February 24th New Releases

Okay, my TBR is officially out of control again.

Like… in a “there are stacks on my nightstand and three audiobooks half-finished and I’m still adding more” kind of way. But honestly? That’s my favorite place to be. So here’s a little roundup of the books currently living rent-free in my brain — the ones that sound emotional, creepy, romantic, chaotic, or just unhinged in exactly the way I love. Basically: the vibes are all over the place and I regret nothing.

Let’s talk about them.

Kin: A Novel - Tayari Jones

Goodreads rating- 4.39/5 with 247 ratings

Vernice and Annie are two motherless daughters growing up in Honeysuckle, Louisiana. Best friends. Neighbors. The kind of childhood bond that feels unbreakable and sacred. I love that kind of friendship. The kind where you grow up side by side and think you’ll always stay that way.

But they aren’t meant to live the same life.

Vernice is raised by a fierce aunt who is determined to give her stability, structure, and opportunity after losing her mother. She leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen and heads to Spelman College, where she steps into a sisterhood of powerful, connected Black women. She discovers affluence, ambition, and the complicated rules of a world shaped by both privilege and inequality. Honestly, slay. That’s growth. That’s survival. That’s becoming something bigger than what you were handed.

Annie’s path is the opposite kind of journey. She was abandoned by her mother and grows up with a hole inside her that never quite closes. Instead of leaving to build a future, she leaves to chase the past. To find the woman who left her. To understand why. To try to heal something that may never fully be healed. And that search takes her into danger, hardship, love, and adventure, eventually pushing her into a fight for her life.

That contrast hurts in the way real life hurts. Two girls from the same place. Same beginnings. Completely different roads.

This feels like a story about the women who shape us. The ones who stay. The ones who leave. The ones who raise us. The ones we spend our lives trying to understand. It’s about friendship, sisterhood, and how grief and love can send people in opposite directions.

And it’s also about being a woman in the American South. The expectations. The limitations. The resilience it takes just to exist there and still dream of more. Because let’s be honest, that alone is a battle.

This sounds emotional, layered, and quietly powerful. The kind of book that doesn’t just tell a story, but holds up a mirror to how complicated womanhood, friendship, and survival really are.

The Girls Before - Kate Alice Marshall

Goodreads rating- 4.16/5 with 92 ratings

There is a girl in a basement.

The door has stopped opening. The light is gone.

That alone is enough to make me uncomfortable in the way only a really good thriller can.

Stranger is trapped in total darkness with nothing but her thoughts and the scribbles left behind by girls who were there before her. Which is honestly one of the most horrifying details I’ve read in a long time. Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape. But the real question is terrifying: if the door finally opens, is it rescue… or is it just the next level of survival?

Then we meet Audrey. A search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who vanished when they were teenagers. That kind of loss never actually leaves you. It just sits quietly in the background of everything you do.

Janie loved the local legend of a forest witch who saved girls from bad men. A story meant to give hope. But Audrey knows the truth is darker. For every girl who might be saved, there is always another one who isn’t. Legends don’t protect everyone.

When Audrey finds evidence that a teenage runaway may have been kidnapped on land owned by the town’s most powerful family, everything shifts. This isn’t random. This isn’t isolated. This is layered. Generational. Buried under money, influence, and silence.

Now she has to dig through decades of secrets to uncover the worst truth of all: What happened to the girls before?

This feels like one of those stories that is equal parts survival horror and emotional devastation. Friendship. Guilt. Small-town secrets. The terrifying idea that monsters don’t always live in the woods. Sometimes they live in nice houses with good reputations.

It’s dark. It’s heavy. It’s “don’t read this alone at night” energy.

And the forest witch legend? That makes it even more haunting. Because every girl deserves a story where she’s saved. And this book feels like it’s asking what happens when that story isn’t true for everyone.

Dollface - Lindy Ryan

Goodreads rating- 3.56/5 with 189 ratings

Barbie meets Scream with a 90s nostalgia twist? Say less. I’m already seated.

Jill is a horror author who just moved to suburban New Jersey and is trying very hard to be normal. Like, PTA moms normal. Blend in. Make friends. Not immediately announce that she writes about murder and owns a Final Girl coffee mug. Just… be chill.

