Is the much-awaited "The Winds of Winter" finally coming out this year? A now retracted statement from a famous bookstore says that the latest entry in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series might release in September of this year.

Strand Bookstore recently made a list of the top 20 books to look forward to in 2018 and, when it was first published, the list contained "The Winds of Winter" by George R. R. Martin with a planned release date of Sept. 6. This statement has since been removed and replaced with the phrase, "fingers crossed!"

So, was this an unintentional leak by someone with insider information or just an honest mistake? Strand Bookstore is a rather famous independent establishment located in New York City. It has been lauded as the "undisputed king of independent book stores" by The New York Times, so it is a rather credible source and it would not be surprising if they were privy to information that the public does not know.

Some more evidence that could hint at the date being accurate are some messages from Martin himself. In July 2017, Martin wrote a blog post talking about how "The Winds of Winter" was still months away from completion. He also wrote that fans should expect a new book from him in 2018.

Martin also released a rather enigmatic Tweet during this past New Year's Eve in which he wrote that he hopes for better times in 2018. The message is then accompanied by a picture of a silhouette of a dragon pulling Santa's sleigh. Many fans have taken this Tweet to be a hint that the next book is close to completion and that fans should expect a release soon.

However, on the other side of the argument, the Sept. 6 date used in the original article by Strand is suspiciously the same date as the release of "The Winds of Winter ~ Preview Collection," which came out on Sept. 6, 2017. This brings up the possibility that whoever wrote the original Strand article saw the release date for this book and mistakenly took it as the publication date for the full book.

Regardless, there are a few good arguments that 2018 will be the year of release, though perhaps not in September specifically.