Spotlight: World News from Waverley High by Linda Kass

A tale of identity, activism, and finding your voice in a world on fire, this coming-of-age novel set at an urban high school captures a singular moment in American history through the eyes of one unforgettable girl.

1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.

As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena’s own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace and to hope for a better world.

Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Bookshop.org

About the Author

LINDA KASS began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her forthcoming novel, World News from Waverley High (September 2026), she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Linda lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, Frank; they have four children, six grandchildren, and a labradoodle named Wally. Find her online at lindakass.com, @lindakass, LindaKassAuthor

Spotlight: Hidden Words by Christine Roy

Publication date: September 22nd 2026

Genres: Adult, Gothic, Mystery

A Novel by Award-Winning Author Christine Roy

Some secrets don’t stay buried. They wait for the right mind to hear them.

In 1994, on the rocky shores of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, Ben Barrows begins his senior year at Masters’ Preparatory like a dead man walking, half his friendships already over, just not yet buried. Then Dana Kirkland arrives: a new student, a rival dancer to his powerful ex-girlfriend, and the one person who might save him. Together, Ben and Dana try to hold on to love against a tidal wave of pain and treachery neither of them saw coming.

In the present, Joey Barrows is drowning in grief. As he crosses the graduation stage, a terrifying gift awakens, the unspoken words of everyone around him, pouring uninvited into his mind. When Joey discovers his distant, unstable father shares this same curse, the door to a devastating past swings open, releasing secrets, obsession, and ghosts that refuse to stay silent.

Told across two timelines, Hidden Words is a gothic, speculative mystery about the inheritance of trauma and the terrible cost of truths left unspoken.

Perfect for fans of We Were Liars, Black Swan, and The Turnout.

Hidden Words deals with mature themes including trauma, family abuse, and sensitive interpersonal relationships. Recommended for mature young adult and adult readers.

Excerpt

Pressed beneath the heavy atmosphere like a dead flower in a book, hunger dizzy in her head, Dana Kirkland took a bite of the lettuce on her plate and placed her fork on the flower-rimmed porcelain. She sat straight in her chair, her heart racing in the brightness of the room. The eyes of the great picture window to her left were upon her. As always, the shade was raised. She was on display to the odd passersby, no different from the ornamental trees in the front yard or the vibrant mums in their resilient autumn bloom along the stone-paved walkway. Presentation was everything. They all had a role to perform.     

      So did the house. Most of its peers gone, replaced with modern, mini mansions, the circa nineteen-hundred dark gray craftsman colonial had stood almost beyond repair when they’d bought it. Nearly two stories high, the building with its low-pitched gable roof, picture windows and heavy tapered stacked-stone columns now stood accustomed to attention and adoration. White painted rafters and beams accented the two dormered windows extending from the roof. Above them, a small rectangular, black-paned window with a sunrise design of green, amber, dark red, and yellow spreading out from the center was a favorite feature in her loft bedroom. She wasn’t sure if the simplistic but ornate feature held a mutual admiration for her, though. When she approached from the street, she would avert her gaze as the window always looked like secrets dwelt trapped behind the colored glass.

     Ghosts were the last thing she needed. If they existed in her home, they could just chill out. Or haunt her mother, Lynn, who would most likely approve of their transparency.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

Hidden Words Blitz

Spotlight: Witch Daughter by Tanaz Bhathena

Rumors of witchcraft follow Princess Tahmineh like a storm cloud, making it impossible for her to secure herself a marriage or any kind of future. With her father, the king’s, health in question, it becomes shockingly clear how desperate her situation will soon become in his absence. If she doesn’t act now, she will quickly find herself destitute and desperate.
 
Tahmineh seeks out a prophecy, from which she learns she will fall in love with a warrior of great renown named Rostam and bear him a son. However, she is warned this match is a dangerous one for her. Heedless of the warnings, Tahmineh boldly orchestrates a meeting with Rostam and the two develop a close friendship and ultimately fall in love and marry. At the peak of her joy, Tahmineh gives birth to Sohrab, Rostam’s son.
 
All too soon, Tahmineh learns the tragic second part of the prophecy. Father and son will meet as enemies in battle and one will die at the hand of the other. What follows is a mother’s desperate attempt to undo the threads of fate and try to protect her son at all costs.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Audible | Hardcover | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Tanaz Bhathena is an award-winning Zoroastrian author of contemporary and fantasy fiction. Her books include Of Light and Shadow, Hunted by the Sky, which won the White Pine Award and the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize, and The Beauty of the Moment, which won the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That, was named a Best Book of the Year by numerous outlets including The Globe and Mail, Seventeen, and The Times of India. Her short stories have appeared in various publications including The Hindu, Blackbird, Witness, and Room. Born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, Tanaz lives in Mississauga, Ontario, with her family.

Spotlight: Harbinger by Geneva Lee

Arden Icaros was never supposed to matter. From the poorest of five noble bloodlines, she prefers life on the family farm with dirt under her nails over the fine dresses at court. She just needs to get through one boring ceremony, inherit her earth magic, and return home. 

Instead, she's handed a dagger and with it, an impossible choice. 

Now Arden is branded an omen of war, half the nobility wants her dead, and assassins are tracking her every move. 

Her only chance of survival lies with the most feared man in Antares. 

They call him Bishop. No one remembers the name he had before he dedicated his life to his order. Empowered to execute first and question later, Bishop is ruthless, terrifying, and utterly loyal to the kingdom that wants Arden dead. 

