One of the biggest book-to-film adaptations for 2026 just dropped its official trailer, and it’s a good one. The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping stars Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy. 

🍿 You can watch it right here. 🍿

Set in Panem 24 years before The Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping begins on the morning of the Second Quarter Quell. Haymitch’s story is explored in this addition to the series, as he’s called upon to participate in the 50th Hunger Games.

Sunrise on the Reaping became a mega bestseller upon its release last spring.

• Over 1.5 million copies sold during its release week, and the series itself has left an indelible mark on both its YA audience of both teens and adults.
• In addition to Zada in the starring role, we’ll see Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, and Lenore Dove Baird as Whitney Peak.
• Glenn Close will play the role of Drusilla Sickle.

The Hunger Games: Sunset on the Reaping will hit theaters on November 20, 2026. You’ve got plenty of time to catch up or revisit the books in anticipation. - KJ

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a middle-aged Stoic philosopher who has recruited her best friends to form a "coven" by buying apartments on the same floor of a legendary New York apartment building finds herself caught in the middle of an international art scandal and an unexpected love affair. Shenanigans ensue.

Go Gentle is Maria Semple’s first novel in a decade, and it is well worth the wait. As smart as it is funny, this is a madcap caper, a sweet romance, and a thoughtful consideration of desire all rolled into one. It’s a party in book form—the most fun I’ve had reading this year—and I look forward to talking about it for months to come.

Also hitting shelves this week:

• 🍒 Rainbow Rowell returns with a contemporary second-chance romance the New York Times described as "sexy, messy, funny and raw."
• 🏳️‍🌈 Opposites attract in Rebekah Weatherspoon’s YA sapphic romance about two girls who fall for each other when their summer plans go sideways
• 🎥 Lena Dunham reflects on fame, illness, and the cost of pursuing Hollywood dreams in a new memoir
• ⚖️ Legal scholar Shaun Ossei-Owusu pulls back the curtain on the U.S. justice system
• The final volume in one of BookTok’s favorite series lands at last

📝 Build your TBR with more of the week’s best new books. - RJS

Family, secrets, and a changing landscape

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exiles and The Dry comes Last One Out, a captivating new novel set in a modern ghost town.

Experience Jane Harper’s signature slow burn turned all the way up.

Nothing much happens in Gilead, but it’s about everything.

Near the end of his life, a septuagenarian pastor who has spent the bulk of his decades caring for a congregation in a small town in Iowa records his thoughts on faith, family, love, and beauty in papers he plans to leave for his young son to read as he grows up. As Reverend Ames reflects on life’s biggest questions and smallest pleasures, Robinson invites us to do the same.

Gilead is a house favorite here at Book Riot—Zero to Well-Read hosts Jeff and Rebecca have each read it five times—but we’re far from alone.

• It won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.
• Critics voted it into the #10 spot on the New York Times’s list of the 100 best books of the century so far.
• President Barack Obama was so moved by it that he reached out to Robinson, beginning a years-long friendship.

If you’ve read Gilead, you know its particular magic. If you haven’t, let us assure you that Robinson works the miracle of exploring religion and morality without ever being preachy or pedantic. This is one not to be missed.

🎧 Hear our conversation about this life-changing read.

There’s serious star power in AppleTV’s adaptation of Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

Elle Fanning, fresh off an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, stars as a young woman who gets pregnant during an affair with her English professor and starts an OnlyFans to pay the bills. Nick Offerman and Michelle Pfeiffer play her parents. Nicole Kidman shows up to mediate a custody dispute. And that’s just the main cast!

Here’s what the critics are saying:

• "A star-studded, wickedly funny, sex-forward adaptation...one of the most engaging and entertaining series of the year to date." - Richard Roeper, RogerEbert.com
• "The rare show that feels just about the right length for the amount of story it has to tell, at eight 40-ish minute episodes, I still felt a bit sorry to see them go at season’s end." - Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
• "A technicolor charmer from start to finish. It’s an often funny, very good looking show with a trio of leads who make every moment look effortless." - Allison Picurro, TV Guide
• "Smart, sincere, often sexy but sometimes slow, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a comedy where laughs are scarce but deep feelings are in abundance." - Eric Francisco, Esquire

📺 The first three episodes land tomorrow, April 15.

