Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.
TWELVE books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 5th August 2025
Goodreads
Margaret Dunhaven may have been forced into marriage with the sinister vampire owner of Shadowcroft Manor in order to fulfill a family obligation, but she's not about to stay trapped there for long. The beastly man doesn't even have any decent tea leaves in his kitchen!
However, when she realizes that she's not the only one who's been forced into this marital union, it's time to join forces with her unwanted new husband. If they can combine her scholarly skills with his ancient history, then, working together, they might just manage to reclaim her inheritance, break his curse, and find their freedom.
...Just so long as they don't fall in love along the way.A witty and sparkling 17,000-word novella that puts a new twist on Beauty and the Beast in an alternate-history version of late 19th century England.
Burgis will always hold a very special place in my heart (and tbr!) as the author of The Dragon With a Chocolate Heart…and numerous other very sweet fantasies! This one was a very quick, very lovely little read that very much charmed me!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, sapphic MC, F/F, Maori-coded trans MC, trans MC
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
Sascha Stronach returns in this queer, Maori-inspired Endsong series about a police officer back from the dead who will stop at nothing to save her city from the evil that threatens to destroy it, perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth and Black Sun.
The steel city of Radovan is consumed by fire, with survivors few and far between. Stranded in its harbor are Yat, Kiada, and Sen, whose Weaving powers are in a badly weakened state. Relying on only their wits, they must plot their way through the ruins of the capitol, which are patrolled by a hostile militia, and disable the technology that prevents them from escaping.
But to navigate the crew, Kiada will have to rely on her own history with Radovan—a place she first landed unwillingly, and one she only survived by falling in with Fort Tomorrow, a band of misfits and ne’er-do-wells led by Vanya, a charismatic pickpocket and a Weaver.
Vanya may hold the key not only to saving Radovan from complete annihilation, but an age-old fight between the gods that threatens their world.
It’s the sequel to Dawnhounds! GAH. Stronach levels UP in this one, people – Sunforge absolutely revels in big, breathtaking concepts and ideas, all of them distilled down until they hit like cocaine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pack so much story into so few pages! It’s like picking up a seashell, only for the entire OCEAN to come pouring out and sweep you away. I AM STAR-STRUCK!
(And strongly encourage you to reread Dawnhounds before jumping in. Definitely don’t try reading this without having read the first book!!!)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.
Nor do they have tails.
But they are most assuredly dead.Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins.
Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows.
First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.
Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark.
The third and the once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget.
I have been assured most faithfully that there are NO dead cats in this novella, thank goodness! And also that it packs a huge punch, with some very cool worldbuilding. Divinely-enforced assassination contracts feature, I believe!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: West African-coded cast and setting
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
A cosmic war reignites and the fate of the orisha lie in the hands of an untried acolyte in this first entry of a new epic fantasy novella duology by Tobi Ogundiran, for fans of N. K. Jemisin and Suyi Davies Okungbowa.
"The novella of the year has arrived!" ―Mark Oshiro, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Ashâke is an acolyte in the temple of Ifa, yearning for the day she is made a priest and sent out into the world to serve the orisha. But of all the acolytes, she is the only one the orisha refuse to speak to. For years she has watched from the sidelines as peer after peer passes her by and ascends to full priesthood.
Desperate, Ashâke attempts to summon and trap an orisha―any orisha. Instead, she experiences a vision so terrible it draws the attention of a powerful enemy sect and thrusts Ashâke into the center of a centuries-old war that will shatter the very foundations of her world.
It’s the US release! In the Shadow of the Fall was out in the UK a week or two ago, but it crosses the pond this week! I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, and I’m itching to – tell me what part of that premise doesn’t sound fantastic?
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic
Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.
Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.
The Goose Girl is one of my favourite fairytales – solely due to the influence Shannon Hale’s gorgeous novel of the same name had on baby!Sia – and A Sorceress Comes to Call is a retelling of it! This being T Kingfisher, we can expect a very surprising take indeed on this old story…
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
Kelly Mun is a private detective... with an uncanny sense of smell. She runs Non-Linear Investigations with her cousin Critter, using psychic and esoteric methods to try to earn a living. When a mysterious businesswoman hires them to find the source of a deadly new street drug called bardo, Kelly's life gets even stranger than usual in this occult-noir Seattle.
