Goodreads Users Have Crowned These Books The Best New Releases Of 2026 (So Far)

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We're not even halfway through 2026, but it's already been quite a year in the publishing world. We've gotten both a new Freida McFadden ("Dear Debbie") and queen of former child star memoirs Jennette McCurdy's fiction debut ("Half His Age"). What more could you ask for? A lot, according to Goodreads. Those titles topped the app's most popular 2026 releases, but those Goodreaders aren't known to be satisfiable.

Rounding out the list are romance titans like Abby Jimenez and Carley Fortune with "The Night We Met" and "Our Perfect Storm," respectively, and thrillers like Alice Feeney's "My Husband's Wife" and Ashley Elston's "Anatomy of an Alibi," but 2026 has also thrown us a few curveballs. Caro Claire Burke's "Yesteryear," which transports a trad wife influencer to actual pioneer times, and Belle Burden's account of her experience with wife abandonment syndrome, "Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage," have both raced up the rankings and onto the desks of A-listers clamoring to adapt them.

But "most popular" doesn't always equal "best." When you look at the highest rated reviews, rather than the books that are on the most shelves, the results are surprising. Reviewers continued to favor romance in the first half of 2026, boosting rom-coms and romantasy series, but they also singled out the latest effort of a Booker Prize winner and one of the most moving memoirs in recent memory.

Douglas Stuart took your local bookstore by storm with 2020's Booker Prize–winning "Shuggie Bain," kept expectations high with "Young Mungo," and now he's back with another tale of Scottish outcasts. In "John of John." A preacher with a sheep farm on the Isle of Harris, John Macleod, seemingly couldn't be more different from his son, John-Calum. Cal, as he's known, left the island to attend art school four years earlier, but he's been summoned home after running out of both money and hope. Cal knows that life in the tight-knit community of his birth means hiding the truth about himself, but little does he know that his stern, demanding father is keeping the same secret.

If there's one thing that kept readers glued to "John of John" until the last page, it was Stuart's masterful storytelling. Many reviewers cited his authentic characters, ear for dialogue, ability to blend humor and heartbreak, and breathtaking descriptions of the Scottish Hebrides as their reasons for awarding top marks. They also appreciated Stuart's ruminations on what it means to be a good human and the value of sacrifice and noted the novel's unexpected level of suspense. Despite the fairly early reveal of the secret kept by father and son, its consequences reverberate to the very end.

In Meghan Quinn's latest romance romp, love is the last thing on Renley Gossage's mind. She's determined to bring her seaside town's beloved candy store back to life, and all she's lacking is the money to do it. Across the waves, Theo Williams is an English lord who must marry by the end of the summer. A wacky online mix-up brings him to Renley's front door, and despite her emphatic refusal of his proposal, he's determined to win her over before fall.

What elevates "Rules for the Summer" above your average rom-com is Quinn's signature brand of unhinged humor. Reviewers couldn't contain their laughter as Quinn expertly steered her characters through increasingly absurd situations at such a breakneck pace that they hardly had time to catch their breath. They also praised its cast of side characters, particularly Renley's meddling aunt, and spicy scenes that left them nearly as speechless as the hijinks.

This new romantasy series from the husband and wife team who write as Ilona Andrews is every fan's, well, fantasy, but it's also their nightmare. Maggie (soon to be known as "Maggie the Undying," the title of the series, for reasons that become obvious) goes to sleep in her bed in the real world but wakes up in Kair Toren, the magical setting of her favorite fantasy series. She soon learns that her fate depends on her knowledge of this dark and violent fictional universe and the people who live in it, but the good news is that she has that in spades.

Reviewers praised this fresh take on the "portal fantasy," stories in which characters from our universe travel to an otherworldly realm, for its rich world-building and character development. Its satirical edge had them laughing out loud, while one reviewer was left "gasping, squealing, and almost biting my nails." Additionally, several reviewers mentioned adorable animal companions, if that sort of thing is important to you. (It should be.)

In 2025, Sable Sorensen (the pen name for a pair of semi-anonymous women) entered the romantasy world with swords blazing with "Dire Bound," the first in their "Wolves of Ruin" series. The story of how Meryn Cooper rose from a lowly commoner to Queen of Nocturna with the help of the direwolf, to whom she became inextricably connected, was an instant bestseller, leaving fans waiting with breath that was bated and nails that were bitten for this sequel. In "Fury Bound," Meryn learns that she's survived the Bonding Trials only to be thrown into a new kind of test. She must navigate court politics — as well as her relationship with the mysterious Stark Therion, her former instructor and now confidante — while seeking revenge on the royal lover who betrayed her.

Sequels often seem doomed to disappoint, but this one didn't. In fact, it scored even higher than the first volume with Goodreads reviewers, who confirmed en masse in their reviews that "Fury Bound" was even better than Sorensen's debut. They lauded its swift pacing and deep character development, appreciated the introduction of Therion's point of view, and marveled that it answered all of their questions while still leaving them eager for the next installment. One fan called it a "ride I never wanted to get off," though given reviewers' enjoyment of the spicy scenes, that may not be true on every level.

If the name Gisèle Pelicot sounds familiar, that's because that's what she wanted. After her husband, Dominique Pelicot, was arrested in 2020 and charged with drugging her and soliciting dozens of men to sexually assault her while she was unconscious for nearly a decade, she declined the anonymity routinely offered to victims by the courts. Her decision was hailed as the height of bravery, and it was, but as she pointed out at the time and in the title of her memoir, she was not the one who had any reason to hide.

It's no surprise that "A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides" is Goodreads' highest-rated book of 2026 so far. Reviewers were stunned by the honesty and wisdom with which Pelicot tells her story, from her difficult childhood to her complicated marriage of nearly 50 years, to finding the strength to keep going through one of the most harrowing cases in criminal history and refusing to let her life be defined by it. Over and over, readers were struck by the courage that Pelicot denies exhibiting. As one reviewer explained, "Gisèle does not want to be seen as a victim or a hero, but she is." This runaway bestseller is destined to be known as one of the best memoirs by non-celebrities with important stories to tell.