My September 2026 Reading Wrap Up: Hits, Misses & the Book That Saved My Month
My September 2026 Reading Wrap Up
September was a struggle for everyone I know, and I couldn’t escape the same fate. Out of the 9 books I read this month, I didn’t manage to hit a single 5 star read (although I did get close with one satirical fiction) nor did most of the books I finished even reach a 4 star.
Consider this a friendly warning, and a gossip session about what I truly dislike in writing, as well as a few treasures in the mud mixed in. Here are the 9 books I read in September 2026.
Startup Hell by Caitlin Rozakis
Publish Date - 19 May 2026
Rating: 2/5
I wanted to start my month with something to get me in the cosy but spooky feeling, and this truly feels like it should be the best pick for it. It has romance, demons, a bad-ass mother and an MC that just wants to live her life. However, I didn’t realise quite how much of corporate America would be contained in these pages. I, personally, have never worked in sales or marketing, but I would consider myself an expert after reading this book because there were so many explanations and discussions about them. It took me out of the cosiness and sent me straight into work mode.
I think you’ll like this book if you work in that area, because a lot of the humour will hit harder and it won’t rip you out of your cosiness.
Synopsis:
Morgan Blackwater's mother is a kickass, world-saving, demon-slaying Shadow Council wizard. As for Morgan? Morgan's a junior salesperson at a tech startup that can't even decide what its product is. But with magic dyslexia and a disinclination to kick ass, Morgan is doing her best carving out a niche for herself in the mundane world.
Leaving work late one night, she discovers her boss dead from the effort of summoning a demon to trade his soul in order to make his quarterly target. The disturbingly-attractive demon, Lucareoth (Luke for short), is trapped here until he finds someone to sell their soul. While trying to sneak Luke out of the building, Morgan runs into her infamous mother. Apparently, someone has been summoning demons and she's here to get to the bottom of it.
Trying to protect Luke from her mother, Morgan gets sucked into the Infernal Plane and discovers hell really is a corporate nightmare. She only gets back home with a promise to deliver a human soul of her own. While her coworkers are really annoying, she's not willing to sacrifice their souls. The company's tech bro CEO, though, is another story.
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The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Publish Date - 15 April 2025
Rating: 4/5
I was hesitant to dive into this book, simply because the marketing for this felt so odd. I was hearing tons of different adjectives for this book and I can say, having read this, that none of them match.
I truly enjoyed this book, and I cannot wait to read the rest of the trilogy when it is released. It has its funny moments, but it feels more akin to an epic fantasy. It has tons of lore, different POV’s and endless mystery to keep you entertained. I read this in a few days, which is rare for me, but I felt encapsulated within the story.
Synopsis:
After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him.
Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal - Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth - the Dragon proxy - will be revealed only once the trials have begun. Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists - the best of the best.
Then one of them is murdered.
It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Neema Kraa to investigate. But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering.
If Neema succeeds, she could win the throne - whether she wants it or not. But if she fails, she will sentence herself to death - and set in motion a sequence of events that could doom the empire . . .
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Arcana Academy by Elis Kova
Publish Date - 22 July 2025
Rating: 3/5
The Arcana Academy is the first in the series, and I was so excited to dive into a tarot themed fantasy series.
However, I found that the prose felt more YA than I anticipated, despite the fact it does contain explicit scenes and violence. I probably won’t continue the series, but the story itself was fun to read.
Synopsis:
Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job goes awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.
Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.
In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.
Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems.
But can she risk giving him power over the world-and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?
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Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson
Publish Date - 16 August 2022
Rating: 2/5
I picked this up simply because I was in dire need of a good rom-com and it felt like a new premise. True crime is something a lot of people have a morbid interest in, and I think if it was mixed into the story better, it would have been an amazing read. Unfortunately, I really didn’t enjoy the main character. She was rude, paranoid and downright mean at times for seemingly no reason. On top of that, she barely considered Sam as a murderer and that plot point felt as if it was abandoned.
Synopsis:
Turns out that reading nothing but true crime isn’t exactly conducive to modern dating—and one woman is going to have to learn how to give love a chance when she’s used to suspecting the worst.
PhD candidate Phoebe Walsh has always been obsessed with true crime. She’s even analyzing the genre in her dissertation—if she can manage to finish writing it. It’s hard to find the time while she spends the summer in Florida, cleaning out her childhood home, dealing with her obnoxiously good-natured younger brother, and grappling with the complicated feelings of mourning a father she hadn’t had a relationship with for years.
It doesn’t help that she’s low-key convinced that her new neighbor, Sam Dennings, is a serial killer (he may dress business casual by day, but at night he’s clearly up to something). It’s not long before Phoebe realizes that Sam might be something much scarier—a genuinely nice guy who can pierce her armor to reach her vulnerable heart.
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Endling by Maria Reva
Publish Date - 03 June 2025
Rating: 3/5
Endling has been on my TBR for a long time, and I am so glad I finally got around to reading it! I really enjoyed the story overall, and I loved the use of different POV’s to give more insight into the story. It’s a book I won’t forget easily.
