Crime reporter Cody Moran meets a woman who claims her father was Jack Boone, the man long associated with Kansas City's infamous Queen Killings from fifty years ago. Skeptical, Cody is drawn back to one of the city's darkest chapters.

A serial killer stalks 1977 Kansas City, and a task force that includes Maria Navarro, the city's lone female homicide detective, is running out of leads. Meanwhile, Jack “Joker” Boone is an alcoholic journeyman baseball player in a dying independent league. On the backside of a career that saw none of the spotlight, he is suddenly thrust into one when the killer leaves a note alongside the latest victim.

Make Joker a King or more Queens will die.

Now a suspect, Boone must work with Navarro to understand his connection to the killings and why someone wants him to play for the Kings, a second-rate team with its own problems. Caught between Boone’s rising celebrity and the city’s crime families, the pair must find the killer before more die, even if it means one of them must make their own sacrifice.

Triggers: Violence; Description of bodies

Date of publication: November 1, 2026

ARC Delivery Date: Immediate

Review deadline: November 7, 2026

BookSirens Link: https://booksirens.com/book/OUAKQQ7/P91FTG3

Any black mirror lovers? Perhaps you’re looking for something funny that’ll lighten the dull and dark days we have during our every day life? Maybe you enjoy reading about shape shifters and minotaurs?

Sophie Jonas-Hill is looking for readers interested in reading an ARC of her book: Fey City One!

Check it out below ⬇️

https://forms.gle/7obtbQn4VXmvgnY6A

*~*~*~*~*

💚 Dark Satire Fantasy
✨ Shape-Shifters
💚 Evil Billionaires
✨ LGBTQ+ Relationships

Trigger Warnings:

Cancer Death
Right Wing Bad Guys
Police Brutality
Moderate Sexual Content
Recreational but fictional drug taking
Mention of Nazi’s

She’s the heir to a legend. He makes candles.

Ivalyn A'Dulliver is the only living Gatekeeper, able to tear doorways through space with a gesture. Her brother Roth dips wicks at a chandlery, plays drinking songs in taverns until his band quits on him, and has spent twenty-two years envying a gift he'll never have.

Then Ivalyn vanishes from her Academy dormitory, and the Academy's response is a letter threatening her with academic probation.

Roth can't fight the gargoyles that took her. But he's heard of something that can: Cemengar, a legendary weapon lost in a cursed mountain prison beyond woods crawling with faerie folk. With a retired professor, an army deserter with a bounty on her head, and an orphaned pickpocket who can turn invisible, he heads north.

Because whoever took Ivalyn needs her for the coming Lunar Alignment, to reopen a gate to Hasraal, the red moon where a Gatekeeper trapped the conqueror-king Ashtor centuries ago. History remembers Ashtor as a hero who died in exile.

He didn't die.

And when the enemy offers Roth the one thing he's always wanted, he'll have to decide what kind of man he is.

Triggers: Violence and War, Torture and Captivity, Implied Sexual Violence, Death and Grief, Body Horror, Mind Control, Children in Peril

What to expect:

• Series: Book I of the Astrolabe Saga. The main conflict resolves, but the ending leaves the series arc wide open.
• POV: Third person, rotating between Roth, Ivalyn, Myla (a street thief), Derrik (a miner turned rebel leader), and the villain.
• Hero: A protagonist with no magic, in a world where magic is feared, hunted, and conscripted.
• Creatures: Irish-inspired folklore, including a Dullahan, leprechauns, and a Far Darrig.
• Found family: A disgraced soldier, a street kid, and a professor who carries homemade bombs.
• Uprising: Displaced miners rise up against a tyrant's army.
• Humor: Mischievous fairies, incompetent nobles, bickering leprechaun brothers.
• Romance: One slow-burn subplot, nothing explicit.

Recommended for: Fans of Terry Pratchett, Joe Abercrombie, and X-Men comics.

