It’s Friday, meaning it’s time for another round-up of links and resources to keep you at the top of your library game. We’re kicking things off with a round-up of all things Heated Rivalry–because your library’s copy has probably been checked out for weeks at this point–followed by new releases, comic updates, and some adaptation news to get you excited for 2026.

Heated Rivalry Round-up

NYPL is offering instant access to Heated Rivalry until tomorrow, February 14th, after Zohran Mamdani suggested that New Yorkers take advantage of their library’s digital collections and check out Heated Rivalry while waiting out the latest winter storm. (Love to see an elected official supporting public libraries!)Literary agents are looking for the next Heated Rivalry on fanfic sites. But let’s not forget that hockey romance has actually been popular for quite some time now. Heated Rivalry and the art of anti-dystopia. Queer hockey romances to read if you loved Heated Rivalry.

New & Upcoming Titles

Jeffrey Archer has announced that his next book, Adam and Eve, will also be his last. Audrey Niffenegger is publishing a sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife.Brooklyn Beckham and his wife, Nicola Peltz-Beckham, have allegedly been offered a seven-figure deal to write a book about Beckham’s public falling out with his parents, David and Victoria Beckham.Claire Vaye Watkins has a new book coming out. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy is releasing a new memoir this spring.Val McDermid talks about working with a sensitivity reader before re-releasing some of her earlier novels, published in the 80s and 90s, and used racial and homophobic language reflective of social attitudes at that time.Kirkus has posted its Spring 2026 nonfiction preview.

All Things Comics

The American Library Association announces the winners of its inaugural Outstanding Comics Awards, which highlighted exceptional comics and graphic novels for adults, teens, and children.Publisher’s Weekly posted their Spring 2026 Comics & Graphic Novels preview.

Book Adaptations In the News

Amazon has snagged film rights to Elise Kova’s fantasy YA novel Dragon Cursed. Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series is being adapted for TV. Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River is getting a film adaptation. Daniel Kraus is adapting his novel, Angel Down, into a feature film.Adrian McKinty’s thriller, The Chain, is getting a series adaptation at HBO. Here’s a first look at the series adaptation of Julia May Jonas’ Vladimir.How The Housemaid became a surprise box-office smash.

Want to keep up with bookish news on the daily? Subscribe to our Today in Books newsletter for the best of book news every day, delivered right to your inbox.

As a new TV drama is released, what was Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy really like?

For Black History Month, I’ve tended towards more serious content, like last year’s timeline about Black characters and creators in superhero comics. But it’s just as important to celebrate stories that show Black characters having fun adventures and achieving the happy endings they deserve.

If you’re reading this the day it publishes, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. The celebration seems especially appropriate for highlighting five graphic novels where the Black character ends up getting the girl, the guy, multiple guys, or whoever else their heart desires!

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge, and Joy San Hazel and Mari adore each other, but as teenagers growing up in the 1960s, their love isn’t given a chance to thrive. After their homophobic families force them to separate, the two spend decades apart leading their own lives, only for a lucky encounter to give them an unexpected second chance.

All Access members, find four more recommendations below!

This content is for members only. Visit the site and log in/register to read.

January 10 – February 28, 2026

October 16, 2025 – March 1, 2026

Over a period of several years in the early seventeenth century, there appeared in Western Europe three manifestos laying out the history of the theretofore unheard-of Rosicrucian order, whose secret directorate was said to employ powerful magical-scientific techniques in service to sociopolitical reform. This naturally led to quite a bit of public speculation, which gradually abated in the absence of further pronouncements; within a few generations the only parties ascribing any significance to the incident tended to be dubious characters claiming to be Rosicrucians themselves, rarely with much to show for it. Thus, as a result of its gradual association with cranks, the Rosicrucian story developed a kind of inoculation against serious scrutiny.

It wasn’t until the sixties that the British historian Dame Frances A. Yates breached the actual nature and extent of the thought movement that informed both the manifestos and its audience. In her book The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, she demonstrates that the texts were written as anti-Hapsburg, proreformist propaganda drawing on doctrines associated with the sixteenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon, and that this was understood by commentators on both sides; that the surreal “alchemical wedding” described therein references the 1613 marriage of England’s Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V of the Palatinate, widely heralded as the linchpin of a proto-Protestant alliance capable of establishing such reform by force; that the broader proposals were indeed taken seriously by scholars, not as scripture but rather as a set of visionary policy proposals dressed in metaphor, akin to Bacon’s The New Atlantis; and that enthusiasts such as Elias Ashmole would directly implement those proposals by founding the Royal Society, establishing the primacy of science. Rather than being a footnote to premodern folly, the Rosicrucian affair turns out to sit at the narrative center of the modern world.

There’s a lesson here that bears attention today, at the apparent twilight of the same modern world, when the fundamental problem we face involves the degree to which the truth must now compete with such a vast multiplicity of falsehoods that discovering truth itself becomes unviable. Consider that so much of consequence to our own heritage should have been so misunderstood for as long as the Rosicrucian manifestos; it seems that crucial facts can be effectively concealed from serious attention simply by being visibly subject to the unserious sort. Such facts are gradually imbued with a sort of de facto defense mechanism against scrutiny, whereby the mere act of taking an interest in them serves to discredit professional researchers and journalists.

***

September 27, 2025 – March 22, 2026

January 16 – February 14, 2026

November 22, 2025 – March 1, 2026

January 17 – March 14, 2026