Tantalizing Tales — March 2026 — Part Three

Eid Mubarak, readers! Treat yourself, like I’m planning to, with some awesome reads that are either just on the horizon, or that I wish I’d had more time to get to in 2025. And if you’re even more of a planner than I am, make sure to check out Emily’s spotlight on some excellent upcoming speculative fiction publishing over the next few months, too!

If you want a good read on a slightly quicker timeline, check out this fascinating new book from Jill Wintersteen. Spirit Daughter is named after her popular wellness and astrology website, and already comes with endorsements from celebrities such as Kerry Washington and Jessica Alba. Part memoir and part manual, this book aims to help each reader Own Your Power [and] Change Your Life, as the subtitle declares.

Ms Wintersteen left her promising career in neuroscience to follow her intuition down a path rooted in mindfulness, cosmic energy and the power of manifestation. This eventually led her to found the thriving online community of Spirit Daughter, where she shares accessible tools and teachings with more than two million followers. While she details her personal story here, the real draw for many readers will likely be the practical tips she includes for reclaiming your power, primarily by learning to listen to your intuition when facing life’s challenges.

Despite being a single issue Etsy Witch with a strong interest in energy work, crystals and astrology myself, I’m most interested in what the author has to say here about self-awareness, which I feel is too often overlooked in the modern day pursuit of happiness and fulfilment. It’s so important for people to be in touch with their bodies and their emotions, and to understand how we exist as social and energetic creatures. I’m glad she’s spreading the good word.

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Next up, we have Lish McBride’s Most Likely To Murder. Look, there’s no way I’m going to pass up a book from an author whose debut title was the astoundingly creative Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. Her latest Young Adult thriller looks just as gripping, if more rooted in (or constrained by, if that’s how you’d prefer to think of it) the real world.

Rick and Martina are best friends and Meadowvale High School seniors. Sure they have a reputation for being pranksters, but not even they would have come up with the tasteless relabeling of the yearbook’s superlatives along morbid themes. And calling themselves Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses? While it’s flattering that someone thinks they’re cute, their plan for the longest while now has been to just survive high school and start their real lives post-graduation.

The student body’s annoyance turns to fear, however, when Mr Stephens, who was labeled Most Likely To Sleep With The Fishes, is pulled out dead from the bottom of a lake. As more and more people start dying in ways aligning with their rewritten superlatives, it becomes clear that someone is using these labels as a sick warning. Can Rick and Martina figure out who, and make it out of this nightmare alive?

Emily also had thoughts on this book here.

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Looking back on books from 2025 that I’m still desperately trying to get to, we have first Ireen Chau’s swoon-worthy New Adult romantasy To Sway A Soul.

Inspired by Chinese folktales and C-dramas, this novel centers on Zhi Lan, a passionate painter’s apprentice with an uncertain future. When a city magistrate offers both her and her Master Dan Li Chen his patronage, it looks like her fortunes are finally improving… until the prized painting that earned them this honor is stolen. The magistrate gives the artists an ultimatum: paint an acceptable replica in three days or hang with the criminal who stole it.

Knowing that there’s no way to replicate such a masterpiece in that short amount of time, a determined Zhi Lan blackmails the uncommonly handsome thief, Shao Qing, into helping her. Six years ago, Shao Qing foolishly sold his soul to a demon. Ever since then, the only thing that’s made him feel alive again is the thrill of conducting art heists with a roving band of thieves. Now he and Zhi Lan need to steal the original painting back, even as they navigate their conflicting beliefs and their burgeoning feelings for one another.

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Our next selection is also a love story, but one set against the backdrop of Paris during the Great War. Philippe Besson’s In The Absence Of Men is a tender, electrifying tale of first love and the amorality of youth.

In the summer of 1916, the men of Paris have gone off to war. Sixteen year-old Vincent is still too young to fight, even as the city seems alive with both dread and possibility. An electric encounter with a middle-aged novelist named Marcel gives shape to Vincent’s desires. Marcel takes Vincent under his wing, mentoring him in opulent cafes despite the judgment of society.

Meanwhile, Vincent has fallen in love with Arthur, a young soldier on leave. For one magical week, the two risk everything to be together, hiding out in Vincent’s bedroom. As they explore romance and pleasure, Vincent promises that no harm will come to Arthur here, so far away from the trenches. This, ofc, is the precursor to Vincent learning that he shouldn’t make promises he can’t possibly keep.

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I didn’t love the last book of Ivy Pochoda’s I read, but I’m super looking forward to diving into her latest novel, Ecstasy. A large part of this is due to the fact that it’s based on Euripides’ Bacchae, and y’all know how much I love a good retelling!

From the publicity materials:

“Lena wants her life back. Her wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she is forced to contend with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. With no other option, Lena lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son’s pet project—the luxurious Agape Villas.

“Years spent among the wealthy elite have whittled Lena’s spirit into rope and sinew, smothered by tasteful cocktail dresses and unending small talk, but on Naxos she yearns to rediscover her true nature—remember the exuberant party girl she once was. But Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel, demanding that she fall in line.

“Still, Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night, hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she’ll find that an ancient god stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether Lena will join them, and what it will cost her.”

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We go full circle to round out our column this week, with renowned psychic medium Mystic Michaela’s fascinating new tome The Book Of Signs. This spiritual handbook describes and discusses the 150 most common signs that serve as messages from the universe, and specifically from the Other Side.

Among the signs delineated in this book are birds, like bluebirds, which mean that someone is sending you luck. Flowers such as roses communicate miracles, while the pealing of bells reminds listeners that love is all around us.

But more then just interpreting these messages from beyond, this book suggests ways in which we can learn to communicate back. Ultimately, the point of this guidebook is to create and maintain a meaningful connection for readers between this plane and the next, using signs, reflection and intuition.

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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!