He should kill her. 

Instead, he offers her sanctuary. 

But the longer Arden stays under Bishop's protection, the more dangerous he becomes. Because Bishop has secrets powerful enough to topple kingdoms...and a need for Arden that could ruin them both.

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Geneva Lee is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of over thirty novels including the Birthright Cycle, the Royals Saga, and the Iconsverse, amongst other works. Her bestselling Royals Saga has sold nearly four million copies worldwide. A recovering academic, Geneva traded studying books for writing them and never looked back. She's shamelessly addicted to recovering alpha males, headstrong heroines, and drop-your-jaw plot twists. People Magazine calls Geneva's books "convincing with fluid writing that's full of drama."  She currently lives in Kansas City with her high-school sweetheart, three children, two cats, and a rescued golden doodle named Honey.

Spotlight: Unexpected Play by Alexa Padgett

Release Date: September 21

He's my brother's best friend. My new neighbor. And the Providence Forge defenseman who makes me forget I was ever broken.

Coming home to Providence was supposed to be temporary while I finished my master's degree and helped at my family's architecture firm.

I planned to raise my daughter in peace after my ex-fiancé walked away before she was even born.

Then Ryder Mackay moved in next door. The gorgeous pediatrician and part-time Forge enforcer has always been off-limits. He's loyal, steady, and the kind of man who shows up without being asked. Which is exactly why falling for him is such a terrible idea.

Because every time Ryder holds my baby like she belongs in his arms…every time he looks at me like I'm worth more than the wreckage I'm still climbing out of…I start wanting things I swore I'd never risk again: a future and a family. Him.

But Ryder's spent years protecting everyone around him while ignoring what he wants for himself, and if we're not careful, the timing that brought us together might be the very thing that tears us apart.

Previously published as Magnetic Medic, Unexpected Play is a steamy brother's-best-friend hockey romance featuring a protective hero, a single mother rebuilding her life on her own terms, forced proximity, emotional healing, and a fiercely earned happily ever after. Books in the Providence Forge Series can be read standalone — but reading in order deepens the world.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

Meet Alexa Padgett

USA Today bestseller Alexa Padgett’s books have garnered accolades from prestigious organizations, including Kirkus Reviews, National Indie Excellence Awards, and Publishers Weekly.

Alexa spent a good part of her youth traveling. From Budapest to Belize, Calgary to Coober Pedy, she soaked in the myriad smells, sounds, and feels of these gorgeous places, wishing she could live in them all–at least for a while. And she does in her books.

She lives in New Mexico with her husband, children, and Great Pyrenees pup, Ash. When not writing, schlepping, or volunteering, she can be found in her tiny kitchen, channeling her inner Barefoot Contessa.

To find out about Alexa’s upcoming releases and giveaways, sign up for her newsletter https://alexapadgett.com/newsletter/!

To learn more about Alexa Padgett & her books, visit here!

Connect with Alexa Padgett: https://alexapadgett.com/contact/

Cover Reveal: Just Scoring With Love by Lauren Blakely

When she's practice dating her hockey star best friend, but it starts to feel like the real thing...

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Blakely, comes the next standalone hockey romance in her Hockey Ever After series, JUST SCORING WITH LOVE! This spicy, childhood best friends-to-lovers, forced proximity, it’s always been you hockey romance about the cinnamon roll hero who’s secretly pining over his best friend releases January 13th in all formats, and will be free to read in Kindle Unlimited. Check out the cover and blurb below and pre-order your copy today!

Confession - I've been secretly fake dating my hockey-playing best friend.

I went to his house for dinner and walked straight into a matchmaking trap!

Miller’s teenage siblings have decided he’s been off the dating market long enough raising them, so it’s time for him to get back out there. And as his childhood best friend, they appoint me to “practice date” him.

Even though it’s walking a dangerous line, the forbidden goalie with the sexy smirk supported me when an injury shattered my own hockey dreams, so I say yes. 

To writing his profile. Taking photos of him. Going on “trial” dates.

Huge mistake.

Looking at my best friend through a new lens becomes pure torture. 

I can’t stop imagining his talented hands gripping my hips, his tempting mouth coasting across my skin.

Until a desperate kiss late one night at the rink changes everything. 

But I’m a sports broadcaster trying to break barriers in a male-dominated industry. I don’t have time for romance, especially since I cover his team now.

So we make a new deal: a temporary arrangement to get it out of our systems.

Only the way Miller touches me after dark suggests he’s playing to win, and has been for years. And I want more. 

But can I risk the one relationship I can’t live without? 

This is Miller and Anna’s romance. Tropes include: hockey romance, single guardian, childhood best friends to lovers, it’s always been you, secret pining, practice dates and fake dating, forced proximity, workplace romance, he has a dog.

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

✦ Amazon ➜ https://blkly.pub/JustScoringAMZ
✦ Audible ➜ https://blkly.pub/JSWLAudible

About the Author

A #1 New York Times Bestselling, #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling, and #1 Audible Bestselling author, Lauren Blakely is known for her contemporary romance style that’s sexy, feel-good and witty. Her books have been featured in US Weekly and People. Lauren likes dogs, cake and show tunes and she is the vegetarian at your dinner party. 

Connect:

Website: laurenblakely.com 

NL Signup: http://laurenblakely.com/newsletter  

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LaurenBlakelyBooks

Instagram: http://instagram.com/laurenblakelybooks

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenblakelybooks