The Minotaur Sampler-Volume 21

#TheMinotaurSamplerVolume21 #NetGalley

Here is another welcome edition of the Minotaur Sampler. This free resource offers generous excerpts from forthcoming mystery/thriller novels that will be coming out in the spring and summer of 2026.

There is enough here to lead readers to add a few titles to their lists. See the covers, find out what each title is about, read a bit of each of the novels, learn more about the authors and decide what appeals. There will, I think, be something.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press-Minotaur for this title. All opinions are my own.

Pub date: 03 February 2026

Description:

from the publisher

Looking for a new book that will make your heart race? The twenty-first edition of The Minotaur Sampler compiles the beginnings of 5 can’t-miss novels publishing Spring/Summer 2026 for free and easy sampling.

The Break-Up Retreat by Camilla Sten is an eerie thriller where an undercover journalist goes to expose an exclusive clinic that claims to help women recover from heartbreak. Except some of those women are never heard from again.

In Allison Brennan’s pulse-pounding Whisper Creek, a family works against a terrible storm to protect their farm, but as they help their neighbors, they discover there are more threats lurking nearby.

Jack Friday’s Killer Vibes is a hilarious novel about the “laziest private investigator” in Texas who’s forced back into work after his uncle dies, and upon receiving his inheritance, it looks like the death wasn’t an accident.

Hot Girl Murder Club by Ashley Winstead is a buzzy thriller about a mid-list pop star who turns into the world’s most famous (alleged) murderer after a string of murders sweeps across L.A and all signs point to her.

Ashley Cox’s Pretty Dead Things follows the Lone Star Pageant and all it’s secrets when old resentments and new confrontations reach their boiling point in this rich and addictive suspense novel.