to develop that keep them coming back to each other again and again, will either of them be willing to take a chance on something real?
Gaslit Megan Davidhizar From the Publisher: Ella was supposed to be out with friends. But a blinding headache and a twist of fate leave her babysitting instead. Only, when she arrives, the house is quiet, the door is wide open—and the air reeks of gas. She manages to call 911, but not everyone survives. As Ella struggles to recover, cracks begin to form in the investigation. Whispers, memories, and buried motives point to something sinister. The gas leak might not have been an accident after all. And someone might be out to kill Ella next.
	Better the Devil Erik J. Brown From the Publisher: When a runaway teen is arrested for shoplifting, he's desperate not to be sent back to the hyper-religious parents he knows will never accept him. While at the police station, he notices a resemblance to the aged-up photos of Nate Beaumont, a child who went missing ten years ago—and, in a moment of desperation, he takes Nate’s identity in hopes that it will help him make a quick getaway. Before he can run again, Nate’s family arrives and welcomes him home to a life he never had. As "Nate" watches and waits for his chance to escape, he finds that the Beaumonts are nurturing and loving, very different from his own parents. But soon unsettling things start to happen—vandalism, alarms going off in the middle of the night—and it becomes clear that someone knows "Nate" isn't who he says he is...and that the real Nate wasn't kidnapped, but murdered. As he starts to unravel the mystery, he gets ever closer to the devil he may know—and learns he might be their next victim.
Worst Case Scenario Ray Stoeve From the Publisher: Sidney has one goal for their junior year. Well . . . two, if they’re being honest. Number one: become president of their school’s Queer Alliance club. And number two: keep their self-diagnosed anxiety in check so their grades don’t tank like they did last year. But when the election results in a tie with none other than Sidney’s arch nemesis, the class clown Forrest, the two are forced to share the presidency until a revote at the end of term. Sidney expects Forrest to be insufferable, but it turns out that working together is . . . kind of nice? As surprising feelings for Forrest emerge, Sidney’s techniques for managing their anxiety stop working. With the reelection approaching and assignments starting to pile up, will all this pressure be too much for Sidney to handle on their own?
	Freddie And Stella Got Hot Maggie Horne From the Publisher: Freddie and Stella are on a mission: take down their former best friend turned queen bee Levi Preston by depriving her of the one thing she wants more than anything: The Beaumont-Gardiner Award. Only the coolest, smartest, and—let’s face it—hottest girls win. . . so Freddie and Stella are going to have to get a whole lot cooler, smarter, and hotter. At first, it seems to work—Freddie and Stella slowly manage to worm their way in with the cool girls. With every shopping date, agonizing salon appointment, and hot yoga class, the girls get closer to the in-crowd and Levi fades more and more into the background. The higher they rise, though, the more uneasy Freddie starts to feel. Stella’s gone from her lovable, goofy best friend to someone she barely recognizes, using her newfound power for evil at every opportunity. Soon, Freddie realizes she’s created a monster—and she needs Levi’s help to put a stop to it.

This January is full of a lot of new and new-to-me authors whose books I'm excited about, like Alexandra Berman, Camille Stochitch, and Estelle Laure's influencer-meets-reality romance! Nothing beats curling up with a good thriller when the weather turns icy, which is why Megan Davidhizar's new release is one of my must-reads. Erik J. Brown is an author I've had my eye on for a while, and the twists in the book blurb alone  are enough to sell me! Not everything can be twisty and chilling in this month, so a rivals-to-friends (to-perhaps-more) story feels perfect for those darker January nights. And Mean Girls nostalgia means I just can't miss Maggie Horne's cliquish high school drama. Very twisty, very fun, and very YA in the new year: what January releases are you excited about as we head into 2026?