My September TBR (2026): All The Books I’m Hoping to Read This Month

September 6, 2026

MY SEPTEMBER TBR (2026)

All The Books I’m Hoping To Read This Month

Happy Sunday, my book-loving friends.

I don’t know about you, but to me, September is all about cooler weather, falling leaves, and cozy vibes. And this year, I’m taking those things to heart and turning my September TBR into a first love, second chance, feel-good reading experience. What does that actually mean?

Well, essentially, it means I am on the hunt for the most swoon-worthy, sweet or dirty-talking, epically delicious book boyfriend I can find this month. I’m talking intense, hot like burning, and absolutely one-hundred percent guaranteed to make me drool, or maybe just something light-hearted, fun, and guaranteed to make me sigh. Either one will work for me this month.

And it doesn’t matter if he’s a CEO, a mafia don, a cowboy, or a sports athlete. I just want to meet him and fall in love. Is that too much to ask?

We shall see.

WHAT I HOPE TO READ THIS MONTH

My September TBR already has a few good contenders for the month, but if you know of any more romance reads I should add, please take a moment to comment down below or tag me on social media (@deannalynnrw on most platforms) with your rec.

ALL IN by Kat Baxter released in June but it sounds like the perfect September read to me. Fun, but also sexy and swoony with a MMC who obviously has a secret and a FMC who can’t help falling for him anyway.

Juniper

I came to Comic Con for one weekend away from real life. I did not come to kiss Captain America.

When the guy who won’t take a hint corners me outside a panel, kissing the nearest six-foot superhero seems like a perfectly reasonable escape plan. Especially when he kisses me back.

Behind the costume, Leo is funny, sweet, ridiculously hot, and frankly, everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. He buys me late-night pizza, debates fantasy movies with me, and makes me forget we’re supposed to be strangers.

There’s just one problem. Leo might be hiding something.

And the more I fall for him, the harder it becomes to decide what’s worse—being lied to or realizing I don’t care nearly as much as I should.

Leo

Comic Con is the one place I get to be nobody. No family name. No expectations. No people seeing my bank account before they see me.

Then an elf princess crashes into my arms and kisses me breathless.

Juniper is voluptuous, hilarious, and completely unimpressed by everything that usually matters. For the first time in years, I want someone to know me—not my last name.

But every stolen kiss and midnight conversation makes the truth harder to tell.

Because eventually she’ll discover who I really am.

And when the big reveal happens, I don’t know what scares me more—losing the woman who’s become everything or discovering she only wanted the man in the costume.

Why I Chose It: It sounds fun, and I like that it’s a shorter read. Also, I’ve been to a local Comic Con and had such a good time meeting people and seeing everyone dressed up. While I didn’t kiss a hot stranger dressed as Captain America, the possibility that it could happen, to me or to someone else, makes this a great contender for the month.

Buy the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU) and read along with me if you like!

SLOW HANDS COWBOY by Maisey Yates released in August but if you’re a long time blog follower of mine, you know I love me some Maisey Yates romance. Plus, this one has a rugged cowboy and fake dating in a small town. What’s not to love about that?

In Mustang River when enemies become lovers — they might just cause the whole town to combust.

The last thing Walker Grayson wants to do is play host to the princess of Mustang River’s wedding. Addison Carey was relentlessly vicious to him in high school – and in his mind she’s no better now. But the wedding is going to be great publicity for his family ranch and resort – so he has to play along with making the perfect western ceremony – even riding around on horseback directing guest traffic.

The wedding day is off to a perfect start. Until the gr public humiliation.
With Addison’s mayoral campaign hanging by a thread, she proposes a solution: fake date the cowboy everyone is already pairing her with.

It’s only for publicity.

Except the chemistry they’ve spent years denying is impossible to ignore.

Walker is everything Addison was raised to avoid. She has to be perfect – and Walker Grayson doesn’t fit into her vision of perfect. But as fake dating starts to feel very real, can she continue to resist the man she’s always wanted?