And then a serial killer in a plastic face mask starts murdering the overly made-up moms of the neighborhood.

So much for normal.

The police don’t take it seriously. The moms are offended more than afraid. And Jill, who actually understands horror, tropes, and how these things tend to go, starts realizing she might be way more involved in this than she ever wanted to be. Slowly, she’s pulled into the chaos until it becomes very clear that she might end up being exactly what her mug says.

The final girl.

This sounds like gossip, gore, satire, and suburban chaos all wrapped in a bloody pink bow. It’s campy but sharp. Funny but unsettling. A love letter to slasher films with teeth. The kind of book that knows exactly what it’s doing and leans into it.

A plastic mask killer targeting hyper-glam suburban moms is already unhinged in the best way. Add in a horror author FMC who understands the genre she’s living inside? That’s dangerous levels of fun.

Whimsical. Bloody. Messy. Suburban horror with a sense of humor. Barbie-core meets Final Girl energy.

This feels like the kind of book you read grinning while also being mildly horrified. And honestly, that is my favorite kind of horror.

The Red Winter - Cameron Sullivan

Goodreads rating- 4.36/5 with 223 ratings

First of all, the deluxe edition has red sprayed edges, which already tells me this book is not here to be gentle.

This is a devastating love story wrapped in history, blood, monsters, and regret. A retelling of the Beast of Gévaudan that feels dark, intimate, and emotionally feral.

It’s 1785, and the Beast has returned. The same creature that tore through the French countryside twenty years earlier, leaving death and fear behind it. Sebastian Grave knows this monster because he nearly died trying to kill it the first time. He’s a centuries-old monster slayer who carries his own demon inside him, Sarmodel, who quite literally feeds on living hearts. Casual. Normal. Totally fine.

Sebastian thought that chapter of his life was over. Until he’s called back by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne. Estranged lover. Shared history. Shared secrets. The kind of person who can reopen wounds just by saying your name.

Sebastian doesn’t just return for the Beast. He returns for Antoine. For unfinished love. For unfinished truth. For the possibility that some things might still be redeemed.

But everything is different now. The land is broken. The people are desperate. France is on the edge of revolution.

And Sebastian’s magic, his demon, and his long life have caught the attention of the Church, which is never a good sign in historical fantasy.

The Beast itself is no longer just a creature. It feels like a force. A reckoning. Something tied to war, chaos, and history reshaping itself. And Sebastian is standing right in the middle of it with blood on his hands and love in his chest.

This feels like gothic horror meets historical fantasy meets tragic romance. It’s monsters and demons and inquisitors, but also regret, devotion, and the way love can survive even after decades of pain.

The idea of a monster hunter who carries a demon that takes hearts as payment is already dark. Pair that with an estranged lover who shares a terrible secret and a country on the brink of collapse? That’s not a story. That’s a slow emotional bleed.

This isn’t just about killing the Beast. It’s about confronting the past. It’s about love that never fully died. It’s about power, purpose, and what redemption actually costs.

A blood-soaked hunt. A fractured love story. A history rewritten through monsters and magic.

I already know this one is going to hurt. And I’m going to love it anyway.

A Secret in the Garden - Jeneane O'Riley

Goodreads rating- 4.09/5 with 81 ratings

This feels like gothic romance with teeth, secrets, and just enough danger to make everything hotter.

Blackwood Manor is perched on a cliff like it’s daring you to come closer. Massive gates. Dark history. A family tragedy that still lingers in every cracked wall. One part of the estate has been abandoned completely since the death of Hester Blackwood: the conservatory. Once beautiful, now overgrown and decaying, choked by vines and shattered glass. That setting alone is doing so much heavy lifting.

The family is gone. Only Jasper remains.

Brooding. Wealthy. Heir to a weapons empire. Emotional baggage included at no extra charge.

Enter Eliza Arnold, a botanist who is desperate, out of options, and willing to make risky choices to save her job. So she drives straight into the mouth of gothic romance and asks for help. And Jasper agrees. But of course there’s a condition, and of course it’s unhinged.

Restore the conservatory. Alone. No help. No leaving.

Absolutely not, but also absolutely yes, because that’s how these stories start.

