Our local literary landscape glimmers with gems. From a pacey YA fantasy thriller to a trial-by-fire culinary memoir, distinctive guidebook to enthralling mystery, area authors are making waves way beyond Wake.
This selection of books published thus far in 2026 showcases some of the diverse voices and stories that define our region.
Whether you pack them for the beach or use them as an excuse to stay on the couch, your next favorite read could just be found among these treasures. (And don’t forget to spread more local love by shopping community bookstores first!)
Bios and book descriptions were contributed by representatives of the respective authors and have been edited for length and clarity.
Nonfiction – Guidebook
Secret Raleigh: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure
By Emily Price | Reedy Press
Raleigh might be best known for barbecue and government buildings, but peel back a few layers and you’ll find a city where massive pink dogs, NASCAR legends, and a very suspicious-looking house all have a place. Secret Raleigh is your guide to the city’s quirkiest corners — like a former racetrack now swallowed by trees and a soapbox derby where costumes are just as important as speed. You’ll meet a 22-foot Muffler Man, discover redwoods growing in front yards, and learn why the state capital owes its location to a tavern with good drinks.
Want waterfalls? Raleigh’s got a secret one inside the Beltline. Dream of living in a fire station? Someone beat you to it. With author Emily Price, this isn’t your average guidebook — it’s a celebration of the curious, overlooked, and delightfully weird. It’s perfect for locals who think they’ve seen it all, or visitors who prefer their travel with a side of “wait, what?” Bonus points if you pack a camp chair and a sense of humor.
Emily Price is a Raleigh native whose first job at the North Hills JCPenney taught her how to fold jeans with precision — and how to navigate North Raleigh without hitting every red light. These days, she writes about booze, offbeat history, and the overlooked corners of her hometown with the passion of someone who’s proudly earned two plates at Flying Saucer. She watched the Canes win the Cup (twice), gave up vegetarianism for a Char-Grill burger, and still considers Big Boss Brewing her spiritual home base. She’s never met a roadside oddity she didn’t love (or wouldn’t immediately take a detour to investigate).
Emily Price knows that “There’s so much fun Raleigh history hiding in plain sight — you just need to know where to look.” Thankfully, she’s willing to serve as intrepid guide for her readers.
“I ultimately tried to strike a balance between classic Raleigh stories like The Joel Lane House and more unusual things, like Gotno Farm, that even Raleigh natives might not know are out there,” she says about her three years of putting together the book’s stories.
Among her many discoveries, Emily learned that Raleigh has a knack for both embellishing stories and not preserving things well enough to disprove some of the wild tales that have spread. For instance, she says, “That drunken Cherry Bounce story we all like to tell might not be exactly how Raleigh was founded, but it is a fun story.”
Since the book reveals Raleigh’s best- (and worst-) kept secrets, one of her favorite stories that didn’t make it into publication involves a now-famous ham dating back to 1937 that resurfaced at The Mecca Restaurant. It even had its own Twitter account, she shares. Downtown also has its fair share of ghost stories. As Emily says: “Raleigh might be a bit more haunted than you think!”
When it comes to what’s next, Emily would ultimately like to take on a more expansive Secret North Carolina book. “Raleigh has a lot of wild stories, but so does the rest of the state,” she says. “I’d love to tell them.”
Fiction – Young Adult
Devious Prey
By Scott Reintgen | Margaret K. McElderry Books | Simon & Schuster
In this thrilling young adult fantasy adventure by New York Times bestselling author Scott Reintgen, a young dragon smuggler joins crew and passengers in a struggle to survive following their airship’s crash on a mysterious island.
In Devious Prey, a young woman must survive the deadly mythical creature she smuggled aboard an airship after a crash landing on a deserted island frees it to begin hunting the survivors. When an airship’s windmaster dies mid-flight, the crew and its passengers are swept out to sea by a violent storm. They crash on a desolate island, but they’re not alone. A dragoness had been stashed in the hold. After escaping a damaged cage, it begins preying on the surviving travelers in the hopes of remaining free.
The stranded group’s best chance of making it home alive is the young woman who smuggled the dragoness on board in the first place — and the mysterious teen boy who was led onto the ship in chains before takeoff. Both have secrets that could help them survive on the island … but those same secrets could deliver a death sentence if they ever make it home.
Scott Reintgen is a former public-school teacher from North Carolina. When he’s not writing, he uses his imagination to entertain his wife, Katie, and their three children. Scott is the New York Times bestselling author of the Waxways series, the Nyxia trilogy, the Dragonships series, and the Celia Cleary series for younger readers. You can find him on Instagram @Reintgen, on X @Scott_Thought, or on his website at ItsPronouncedRankin.com.
With a goal to “put something down on the desk in my classroom that any of my students could pick up and read,” Scott Reintgen started writing fiction for young adults. Now on his 16th title, the former ninth grade English and creative writing teacher still considers his works “invitation books.”
As he hopes to “invite young adults to the table of reading for the first time or back to the table,” Scott focuses on the element of plot to keep everything interesting and tightly written. For that reason, he refers to his books as “YA fantasy thrillers.”
Last fall, The Rise of Neptune, the latest title in his Dragonships series, which his readers have an “intense love for,” released to 220 readers waiting in line for a signed copy. Fortunately, those fans have just one summer to survive before the series extends with The Void Dragons this October.
“This is where my story started … and is continuing,” says prolific Scott about his writing career. All around Cary, he sees snapshots of where he became an author. He considers it his duty to the community to invite new readers and writers, and he’s grateful he gets to do that — through signings, talks, and appearances — in Cary, North Carolina.