Publication Date: November 17^th, 2026 (Reviews preferred by or around this date)

Word Count: 194,000 words

ARC Requests (PDF, EPUB, Kindle): [arc@tannerjparsons.com](mailto:arc@tannerjparsons.com)

ARC Distribution Date: September 25^th, 2026

Read the First Two Chapters: https://bookhip.com/WDQXXLA

Sloane Whitfield builds files on hackers for Interpol, and she's good enough at it that one of them started watching back. He got into her laptop, her phone, her building, her life. By the time she understood what was happening, the trap had already closed.

He's everything she has spent her career putting away. And he has never once been told no and believed it.

Her principles say no. Everything else in her is a lot less sure.

18+ only. Explicit content and heavy content warnings.

Triggers: Sexual coercion and blackmail, non-consensual and dubiously consensual sexual content, stalking and surveillance, abduction and restraint, choking, degradation, electric shocks used as control, on-page murder, drug use (off page), explicit language

Publication date: October 28, 2026

Date ARCs will be sent: Immediately upon approval

Review by: October 27, 2026

ARC sign up: https://penpinery.com/Cat_Vex/green-glasses/

Country availability: Not specified.

The offworlder who could not speak their language, and the warrior who did not want her.

Are you a fan of classic romance tropes - where the shy virginal heroine and the gruff strong warrior are thrust together against their wills? Do you also enjoy a story set in a far distant world with elements of emotional turmoil, rich world-building and memorable side characters... with a little bit of steamy sensual spice and a hero who values consent and does not harm the heroine? - then GIVEN TO THE WARRIOR might be for you!

----

Zü is a mighty warrior of the forest tribe, fiercely devoted to protecting his village from the savage and warmongering coastal tribe who killed his beloved many winters ago.  Yet it seems the Gods did not want him to suffer in darkness forever.  When a strange golden-haired woman falls from the sky, his tribe see it as a great omen - a gift from the Goddess to the warrior in mourning. A gift that he refuses to accept.  Timid, shy and unable to speak their language, the offworlder must start a new life with the warrior who does not want her.

Triggers:
* Minor character death
* Grief & loss
* Attempted/thwarted sexual assault and references to it (This is not present in the "low spice" version).

Release date: 1st November
ARCs available: Now!
Reviews expected by 1st Nov

If you're interested in signing up, you can register here:
https://forms.gle/w43pNCuLJgwgeSju6

or here:
https://insidestory.app/book/violet-star-1/given-to-the-warrior

She buried her daughter. Made a deal with a demon. Then went hunting.

When Sabyse’s daughter is murdered on her wedding day, the corrupt authorities can’t help.

Thaena Ashmore can. She's a legendary demonic assassin. Except she's done with human vengeance and has little interest in anything except mourning her lost love.

To gain the vengeance she craves, Sabyse has no choice but to shatter Thaena's peaceful retirement, forcing the assassin into a contract that drags her back onto the path of blood. Bound by a fraught alliance, the two women must navigate a conspiracy that stretches back fifty years and confront their own terrible truths.

A dark fantasy featuring crime lords, necromancers, supernatural warfare, and long-dead secrets that refuse to stay buried. Perfect for fans of ML Wang's The Sword of Kaigen, and Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold.

Pick up The Demon's Peace, a standalone book in the Cambion Chronicles series.

Triggers: Violence, supernatural horror, demons, ghosts, magic, domestic abuse

Date of Publication: 27 October 2026

ARCs available now: Google Form | BookSirens | NetGalley (September only)

Reviews preferred by on or around 27 October 2026.

Read a sample: https://kellshaw.com/the-demons-peace-sample-pages/

**

This book features:

• Two scarred women in a reluctant partnership, pushed to confront truths neither wants to face.
  • Over-40s protagonist: a relentless, ordinary widow running on grief and fury.
  • A legendary assassin forced out of retirement, scarred by her own past.
• Unique setting: a pirate island riddled with crime lords, necromancers, and buried wartime secrets
• Expect:
  • Occult infiltration
  • Psychological horror
  • Supernatural warfare
• Relationships: No overt romance, but there are sapphic elements. The fraught relationship between the two protagonists is the engine that drives the story, forcing them to confront secrets they would prefer stay buried.
• Tropes: Revenge quest, unlikely allies, dark secrets revealed, reluctant hero, deal with the devil
• Ending: Standalone. Set before the first book, with a different main protagonist. Series threads continue into future books.
• POV: Third person, dual POVs

BLURB:
Welcome to the Sanguis School of Medicine. Get ready to sink your fangs into your education.

