Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released!
The Eye of Leviathan by M.A. Carrick
Publication date: July 14th, 2026
Orbit
From Goodreads:
"From the author of The Mask of Mirrors comes a sweeping adventure set in a world where fae secretly walk amongst those who seek to persecute them.
★ 'An intricately developed alternate history. Offer Carrick’s excellent duology starter to fans of Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar or anyone looking for a new historical fantasy series.' –Library Journal (Starred Review)
In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the Otherworld’s most precious resources for their own gain. Estevan seeks to uncover their secrets, but he risks the exposure of his own: that he is a faerie, masquerading as a mortal.
The Hungry Girl is the human whose place he took. Lost among the fae and desperate to find some purpose for her existence, she leaps at the chance to help a group of Spanish explorers in the Sea Beyond … only to be horrified at the atrocities they commit.
A faerie pact has separated them—but only together can they bring down Spain’s worlds-spanning empire and save the homes they have both come to love."
★ 'An intricately developed alternate history. Offer Carrick’s excellent duology starter to fans of Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar or anyone looking for a new historical fantasy series.' –Library Journal (Starred Review)
In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the Otherworld’s most precious resources for their own gain. Estevan seeks to uncover their secrets, but he risks the exposure of his own: that he is a faerie, masquerading as a mortal.
The Hungry Girl is the human whose place he took. Lost among the fae and desperate to find some purpose for her existence, she leaps at the chance to help a group of Spanish explorers in the Sea Beyond … only to be horrified at the atrocities they commit.
A faerie pact has separated them—but only together can they bring down Spain’s worlds-spanning empire and save the homes they have both come to love."
I loved M.A. Carrick's previous series, so this has easily become one of my most anticipated releases. I can't wait to see what they've come up with this time!
Not With a Bang by Temi Oh
Publication date: July 14th, 2026
S&S/Saga Press
From Goodreads:
"Station Eleven meets Leave the World Behind in this family drama at the end of the world about a crumbling household’s attempts to find their way back to each other amidst a cataclysmic event.
"Our father had imagined the end of the world so often that, for a while, he believed that he summoned it."
The Minton family is in crisis. After losing his job, Marcus begins stockpiling cans, running evacuation drills and digging a doomsday bunker in the back garden. At the same time, his daughters are unravelling in their own ways – Chantale is being haunted by dreams of disaster, and Briar’s obsession with a missing classmate draws her deeper into the seductive world of a UFO cult. Meanwhile, no one is aware of the diagnosis their mother has been trying to keep hidden. When, on the morning of the eldest daughter’s wedding, an extinction-level event tears the world apart, the Mintons must fight their way through a devastated city—back to safety, survival, and each other."
"Our father had imagined the end of the world so often that, for a while, he believed that he summoned it."
The Minton family is in crisis. After losing his job, Marcus begins stockpiling cans, running evacuation drills and digging a doomsday bunker in the back garden. At the same time, his daughters are unravelling in their own ways – Chantale is being haunted by dreams of disaster, and Briar’s obsession with a missing classmate draws her deeper into the seductive world of a UFO cult. Meanwhile, no one is aware of the diagnosis their mother has been trying to keep hidden. When, on the morning of the eldest daughter’s wedding, an extinction-level event tears the world apart, the Mintons must fight their way through a devastated city—back to safety, survival, and each other."
I'm on board for everything about this book!
White Elephant by Jeyamohan, trans. Priyamvada Ramkumar
Publication: July 21st, 2026
FSG Originals
From Goodreads:
"A dazzling postcolonial inversion of Heart of Darkness set during the Great Indian Famine of 1878 that recounts its devastating cost to both life and human dignity.
It is 1878, and Aiden Byrne, an Irish police officer in Madrasapatnam, loyal servant to the crown and Queen Victoria, knows that there is no danger that he ought to fear in this heatblasted and famine-devastated land.
But when he discovers two laborers from Tudor Ice Company being brutally whipped in the countryside, he is dragged into a world whose surface he has only skimmed before. He sees the horrific conditions under which the local workers, members of the lowest rung of the caste system, process the mammoth blocks of ice that are carved out of frozen New England lakes and transported to India for use in the drinks and iceboxes of the colonial forces.
When the two workers disappear―presumably killed―Byrne is approached by Kathavarayan, a charismatic young activist belonging to a lower caste, who is looking to put things right. He sets Byrne off on a journey that brings him face-to-face with the bloody toll of the famine raging through the country―one that would kill more than eight million people before it was done―and forces him to grapple with his own precarious and complicated role in the machinery of the British empire.
In White Elephant, Jeyamohan uses surreal prose and vivid imagery to deliver a searing account of a crucial moment in the history of a nation, a city, and a people."
It is 1878, and Aiden Byrne, an Irish police officer in Madrasapatnam, loyal servant to the crown and Queen Victoria, knows that there is no danger that he ought to fear in this heatblasted and famine-devastated land.
But when he discovers two laborers from Tudor Ice Company being brutally whipped in the countryside, he is dragged into a world whose surface he has only skimmed before. He sees the horrific conditions under which the local workers, members of the lowest rung of the caste system, process the mammoth blocks of ice that are carved out of frozen New England lakes and transported to India for use in the drinks and iceboxes of the colonial forces.
When the two workers disappear―presumably killed―Byrne is approached by Kathavarayan, a charismatic young activist belonging to a lower caste, who is looking to put things right. He sets Byrne off on a journey that brings him face-to-face with the bloody toll of the famine raging through the country―one that would kill more than eight million people before it was done―and forces him to grapple with his own precarious and complicated role in the machinery of the British empire.
In White Elephant, Jeyamohan uses surreal prose and vivid imagery to deliver a searing account of a crucial moment in the history of a nation, a city, and a people."
This cover absolutely caught my attention, and I think the premise also sounds fascinating!
