Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. This week I’m doing several Waiting on Wednesday posts, and the final upcoming book I want to highlight is the excellent and sure-to-be spooky thriller, Serenity Falls by C. J. Tudor
C. J. Tudor is a talented and highly inventive author who has been releasing some intriguing reads over the last couple of years. Starting with her 2018 debut, The Chalk Man, Tudor has consistently produced some compelling books with clever horror or psychological thriller elements. Her other books include The Hiding Place (also titled The Taking of Annie Thorne), The Other People, The Burning Girls and The Drift.
I personally became a fan of Tudor when I read her latest book, The Gathering, an intriguing murder mystery with a great vampiric twist behind it. The Gathering proved to be quite an exceptional read, and it ended up being one of my favourite books of 2024. After this great first experience from Tudor, I am extremely keen to read from her, and it looks like I’m going to get the chance later this year. That’s because Tudor’s next novel Serenity Falls, is coming out in September 2026.
Set to feature a unique horror plot, Serenity Falls will follow a small family who travel to the titular town in the United States. Unsurprisingly, Serenity Falls is far from the safe and happy town everyone believes it to be, and it looks like Tudor has come up with a compelling and freaky array discoveries to push her protagonists over the edge. I’m personally very curious to see where this unique story goes, and I have a feeling that Tudor has cooked up something quite disturbing and addictive in this upcoming novel. As such, I have very high hopes for Serenity Falls, and I have a feeling it is going to be one of the very best books of 2026.
Plot Synopsis:
Welcome to Serenity Falls – the most idyllic, and safest, town in the US – a place to grow up, grow your family and grow old together. For Dan and his daughter, Sadie, it’s the perfect relocation option. A fresh start, thousands of miles from their troubled past in the UK.
But their idyll is shattered when they find a dead body in the swimming pool of their new house – a house Dan’s late mother kept secret from him all his life.
It’s just the start of a series of disturbing discoveries. Abandoned houses where people have seemingly just upped and left. The strange woman Sadie sees around town putting up ‘missing’ posters for a child who drowned almost thirty years ago. An ice cream van that drives around at night making sure residents are asleep…
As plans gear up to celebrate Serenity Falls’ fiftieth anniversary, something is stirring beneath the surface of the blissful façade. Is Serenity Falls really the perfect town or is it founded on something far darker? And is someone so desperate to keep its secrets that they’d resort to anything to preserve them?
Welcome to Serenity Falls.
Once you’re here, you’re here to stay.