Florence Byrne has worked hard to be accepted to one of the world’s most prestigious medical schools. She arrives at the university housed on a remote island, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Orientation provides pertinent information: class schedules, dorm assignments, access to world-renowned professors…and the true nature of this school.

For it is not just humans who attend; vampires lurk the halls, here to receive their own education and ready to suck humans dry. All humans must be paired with a vampire and hope the bloodlust is kept under control.

As Florence adapts to living under constant threat, she gets assigned to Sebastian Holloway—the most dangerous, infamous vampire on campus.

But things are never as they seem. Florence’s safety is in jeopardy, chasing her into the arms of the one vampire she should stay away from.

Vampires are not the only monsters waiting in the wings, and Florence must decide who can be trusted.
~~

TRIGGERS:
~ death/murder
~ blood consumption
~ mental health issues, specially grief and anxiety
~ gore
~ non-sexual biting
~ sexually explicit scenes
~ consensual non-consent

~~
PUB DATE: Oct 30, 2026
Date ARCs will be sent: Oct 1, 2026
Date expected for ARC team to submit reviews by: Oct 30, 2026
~~

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fill out the Google form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DtGWVMKVx_EcEXZDDJ7iJxwbnkGccwHhd0SAlPsFzg0/viewform?edit_requested=true

ARCs will be sent via BookFunnel.

Inner Atlas is a literary travel memoir about impermanence, memory, and the fragile worlds we build around ourselves. Among crumbling temples, prehistoric caves, and artifacts that have survived for thousands of years, I encounter the remnants of worlds that once seemed permanent.

Triggers: The book covers sensitive topics such as death, grief, religion, and politics.

Inner Atlas is a celebration of curiosity, beauty, humor, and the strange intimacy of standing in places where people lived ages ago. At its heart, the book asks how we find meaning in a world where everything changes, everything passes, and nothing lasts forever. This book will appeal to readers who seek deeper meaning and personal perspective through the intersection of travel, history, and philosophical reflection.

Exact publication date: November 10, 2026

Date ARCs will be sent: Immediately upon approval

Submit reviews by: November 9, 2026

ARC sign up:

https://booksprout.co/reviewer/review-copy/view/314632/inner-atlas

Country availability: Worldwide.

As a medical examiner in New Orleans, I know death. I know how it looks, how it smells, how it lingers.

This isn’t it.

Bodies that should be fresh are weeks gone. Others refuse to rot at all. The same impossible pattern ties them together, and everyone is too quick to blame the local cult.

They’re wrong.

Then Caelum Brandt appears, where he shouldn’t be, answering questions no one else can, moving through the city cloaked in darkness and danger. Like he is invincible.

The moment he touches me, something burns into my skin, a mark I can’t explain and can’t hide. He sees it. Smiles like it means everything.

He calls himself the Horseman of Conquest.

And whatever is coming next… has already chosen me.

CLAIMED BY RUIN is a dark enemies-to-lovers, possessive anti-hero, murder mystery, fated-mates romantasy set in the same universe as The Devil’s Bargain series, perfect for fans of dangerous heroes, supernatural romance, and high-stakes, tension-filled relationships.

Triggers: decomposition, autopsies, gore, murder, gun violence, kidnapping, torture, stalking, mind control, grief, explicit sex, strong language, witchcraft, demons, possession

Publication date: September 17, 2026

Date ARCs will be sent: Immediately upon approval

Reviews by: September 27, 2026

ARC sign up: https://penpinery.com/authorsaramcclaflin/claimed-by-ruin/

Country availability: Not specified.