As Eliza battles thorns and rot and the ghosts of what once was, the tension between her and Jasper grows. It’s magnetic. Dangerous. The kind of attraction that feels like it could ruin your life but might be worth it. And meanwhile, the manor itself doesn’t feel empty. Whispers in the walls. A presence watching. Disturbances that can’t be explained.

This isn’t just about gardening. It’s about grief. About the things people bury and pretend are gone. About how love and desire grow best in places that were once broken.

The deeper Eliza digs, the more she uncovers a story of loss, longing, and a family that never healed. And in Blackwood Manor, even buried things don’t stay dead. They bloom.

This is dark, whimsical, romantic, and haunting in the most delicious way. The kind of book that smells like old roses and secrets and slow-burning obsession.

And Now, Back to You (Heartstrings #2) - B.K. Borison

Goodreads rating- 4.47/5 with 1,230 ratings

And I need to say this upfront: I read this one as an ARC and it was AMAZING. Easily one of my top rom-com reads.

This is When Harry Met Sally but make it snowy, competitive, and full of forced-proximity tension.

Jackson Clark and Delilah Stewart are complete opposites. Jackson thrives on routine and order from the safety of his radio booth. Delilah lives for spontaneity, adventure, and being out in the field. Every time they’ve crossed paths before, it’s ended in disaster, which honestly just means the chemistry has been simmering the whole time.

Now they’re forced to partner up to cover the snowstorm of the century. Against their will. In the mountains. With no escape. Perfect rom-com conditions.

Delilah wants to be taken seriously as a journalist. Jackson has forgotten how to have fun. So she makes him a deal. He helps her nail the assignment, and she helps him rediscover his adventurous side. Completely professional. Totally safe. Absolutely no emotional fallout expected.

Except the bickering turns into banter. The tension turns into friendship. And the friendship turns into something neither of them planned for.

This book is cozy, funny, and genuinely swoony. The chemistry is effortless, the dialogue is sharp, and the emotional pacing is perfect. It has that classic rom-com feeling where you’re smiling the whole time but also quietly invested in whether these two figure their lives out.

Top-tier forced proximity. Top-tier opposites attract. Top-tier “what happens in the mountains might change everything.”

I loved this one so much. It’s the kind of romance that reminds you why rom-coms are elite.

Behind Closed Doors - Shain Rose

Goodreads rating- 4.28/5 with 39 ratings

This is Desperate Housewives energy with billionaire spice and I am already buckled in.

Welcome to Paradise Grove. A luxury, ultra-private billionaire neighborhood where everyone is rich, beautiful, and absolutely hiding something. The vibes are immaculate. The danger is immediate.

Our FMC is just a teacher. Specifically, Jameson Knight’s daughter’s favorite teacher. She sees him every day at pickup, always on time, always composed, always untouchable. The kind of man who feels like a mystery even when he’s standing right in front of you. And she doesn’t ask questions. Because boundaries. Because professionalism. Because normal life.

Until a bullet flies past them at recess.

Casual. Totally fine. Perfectly normal Tuesday activity.

Suddenly, her life is in danger and Jameson insists the only safe place is his estate. Now she’s being pulled into a world of wealth, secrets, and power she was never meant to touch. His solution? She becomes the temporary live-in nanny until the threat is gone.

Temporary. Simple. Safe.

Except absolutely none of those things are true.

Now she’s living in the most beautiful house she’s ever seen, surrounded by luxury and danger, with a man who is as magnetic as he is terrifying. Jameson is powerful, protective, possessive, and calculating. He’s the kind of man who makes you feel safe and unsafe at the exact same time.

The chemistry is immediate. Consuming. The kind that makes good decisions impossible. And the deeper she goes into Paradise Grove, the more she realizes this neighborhood is built on secrets, control, and people who do not play fair.

This is forbidden romance with high stakes. Billionaire danger. Forced proximity. Protective MMC with morally gray energy. And a heroine who should run… but can’t.

Because how do you escape a man who already has your heart?

This feels messy, addictive, dramatic, and exactly the kind of chaos-romance I love to spiral into.

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Anyway, this is your official warning: if you follow me, your TBR will grow. It’s just science.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

-Tiffany