6 New Books by Local Authors to Read in 2026

A guide to journaling, a psychological thriller, a cookbook, and more titles with Capital Region ties. PLUS: Our latest Fit Check fashion column.

Picture this: You’re curled up beside a roaring fire—maybe in a ski lodge, maybe in your own home—with a steaming coffee within reach and a new book sitting in your lap. Now, imagine that book was written by a local author. Here are three new reads by writers with Saratoga ties, and three more that are on the way:

The Book of Alchemy
By Suleika Jaouad

For Suleika Jaouad, author of the memoir Between Two Kingdoms, the New York Times column “Life, Interrupted,” and the newsletter the Isolation Journals, journaling has never been a hobby—it’s been a way through. In The Book of Alchemy, released earlier this year, the Saratoga native traces how the simple act of putting words on paper can steady a life marked by illness, loss, and change, while opening space for creativity to surface. Organized around moments we all recognize—beginnings, love, grief, rebuilding—the book weaves Jaouad’s own reflections with essays and prompts from a wide range of writers, artists, and thinkers. The result isn’t a manual so much as a companion: an invitation to sit with uncertainty, ask better questions, and learn how to hold what’s brutal and what’s beautiful at the same time.

The Woodcutter’s Christmas
By Brad Kessler

Some 25 years after Brad Kessler and Dona Ann McAdams first published The Woodcutter’s Christmas, a tale inspired by the photos Dona took of discarded Christmas trees on Manhattan street curbs, the couple, who now resides in Vermont, is republishing the book with a new selection of photographs and updated text. And they’re using a local publishing company: the brand-new Galpón Press, located in Washington County.

Told through spare prose and striking black-and-white photographs, The Woodcutter’s Christmas follows a man who grows Christmas trees through Vermont winters and watches them complete their brief, brilliant lives in Manhattan living rooms. When those same trees appear on city curbs after the holiday rush, the contrast is impossible to ignore—care and patience meet a culture built for convenience. A chance encounter in the city reframes the moment, reminding the woodcutter that meaning isn’t lost simply because something is temporary. Brad and Dona’s book is a meditation on craft, stewardship, and what endures when the season passes.

Carpe Ski ‘em
By Phil Bayly

Former NewsChannel 13 anchor turned author Phil Bayly is back with another Murder on Skis mystery. Set at a fictional Colorado ski resort and inspired by Phil’s days as a college student/ski bum, Carpe Ski ‘em, released in October, tells the story of a skier that fell from a chairlift high overhead to her death. But did she fall, or was she pushed? And why has her husband now vanished? It’s up to Denver TV reporter JC Snow to solve the mystery.

The Circuitry We Share
By Molly Dunn

Available January 6, 2026

Saratoga-based author Molly Dunn’s debut novel, The Circuitry We Share, occupies the thoughtful space where science, intimacy, and human connection overlap. A disappearance on the cliffs of Big Sur pulls an investigative journalist into a story that feels uncomfortably close to home. As Zoe Harrison follows the trail, she uncovers three other women—each deeply empathic, each drawn to the same charismatic filmmaker—whose lives intersect through a relationship that was never accidental. What begins as romantic betrayal opens into something far colder: a tech experiment built to exploit emotional connection itself. The Circuitry We Share is less about love gone wrong than about vulnerability engineered, asking what happens when the very trait that makes us human becomes something that can be studied, copied, and used against us.

Eating at Home
By Trinity Mouzon Wofford

Available April 14, 2026

Trinity Mouzon Wofford’s Eating at Home reads like a return—to the kitchen, to ritual, to care as something practiced daily rather than purchased in a bottle. Best known as the co-founder of the wellness brand Golde, Trinity, a Saratoga native, brings the same clarity and accessibility that made her a fixture in Vogue and other national publications to this cookbook-memoir hybrid. The recipes are unfussy and nourishing, but the deeper appeal lies in the philosophy: wellness that’s grounding, culturally rooted, and lived—especially for women balancing ambition with sustainability.

Trad Wife
By Saratoga Schaefer

Available February 10, 2026

Fresh off the release of this year’s Serial Killer Support Group comes another thriller from Saratoga Schaefer (yes, that’s her name; yes, she lives here). In Trad Wife, protagonist Camille Deming curates an idyllic domestic life online—homesteading, homemaking, performing devotion—in search of algorithmic approval. But behind the posts, her marriage is fraying and the one thing her followers expect most is missing: a baby. When a wish made at a decaying well is answered, Camille gets everything she thinks she wants—viral engagement, pregnancy, purpose—at a cost she refuses to acknowledge. As her body changes and reality warps, the novel becomes a quiet, horrifying meditation on performance, pressure, and what happens when identity is shaped for an audience instead of a life.

—Michael

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Fit Check: Beth Ann Hutcherson

This past Sunday, Saratoga Living Fashion Editor Tiina Loite was at Arthur Zankel Music Center for Christmas Dreaming With Stella Cole, part of SPAC’s Sounds of the Season Holiday Concert Series. But she wasn’t just there for the music. As always, she was on the hunt for a look worth talking about, and she found it on Capital Regionite Beth Ann Hutcherson.

Within minutes of arriving at the Stella Cole concert, I saw a burst of chartreuse in the crowd: Beth Ann Hutcherson, from Slingerlands, was wearing a vivid coat by the sophisticated outerwear brand Mackage, which she had purchased at Circles in Stuyvesant Plaza.

Chartreuse (named after the French liqueur) is a very strong color; it doesn’t work for everyone. It’s a color that needs some thought in terms of what you pair it with. Its recent revival might be traced back to Charli xcx’s Brat album in 2024. The album’s cover hue (while not precisely chartreuse, per se) became known as “brat green,” and sure enough, 2025 brought forth chartreuse looks from Gucci, Prada, and Saint Laurent, to name just a few. I caught up with Beth Ann following the Sunday afternoon show to learn more about how her look came together.

TL: What made you buy that coat?

BH: The color. I love chartreuse!

The coat is unlined. Was that an issue for you? Personally, I love the formlessness of an unlined coat, but many women prefer the sharper, more structured silhouette of a coat with lining.

It didn’t even cross my mind. It was the color. And the details on the coat—the black leather belt loops, for example. I like the simplicity of this coat, and I don’t like to be too hot. It’s warm, but it’s not too heavy.

You were wearing black as your base ensemble, which allowed the chartreuse to headline. But your accessories added a dollop of another color. That bag….It’s a lovely shade of tomato, not to mention it’s a holiday bag. Where is it from?

Mary Frances. She does beading and she always has these fun, unique items.

And the boots? They have unexpected red heels.

I got those online—they’re Vivaia. It’s funny, you were mentioning the black. Normally, all I wear is black, and then I love pocketbooks—I love to accessorize. So I always wear black and then I’ll go from there. Like wearing chartreuse. And going Christmas-y.

Do you have other neon or super bright-colored items in your closet?

No, I’m chartreuse or red—red is my other bright color.

Are there other clothing lines/designers you go to?

For my basics, I love Eileen Fisher. They’re things you can wear with everything.

—Tiina