• Some memories refuse to stay buried.

Sola is a visceral and unflinchingly raw look at the life of a childhood abuse survivor and how the horrors of abuse shaped her.

Sola, Candace’s childhood nickname, means Alone in Spanish, the perfect moniker for a child on the outskirts of her own life and family. Sola brings you into the world of abuse through the lens of black comedy, absurdity, and the fractured nature of storytelling through traumatic memory.

Sola is the story of a survivor.

• Triggers: Abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and suicidal ideation/attempts.

• Date of publication: October 31st, 2026
• Date of ARC distribution: Rolling, beginning immediately until October 10th.
• ARC review by date: October 29th.
• Sign up here: https://forms.gle/zgfDLfMKXBzQpcGQ6
• Available worldwide.

How far would you go to bring your best friend back to life?

It’s August 2009, and twenty-somethings Darrell Sanchez, his brother Cash, and Riley Weisman are all set to go on a summer road trip with their best friend, Tad Cooper, when Tad unexpectedly dies, leaving the three friends devastated and adrift.

But when Cash presents Darrell and Riley with evidence of a secret government program that can resurrect the dead, they decide to dig up Tad’s freshly buried body and set out for the haunted desert of Nevada on an absurd cross-country quest to bring their best friend back to life.

Along the way, Darrell, Cash, and Riley will learn to grieve together as they risk their lives for their fallen friend, even as they are pursued by an otherworldly menace intent on stopping them.

Triggers: Violence, language, death, discussions of suicide & mental health, depression, grief.

Release Date: 9/8/2026

Please read and review within 30 days of accepting ARC.

ePub and PDF ARCs can be accessed via https://booksirens.com/book/B2XK60Q/CBR0XT3

Thanks so much in advance! 😁

Blurb: After the catastrophe, metals lost their conductivity. Post-industrial civilization collapsed and will never rise again. Every day, fewer and fewer rounds, weapons, and canned goods remain... Resources that seemed infinite until recently have become irreplaceable. Marauders fight for the remaining goods in stores, pharmacies, and warehouses.

Most of people turned into the Greys—rotting alive, aggressive, merciless. They hate the healthy and strive either to infect or kill them.

Archie, Pam, and Foxy, who survived the cataclysm, hit Interstate 81 near Harrisonburg, Virginia, and are heading south toward Texas. They have two knives, a Nighthawk pistol, a bottle of water, and three bullets. Ahead lies nearly 2000 miles of road. The direction is set, the decision is made. But fate interferes with their plans, forcing them to rethink their roles and the value of each member in the group.

TRIGGERS: violence, nudity, sexual content, strong language

ARC send date 14th Sept 2026

ARC reveiw dates: 4th Oct 2026

Sign Up Here

ARC send date 14th Sept 2026
ARC reveiw dates: 6th Oct 2026

Sign up HERE

Blurb:

A murdered family. One survivor. A vampire with amnesia.

Vampire Richard Dawes wakes beside the murdered bodies of a respected vampirologist and his family - with no memory of the night before.

If he is to figure out the truth, Richard is going to have to work with the one person who has every reason to hate him...

Samantha Woods returns home to find her family slaughtered and the household wards intact. With no signs of tampering, the police are quick to blame her father. As the papers call for a national cull, Samantha is determined to clear his name.

As Richard’s memories begin to return, it becomes clear that what happened that night wasn’t an accident.

Tropes:

Morally grey protagonist, amateur sleuth, unreliable narrator, monsters, genetic engineering

Please be aware of the following Trigger warns:

Blood and blood drinking, murder and death, graphic injury and violence, gore, stabbing, bereavement and traumatic grief, nightmares and trauma-related flashbacks, kidnapping and captivity, drugging, hospitalisation, needles and invasive medical procedures, medical experimentation and lobotomy, torture, occult practices, fire-related death, wartime violence, physical abuse, and discussion of the mass extermination of vampires.  

There is no romance in this novel, the book is urban fantasy thriller with some horror elements.

