The coziest reading season has arrived so it’s time to plan your winter reading list!
My recommendations for the best books to read winter 2026 include recently or soon to be published historical fiction, romance, literary fiction, and mysteries/thrillers that I have already read or that are on my TBR for this winter.
Happy winter reading!
Note: I read across a lot of genres and I only choose books that I have already read or plan to read over the coming weeks for my book lists. If I haven’t yet read the book when I publish the book list then I include the blurb provided by the publisher and update the article with my own thoughts after I read it. I also make a conscious effort to try and include diversity in the books I choose to read. Some of the buzziest books of the season are on my lists but I hope I also introduce you to some titles that you might not have heard of otherwise.
You Might Also Enjoy Reading
21 of the Best Books to Read This Winter (2025)
15 of the Best Books to Read This Winter (2024)
25 Books Set in Cold and Snowy Places to Read This Winter
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1. Kin by Tayari Jones
Setting: The American South
FROM THE PUBLISHER: Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.
2. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
Setting: Boston and additional locations
FROM THE PUBLISHER: Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives…inside their favorite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?
3. The Storm by Rachel Hawkins
Setting: Alabama
St. Medard’s, Alabama is famous for three things – the deadly hurricanes that have swept through over the years, the Rosalie Inn for having survived all of those storms, and a local girl accused of murder in the aftermath of Hurricane Marie.
In 1984, the Governor’s son, Landon Fitzroy, was killed during Marie and his teenage mistress, Lo Bailey, was charged with murder but acquitted following a sensational trial. Forty years later, Geneva Corliss, current owner of the the struggling Rosalie Inn, is relieved to receive a financial lifeline when journalist August Fletcher books an extended stay at the inn to conduct research on a book about Lo Bailey but is surprised when he shows up with Lo herself intent on clearing her name once and for all. As another monster storm makes its way toward St. Medard’s Bay, Geneva begins to realize that the truth of what happened to Landon Fitzroy might not be the only secret that Lo is keeping.
This is very slow burn and I wouldn’t really classify it as a thriller. It was a compelling enough story though and it kept me turning the pages to uncover the twists and discover what actually happened during those past hurricanes and how it all would be resolved in the present day timeline. Very atmospheric and an entertaining read!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing a digital ARC for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
4. The Star Society by Gabriella Saab
Setting: Hollywood
FROM THE PUBLISHER: A new name, a new country, and a coveted title as Hollywood’s newest rising star: by 1946, actress Ada Worthington-Fox has discarded the life she left in war-torn Arnhem, where she worked for the Dutch resistance before Gestapo imprisonment prompted her to flee after release. But that life is thrust back into the spotlight when Ingrid–the sister she believed dead–shows up on her doorstep.
Politically-minded Ingrid escaped the Nazi invasion of Arnhem and fled to Washinton, D.C. where she became a private investigator. Now, she has been sent to root out communist influences in Hollywood. Her target: Ada Worthington-Fox, the sister she long thought lost to her. Ingrid must hide her true purpose as she shields Ada from sneaky reporters, damaging rumors, and increasing threats, all while fighting to uncover which side her sister is truly on before Ingrid’s efforts to help her are too late.
Yet, Ada has her own mission: locating the Gestapo agent who terrorized her hometown and bringing him to justice. But delving into her past would risk alerting the press to a life too personal to expose. As the rising fear of communism threatens everyone, she turns to her sister, believing Ingrid’s ties to Washington may be her only hope for success.
But the connections between Ada’s elusive Nazi and Ingrid’s communist witch hunt might be stronger than they realize. Both sisters share the darkest secret of all, one that risks their very lives if ever exposed. As they come closer to identifying Ada’s target and as Ingrid’s investigation intensifies, they will need to decide what is more important: justice or safety, keeping silent or taking a stand, and, above all, if their loyalty to one another is worth risking the post-war lives they’ve fought to build.
5. Book of Forbidden Words by Louise Fein
Setting: Paris, New York
FROM THE PUBLISHER: “What power lay there in words on a page. And with that thought, Charlotte knew she would not rest until she had seen what was in the manuscript that Lysbette so desperately wanted to preserve in print.”
1552, Paris: Against a backdrop of turmoil, suspicion, and paranoia, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives one day at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.
1952, New York: Milly Bennett, lonely and unmoored, is a seemingly ordinary housewife with a secretive past. Balancing the day-to-day boredom of keeping house and struggling to find her way with the mothers at her children’s school, she finds her life taking an unexpected turn as conspiracies spread amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. When a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, she is reluctantly pulled into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.
From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.
Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.
6. Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson
Setting: Germany; Philadelphia and Maryland, USA
A historical fiction novel inspired by the real life story of a woman who organized the adoption of biracial children (‘Mischlingskinder‘) in post World War II Germany. These mixed-race children, born as the result of relationships between German women and Black American soldiers, were rejected by German society and thousands were adopted by American families as part of the initiative known as the Brown Baby Plan.