I only ended up rating it a 3 because I felt it leaned too heavily into the metafiction aspects which lead to a disconnect between the characters and I in the latter half of the book.
Synopsis:
Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick biologist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to give up, settle down, and start a family. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men—not for love, but to fund her work—entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides uninfluenced by feminism and modernity.
Nastia and her sister Solomiya are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother—a flamboyant protestor who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt as Russia invades.
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Devour Me by Emily Rath
Publish Date - 04 August 2026
Rating: 3/5
Devour Me marks the first why-choose romance I have read in 2026, and it has revived my faith that the trope can be done well. It is actually one of the easiest romance tropes to mess up in my opinion so I was extremely worried going into this.
But, I was surprisingly pleased with how it was portrayed, as well as the story in general. There’s lore, all main characters have their own POV’s and a truly good set up for a compelling story. It does have insta-love, but it works so well in the plot that I couldn’t fault it at all.
I will absolutely be continuing the series, and if you love spice, I’d recommend you read it too!
Synopsis:
Dáinn the Devourer has spent the last two hundred years of his undead life reluctantly bonded to a dark witch, doing her dirtiest work. Devouring corrupt souls may not be satisfying for a wraith, but it keeps him fed.
Sent on a job to Burr Island, Dáinn is forced by his mistress to devour the soul of a powerful rival witch, Jasper Prescott. Dáinn is busy devouring the witch when he’s interrupted by a human. With one word, this human does what no being has ever done…she takes his breath away.
Forced to stop feeding, Dáinn is shattered as the soul he was devouring slips back inside the dying witch. Who is this human? And what dark magic must she possess to stop a wraith? The more Dáinn learns about Birdie Rhodes, hapless historian and sometimes shop girl, the more determined he is to become part of her world.
Sweet Birdie works for the witch Dáinn was ordered to devour. Now Jasper Prescott is on the hunt too. For answers. As a powerful witch, with a coven at his command, Jasper will stop at nothing to find out what magical mischief is happening on his island. Why is a wraith haunting his tea shop? Which fellow witch wants him dead? And who the hell is Birdie Rhodes?
Dáinn, Jasper, and Birdie become entangled in a magical love affair which could lead to their ruin.
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All Her Fault by Andrea Mara
Publish Date - 08 July 2025
Rating: 3.5/5
My go-to author when in need of a good mystery is Andrea Mara, and I have yet to be let down. I found myself thinking about how the plot would progress even when I was supposed to be busy with work — just desperate to get back to it.
This could have been a 4 star read but one of the plot twists at the end just threw me for a loop (and not in a good way), but aside from that, this was a solid thriller that had me in the first chapter and did not let me go.
Synopsis:
ONE MISSING BOY.
Marissa Irvine arrives at 14 Tudor Grove, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. But the woman who answers the door isn't a mother she recognises. She isn't the nanny. She doesn't have Milo. And so begins every parent's worst nightmare.
FOUR GUILTY WOMEN.
As news of the disappearance filters through the quiet Dublin suburb and an unexpected suspect is named, whispers start to spread about the women most closely connected to the shocking event. Because only one of them may have taken Milo - but they could all be blamed . . .
IN A COMMUNITY FULL OF SECRETS, WHO IS REALLY AT FAULT?
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Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube
Publish Date - 16 August 2024
Rating: 1.5/5
I read this as a favour for one of my closest friends, and, as you can see by the rating, I didn’t enjoy it as expected. I love some good smut in my books, but I could not get into this book. After taking some time to review what went wrong for me, I think it was the lack of plot. None of the questions I had were answered, and none of the characters ever progressed with a linear character arc.
Not to mention, it pissed me off how it was willing to go into every other kink except why-choose which would have fit perfectly.
Overall, a great choice if you want a book for the smut alone, but not if you want a good story.
Synopsis:
Twenty year old Temperance Verus has never been kissed. But that's what the basilisk is for.
Along with thirteen other contestants, Tem must train with a basilisk to learn the power of seduction and win the prince's hand in marriage. When Tem is matched with Caspen, the Serpent King, she realizes she might actually stand a chance. But with tensions rising between the basilisks and the humans, Tem is suddenly torn in two directions. As her bond with Caspen deepens, so does her connection with the prince. And when she uncovers a terrible secret about the royal family, Tem finds herself caught between two neither of which she can survive without.
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Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
Publish Date - 04 August 2026
Rating: 4.5/5
The highlight of my month turned out to be my final read. Fruit Fly saved me from a dire reading slump and revived all my hopes of fiction (I was in a dark place after reading Kiss of the Basilisk). I could talk about this book endlessly. It has nuance, hard-hitting reality, queer representation and creates a lot of much needed discussion on darker topics. It doesn’t shy away from humor in the midst of suspense. I loved it.
I would recommend that you check out the trigger warnings (click my review for the list) as this is a heavy read.
Synopsis:
Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.
A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy—even if it means appropriating a young gay man’s tragic story.
Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer’s block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she’ll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike—and fast.
Enter Leo. He’s a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for.
Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo’s story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it’s her story—she’s the one who wrote it, after all.
But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story.
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