A Horror Movie Themed Competition, Christmas Advent Reads, and More New YA Books for September 30, 2026

Enzo Rossi lives in Irontown, Michigan, a town that’s in decline. But his family is asked to host an exchange student, and even though he has no idea why the old mining town would be picked for a study destination, he’s excited to meet his new family housemate.

Enzo and his family are ready to pick up Davit from the airport. They think he’s from Georgia, the country, but turns out, he’s from Georgia, the state. He’s also not Davit but Garrett. Something went very wrong here.

Garrett is a hot football player, and Enzo knows immediately that Garrett is very much straight. Enzo’s a total fool around Garrett, writing him off as spoiled, while Garrett sees Enzo as a little too stuck up for his own good. But while Garrett is charming Irontown, Enzo can’t help but want to spend time around him. It’s not long before the two of them start to develop real feelings for one another.

If Cañas’s name sounds familiar, that’s likely because you know of her adult horror novels, including The Hacienda. She’s now trying her hand at YA, bringing her skills at writing Gothic horror to a new audience.

Minerva Treviño lives in a politically violent city in a home where she’s mistreated and abused. At 16, she’s had enough and runs away, taking a job as a lady’s maid to a wealthy widow–someone who happens to agree with the deposed viceroy who made Minerva’s home community so difficult.

Minerva is happy with the job, though. She’s finally not hungry, and it doesn’t hurt that her employer has a house warmed by magical crystals. But then the viceroy comes back into power, and even though Minerva’s employer is happy about this, she retreats to a mountainside home to wait out the bloodshed. Minerva’s with her employer and family, but being in this home feels anything but safe–and it’s not just the other scheming and cruel servants and family members. There are restless spirits here, too, promising anything but safety.

Mara loves horror movies, and horror movies are about the only good memories she has with her dad. The two of them loved films by hot ’80s producer Jack Stanley. While his films remain popular, he himself disappeared from the public eye for a long time.

That is, until now. Stanley has announced a competition around his film Asylum. Five teen influencers will be invited to spend the night at the set where the film was made, and those who make it through the night will walk away with $100,000.

Mara’s no influencer, but she’s going to do what she can to catch Stanley’s attention. She needs the money badly, and with the help of her brother and best friend, she’s successfully made a bid for one of the five spots.

When the five teens arrive at the asylum, well, things seem fine at first. After all, they’re living their horror-fueled dreams. But it’s not long before things get far scarier than any of them can imagine. “Making it all night” won’t be about not getting too scared. It’ll be about survival–and Mara is going to muster up all she can to walk away alive.

If you love dark academia, you’ll be thrilled to hear that’s where Adeyemi has gone next. This story follows Emery, who has just gotten into Dartmouth. She’s got a plan: keep her scholarship, remember to keep taking her meds, and keep her past as buried as she can.

Then Emery meets Roux. Roux is magnetic, just as much as her stepbrother Eli is. So, too, are the girls surrounding Roux dubbed “The Sirens.” The Sirens live a whole other life on campus, full of prestige and parties. It wasn’t always that way for them, though–it was Roux who took those outcast girls and made them into who they are now. So when Roux invited Emery to become a Siren, she could not say no.

But the work to earn that distinction may cost Emery every one of her plans, if not her whole life.

Be ready for a book that’ll bring you tears and warm your heart.

CheChe and his twin sister Emma are happy. They love their family, have a nice circle of friends, and are content with quieter activities like reading. But things change in an instant when, one day during their junior year, a gunman shows up at their El Paso, Texas, high school.

CheChe loses a leg, and both he and his sister see several of their friends die in the shooting. But as they move through the recovery and healing process, something happens: the bonds the twins have with their family, friends, and community grow even tighter. It’s not the year either of them imagined, but it’s one that somehow changes their lives for the better and helps them develop even stronger voices in the world.

Soojin Han’s older sister Mirae drowned mysteriously in the river that slithers through their town. Soojin knows she shouldn’t use her ancestral magic, but she decides that bringing Mirae back is worth the risk. At first it is–the sisters are reunited and it’s cause for joy and celebration.

But then Mirae becomes restless and hungry, and she’s driven to expose the truth of her family and their history. Mirae is out for revenge. As the town finds itself feeling her wrath in the form of extreme weather, Soojin is regretting her decision to bring Mirae back.

This holiday advent romance is one that mystery lovers will be excited by. It follows Suzanne Sécretant, who has taken on an apprenticeship in a Parisian bakery. But from the jump, things don’t go as planned. She’s not learning from the head pastry chef as she’d hoped, and then it gets worse when she witnesses a murder.

Suzanne knows she’s crucial to solving the crime, and she’ll do so while navigating her feelings for two cute new love interests, Léo and Sofiane.

Each chapter is perforated, so there’s built-in restraint from reading the story cover-to-cover in one sitting. Or, well, attempted restraint.

Molly, her brother Hank, and Hank’s best friend Tray were inseparable, but then a climbing accident left Hank with a traumatic brain injury. Molly knows it wasn’t Tray’s fault, even if he was there when it happened and didn’t try to stop it. Molly also knows it’s not her fault, but she can’t help but feel some responsibility.

As graduation closes in, Molly wants to make good on the trip the three of them had planned before the accident. They were going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Now that the trip will be just Molly and Tray, with plenty of resentment and anger flaring up from Molly, especially as her parents put Tray in charge of keeping an eye on her.

Our second Christmas advent release this week follows 16-year-old Amanda Mathers. She’s excited to spend December working at a pop-up coffee shop on a local Christmas tree farm while trying to convince her parents to let her travel abroad over the summer. She’s also excited to pull off an epic Secret Santa with her friends.

Amanda had no plans to fall in love, but when she meets Luke Post–his family owns the tree farm where she’s working–she can’t stop staring at him. He’s not that interested. So when she gets his name for Secret Santa, she realizes she has a real excuse to try to warm him up to her (she’s got to get the perfect gift!). That time they spend with one another might be what starts to create some sizzling feelings between the two.

There are 25 chapters in this one so that readers can enjoy the final scene on Christmas Day.