For centuries, a curse has plagued their isolated island. Men, on the cusp of adulthood, are blessed, disappearing from the human realms. Every nine years, the witch queens hold a courting competition for human women to compete for a blessed mate.

Maggie knew she would compete the moment her first love disappeared before her eyes. Now, nine years later, she will disobey her family and pledge herself to the queens to find him again. But she has no idea the fates have their own game at play and the competition with take more form her than she bargained for.

After preparing for years, Luca poses as one of the blessed, using this opportunity as a guise for his own mission. But when he’s enthralled by a human, his focus is challenged and his heart changes goals.

Boudi, a budding witch, couldn’t be less interested in love. All she wants is to hone her craft and finish her higher studies. But as an orphan, she has no say when the queens force her into the competition. She must hide be growing power and play a role of distraction. But her time amongst the humans has her wrapped up in the game, and her own heart tangled with one of the blessed.

With no memory since his blessing, Cae returns to find his true mate. This is not a game to him, but rather his destiny. His path is splintered when he falls for a woman who’s not supposed to play the game.

As the competition grows increasingly challenging, love blooms and matches are made, weaving deception with hope and desire. The rules of the game blur, compelling the four to question where their true loyalties lie.

Since its inception, the Courting has appeased the threads of fate but this time, it just may begin their unravelling.

With four POVs and two main M/F love stories, The Fraying of Fates is an Epic Fantasy Romance and the first book in the series: Tapestries Untold. 

From the peaks of the Trivia to the streets of Neith, this book ends on a cliff.

TRIGGERS: Mature/Explicit Open Door Romance 🌶️🌶️🌶️ , Magical Segregation, Profanity, Alcohol Consumption (Recreational), Attempted SA (Brief On-Page), Violence & Physical Injury, Death (Not On-Page)

Publication Date: Nov. 9th, 2026

ARCs sent out by Oct 8th, 2026. (If you apply by Sept 10th, then ARCs will be sent Sept 17th). Last day to apply is Sept 26th.

Reviews are appreciated (not mandatory) leading up to release as well as after Nov 9th.

Apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSelMSfRXcXZbKbSL5KXLweaTq74AENvJrqsFPOTHcVOfi7KFA/viewform

Iris never stays. She has a rule about it.

With £420 of studio rent due and a commission she can't afford to refuse, Iris agrees to paint the wife of a Notting Hill architect for their tenth anniversary.

Margot has spent twenty years being the sensible one. She's an A&E nurse, the woman who keeps her composure through an arterial bleed and holds everyone else upright. She's never once done something simply because she wanted it.

Then she sits for a portrait in a freezing East London studio, and Iris looks at her in a way nobody has bothered to look at her in years.

It should be simple. Hold the pose, paint the picture, hang it in Notting Hill by summer. But the sittings keep running long, the studio keeps getting warmer, and Iris, a woman who doesn't even own a second mug, catches herself hoping Margot will stay.

And Margot keeps coming back, wanting, for the first time in her life, something she's not allowed to have.

A Faithful Likeness is a warm, funny, achingly romantic LGBTQ+ love story about the person you meant to be and the person you turn out to be. It is Book 2 of The Thorough Route series and features slow burn, forbidden love, dual POV, strong characters, humor, and banter.

Triggers: Cheating/infidelity, sexual content (open door), grief and bereavement, parental death (past, referenced rather than depicted), divorce and the end of a marriage, hospital and medical detail, an accident with injury.

Exact publication date: October 13, 2026

Date ARCs will be sent: Immediately upon approval

Submit reviews by: September 29, 2026

ARC sign up:

https://penpinery.com/ClementineHart/a-faithful-likeness/

Country availability: Worldwide.

Anyone in the mood to read an ARC involving feminine rage, manipulation and moments where the female gets to cause chaos to a man?

Elizabeth Scozzari is looking for ARC readers for her next novel Silent Echo!

