Crush on This: The House of Now and Then by Edward Underhill & More Picks

Fall TBR season is here and if you spent the summer in survival mode, you are not alone. There are a handful of books from the past few months that slipped through our TBR and deserve a second look before everyone pivots to spooky season. We have a queer pirate adventure, a warm Latina coming of age with family secrets and an off limits crush, a Korean American teen who accidentally goes viral trying to connect with her heritage, and a trans man haunted by everyone he has been avoiding in a Cape Cod cottage. Something for everyone, a few different moods, all worth your time. Here is who we think each one is for!

The House of Now and Then

by Edward Underhill
Published by: Avon
on May 19, 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Paranormal, Speculative Fiction
Bookshop
Goodreads

From the author of The In-Between Bookstore , the sweet, unforgettable story of a trans man in his thirties who books a Cape Cod cottage for one lonely summer—only to have its magic bring him visitors from the past and romance where he least expects it, perfect for fans of TJ Klune and Ashley Poston.

Harlowe could use a break. With his academic future over, just like his relationship with his long-term boyfriend Jackson, a suspiciously cheap summer rental on the Cape feels like just the escape he needs.

But when he arrives at the picturesque seaside cottage, he’s alarmed to find his discouraging old professor in the living room. His father making coffee in the kitchen. And a handsome young repairman fixing things in the bedroom. Worst of all, Jackson is in the bathroom. None of them will leave. No one else can see them. And they won’t leave him alone.

The house isn’t magic only for Harlowe, and as the summer grows hot and thick with tourists, old wounds and fresh secrets—both in and outside its walls—begin to transform him. It’s clear the house is trying to tell him something, and he’s sure it has to do with the mysterious repairman who suddenly seems to be everywhere he looks… But can Harlowe let go of the past long enough to listen?

Evoking all the windswept dunes and Fourth of July fireworks of a perfect Cape Cod day, The House of Now and Then asks who you would find, if all your unfinished business was just behind one door.

Fall TBR Picks

If you loved Our Flag Means Death and have been looking for a book that captures that same chaotic queer pirate energy in prose form, A Prince Among Pirates by Katie Abdou is your answer. Kit Davenport is an 18th century nobleman who runs away from his arranged marriage and accidentally ends up aboard a pirate ship captained by the infuriatingly charming Reggie Sharpe. It is funny and romantic and genuinely swashbuckling, and it hit the New York Times bestseller list on debut. If you also loved Devils Like Us by LT Thompson, the found family crew of misfits energy is very much present here.

If Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert is on your favorites shelf, Tangled Roots and Wild Dreams by Angela Velez is the one to pick up next. Ezzie Ramos is keeping approximately too many secrets, including the one where she is secretly interning at the urban garden her late father founded without telling her brilliant professor mother or her nosy grandmother, and also falling for the very off-limits volunteer who runs the place. Funny, warm, and the family dynamics are doing real work underneath the romance.

If you grew up loving Maurene Goo and have been looking for more YA that handles cultural identity with humor and heart, K-Jane by Lydia Kang is the one. Jane Choi is a third generation Korean American teen in Nebraska who decides to start a secret social media account teaching her cousins about Korean culture so her baby brother does not have to grow up as disconnected as she did. It goes viral. It goes wrong.

If The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill is already on your favorites shelf, The House of Now and Then is his second adult novel and readers who loved that one are calling it his best yet. Harlowe is a trans man in his thirties who rents a suspiciously cheap Cape Cod cottage for the summer and arrives to find his ex-boyfriend, his estranged father, his discouraging thesis advisor, and a mysterious man fixing a hole in the wall, none of whom anyone else can see.