Tantalizing Tales — March 2026 — Part One

Happy March, dear reader! Today we’ve got a terrific slate of upcoming books for you, as well as two novels I missed out on in 2025 that you should still definitely keep on your radar.

First up, we have Jessi Cole Jackson’s Ruinous Creatures, a standalone romantasy perfect for anyone wanting to dip their toes into the genre without getting sucked into a multi-book series that probably hasn’t even been completed yet (me, that’s me!)

Adela is a priestess whose sacred duty is to preserve the skulls of the magical creatures who perish in her valley sanctuary. Their bones are still laced with magic, and skulls can be matched with the privileged few who are able to wield the powers of the creatures whose skulls they wear.

Despite her long experience, Adela is surprised one day to discover a pair of phoenix skulls. Magical is one thing: phoenixes, otoh, are legendary. Her mentor warns her against it but Adela awakens the skulls anyway, unwittingly sending a shockwave of power through the valley that unleashes chaos.

Kian is a novitiate preparing for the upcoming matching ceremony. He has a secret tho: he blames his parents’ death on this tradition, and is looking for a way to end it and the magic of the skulls for good.

Fate has other plans, as an impulsive kiss between Adela and Kian seals them to each other and to each of the phoenix skulls. As they deal with the consequences of their connection, they discover that they’ll have to use the power that they now wield to either save The Valley or destroy it entirely.

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If you like your love stories with a little more horror and a lot more blood, you have to check out Kiersten White’s upcoming novel, The Fox And The Devil. I really enjoyed what she did with The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and am looking forward to her fresh take on the legacy of Dracula’s Abraham van Helsing.

The famed vampire hunter’s obsession with his calling has led to an unsurprising estrangement from his daughter Anneke, who doesn’t really believe in the monsters that her father pursues. But when Anneke returns home one day to find him dead, with a strangely beautiful woman looming over him, she embarks upon a path of revenge and obsession as she tracks the serial killer whom she thinks claimed her father’s life.

Using the latest investigative and forensic techniques and technology, Anneke and her newly gathered team follow a trail of dead bodies across Europe. She doesn’t tell the rest of the team, however, about the dreams that plague her, of a quarry who leaves little trace beyond the corpses and these dreams. Neither does she tell them about the occasionally blood-soaked letters that she receives from someone signing off as Diavola.

As the chase brings hunter and hunted closer together, Anneke starts to wonder whether her father was truly the madman she believed him to be. Even more concerning are the feelings she’s developing, and that she suspects are not going unreciprocated, by a woman she’s sworn to destroy.

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For a less fantastical sort of historical mystery, check out Charles Todd’s latest Ian Rutledge novel, A Day Of Judgment. This is the first full novel written since the passing of half of the mother-son duo behind the pseudonym, so is a must-read for series fans.

The twenty-fifth book in the series finds Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard traveling to the windswept Northern coast of England, to an area where memories of the Great War, as well as anti-German sentiment, still run strong in 1921. The dead body of a local man has been found near the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, in an area replete with pilgrims and holiday-makers. Both the British government and the Anglican church are intent on protecting the reputation of the church and its sacred sites, so send a newly promoted Inspector Rutledge to investigate.

Our hero must tread carefully as he finds himself increasingly enmeshed in the politics of two fishing villages still scarred years after fighting off the Germans. It doesn’t help that the local constabulary is in the throes of being folded into a countywide force, even as militias still wield power among the populace. Inspector Rutledge must navigate hostile locals operating at cross-purposes in order to solve the case, even as he fends off his own post-war demons.

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Our next selection has a much more delicious premise than its title would imply. Avery Curran’s Gothic debut Spoiled Milk is dark academia on steroids, as two boarding school rivals turn to spiritualism to solve what they believe to be the murder of a fellow student.

1928 is bristly Emily Locke’s final year at at the isolated Briarley School for Girls. She’s devastated when her best friend, the beautiful, intelligent and cunning Violet, falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Certain that the French schoolmistress with whom Violet was getting a little too close was somehow responsible for Violet’s demise, Emily is determined to prove that the fall wasn’t just a tragic accident. She finds an unexpected ally in her buttoned-up rival Evelyn, as the two do their best to set their differences aside in order to uncover the truth.

Trouble is, proof is hard to pin down. In desperation, the girls and their classmates hold a seance in hopes of mystical advice. Everyone is shocked when Violet herself answers via the medium of pious Evelyn. But Violet has come with a warning: something deadly is coming for Briarley and everyone within.

It starts with rotten food and curdled milk. As people start to die, however, Emily must confront the forces poisoning her school, even as she reevaluates everything she ever believed to be true about herself, Violet, Evelyn and Briarley itself.

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Turning back to books from 2025, let’s talk about Jennifer Hodlich’s rollicking debut Julie Tudor Is Not A Psychopath. The promo copy is so great that I’m just going to quote it here:

“Julie Tudor is Not a Psychopath.

“Julie Tudor is 49 and has it all: a fantastic job (well-maintained spreadsheets are the lynchpin of an efficient office), a beautiful house (some may wonder how she got the money for it, but nothing has been proved) and the man of her dreams.

“Julie Tudor is Not a Stalker.

“Sean is 25 and the love of Julie’s life. The only problem is, he thinks he’s in love with someone else.

“And Julie Tudor is definitely, definitely not a serial killer.

“But Julie has found herself in a similar situation before. And if there’s one thing Julie knows, it’s how to get rid of the competition…

“After all, what’s a little murder in the name of true love?”

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Finally, let’s look back at a sequel that I’m definitely going to have to find time to fit in before the next in the series publishes this year, Rob Hart’s The Medusa Protocol.

The end of the first book, Assassins Anonymous, found our hero Mark doing the best he could to stay on the straight and narrow with the help of the 12-step program he found for former killers. He even had someone to sponsor, as the assassin that he now knows as Astrid decided to leave her days as a killer behind her, with his and the group’s support.

When she stops showing up to meetings, everyone else assumes that her past has finally caught up with her. Mark holds out hope that she’s okay, a belief furthered by the sudden arrival of a pizza that only a psychopath like Astrid could love. Its delivery has to be a message from her… right?

Meanwhile, Astrid has woken up in a black site prison, subject to invasive experiments from a scientist desperate to plumb the depths of her memory for a clue from her past. She’s ready to escape but finds the process trickier than expected given her commitment to killing no more. Will Mark and Astrid be able to work their way back to each other without taking any lives in the process?

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All these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!