Top Ten Tuesday is an original blog meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and is currently being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is “Books on My Spring 2026 To-Read List.” Spring usually means warmer weather, but we just had a wild heatwave to cap off winter (it was 100 degrees for an entire week). Spring is coming in with cooler weather strangely enough. I always think of contemporaries when in comes to this season, but my list of most anticipated books is once again dominated by the horror genre. I am going to find out what else is coming out this spring with all your lists and hopefully add a few lighter reads to reflect the season. Thank you in advance for keeping me up to date. Covers are linked to Goodreads.

Zinah has been raising money for those in Gaza, but is now asking for assistance to help continue her education as she pursues becoming a dentist and also to help her family. You can read about this campaign and donate if you are able to here.

1. Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher

"Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well."

2. Seasons of Glass & Iron by Amal El-Mohtar

"Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass and Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar.

With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observed tales about life as it is, was, and could be. Like miscellany from other worlds, these stories are told in letters, diary entries, reference materials, folktales, and lyrical prose.

Full of Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Hugo Award-winning and nominated stories, Seasons of Glass and Stories includes "Seasons of Glass and Iron," "The Green Book," "Madeleine," "The Lonely Sea in the Sky," "And Their Lips Rang with the Sun," "The Truth About Owls," "A Hollow Play," "Anabasis," "To Follow the Waves," "John Hollowback and the Witch," "Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers," "Pockets," and more."

3. The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thomas

"We Need to Talk about Kevin as if written by Jason Reynolds and Tananarive Due meets Model Home by Rivers Solomon in an innovative twist on the haunted house about a mother desperate to protect her sons from the twin specters of gun violence and otherworldly menace in their public housing project.

Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brother’s fate.

Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He's a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out.

But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other mysterious footsteps are heard when she’s alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nona’s living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Sometimes he even seems to act like a different person entirely.

Nona has her secrets too. Her affair with the married church pastor has been weighing on her conscience, but that’s not the only guilt haunting her. She fears that someone—or something— is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price..."

4. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

"October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn't always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.

October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father’s face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a young foreign man who appears outside her window.

One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie.

Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it."

5. Odessa by Gabrielle Sher

"In a powerfully imagined Russia at the height of the pogroms, a grief-stricken family turn to ancient magic to bring their daughter back from the grave.

Yetta is a bright, quick teenage girl with a wild, searching spirit. Stifled by her mother's anxiety, her father’s rules, and the path that’s been laid out for her, she craves the kind of freedom she doesn’t know the edges of. But her family has reason to be cautious and restrictive. Fear has wrapped itself around their shtetl. Jews are mysteriously disappearing, and there are whispers of an impending Gentile attack. When violence comes to their door, Yetta is killed.

Her father, in his grief, fumbles through his nascent knowledge of ancient texts and old magic to bring her back. By some miracle, Yetta is returned—but although she looks the same, Yetta is not the girl she once was. She knows there is a secret her family is keeping from her. The answer resides, in part, in the monstruous being stalking the villagers and their enemies, lurking in the woods beyond the shtetl, something that may be of her father’s making, and a being which has plans of its own."

6. Molka by Monika Kim

"molka (n): the Korean term for spy cameras secretly and illegally installed, often to capture voyeuristic images and videos

Dahye can't believe her luck when she finds herself in a whirlwind romance with handsome, charismatic Hyukjoon, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune.

But then a shocking revelation threatens: the couple has been caught on a spycam amid Korea's growing molka epidemic, and the video is all over the internet. When Hyukjoon flees the country to avoid the intense public scrutiny, Dahye is left to grapple with the ramifications on her own; and the demons from her childhood, long dormant, begin to surface.

Amid the chaos, she catches the attention of Junyoung, a nerdy, introverted IT tech at work. Junyoung harbours a dark secret: he has been spying on the women at work with his own hidden cameras. As Dahye's life begins to unravel, she unknowingly becomes the sole target of Junyoung's perverse obsession.

When the facts surrounding the invasion of her privacy come to light, Dahye is faced with the humiliating truth. Her pain and hurt turn to rage as she faces her past. Her desire for vengeance is insatiable, and she will not rest until the men who have wronged her have paid in blood..."

7. The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee

"Get ready to be blown away by this searing standalone space opera where corporate samurai fight beneath merciless stars, and death is always a mere breath away.

Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow--to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her legacy. But when a competitor offers her a final mission, it's one she can't refuse. Soon, she's thrust deep into a world of corporate espionage, duty-bound duels, and shadowy secrets. What she uncovers will change humanity's existence in the stars forever.

The Last Contract of Isako is the space opera you didn't know you needed: corporate samurai... in space. This is the first adult science fiction novel from the award-winning author of Jade City."

8. Accumulation by Aimee Pokwatka

"A twisty, searing, conversation-starting novel about a filmmaker-turned-housewife who moves into her dream house and is forced to consider whether it's the house or herself that is haunted.

When documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom Tennessee Cherish moves into the the dream house her husband bought for her, a brighter future seems to be on the horizon. Even if her husband is frustratingly absent due to his new high-paying job. Even if their two young children begin acting out in strange ways. Even if she feels lonelier than ever.

Distracted by the endless details that come with moving into a new town, a new house, and new schools, Tenn doesn’t notice when odd things begin happening at home. The faucet that runs at all hours. The creepy doll that seems to show up in every room. The human tooth they found in the floorboards.

As the kids’ outbursts and the strange events start to escalate, the family finds themselves increasingly caught in loops, repeating everyday actions with dangerous—and then devastating—effects. Tenn realizes she must find the source of what is haunting her family, before it kills them all.

Taut and twisty, scary and searing, Aimee Pokwatka’s Accumulation lays bare the high price women pay for the promises of domesticity and motherhood, and the many ways in which families can be haunted."

9. Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez

"A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process.

It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.

Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?

As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever.

Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned."

10. Together We See by Ari Tison

"This edge-of-your-seat Indigenous murder-mystery set in Costa Rica from Pura Belpré and Walter Dean Myers Award-winning author of Saints of the Household is perfect for fans of Firekeeper's Daughter and Patron Saints of Nothing.

How far would you go to protect your land? To protect your family?

Told in multiple points of view, Together We See follows Ulá Dominguez, a Bribri-American teenager, searching for the truth behind her land-activist father's mysterious death on their Native territory in Costa Rica. Ulá and her brother, Kabék, uncover secrets and corruption as they face off against illegal loggers, kidnappers, settlers, and the local government in the hunt for clues. Their only allies are a few family friends and relatives still living in Bribri, as well as a young journalist, who may be in danger himself. But as details of their father's death emerge, long-held trust is broken. And in this sinister web of deception, no one is safe.

Inspired by real-world missing, dead, and attacked Indigenous activists, award-winning author Ari Tison writes her first novel in prose and pushes the envelope yet again by pulling together a propulsive story full of grief, environmental justice, and the fight for retribution."

Are you excited for any of these? Any you are adding to your TBR? Let me know in the comments and be sure to leave me a link to your own TTT post, so I can visit!