Tantalizing Tales — April 2026 — Part One

The first quarter of the year is over, friends, and here I am, trying to balance engagement with our dire reality with the joys of slipping away into fiction. One fictional place I’m really looking forward to visiting soon is Erica Wright’s The Museum Of Unusual Occurrence, the first in her brand new Psychic City mystery series.

Aly Orlean is rational, cynical and fiercely proud of her hometown of Wyndale, Florida. She runs the local Museum of Unusual Occurrence, a place that showcases strange events that Aly doesn’t necessarily believe have supernatural explanations, no matter what else the people in Wyndale might claim. She’s happy to let them talk up the place and to take her visitors money, tho, especially since she has Merope, her teenage sister, to take care of.

Things take a decided turn when someone sneaks into the museum and gruesomely stages the fresh corpse of Rose Dempsey, a local twenty year-old, as if she were part of a ritual sacrifice. The police are clueless, and Aly begins to fear that this murder was actually meant as a message to her and to her solitary lifestyle. In order to protect both herself and her sister, Aly’s going to have to figure out not only who killed Rose and why, but why her museum was targeted too.

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I’m also really excited about our next selection, L D Lewis’ Year Of The Mer, which extrapolates from the Disney version of The Little Mermaid to present an ongoing saga that very much hearkens back to Hans Christian Anderson’s far bloodier original.

Once upon a time, a young mermaid named Arielle risked it all for love… and won. Decades later, her granddaughter Yemi is heir to the throne of Ixia, and facing rebellion from her purely human subjects. A coup against her reign drives Yemi back to Mer, her grandmother’s domain. There, a furious Yemi hopes to find aid in her quest to retake the throne and exact vengeance against the usurpers.

Mer, however, is far different from what she expected. Instead of a thriving sea kingdom, she finds a land wasting away ever since being abandoned by Arielle. Only one person here, it seems, has the power to help both restore her crown and protect Nova, her love and personal bodyguard.

Will Yemi follow in her grandmother’s fraught footsteps and strike a perilous bargain with the sea witch Ursla? Will magic help her regain her rightful place, and force the humans to pay the price for their ingratitude? This is a far greater request than Arielle’s long-ago plea. Ursla’s powers, however, have only grown as the sea witch has waited years in the shadowy depths for her revenge…

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If you’re looking for a less angry but just as stirring read, check out Emma Grey’s latest contemporary romance, Start At The End. This powerful sliding doors novel asks deep questions about fate and agency, as two lovers work their ways back to each other despite the greatest divides.

Audrey and Fraser may have had an unlikely start, but they tumbled into a romance for the ages. Deeply in love, they dream of the life they’ll build together… until one tragic moment changes everything.

As they face the unimaginable while contending with both grief and guilt, the lovers must ask themselves “what if”. Where they would be — separately or together — if fate’s web had spun out their tales differently? Will the soulmates be able to fight their way back to each other and start over, refusing to accept an ending when they’ve only just begun?

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Our final most anticipated novel comes from a celebrated name in fairy tale retellings. Bestselling sci-fi author Marissa Meyer teams up with rising star Tamara Moss for the thrilling Young Adult murder mystery The Escape Game.

The titular show is a hit reality TV competition featuring teams of brainiacs solving a series of diabolically challenging Escape Rooms. Six months ago, however, season four ended abruptly with the horrifying discovery of the dead body of contestant Alicia Angelos.

Alicia’s sister Sierra was accused of her murder. While there wasn’t enough proof to convict, she’s been pretty much found guilty in the court of public opinion. Sierra, however, has steadfastly maintained her innocence throughout.

Now season five of The Escape Game has started, with Sierra front and center as a contestant herself. She’s convinced that the answer to her sister’s murder lies here on set, with clues hidden in the game. As she and her fellow contestants — including cryptographer Adi, math whiz Carter and aspiring game master Beck — progress through the rooms, they discover more information that points to Sierra’s innocence. But the stakes are growing increasingly deadly, with a murderous mastermind actively working against them. Will they be able to put their inherently competitive natures aside and band together to not only unmask Alicia’s killer but survive?

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Looking back to 2025, we have two more excellent books I really wish I had more time for at present, but may find time for soon! The first comes from the storytelling sibling duo behind the hit podcast Candlelit Tales. Sorcha and Aron Hegarty draw from their established areas of expertise to present Celtic Mythology, with gorgeous illustrations by Anna Stead.

Subtitled The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook, this comprehensive overview collects the mythology and tales of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The creative team brings their unique artistic flair to the drama, humor and wonder of Celtic lore, introducing readers to such epic figures as Brigid, the Morrígan and Finn Mac Cool. Filled with gripping retellings, vivid illustrations and accessible commentary, this compendium invites readers into a world of ancient wisdom, powerful deities, mischievous fae and legendary heroes.

I’ve loved every other entry into the World Mythology series of which this is the latest, and can’t wait to carve out time to enjoy this book too!

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Finally, we have a collection of insightful short stories from one of Mexico’s greatest modern writers. Fabio Morábito’s The Shadow Of The Mammoth, translated from the original Spanish by Curtis Bauer, navigates deception, translation, loneliness and connection, through eighteen subtle and unsettling stories that reveal new ways of looking at our world.

From the publicity material:

“Peeling back the surface of everyday life, Morábito explores the intricacies and complexities wrapped in the mundane. As he deftly explores feelings of loneliness and despair endemic in modern society, Morábito finds threads of unexpected humor and transcendent levity. These emotionally evocative tales magnify the multitudes contained in the fleeting; employing unassuming details to reveal the profound. A skillful study of the human experience, Morábito’s writing is not to be missed.

“Why is grass in airports so important? Can you be an extraordinary copyist without knowing how to read or write? Are there successful musicians who only play a single note in their life? Book after book, Fabio Morábito’s stories have become increasingly radical in their way of showing us that imagination is not a curious feature of the mind, but perhaps the only way to not feel excluded from the real world.”

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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!