MAGGIE MAYBE de Stephanie Webb

A coming-of-middle-age novel about two women who get a second chance to rewrite their lives—only to discover that their real stories were never flawed, just unfinished. For readers of Emma Straub and Catherine Newman.

MAGGIE MAYBE
by Stephanie Webb
Gallery, Summer 2027
(via David Black Agency)

When thirty-nine-year-old Maggie Mabey reads the opening of a novel-in-progress by her favorite author Savannah Greenstem, she is stunned to find her own life playing out on the page. She passes out and wakes up in an alternate reality where all her professional aspirations have come true: she’s a bookstore owner and a successful author, just as she’d always dreamed of being. The only problem? Her kids don’t exist. And her husband? He’s never heard of her.

Even though sixty-two-year old Savannah Greenstem has written dozens of books, she’s barely typed a word since the death of her late husband five years ago. But her writers block isn’t due to a broken heart; instead, she’s wrecked by the realization that she was never really in love with him in the first place. Years ago, she’d given up the great love of her life—Wilder Sinclair—to become the successful writer she was destined to be. Although she doesn’t exactly regret her choices, she does long for the life she might have had. But now, in this alternate world she’s found herself in, she and Wilder are together and it’s so much better than she could have imagined.

Desperate to return to the life she had before, Maggie finds Savannah and tries to convince her to rewrite her story. But Savannah doesn’t want to leave her own fantasy, even if it means keeping Maggie here against her will. As Maggie’s and Savannah’s fictional lives unravel—and entangle—in unexpected and delightful ways, they each must confront what they’ve been running from, ultimately discovering that the stories we tell ourselves can either trap us or, if we pay attention, give us the insight we need to remake our lives.

Stephanie Webb is a graduate of The Book Incubator and works as the marketing director for the program alongside authors Mary Adkins and Rufi Thorpe (who will certainly blurb). She earned her BA in English Literature and her MS in Holistic Nutrition. She was a finalist for the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association Rising Star Award and has a growing social media platform with almost 14,000 Instagram followers.

CRAZY NORMAL de Marissa Matteo

A life-affirming novel about family trauma and what happens when a wealthy Manhattan family takes a cross-country trip in an RV and realizes that grief is messy, but healing is messier.

CRAZY NORMAL
by Marissa Matteo
Crown, September 2027

When Phoebe Fields was six, her older brother Alexander died by suicide. Twenty years later, her wealthy Manhattan family still refuses to talk about it.

On the anniversary of his death, the Fields family—along with Phoebe’s boyfriend, their nanny, and their cook—set off on an ill-advised RV trip to California for a wedding. What begins as a chaotic journey quickly becomes a reckoning, as old wounds resurface, secrets unravel, and long-suppressed grief begins to demand a voice. As Phoebe tries to piece together who her brother really was—and why he chose to leave—she must confront the emotional silence that has shaped her life. But in a family where love is loud, messy, and often misguided, healing doesn’t come quietly.

Marrying commercial appeal with literary sensibility, CRAZY NORMAL, is a voice-driven intimate portrait of a family that learns you can outrun the past, until you’re trapped in an RV with it. It is perfect reading for fans of The Wedding People and the film, Little Miss Sunshine.

Despite earning an MFA from the University of Miami, a second MFA from UCLA, and telling her parents she would be the next Joan Didion, Marissa Matteo has worked as a celebrity ghostwriter and television writer for the last two decades. She has ghostwritten eight books, including three New York Times Bestsellers. She worked as a writer/producer on the CBS drama Bull for five seasons and has developed shows with 20th, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Sony, and Warner Brothers. Marissa lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with her husband and their two children. CRAZY NORMAL is her first novel.

THE HEART TRIALS de J. Elle

In a world where love is forbidden, one girl must fight for her heart and freedom through deadly trials in the first book of a new dystopian romantasy duology from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J. Elle.

THE HEART TRIALS
by J. Elle
Putnam/PRH, September 2026
(via Writers House)

Welcome to The Heart Trials.
The prize is love.
The cost is everything.

In Ethyria the highborn may love; the lowborn may only feel what the Benevolent allows. 

Saltblood lowborn Axira Merreri survives the decaying districts by keeping her heart locked tight, couriering goods by day—and smuggling the ruler’s euphoric Heartfillers to the highborn by night. Until a drop goes wrong and her execution looms. 