There are three timelines and points of view in the novel which eventually intersect. 1948 – Ozzie is a young Black American soldier stationed in post-war Germany as reconstruction begins; 1950 – Ethel, a journalist and wife of an American soldier stationed in post-war Germany, can’t have children of her own and makes it her mission to help biracial babies left at a local orphanage; and 1965 – Sophia is a young Black girl who receives a scholarship to attend an elite boarding school in Maryland.
Keeper of Lost Children is a well-written, engaging and informative novel with an interesting historical perspective. I knew nothing about the plight of mixed race children in post-WWII Germany (and I expect in other countries as well) before reading this book and appreciated the history lesson. The story is poignant, the characters are compelling and I enjoyed all three timelines equally. The connection between these three characters might seem predictable from the outset but the author draws out the story in a most intriguing way. The only negative – although this book is more than 450 pages, I still felt like I wanted more!
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing a digital ARC of this book for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
7. Liberty Street by Heather Marshall
Setting: Toronto, Canada
Publication Date: June 16, 2026 in the U.S. (February in Canada)
FROM THE PUBLISHER: 1961: Emily Radcliffe works as an editorial assistant at Chatelaine magazine, surrounded by the best women journalists in the country, whose articles tackle the controversial topics no other women’s publication dares to touch. When a bombshell letter from an inmate at the notorious Mercer Women’s Prison lands on Emily’s desk, she senses a scoop that could launch her career as a real, hard-boiled journalist. But after going undercover to investigate the inmate’s shocking claims, Emily discovers that getting into the prison is the easy part; the real challenge will be getting back out . . .
1996: Unidentified female remains are discovered in an unmarked grave in a small-town Ontario cemetery, and Detective Rachel Mackenzie is tasked with unraveling the mystery. But when the investigation leads her to the now-shuttered Mercer Women’s Prison, Rachel’s own dark history threatens to surface from where she’s kept it carefully buried.
Inspired by true events, Liberty Street weaves back and forth through time to shine a light on mental health, incarceration, and the various “prisons” that hold women captive.
8. Sunk in Love by Heather McBreen
Setting: Hawaiian cruise
FROM THE PUBLISHER: Roslyn and Liam met nine years ago and have been the perfect couple ever since. Through every up and down, every milestone—from Liam’s residency to the publication of Roslyn’s debut romance—they’ve been each other’s rock. Until now.
Pulled apart by the untimely death of Roslyn’s mom and the undertow of grief, they’re now navigating the final wave in their marriage: divorce.
Heartbroken and unsure how to tell her family she’s called it quits with everyone’s favorite son-in-law, Roslyn keeps the impending split to herself. But when Roslyn’s grandparents ask if Liam can officiate their vow renewal ceremony aboard a Hawaiian cruise during their annual vacation, Roslyn needs to tell the truth or figure out a way to keep her secret. A week trapped at sea with her ex isn’t ideal, but neither Roslyn nor Liam want to rock the boat, so they concoct a plan—they’ll fake it.
After five years of marriage, they can figure out how to pretend for jungle hikes and mai tais, right? But when reality and make believe starts to blur, and old feelings begin to resurface, Roslyn and Liam have to decide whether it’s sink or swim for their marriage.
9. Saoirse by Charleen Hurtubise
Setting: Ireland
Saoirse is an artist living on the coast in Donegal with her partner and two young daughters who has a secret that she has been hiding for almost a decade. Nine years earlier, 17 year-old Sarah Roy was on a flight from Boston to Dublin using a stolen passport when she met an Irish medical student who brought her to his family home in Dublin when he realized she has no place to stay. Now in 1999, Saoirse is happy in her personal life and her career as an artist is starting to flourish but, when she is awarded a prestigious art prize, journalists start asking questions about her background and Saoirse fears her new life is about to come crashing down around her.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Saoirse is a compelling dual timeline story about a woman hiding in Ireland from her American past. There is lots of drama with twists and turns that keep the pages turning, Saoirse is a memorable character, and the plot addresses some serious issues relating to trauma/abuse and healing through art. It’s a very well-written novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I was expecting it to be more literary given the blurb comparing it to Colm Tóibín and Claire Keegan.
Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
10. Missing Sam by Thrity Umrigar
Setting: Cleveland suburbs in the U.S. and India
One night after a party, married couple Samantha and Aliya get into a heated argument that results in Sam sleeping in the guest room. The following morning, Sam goes out for a run in their suburban neighbourhood by herself and doesn’t return home. When Ali, a Muslim-American, reports her wife missing, she finds herself under suspicion and subject to the scrutiny of the police, her neighbours, the press and an online mob headed up by one of Sam’s graduate students.
Alternating between Sam and Ali’s perspective, Missing Sam starts off as a the typical suspenseful thriller but then morphs into a story about family, relationships, the aftermath of a traumatic experience and an exploration of what it’s like to be brown and queer in America in the current political climate.
The novel starts in 2019 and takes place over several months weaving many issues into the plot including racism, bigotry toward the LGBTQ community in the US, and the polarization of online discourse. A trip to India in March 2020 introduces some of the culture there as well as the onset of the COVID pandemic. It’s a well-written novel that addresses many serious issues but it did feel a bit like it was a book that wasn’t quite sure what it was. Not my favourite by this author but I enjoyed reading it although I can also understand how a reader expecting a thriller might feel that the book loses its way in the second half.