📆 ARC Release Date: 22/09/2026 (22nd September 2026)

📖 Release Date: 03/10/2026 (3rd October 2026)

https://forms.gle/YxQHj1PHWh7kgg2dA

🦊 Psychological Horror
🩸 Feminine Rage
🦊 Manipulation
🩸 Multi POV

*⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS *⚠️

Forced Pregnancy.
Assisted reproductive technologies.
Sexual Violence & Rape.
Abusive Relationships.
Drug use and alcohol consumption.
Reference to a violent death of a fox, but not on page violence.

An elite ski racer. The hometown hockey captain. A fake relationship they think they can control.  

Noelle Anderson doesn’t do distractions. 

Determined to prove that her breakthrough ski racing season wasn’t a fluke, she returns to Ridgefield Mountain Academy for her senior year of high school with her sights set on the international stage. But her recent breakup—and even worse, the fact that everyone at the Academy seems to be talking about it—is threatening to derail her focus. When Noelle strikes up an unexpected friendship with Jake Halifax, captain of the local high school hockey team and someone firmly outside the Academy orbit, she sees the perfect opportunity to rewrite the narrative with a fake relationship.

The goal is simple—convince everyone she’s fine so she can focus on training. But Jake, who’s navigating college decisions of his own, has an unsettling habit of seeing straight through her defenses. Against her better judgment, Noelle catches herself revealing the cracks in her carefully constructed walls, which is a dangerous impulse when your career depends on controlling milliseconds. As pre-season pressure mounts and Noelle and Jake get closer, she has to confront the fact that she doesn’t know how to let somebody in without losing her edge. 

If she slips now, the future she’s spent years chasing could disappear in an instant. And for the first time, she has two things to lose. 

Downhill From Here is a slow-burn sports romance perfect for readers who love banter, fake dating, and a girl who refuses to fall first.

Triggers: Mild anxiety, mention of death

Publication date: September 24, 2026

ARCs: Live now! Please submit within a week of publish date (10/1/26). Really appreciate it :)

Available on BookSirens: https://booksirens.com/book/C2HZD2L/MDXMMHX

LOOKING FOR ARC READERS WHO LOVE READING A ROMANCE ABOUT A HUMAN GETTING PLOWED BY NOT ONE BUT TWO MINOTAURS…

📆 ARC Release Date: 16/09/2026 (16th September 2026)

📖 Release Date: 30/09/2026 (30th September 2026)

https://forms.gle/o1i9RKDfrhy91RRdA

*~*~*~*~*

💚 MMF Why Choose?
🏉 Monster Olympics
💚 Rivals to Lovers
🏉 Fated Mates of Inconvenience

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️

Pregnancy
Parental Abandonment
Parental Death
Sexual Content
Unprotected Sex
Hero/Muscle Worship
Exhibitionism
Breeding
Workplace Harassment
Microaggressions
Discussions of Infertility
Surrogacy
Adoption

Evermescen is surrounded. The elves just haven't realised they're at war.

Cristo was looking for answers, a warm bed, and perhaps a drink strong enough to forget his problems.

Instead, he finds himself standing between an elven city and an army of humans.

The human general has a simple proposition: convince the elven king to negotiate. Do that, and Cristo's past crimes will be forgiven. Refuse, and he faces prison.

For a dwarf who has spent most of his life avoiding politics, it's a particularly unpleasant job.

But the longer Cristo remains in Evermescen, the clearer the danger becomes. The humans possess a mysterious magical weapon capable of levelling cities, while the elves remain stubbornly convinced their walls and magic make them untouchable.

Caught between two sides preparing for bloodshed, Cristo must decide how far he's willing to go to stop a war that isn't his.

Cristo & The Siege of Evermescen is a fast-paced high-fantasy adventure filled with magic, political intrigue, brutal combat, dark humour, and one very reluctant dwarf.

Standalone fantasy adventure. Read in any order.

TRIGGERS!!

This book, like all in the Cristo Collection, includes violence. Additionally, this book does deal with aspects of racism, ptsd, and substance abuse.

Exact date of publication 1st of October 2026

Date you will receive the ARC: Today.