Fun Fact: I was actually involved in a brief fake dating, age gap romance with a cowboy that wound up leading to real dating romance once upon a time. While it didn’t work out for me personally, I still love to read books with this trope, and especially ones that involve a grumpy cowboy, as that always proves to be a good time for me.

Buy the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU) and read along with me if you like!

THE CHALLENGE by Penelope WARD released in August. This is a single dad romance where the MMC used to live with the FMC and her family as a teenager, with the FMC had feelings for him at the time.

Nothing says welcome home like accidentally moving in with your first heartbreak…and his little girl.

Coming back to my small Wyoming hometown was supposed to be temporary. I only planned to stay long enough to help my ailing mother and sort through the mess of my family’s old belongings.

Instead, I somehow ended up living in Evan Ricci’s house. The single dad now owned a bunch of properties and one of them was the place I’d rented. He’d taken it off the market and moved in before I got there. I just never got the memo. Unfortunately, there was no other place in town available, so Evan let me stay.

Evan—the guy my parents took in years ago after his mother died.

The same Evan who used to dare me into ridiculous challenges that somehow always made me stronger—a game we’d dubbed The Challenge.

The same guy who ultimately rejected me before I left for college after I’d finally garnered the courage to shoot my shot.

Now Evan was a rugged single dad with an eight-year-old daughter, a cocky attitude, and a dangerous ability to make me forget every reason I should still hate him.

Sharing a house with him should’ve been unbearable. Instead, it felt dangerously familiar, nearly making me forget that I had a life and a job to get back to in Chicago. I realized the biggest challenge wasn’t surviving living with Evan Ricci.
It was not falling in love with him all over again.

Why I Chose It: A single dad, forced proximity, slow burn romance is always a fun read for me, and throw in the fact that the MMC used to live with them FMC as a teenager and it has all the potential to be a messy good time. Plus, Penelope Ward is always a good read, so this placing this one on my list almost feels like a no-brainer.

Buy the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU) and read along with me if you like!

THE WILD CARD by Kendall Ryan released in August and features a grumpy FBI Agent who sneaks a fake-girlfriend clause into his roommate agreement with a sunshine FMC. Like what? How does one even come up with that scheme?! I’m intrigued, and definitely looking forward to seeing how this one plays out.

He buried a fake-girlfriend clause in a roommate agreement.
She signed it without reading.
What could possibly go wrong?

FBI agent Crew Jensen thrives on control. His rigid routines keep his anxiety and OCD in check: no chaos, no distractions, and definitely no relationships.

Until his boss threatens to transfer him to Alaska.

Desperate to prove he has “roots,” Crew makes a wildly unhinged decision: he slips a fake-girlfriend clause into his roommate contract, hoping his next applicant won’t read it carefully.

Emmie Marshall signs on page seventeen without blinking.

Emmie is everything Crew is not—warm, messy, impossibly chatty—and currently racing a cookbook deadline that could make or break her career. She needs stability. He needs a convincing relationship. It’s a simple, mutually beneficial arrangement.

Fake dates. Public hand-holding. Mandatory cuddling sessions (her counter-demand—he’s just so touch-starved and grumpy).

The more they pretend, the harder it becomes to remember where the contract ends and real feelings begin.

Because she makes the counting in his head stop. He makes her feel like she doesn’t have to try so hard.

Suddenly, the arrangement that was supposed to be temporary feels dangerously real.

Why I Chose It: The fake dating clause slid into a roommate agreement by an OCD FBI Agent hooked me good, and then add in that he’s grumpy and touch-starved and she’s friendly warmth and sunshine? Yeah, I’m sat.

Buy the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU) and read along with me if you like!

HOLDING GROUND by Piper Rayne releases on September 10th. This is a single dad, opposites attract, small town, forced proximity, enemy-to-lovers romance.