11. Family Drama by Rebecca Fallon
Setting: New England, England and Los Angeles
This story of a popular soap opera actress and her family opens on a snowy beach in New England in 1997 with 7 year-old twins, Sebastian and Viola, watching as their mother’s body is tipped overboard in a Viking funeral and then shifts between timelines and perspectives from the mid-80s to the early 2000s.
While acting in a play about the Salem witch trials, Susan Byrne meets and falls in love with university professor Alcott Bliss in 1983. When Susan is later cast in a soap opera which films in LA, she opts to travel back and forth to California each week as her husband doesn’t want to give up his tenure track position. She tries staying home after they have twins but misses having a creative outlet so returns to the soap opera spending weekdays in LA and commuting home to her family in New England on the weekend.
Years after Susan’s premature death, Sebastian and Viola are entering young adulthood but have yet fully come to terms with the loss of the mother they hardly new. Sebastian uses his art to try and make sense of the past while Viola leaves the U.S. to attend university in England where she meets and falls in love with Orson Grey, a former colleague of her mother’s who is 20 years older than her.
This ambitious debut is a thoughtful novel about motherhood, family dynamics and grief that weaves together two timelines exploring the life of a woman torn between career and family and how her absence affected her kids. All of the characters are flawed but sympathetic to varying degrees – it’s impossible not to feel for the twins and their fractured family despite the fact that Viola’s relationship is uncomfortable to sit with. Well-written, melancholic, character-driven literary fiction – I enjoyed the read even though I never felt a strong emotional investment in the characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
12. Little One by Olivia Muenter
Setting: New York City and Central Florida
A decade after Catharine West abandoned the farm in Florida where she grew up, she has reinvented her life in New York City but has kept her past hidden from the few people she knows. That carefully constructed life is disrupted, however, when she receives a message from a charismatic journalist who wants to know if she’s the same Catharine who grew up in a cult in Central Florida.
Catharine’s first instinct is to ignore his questions but then it occurs to her that this journalist might lead her to her sister, Linna, who was the one person she hadn’t wanted to leave behind. Catharine’s past timeline takes place on the farm in Florida operated by her magnetic father over the final few months that she lived there as the once idyllic community transformed into something darker.
This has quite an interesting premise and it kept me turning the pages as I was intrigued by where the story was going although the conclusion was a bit of a letdown as I’m not crazy about loose ends or endings that are a tad ambiguous. The duaI timelines work together well and I enjoyed the slow reveal of what had happened on the farm before Catharine escaped. Well-written literary suspense (but I wouldn’t call it a thriller) – an enjoyable pageturner!
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing a digital ARC of this book for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
13. So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder
Setting: New York, New Jersey, Cancun
Compared to The Big Chill, So Old, So Young is the story of a group of six college friends – Mia, Marco, Richie, Adam, Sasha and Theo – who get together at five parties over a period of 20 years. From a New Year’s Eve party in the East Village of New York City to a destination wedding, a 40th birthday party, and a suburban backyard barbecue, the group tries to maintain the friendships that once meant everything to them while the passage of time brings career changes, marriages, children, and the fracture of bonds that had seemed unbreakable.
This multiple point-of-view story follows a group of millenials from college through early middle age by catching up with them at five separate events over two decades. It’s an exploration and celebration of friendship and love and how time changes people over the years – a character-driven story with six main characters who are all complicated and relatable if not always likeable. Despite their flaws, I grew to care about each of them and was sad to say goodbye. A well-written, insightful and resonant novel that I expect will be one of my favourites of the year!
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
14. Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer
Setting: Jamaica and Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia, 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her…until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.
Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.
Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom—and of love….
With evocative prose and immersive storytelling, Fireflies in Winter is a powerful novel about love—love for the wilderness in all its unforgiving beauty, and love between two women who risk everything to be together.
15. Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya
Setting: India
Railsong opens in the fictional town of Bhombalpur in the state of Bihar, India at the time of the 1961 census when Charulata (Charu) Chitol, the child of a mixed caste marriage, is three years old. Her mother dies a few years later and Charu and her two brothers are raised by their railway worker/political activist father.
As a 16 year-old searching for freedom and independence, Charu flees on a cross-country train to Bombay where she lives with maternal relatives for a time while attending college before finding work in a shoe store and moving to a women’s hostel. Eventually she secures a position with the Indian Railways where she is known as Miss Chitol and builds a career beginning as a junior clerk and advancing through the system to become a welfare inspector investigating worker’s claims and fraud.
Spanning three decades (1961-92), Railsong is a heartfelt coming of age story about a complex young woman in a changing India in the latter half of the 20th century. Charu’s struggle for personal independence takes place against a backdrop of social and political upheaval in modern day India highlighting the inequality that exists both between castes and within the patriarchal society. Through Charu we observe the changing role of women in India’s workforce and the importance of Indian Railways as an employer. I enjoyed learning more about the history and geography of the country and Charu is a memorable character. Railsong is an interesting and enjoyable story although I did find it to be slow moving and the prose a bit awkward at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
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