Heaven. Hell. Horsepower.

A mysterious armored 18-wheeler appears from nowhere in demon-infested medieval Europe. It might be the only thing standing between humanity and total annihilation.

Big Rig is the debut graphic novel from 9x diamond-certified, GRAMMY®-nominated Post Malone, co-written with Adrian Wassel and drawn by Dark Knights of Steel artist Nathan Gooden. Already in feature film development with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes.

Think Evil Dead meets Mad Max: Fury Road in medieval Europe.

Book Riot All Access members get a pile of benefits, including unlimited reading on bookriot.com, recommendations for the Read Harder Challenge, and access to our New Release Index to curate your TBR. Here are a few recent highlights:

• 💥 April Is Showering Us With New Comics and Graphic Novels
• 🦇 Whispering Walls and Haunted Halls: 8 Gothic Novels
• 📚 Bridgerton, But Make It Weird: 4 Great Regency Era Fantasy Novels
• 🐕 Must Love Pets: Romance Novels with the Best Animal Characters
• 💪 8 Sports Books by Women, Trans, and Nonbinary Authors
• 🚫 Check Out These Banned Episodes of Superhero Cartoons (If You Can)

🔓  Unlock access for just $6/month.

Heartdrum is an imprint of Harper Collins Children’s Books. Below, Heartdrum editor Rosemary Brosnan and curator Cynthia Leitich Smith celebrate its fifth anniversary and discuss what has changed since it began.

This spring, Heartdrum celebrates our five-year anniversary as an Indigenous-focused imprint of Harper Collins Children’s Books. We launched our first Heartdrum list in January 2021, and almost 40 books later, we have established a popular, acclaimed imprint with a defined identity. Our authors and illustrators have elevated children’s and young adult literature, receiving the Michael L. Printz Award, the William C. Morris Award, the Stonewall Award Honor, the Odyssey Honor, and many awards from the American Indian Library Association while making bestseller lists and being named to Reese’s Book Club.

Initially, we expected to publish two or three books per year, but the wonderful stories of many, many talented Indigenous authors changed our minds. We set out to acquire contemporary books, to fill a need for stories that reflected the lives of today’s Native children and teens. Most prior titles had presented Native people as ancient or even extinct or had been designed to teach non-Natives about Indigenous people. We embrace stories that speak to Indigenous kids’ lives. Heartdrum books are, first and foremost, for these kids and teens. They are not “tourist guides,” designed to explain Native people to outsiders. 

As with any good collection, our books contain all the elements of good stories, such as humor, romance, mystery, suspense, and heart. Plus, many are celebratory, balancing tough topics with pure joy.  

What has changed in the last five years? If a reader, caregiver, or educator is looking for range of books that reflect Indigenous experiences, popular genres, age markets, or intersectional identities, they can find those books. They can find books that acknowledge the past without stereotyping young heroes. We are in a completely different landscape than we were five years ago.

Our Heartdrum community is pleased that other publishers have joined us in raising up Indigenous voices. There is always room for more Native authors. That’s why we work in partnership with the We Need Diverse Books nonprofit organization to provide the annual WNDB Native Children’s-YA Writing Intensive. 

Since we launched five years ago, our books have been embraced by librarians, teachers, booksellers, and caregivers—but most importantly, they have been embraced by the kids themselves. 

We look forward to the next five years!

A new Reading Challenge theme awaits at Thriftbooks. Discover this month’s curated reads, find your next favorite book, and keep your Reading Challenge going strong.

Did you know? Henry James wrote The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl in a three-year period (1902-1904).

✍️ Five great novelists discuss what it takes to write something true.

🗳️ Vote for the best literary adaptations of the last 50 years.

🔎 Don’t miss the best new mysteries and thrillers out in April.

🩺 Say goodbye to Dr. Robby and hello to memoirs about emergency medicine.

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