Legere est Vivere

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Est. MMXXV  ·  Independent Literary Press  ·  Pawnee County, Oklahoma

Reading RoomPress

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A secret garden of stories.
Where every page is an open door
and the reading room is always lit.

Small press · Big worlds · Intentional always

Enter the Garden Our Story Our Books
Wander in
✿Where stories take root ✦Independent · Intentional · Illuminated ✿Every book a garden ✦Est. 2025 · Pawnee County, Oklahoma ✿Reading Room Press ✦Where every page is an open door ✿
Welcome, reader

Come,
sit a while.

Reading Room Press is an independent literary press rooted in the belief that stories are sacred — that the right book at the right moment can change the very shape of a life.

We are small by design and intentional by nature. Every title we bring into the world is chosen with care, published with devotion, and sent forth like a seed into fertile ground.

This is our reading room. The wallpaper is botanical, the light is amber, there is always something steeping on the stove, and the shelves go further than they should. Come in.

We believe in the strange alchemy that happens between a reader and a page — in the book that finds you exactly when you need it. We are here to make those books, and to send them out into the world like small, lit lanterns.


Browse Our Titles What We Publish
"

The reading room is always open — for those who know where to look. Pull up a chair. The stories have been waiting for you.

Reading Room Press
I
Title in Print
∞
Stories to Tell
♾
Worlds to Build

Reading Room Press · Independent Literary Imprint · Est. 2025

What Grows Here

The Garden
holds many things.

We are drawn to stories that breathe — prose with roots and canopy, characters who carry the full weight of being human, and worlds that feel realer than the one outside your window.

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Literary Fiction
Stories with deep roots

Prose that reaches for something true, something felt in the marrow. Fiction that doesn't just tell a story but illuminates what it means to be alive — the grief, the grace, the peculiar glory of being human.

Character-drivenLyricalTimeless
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Romantic & Speculative
Love that bends the world

Love stories that twist through time, fantasy laced with longing, and worlds where the impossible feels like the only thing that makes sense. Stories where the heart is the greatest supernatural force of all.

Time slipGothicEnchanted
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Women's Voices
Told from the inside out

Raw, radiant, and unapologetically alive. The stories women carry in their bodies, in their silence, in the spaces between what they say and what they mean. The kind of writing that makes you feel seen.

UnflinchingIntimateNecessary
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Historical & Gothic

Candlelit rooms and crumbling estates. The past pressing up through floorboards. Stories where history isn't just backdrop — it's blood.

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Debut & New Voices

We were built for firsts. The debut novelist who has been carrying this story for years. The voice that has never been heard before. This is where they begin.

Our Belief

We believe that independent publishing is one of the most radical acts of literary devotion left in the modern world. We believe in the book that finds you exactly when you need it. We believe that a small press with fierce intention can change what someone carries inside them for the rest of their life.

See Our Books Get in Touch
Now in Print

From the
Reading Room

The Year That Wasn't Hers by Sara Sweeney
Debut Novel · June 2026

The Year That
Wasn't Hers

Sara Sweeney

"A red door. A ruined castle. A past that wants to keep her."

A woman steps through a door she doesn't remember opening — and into a world that has been waiting for her all along. Tangled in danger, desire, and the unraveling of time itself, she must choose between the life she built and the one that was written in her bones.

Release
June 10, 2026
Imprint
Reading Room Press
ISBN
979-8-234-08310-4
Enter the Story Pre-Order Now Meet the Author
Sara Sweeney
Sara Sweeney · Author
The Author

Sara
Sweeney

Sara Sweeney writes stories that exist in the spaces between — between past and present, between love and loss, between the world as it is and the world as it should be.

She is drawn to the doors that shouldn't open, the rooms that hold more than they should, and the women who refuse to leave quietly. Her prose lives in the territory where the historical and the supernatural press against each other until something breaks through.

She is the founder of Reading Room Press, built on the conviction that independent publishing is an act of devotion. The Year That Wasn't Hers is her debut novel.

Debut Work
The Year That Wasn't Hers, 2026
Imprint
Founder, Reading Room Press
Pen Name
Sara Sweeney (Sara Mautino)
Publisher
Reading Room Press, Est. 2025
Contact
authorsara@readingroompress.com

Read Her Debut Novel →
Find Us

The Garden Gate
is Always Open

Reading Room Press is an independent literary imprint. For rights inquiries, press requests, reader correspondence, or simply to say hello — the door is unlocked.

✉
Write to Us
hello@readingroompress.com
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Our Book
The Year That Wasn't Hers
🌿
Based In
The wide open fields of Pawnee County, Oklahoma
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