Readers are enamored with the bookish, blunt Miss Wilde and her dashing fiancé, fellow academic and secret Faerie prince Wendell Barnaby. The pair’s latest adventure sees them taking the throne of Wendell’s kingdom, only to find out that his evil stepmother has placed a curse on the realm.
Before she became one of BookTok’s most beloved authors with The Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon was the wunderkind author of The Bone Season series, a futuristic fantasy set in a Europe where magic is illegal. It’s been four years since Shannon’s last Bone Season novel, and fan fervor for this fifth installment is at an all-time high.
YA icon Cassandra Clare’s first series for adults picks up right where the first book, Sword Catcher, left off. After a massacre at the palace, Kel Saren, body double to the city-state of Castellane’s crown prince, is trying to hunt down those responsible. Meanwhile, physician Lin Caster is pretending to be the Goddess Reborn, her Ashkari people’s prophesied savior.
The Lady Astronaut series takes place in an alternate midcentury Earth, where a meteor strike in 1952 radically accelerated the planet’s various space programs, opening the doors for women to play a large part in the exploration of the stars. In the fourth book of the series, humanity has colonized the moon and is about to begin the process on Mars. Trailblazing astronaut Elma York lands on the red planet eager to begin, but soon uncovers troubling hints that there was some sort of disaster during the first expedition to Mars, a disaster that the current authorities seem anxious to cover up.
Before readers get a sequel to Carissa Broadbent’s The Songbird & the Heart of Stone, the author will take a quick detour with this standalone novel. Sylina is a devoted acolyte and assassin of the Goddess of Fate, and her latest assignment is to gain the trust of Atrius, a vampire intent on conquering the kingdom of Glaea—and kill him. As one would expect, this plan hits several snags as Sylina learns more about Atrius and his mysterious past.
Silliness abounds in the sci-fi novels of John Scalzi lately, and honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ve had kaiju, we’ve had supervillains with all-cat staffs and now we have a whole book dedicated to what would happen if the moon suddenly turned into an enormous orb of cheese. We haven’t a clue how seriously Scalzi will take this premise, but we can’t wait to find out.
It’s become something of a universal bit to declare “we live in a computer simulation” when faced with the latest nonsense of our age, but trust Daryl Gregory (Revelator, Spoonbenders) to take that idea and spin it into something more profound than pithy. Best friends JP and Dulin are heading out on a road trip—to see all the weird anomalies that popped up in our world after a mysterious announcement that our reality is merely a digital construction.
Robert Jackson Bennett’s superb new mystery series is best described as Sherlock Holmes in a high-fantasy version of Pacific Rim, but even that comparison doesn’t quite capture the inventive, character-driven cleverness of The Tainted Cup. In the follow-up, eccentric, brilliant sleuth Ana Dolabra and her long-suffering assistant are faced with an even more puzzling case than their first: A treasury officer has disappeared from a heavily guarded government building, even though all the windows and doors were locked.
We loved both of S.A. Barnes’ previous sci-fi horror novels and cannot wait for her next terrifying excursion into the black. Cold Eternity’s setting is terrifying even by Barnes’ high standards: a space barge full of cryogenically frozen people, populated only by one woman on the run and the barge’s creepy AI hologram “hosts.”
Horror maestro Chuck Wendig’s latest doorstopper feels slightly Stephen King-esque: Five high school friends on a camping trip discover a staircase to nowhere in the middle of the forest. One walks up and never comes down, so when the staircase reappears 20 years later, the four remaining band together to rescue their lost friend from . . . whatever is up there.
The book world can be a bit like a pendulum when it comes to trends: For every rom-com revival, there’s a rise in dark romance. Hopepunk and cozy fantasy have reigned supreme for the last few years in SFF, so does that mean we’ll see grimdark rise again? Joe Abercrombie, one of the original purveyors of that gritty, ruthless approach to high fantasy, may kickstart a new wave with The Devils. Set in an alternate version of medieval Europe, The Devils sounds, honest to god, like a fantasy take on The Suicide Squad: The team is made up of a werewolf, a vampire, an elf, an immortal warrior and a monk, and according to Abercrombie, they’ve been tasked with solving “problems the righteous are not equipped to tackle.”
Guy Gavriel Kay doesn’t usually write historical fantasy; most of his work is set in fictional worlds. But in every other way that matters, he’s one of the best historical fantasy authors alive. Many of Kay’s fantasies are set in worlds just one step away from our own, exhaustively researched and beautifully realized reimaginings of eras such as Tang Dynasty China or Renaissance Europe, whose separation from our reality allows Kay to comment freely upon our cultural foibles and historical sins. His latest, Written on the Dark, will take place in a world inspired by the chaotic, captivating tapestry of medieval France.