When she strikes a dangerous bargain to steal something from the Tournament of Hearts, a ruthless dating competition for highborn citizenship, she enters. Not for love. For freedom. But as the twisted allure of the competition turns deadly, an unexpected connection cracks her defenses, forcing her to confront a truth she fears: In a regime built on engineered happiness, the most dangerous weapon she has is her heart.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J. Elle delivers a breathless series opener that is bold, bone-chilling, and wholly original. For fans of the cutthroat competition of The Hunger Games, Love Island, and Powerless, this dystopian romantasy explores what happens when the heart becomes the empire’s sharpest blade.

J. Elle is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of dark fantasy fiction examining love as a powerful phenomenon—capable of building and destroying worlds.

MY NAME IS JANA. I AM FIFTEEN. I LIVE IN GAZA. by Jana

A remarkable work of first-person history: the diary of a teenage girl living in Gaza. Begun at the start of the war, Jana continued to document her experiences as her family was forced to leave their home, using writing as a form of self-expression and resistance, and as a way of sustaining precious hope in the worst of times.

MY NAME IS JANA. I AM FIFTEEN. I LIVE IN GAZA.
by Jana
William Morrow, November 2026

As bombs screamed overhead, a young Palestinian teenager grabbed her notebook and wrote, “If I survive today, I will write everything.” Jana was thirteen at the time; studious, precocious, and dreaming of one day becoming a doctor. Through hunger, cold and continuous resettlement; under the constant threat of death, Jana has kept her promise to write it all down, be it on cardboard; on wet paper; on empty bags of flour. She promises herself that, when she has walls again, she will write on those too. My Name is Jana is an incredible testament to one teenage girl’s will to live, and her determination to make her voice heard. It bears witness to all Jana has seen: a little girl asking if her toy is still alive under the rubble; the death of neighbor after neighbor in the tent city in which she now lives; her siblings’ hunger and her mother’s quiet tears. Amidst the unspeakable horrors of a war that has claimed the lives of over twenty thousand children, Jana writes about the same two dreams again and again: her desire to become a doctor, and for the world to recognise her beautiful, individual existence: « I am still Jana, and I am still here. » This is her story.

Jana and her family now live in a refugee tent camp in Khan Younnis almost 50 miles from the neighborhood where she grew up, which was destroyed by bombs. She is one of five children.

Layla Faraj has translated many works of Palestinian writing, including other Gazan diaries, and here is what she has to say about Jana’s: “Writing as an act of hope, and as proof of existence, permeates many Palestinian literary works written in and after 1948, including recently published Gazan writers such as Nadine Murtaja and Nima Hasan. Jana’s diary continues this legacy with conviction. Her work is not only a testament to writing’s power in documenting violence, but it also proves just how indispensable writing is in affirming one’s existence amidst the destruction of a nation, city, home, family, and body: “I am Jana. I am Gaza’s daughter.’”

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR EVIL ROBOT de Joy McCullough & Eduardo Medeiros

A hilarious and thought-provoking middle-grade graphic novel that uses a tiny would-be villain to explore the promise and pitfalls of artificial intelligence, blending comic book-style fun with big questions about technology, empathy, and what it means to be human, for fans of Adam Rubin and Peter Brown.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR EVIL ROBOT
by Joy McCullough
illustrated by Eduardo Medeiros
Sourcebooks Explore, July 2026

He’s three inches tall. He has enormous plans. And he’s about to learn a very important lesson.

This is the wildly funny picture book that helps kids make sense of the AI world they’re already living in — without any of the anxiety, and with all of the laughs. One kid, one skeptical dog, and one very overconfident robot walk readers through what AI can do, what it can’t, and why being human is still pretty great.

Perfect for curious kids, savvy parents, and anyone who wants to stay one step ahead of the robots!

  • The funniest AI book your kid will ever read — a tiny robot with massive ambitions meets his match in one clever kid and their very unimpressed dog

  • Finally — a way to talk to your kids about AI that’s actually fun, age-appropriate, and doesn’t require a computer science degree

  • Smart, funny, and wildly timely — covers what AI can do (and what it definitely cannot) in a way that sticks with young kids

  • Comics-style art and laugh-out-loud storytelling make every page an adventure — even the big ideas feel like play

  • The must-have gift for the AI age — because every kid is growing up with technology, and this book makes that hilarious instead of scary

Joy McCullough is an award-winning author and a NYT bestseller. She writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Eduardo Medeiros is a Brazilian author and artist, and has been captivated by storytelling since childhood and has always dreamed of creating comics. Eduardo enjoys quality time with his 4-year-old son, Gabriel, or hitting the road in his beloved vintage car.