Putting aside my discomfort that a historical novel can be set in 2007, this is a fantastic meditation on a very particular moment in Brooklyn history. The neighborhood where the main character, Alicia, lives is Fort Greene. She finds joy and possibility in the all-night parties thrown by her neighbor La Garza. Neither Alicia nor her friends realize that the coolness of Fort Greene is going to upend the neighborhood. Before the construction of the Barclays Center, and right at the tipping point of Brooklyn becoming expensive, Alicia and her friends and family try to find their way in NYC. —Julia Rittenberg

Lola and Lisandro are siblings who are actors out to swindle the rich. Lola pretends to be a ghost haunting the home of a wealthy person, while Lisandro pretends to be a spiritualist who can help. Bixby Fairfax, newspaper tycoon and owner of The Coterie estate, is the siblings’ next target. But things start to go wrong the moment Lola and Lisandro decide to switch roles. Weird things keep actually happening at The Coterie, and no matter how hard the siblings try to solve the mystery, they’re dragged further in. Can they pull off their biggest scam or is their act about to be unraveled? This historical thriller sounds fun. —Kelly Jensen

The graveyard gays are back! It’s been almost six years since Aiden Thomas first introduced us to Yadriel and Julian (and my fave Maritza, a real one). This fall we’re headed back to the graveyard in Espíritu, which follows Julian as he navigates life post-sacrificial ritual. Things are mostly pretty sweet—except for the part where he sees shadows in his eyes, glowing eyes in the dark, and these ominous dark spots on people that no one can explain. There’s also a mysterious new nonbinary bruje in the mix, one who Julian is drawn to but Yadriel is looking at with some side eye for their cutthroat approach to brujeria. Let’s gooooo.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia could write a guide on knitting sweaters for earthworms, and I’d be out here cheering, “Yesss, clothe the tiny invertebrates!” She has, of course, crafted an irresistible plot in a noir tale of desire, greed, and seduction. In 1940s Mexico, a handsome grifter charms women into giving him their money through letters. Intent on securing a bigger, more reliable bag when the letter scheme runs its course, he sets his sights on the owner of a boardinghouse in a small town in Veracruz. There are two flaws in this plan: his intended victim’s niece clocks him right away and wants in on the scheme as a means to escape this small town, and his victim is not quite the gullible mark he thinks she is…

Papi Ramon is the recently deceased patriarch of a wealthy family, and he’s sown a little chaos by dropping this banger in his will: “One of you is a demon I made a bargain with long ago. Get rid of ’em or you’ll all be damned. Ciao!” No one takes the proclamation seriously, save for his undisputed favorite, Xiomara. But when the rest of the family sends the lawyer away to retrieve the original draft of the will, a storm hits and leaves them all stranded together. Over the course of 12 harrowing hours, all hell breaks loose, and it will be up to Xiomara to suss out the demon and take them out. If you love a modern Gothic, add this one to your list.

From the author of The Library of Lost Things and A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow (a personal favorite) comes this romantic YA ghost story. Sylvie Castellanos wants an adventure, but she is spending her summer, like she spends every summer, with her Aunt Viv while her friends are off vacationing and her parents are working on a luxury yacht. While thrifting, she finds an expensive vintage watch worth a lot of cash that feels like a sign of good luck. But when she turns the watch dial, she summons the ghost of a boy, a boy whose death is a mystery that needs solving.

I recently sat down to finally read What the River Knows and found out accidentally that Isabel Ibañez’s adult debut is being published in 2026. It’s a historical romantasy about a sculptress in Renaissance Florence who enters a magical competition hosted by the city’s most notorious—and feared—immortal family to save her brother. The Pope has waged a war on magic, the stakes of the competition are deadly, and the heir to the dei Luni family is both merciless and alluring. This looks so good!

I am always on the hunt for more Latine middle grade and this one sounds like a great, messy little time. Roxy and Meli are opposites in every way and can’t stand each other’s faces—and their parents just got engaged. That marriage cannot happen, no way! So they join forces and form a plan to prove to their parents that they’re actually incompatible by sabotaging the renovations of the home they plan to share. What could go wrong? I do love this flavor of hijinks, and can’t wait to read this story from these two fantastic authors.

A horror writer and a fantasy writer check into a B&B for a writing retreat, only to find out the place is haunted by a couple of star-crossed lovers sending messages from the beyond. We get a haunting, writer MCs, fated lovers, and a tropical Key West setting. This is going on my summer TBR for sure.

Mexican American and Indigenous novelist and poet Jennifer Givhan has been killing it in the horror game (Salt Bones, River Women, River Demon), and I’m thrilled to see her latest comped to greats like Stephen Graham Jones, Gabino Iglesias, and Carmen Maria Machado. Inspired by true events, it’s the story of Fortuna, a mother who moves her family to a better neighborhood across the Rio Grande in hopes of outrunning a violent family curse, and Jeanette, a detective who’s spent decades chasing the ghosts of her murdered cousins. Fortuna and Jeanette’s paths collide when a body is found in this Chicanified remix of the legend of the headless woman.