Ten Upcoming Books That Don’t Have Covers Yet #3

 

I’m linking up with Top Ten Tuesday, which was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog.

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Top Ten Tuesday’s prompt today is “Freebie,” so I thought it would be the perfect time for another round of Upcoming Books That Don’t Have Covers Yet! I’m so excited for these books that I can’t wait until the covers are revealed to share them. I’m listing these in order of publication date, and I’ll include the blurb if it’s available. Titles link to Goodreads if you’d like to add them to your TBR!

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1. Rachel Hawkins – The Storm. St. Martin’s Press, January 2025 (???)

The Storm, St. Martin’s said, is a dual-timeline tale set at a Gulf Coast hotel that has withstood 70 years of hurricanes. However, with a superstorm bearing down, “the secrets of the past threaten the inn’s survival from inside and out.” – Publishers Weekly

OK clearly this isn’t happening, since we’re only a month away from the stated publication date, and there’s no cover or listing on Amazon or Edelweiss. So I suspect this book might be another year out. In any case, The Heiress is one of my top five books of the year, and so you can understand why I’m SUPER excited to read her next book:-)

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2. C.J. Cooke – The Ghost Woods. Berkley, April 2025

In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall.

This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child.

Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed.

Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something.

Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds—and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place.

As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew—and risk what she holds most dear.

The Ghost Woods is already out in European countries, but not yet out in the U.S., so it is the U.S. cover I’m waiting on. This sounds amazing!

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3. Silvia Moreno-Garcia – The Bewitching. Del Rey, July 2025

Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.

I love that Silvia Moreno-Garcia is writing a story about witches. I always look forward to her new books, and she never seems to write the same story twice.

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4. Danielle Valentine – The Dead Husband Cookbook. Sourcebooks Landmark, August 2025

She has the recipe for the perfect murder…

Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name, an inspiration, an icon. Her dozens of cookbooks and weekly television show, broadcast from her beautiful Italian-style kitchen, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. And of course there’s her history. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after Damien’s mysterious disappearance twenty years before. An event she’s never spoken about publicly until now, when it is announced that she is looking for a publisher for her memoirs.

Why is Maria willing to finally break her silence? Why does she turn down seven-figure offers from large publishing houses and sign up with a small press? And why does she do so on the condition that it is edited by Thea Woods? Thea is a lifelong fan but has never met Maria and can’t figure it out, plus she had been planning to hand in her notice that very day. But when she is invited to Maria’s remote farm to work on the manuscript, she can’t resist. After all, she may finally learn whether the rumours are that Maria killed Damien for his recipes and the legendary ‘secret ingredient’…

A deliciously rich thriller, perfect for readers of Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband

I didn’t like Valentine’s last book, probably because it was YA, so I’m hoping this adult mystery will be more in line with what I loved so much about Delicate Condition. It sounds like so much fun!

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5. T. Kingfisher – Hemlock & Silver. Tor Books, August 2025

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind.

Healer Anja knows little of politics but much of poisons. When she is summoned to treat the mysterious illness afflicting the king’s daughter, she finds herself against the clock, desperate to track down the source of the poison killing Princess Snow. But the chance discovery of a strange alternate world inside a magic mirror leads Anja to darker discoveries, including what really happened to Snow’s dead sister, Rose, and why their mother seemingly went mad and cut out her heart.

Aided by a taciturn bodyguard, a narcissistic cat, and a late Renaissance understanding of the scientific method, Anja must navigate the mysteries of the mirror world before the dark queen that dwells within rises to threaten them all.

I love Kingfisher’s fairy tale retellings, and this time she’s tackling Snow White! This sounds like a twisted version of the tale, which is what the author does so well.

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6. Tim Lebbon – Secret Lives of the Dead. Titan Books, August 2025

A dark folk horror tale of a deadly family curse, crime and murder that is sure to turn your blood cold, from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Netflix’s The Silence.

When Jodi, BB and Matt decide to burgle a derelict country home as a thrilling dare, they become embroiled in a twisted legacy of supernatural terror. There are rumours of a bizarre curse hanging over the hoard of antiques and jewellery within the house. And unbeknownst to the others, one member of the trio has darker motives for breaking into the property.

Lem is a brutal man obsessed with a gruesome family legend. He is determined to right the wrongs of the past and lift the curse placed on his bloodline. By completing the work of his father and bringing a bizarre selection of scattered relics back together, he hopes to be free of the malign influence that has hounded every generation of his family for two centuries.

Across a single day a deadly pursuit will culminate on the desolate, storm-swept Crow Island, and those involved are given cause to wonder… can believing in a curse deeply enough bring its own bad luck?

I’ve enjoyed a few of Tim Lebbon’s books, and this sounds really good. I love folk horror, and I can’t wait to read this.

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7. Yume Kitasei – Saltcrop. Flatiron Books, September 2025

Two sisters set sail on an epic quest to find their missing third sister, who may hold the key to saving humanity a generation after the environmental collapse of Earth.

A very short blurb, but based on Kitasei’s first two books, I am really looking forward to this.

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8. Catriona Ward – Nowhere Burning. Tor Nightfire, October 2025

Set in the unforgiving maw of the Rocky Mountains, Nowhere Burning is the latest harrowing novel from bestselling author Catriona Ward, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and the hit series Yellowjackets.

A refuge for lost children may also be their prison.

In the middle of the night, Riley pulls her younger brother Oliver out of bed, and the two run away from home. Riley is intent on joining a group of teenagers squatting in the abandoned ruins of an infamous movie star’s ranch, Nowhere. For actor Leaf Winham, Nowhere was a place to hide from his fame, and to hide his crimes―until a fire ravaged his home and exposed him as a murderer.

It is rumored that the ranch nestled in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains is now home to group of feral children, a place where adults cannot enter, and Riley hopes to find a new family there. But the Nowhere Kids are fierce in defending their turf and their clan, and Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have left the devil they knew, this group is a new type of diabolical.

For something dark lives in the burned shell of Nowhere, something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary…

It’s been a couple of years since Ward’s last book, so I’m very happy to see a new one being released next year. I’m getting some Lord of the Flies vibes from this blurb!

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9. Fonda Lee – The Last Contract of Isako. Orbit, October 2025

Inspired by samurai movies and Fonda’s former business career, The Last Contract of Isako is a searing space opera like no other that takes aim squarely at late-stage capitalism. Get ready to meet an aging contractor, Ithmus Isako, whose final mission thrusts her deep into a world of espionage and sword fights on an isolated colony planet.

A new Fonda Lee, and this sounds amazing! The blurb is very short, but I’m so curious to see what Lee does with science fiction.

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Heather Fawcett – Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter. Orbit Books, January 2026

(no blurb yet)

I’ve saved the best for last! First, a new Heather Fawcett. And second, that title? I want to know what this book is about so badly! And third, cats. I’ve read some outstanding fantasies with cats so I’m excited.

Are you going to add any of these to your TBR?