Books that are coming out/came out in 2026 that for sure aren’t tainted with AI?

TL;DR- Is there a book coming out from an author you trust this year, that isn’t part of a series, that you’re excited about? My interests are below!

So I have to read a book published in 2026 for a reading challenge. I have been pretty adamant about not reading anything newly published the last couple years because I don’t want to read anything written OR heavily influenced by an LLM (large language model/ AI). I’m not reading any series that has a book dropping this year. None of my favorite authors are dropping this year. I need some recs.

FAVORITES (no particular order):

1. Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
2. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
3. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
4. The Poppy War trilogy – RF Kuang
5. Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino

TOP 10 GENRES (StoryGraph stats):

1. Literary
2. Historical
3. Fantasy
4. Classics
5. Horror
6. Contemporary
7. Dystopian
8. Memoir
9. Science Fiction
10. Magical Realism