I’ve been a single dad for five years. Then the wrong woman rented the guest cabin behind my house, and I knew right then she was going to ruin everything.

When Baylor’s mother walked out, I made a promise—I’d be enough. Just the two of us. No one to disappoint her. No one else to leave.

Then Emelia Greene rolled into Echo Lake in a Mercedes and a power suit to convince the townspeople to change what makes our small town great. She’s everything this place isn’t.

Emelia’s not supposed to be kind. She’s not supposed to be good with my daughter. She’s definitely not supposed to be the one I find myself confiding in at the end of my dock every night.

She’s leaving in three months. I know that.

The problem is, I can’t stop wondering what it would be like if a woman like her belonged in a place like this.

In a life like mine.

Why I Chose It: I love a good single dad romance and I especially like the city-girl, small town guy, slow burn romance that this one purports. Plus, there’s just something about a forced proximity, opposites attract romance that gets to me, and especially during the fall when so many lives center on being parents and/or going back to school.

Pre-Order the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU on release day) and read along with me if you like!

FOREVER OFFSIDES by J. Saman releases on September 15th and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on it. This is the epitome of a fall read for me. Age gap, ex-boyfriend’s dad, golden-retriever NFL football coach, secret forbidden relationship, close proximity, he falls first and hard. How can I resist it really?

I had no clue that the gorgeous man I spent a seriously hot night with was my ex-boyfriend’s dad. Or the new coach of my brothers’ professional football team.

I didn’t discover that until months later when I showed up on the field as the team’s orthopedic surgeon and literally ran into him.

Unfortunately, that makes us a penalty neither of us can afford to take. Not when one touch could destroy everything.

It’s his first shot at being a head coach, and he’s working on repairing things with his son. I’m still a resident trying to prove myself, and the last thing I want is something messy getting in my way or anything to do with my ex.

But that doesn’t stop the fire in his eyes or the way he tracks me around the field when he doesn’t think I notice. Or how our stolen moments leave me breathless and full of butterflies.

We both know it’s wrong. Forbidden.

And for a while, we play by the rules.

Until one night the mounting tension between us becomes too much to bear and his control shatters.

But how far can this love go when we’re destined to be forever offsides?

Why I Chose It: I love a good sports romance and this one sounds as messy as it does fun. Plus, I’ve read this author’s work before and loved it, so that made wanting to read this book a safe and easy choice for me.

Pre-Order the book on Amazon (or get it free in KU on release day) and read along with me if you like!

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ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE

This is probably not a complete list for September, as I also have some ARCs to get to this month, but given how up in the air my life is right now (my 81 year old mother is about to undergo treatment), I can’t commit to a whole lot of reading. I wish I could, but focus has been a bit hard to come by this year.

I’m a mood reader, and it’s been one thing after another this year, and while I am doing my best to find some balance and get back to some of the things I love, it has been a daily struggle to feel comfortable enough to just spend time doing those things and not researching other things while also running to appointments for my parents and my day job clients (home healthcare). This is why my blog post and social media posting has been so sporadic of late. I’ve been working 50-60 work weeks for a few years now, and then dealing with a lot of other stuff on my days off, which are few and far between these days.

This TBR is my way of trying to fall in love with reading again. I’m hoping it works, but we will see how I do at the end of the month when I try to do a wrap up post about my September reads. Reading is my comfort, so I’m doing my best to treat it as such and not another thing on my plate that needs to get done. That is another struggle I have right now. Most days, I love being single but there are times, like now, when I wish I wasn’t single just so I could just sit down and read and not have a million other things in my head distracting me with a need to get done. I also really wish my family wasn’t so spread out or so busy in their own lives that they could help, but unfortunately, that is not the case. It’s just me, and my brain is a messy place to be right now. Here’s to hoping one of these 6 books helps me out a bit with that this month. I could use the beauty and sweetness in romance just about now.

~ Deanna