Fiction
SASQ’ET
By Maxim Langstaff | Manhattan Book Group
While known in the entertainment sector for his work with Sir George Martin including the Making of Sgt. Pepper, the award-winning PBS series Soundbreaking, and John Denver, SASQ’ET is a work of historical fiction — a family saga spanning generations; a novel of myth, mystery, and adventure.
This debut novel explores the thin line that separates myth from reality, a genre-bending masterpiece inviting readers on an unforgettable expedition into the heart of the unknown.
SASQ’ET calls on us to reexamine the boundaries between history, legend, and the power of belief.
In 1939, a deadly confrontation in the Canadian wilderness shatters young Albert Pingree’s life and leaves him the keeper of a truth so staggering it could tear apart mankind’s understanding of itself. Sixty years later, his granddaughter Mallory, a small-town veterinarian in rural New Hampshire, inherits more than his fortune; she inherits his secret. When Albert is found dead behind his remote British Columbia cabin, Mallory is drawn into a world of deception, lost identity, and scientific obsession. Inside a locked candle box, she uncovers a horrific relic — a severed hand too large to be human — and a note that beckons her toward the impossible.
Mallory recruits Dr. George Avery, the world’s leading field zoologist, to help her identify what she has found. At first, he is reluctant, unaware of the magnitude of what she has brought to him. As the puzzle begins to take shape, he is confronted by what the answers they find reveal.
Exploring deeper, their growing affection ignites a sense of purpose, even as they face the shadows of the past and the dangers of their pursuit. In the haunting wilds of the Pacific Northwest, nature’s grandeur and brutality are ever-present. Tangled forests and untamed rivers, bears, wolves, and the ancient reverence of Indigenous traditions surround them, blurring the lines between myth and reality. Their quest becomes a journey not only to solve a mystery, but to reconcile love, loneliness, and the immortal question of our place in a world still ruled by secrets.
Maxim Langstaff is a Grammy- and Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and author whose creative work has reached millions worldwide. Known for his vision and exceptional storytelling, Max has collaborated with many of the most influential figures in music and popular culture. SASQ’ET is his first novel.
“Writing is a very solitary affair,” Maxim Langstaff notes, but he also emphasizes that he’s been supported in many ways by the community, as much of the book was written locally and the “making it all happen happened here.”
The book started around 2013, Max shares, although SASQ’ET initially began as a collection of thoughts rather than a structured narrative. As he explains: “I didn’t know why I was writing. And I didn’t know what I was writing for.”
Max describes SASQ’ET as a “what-if book” — one that intentionally blurs the lines between fact and fiction. Because when he asked himself what he hoped to achieve, he wanted “to give the reader an opportunity to go on this journey and make it so encompassing that fact or fiction don’t matter anymore.”
The writer must like the process, he says, because “If you’re driven to write a book to create an outcome, I’m not sure how much that really is going to resonate with other people.” Max believes artists should be compelled by the creative process, which is why he finds it “easy to live around here. … What amazes me is the extraordinary support for the arts.”
Culinary Memoir
Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef
By Brigid Washington | St. Martin’s Press
High pressure. Hot kitchens. A memoir of ambition, belonging, and coming of age in America’s premier culinary school.
Rich with detail, Salt, Sweat & Steam takes readers inside America’s top culinary school and shows what’s really required to become a chef: from brutal unpaid internships and grueling practical exams to late-night vending machine dorm-room dinners while trudging through the rarefied world of fine wine. As editor of the school’s newspaper, La Papillote, Brigid meets and interviews food-world luminaries such as Jerome Bocuse, Daniel Boulud, and Thomas Keller and savors the joys of a life devoted to food. She puts us all in her kitchen clogs as she finally achieves the perfect mise en place both in and out of the dignified kitchen of The Culinary Institute of America.
Unwilling to accept a future that is anything but delicious, readers follow along with Brigid’s high-octane journey through the rigors and rewards of the country’s most elite cooking school.
Brigid Washington is a Trinidadian food writer who has covered a variety of topics, including Caribbean food and culture as it intersects with life in the United States. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Brigid is the author of Caribbean Flavors for Every Season: 85 Coconut, Ginger, Shrimp, and Rum Recipes. Her writing has appeared in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Harper’s Bazaar, Real Simple, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Travel & Leisure, and a number of other publications. She serves as the vice-chair of the journalism awards committee for the James Beard Foundation. She lives with her husband, Joseph, and two children in Raleigh.
In her Author’s Note, Brigid Washington includes: “I believe that a memoir is as much for the person writing it as for the reader …” What she gleaned from the writing and publishing experience of Salt, Sweat & Steam was that while writing is a “very intimate process,” she “gained a deeper understanding that even a deeply personal activity can lend itself to very large and universal revelations.”
Brigid says the direction of our local culinary landscape reflects the diversity and creativity of its residents — “and that’s a delicious thing!” Most Triangle restaurants “uniquely understand, on a cellular level, the mechanics of good hospitality and the rich rewards of making guests feel truly welcomed, no matter the check size,” she continues. That’s something she says should never change.
When it comes to whether she’s inspired by the Triangle, Brigid shares that after attending NCSU for undergrad, despite stints in New York and countless trips overseas, “Raleigh is family, and my writing reflects that.” Her first NY Times byline was a profile of Ajja and Big Cat chef Cheetie Kumar. “How’s that for inspiration?” she asks.
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- Recipes from Readers: Cake in a Cloud
- Liquid Assets: The Matador
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