The adored author of YA classics The Raven Cycle, The Scorpio Races and the Shiver Trilogy will finally make her adult debut with The Listeners, which seems of a piece with the dreamy, fabulist fantasy of The Raven Cycle. The Listeners will follow a midcentury hotel owner who is the only person who can “manage” the possibly/probably magical hot springs that have made the West Virginia hotel a luxury destination. However, it’s also 1942, and when the hotel owners make a deal with the State Department to house captured Axis diplomats, the beautiful environs are soon crawling with Nazis.
V.E. Schwab has penned many, many bestselling novels, but The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was a blockbuster hit by even her high standards. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil seems to be a return to the dreamy, accessible historical fantasy of Addie LaRue, this time focusing on three women in different eras who are magically linked.
John Wiswell’s debut, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, was a lovable and ambitious fantasy romance starring an inhuman monster impossible to not fall for. In his sophomore novel, Wiswell appears to be continuing in that vein: His retelling of the Hercules myth will see the iconic hero caring for the monsters set against him, rather than defeating them. Meanwhile, Hera, the goddess responsible for Hercules’ trials and tribulations, tries to come to terms with her guilt over her actions.
We’re big fans here at BookPage HQ of Parry’s joyously nerdy approach to historical fantasy, whether she’s dreaming up a French Revolution but with sorcerers or a World War I fought with faerie magic. A Far Better Thing sounds like a combination of all of Parry’s books to date: faeries, the French Revolution and the classic literature revisionism of The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. In a brilliant spin on A Tale of Two Cities, Parry transforms coincidental lookalikes Sidney Carton and Charles Darnay into a boy kidnapped by faeries and the changeling left in his place, respectively. And as the book opens, the now-grown Sidney is out for revenge.
With the rise of the dark academia aesthetic, there have been a whole passel of fantasy novels set at magical schools. If anyone can take the trope in a new and terrifying direction, it’s horror author Cassandra Khaw, the bloodthirsty genius behind Nothing But Blackened Teeth and The Dead Take the A Train.
If you’ve read T. Kingfisher’s Thornhedge, a novella with a particularly inspired take on Sleeping Beauty, you know she does a great fairy-tale retelling. The acclaimed fantasy and horror author’s Hemlock & Silver will be a dark reimagining of Snow White, starring a late Renaissance healer tasked with figuring out which poison is slowly killing the king’s daughter.
After a quick little detour telling the publishing industry about itself (2023’s ferocious satire, Yellowface), R.F. Kuang is back to fantasy and working in the mode that she, as an accomplished scholar, absolutely dominates: dark academia. And this time, it’s a dark academia love story. Between two scholars who have to go to hell to save their adviser’s soul. We do not deserve her.
It’s been more than eight years since Joe Hill published a novel, but fans of the Locus and Eisner Award-winning writer can look forward to a fifth full-length work of fiction in 2025. (And for Hill, “full-length” is likely to be at least 500 pages—he is, after all, a son of Stephen King.) While plot details are scant this early on, King Sorrow sounds like a fantasy-horror hybrid, a la Hill’s debut, Horns, as it tells the story of six friends who dabble in the occult and summon something rather unexpected.
Murderbot creator Martha Wells made her grand return to fantasy with 2023’s Witch King, and Queen Demon continues the story of Kai, a demon prince who was incapacitated and imprisoned for centuries before finally freeing himself, and must now face a world radically changed in his absence.
Book publication dates are subject to change.
Upon a Starlit Tide, the author’s gorgeous historical fantasy, is a dreamy blend of “The Little Mermaid” and “Cinderella.”
Laura Brooke Robson’s debut fantasy romance is both second-chance love story and devoted character study, all written with simple elegance.
Kimberly Lemming’s sci-fi romance starts with an alien abduction and only gets wilder from there.
With beautifully flowing prose and countless twists, Kell Woods’ Upon a Starlit Tide combines “The Little Mermaid” and “Cinderella” to enchanting effect.
With a sharp sense of dark humor and a stunning voice, Neena Viel uses well-worn horror tropes in deliciously terrifying ways in her debut, Listen to Your Sister.
Full of heart and wonder, Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales is a conclusion fitting for its heroine: thoughtful, fantastical and dotted with thoroughly informative footnotes.
Giving or receiving care can be wonderful—but it can also be terrifying.
Lucy Rose’s horror-folktale hybrid, The Lamb, is hypnotic, grotesque and beautiful all at once.
Sleek, deadly and paced like a runaway train, Victorian Psycho is an absolutely delectable mashup of horror sensibilities.
Camilla Bruce’s cathartic At the Bottom of the Garden uses the trappings of gothic horror to wrestle with the meaning of death.
Our favorite quick reads pack an enormous punch in a slim package.
Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao’s atmospheric and wondrous fantasy, centers on a Tokyo pawnshop where people can sell their regrets.
