The Future Saints: a New Winter Romance Book
Here’s my take on The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead, a New Winter Romance book for 2026. This book will be compared to Daisy Jones & the Six and I will add it to my List of Books Like Daisy Jones!
Review of The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead
- Setting: Bonita Vista California, a small beach town
- Tropes and Themes: grief and loss, band drama, opposites attract
- Spice level: low
- Publication date: January 20, 2026 by Atria Books. Thanks to them for the advance copy!
Ashley Winstead has written the most eclectic array of books of any author I can think of.
That includes:
A twisty “friends with secrets” book
A book about women recovering from being in a cult during college
A Twilight inspired Southern Gothic romantic suspense
A true-crime inspired suspense story.
But Ashley Winstead has also been writing romance. And I never tried those books! I’m happy I read The Future Saints, because I really enjoyed it.
Yes, comparisons between this book and Daisy Jones & the Six are inevitable, as both books feature a magnetic, self-destructive female lead singer in a band.
But while Daisy Jones is part historical band drama fauxmentary and part tragic love triangle, I’d call The Future Saints a more conventional romance novel, a love story between two characters suffering from different forms of loss.
Can closed-off, conventional, risk-averse Manifest Records exec Theo find love with raw, messy, drowning-in-grief lead singer Hannah?
While The Future Saints is an adult novel, it’s closed door and fine for teens and readers of YA.
The Future Saints:
- incorporated music themes
- was a really moving grief story
- and a sister story
- but yes, also a romance
The Future Saints is Perfect For:
Yes, fans of Daisy Jones, but I also think it will really appeal to those who love angsty love stories with strong mental health and substance use disorder elements, books by authors like Emery Lord (who wrote raw and messy YA romances like When We Collided and The Start of Me and You in the 2010s) or Ava Wilder’s How to Fake it in Hollywood.