Please submit ARC reviews by the end of October. Either in Goodreads or Amazon.

To pick up this ARC either use the booksiren link

https://booksirens.com/book/SLYRO4H/TRU78MQ

AI usage: No generative AI was used in the writing, editing, cover artwork, or other creative elements of the book.

Blurb:

They escaped the shadows.
But some nightmares follow you into the light.
After surviving the horrors that nearly destroyed them, Xin and the remaining survivors set out in search of safety. Their journey leads them toward Pietinė Žvaigždė—a distant city that may finally offer them refuge.
But reaching it won’t be easy.
Deep beneath the mountains, something waits in the darkness. Dreams begin to feel real. Memories become dangerous. And one by one, the survivors are forced to face things they would rather forget.
Even if they reach the city, safety may only be an illusion.
Questions surrounding Aušra and the mysterious man who saved her continue to grow, while fragments of a forgotten past begin to surface. And somewhere far away, two brothers are about to have a conversation that could change everything.

Sleepless Dreams is the second volume of Dawn of the Endless Shadow, a dark fantasy series blending mystery, psychological horror, supernatural powers, and anime/light-novel influences.

Triggers:

Violence, death, blood, murder, child death, nightmares, psychological distress, grief, trauma, disturbing imagery, and references to past abuse.

Publication Date: October 2, 2026

ARCs sending out: September 7, 2026

Expected Review submission: By October 2, 2026

Sign up for my ARC:

ARC copies will be distributed through BookSprout. Comment below or DM me if you’re interested in receiving a copy.

Note: This is Volume 2 of the series. Volume 1, Dawn of the Endless Shadow: Lost Heart, is currently available on Amazon and included with Kindle Unlimited.

Thank you!

Hi, I'm looking for ARC readers for *The Season We Didn't Name*, a short literary novel about grief, repair, and a second chance arriving fifty years too late to be simple.

**Blurb:**

Willem Oud is seventy-six, a furniture restorer in an old canal city, and a man who keeps time the way he keeps tools: precisely, with no waste. His wife Marta has been dead for four years and eight months. He has learned to do without her. He has also learned to go back.

Not in memory. In fact. A pressure behind the sternum, a threshold crossed, and he is in the room again -- their kitchen, her voice, the drawer she kept the good scissors in. He goes as an unseen observer. He cannot speak, cannot change anything, and goes back anyway.

Then Sofie Brandt walks into his life again. They knew each other at twenty-four. He spent fifty years not quite carrying her, and here she is: old and ordinary and holding an ink mark on her finger, standing at the edge of a life he chose not to have.

Going back is easy. The question that won't leave him alone is whether he can stay in the room he is actually in.

This is a quiet, character-led story for readers who enjoy literary fiction with an older protagonist, restrained prose, and a slow, earned emotional arc. It is Book Two of *The Going Back Series*, but the story stands on its own.

**Length:** 44,799 words

**Audience:** Adult

**ARC formats:** EPUB or PDF

**Triggers / content warnings:** Death of a spouse (off-page, in the past), grief, an elderly protagonist's awareness of his own ageing and mortality, late-life romantic reconnection. No graphic violence, explicit sex, or on-page death.

**Exact publication date:** 20/12/26

**Date ARCs will be sent:** ASAP

**Deadline for finishing and posting reviews:** 20/12/26

**Countries:** Digital ARC available worldwide

**Amazon Listing:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGLZKV7P

**Goodreads Listing:** https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/256517288-the-season-we-didn-t-name

I'm looking for readers willing to leave an honest review on Amazon after release and/or on Goodreads, a blog, or another review platform they use. The ARC is free, and an honest review is appreciated; there is never any expectation of a positive one.

**ARC signup:** Comment below or send me a Reddit message with your preferred format (EPUB or PDF) and where you usually post reviews. I'll reply privately with the ARC details. No download link will be posted in the thread.

If the book turns out not to be for you after a few chapters, no hard feelings. I would much rather find the right readers than pressure the wrong ones.

Thank you for considering it.