The monsters are incidental.
I know almost nothing about this one, but the premise and cover – and that it was featured on a few lists of interest to me – have me very curious. I’m unreasonably tickled by the idea of Non-Linear Investigations!
Genres: Adult, Horror
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
In this emotionally raw and propulsive folk horror-mystery, a journalist goes to a small town and unravels a dark secret that the women have been keeping for generations.
Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.
When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.
As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?
Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.
I think I read an excerpt of this at some point and was immediately hooked… And I know for sure that this is going to freak me out and I should probably stay the hells away from it, but we all know I’m not going to. HI NIGHTMARES, WELCOME, MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME, YOU’LL BE HERE A WHILE I EXPECT.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary bisexual MC, bisexual MC
Protagonist Age: 28
PoV: 1st-person, present-tense; dual PoVs
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Casey McQuiston's latest romantic comedy, two bisexual exes accidentally book the same European food and wine tour and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they're over each other—except they're definitely not.
Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.
Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.
All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.
It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?
But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.
I wasn’t expecting to love Pairing as much as McQuiston’s previous Adult romances, because I don’t have any special interest in second-chance romances, or food tours – and a hook-up competition doesn’t sound like my thing at all! AND YET! I love, love, LOVED this! SO MUCH!!! So even if you think it’s not for you…I strongly encourage you to give it a go anyway, if you enjoy contemporary romances at all!
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Black sapphic MCs
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
The first book in a decadent fantasy duology set in Jazz Age Harlem, where at night the dance halls come to life—and death waits in the dark.
It's 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family's thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise's mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she'll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can't refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city's underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.
This Ravenous Fate has been all over my dash for MONTHS, and you’d better believe I’m hyped. Black queer girls being terrible together? One of them a vampire? YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU, GIMME!!!
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Representation: Chinese-coded cast and setting
Published on: 6th August 2024
Goodreads
A young woman chosen as the crown prince’s bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband—but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth the royal family has been hiding for centuries—in this lush fantasy debut perfect for fans of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and Violet Made of Thorns.
Princess Ying Yue believed in love...once upon a time.
Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared.
Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colorful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world.
This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love—the kind of love she always dreamed of.
But there is darkness in this new world, too.
It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.
Mirrors are NOT my friends, but that only makes the sound of a mirror kingdom more alien and interesting. Reflections being people in and of themselves? And what’s up with the royals – they have reflections, apparently, so they’re not mirror-beings who’ve come into our world, right?
…Right?
You can read an excerpt here!
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: (some) queer MCs
Published on: 6th April 2024
Goodreads
A dance to the death. A girl who’s just as monstrous as H.H. Holmes. A hallway that’s constantly changing―and hungry. All of these stories exist in the same place―within the frame of a particular house that isn’t bound by the laws of time and space.
Following in the footsteps of dark/horror-filled YA anthologies like His Hideous Heart and Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, and Netflix’s groundbreaking adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, this YA speculative fiction anthology explores how the permanence of a home can become a space of transition and change for both the inhabitants and the creatures who haunt them.
Each story in the anthology will focus on a different room in the house and feature unique takes on monsters from a wide array of cultural traditions. Whether it’s a demonic Trickster, a water-loving Rusalka, or a horrifying, baby-imitating Tiyanak, there’s bound to be something sinister lurking in the shadows.
So the premise of this is that every story is set inside a different room in a haunted house, which??? I love??? That’s so cool??? And I’m interested to see what traditions and mythos’ the stories draw from – it sounds like we should be seeing some monsters we don’t see so often!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 8th August 2024
Goodreads
The much-anticipated third installment of the Age of Bronze series, following Against All Gods and Storming Heaven !
Before iron helmets and steel swords, when dragons roamed the world, was an age of bronze and stone, when the Gods walked the earth, and people lived in terror. In this era a scribe, a warlord, a dancer, a mute insect and a child should have no chance against the might of the bickering gods and their cruel games. But the gods themselves are old, addicted to their own games of power, and now their fates may lie in the hands of mere mortals . . .
The third in this original, visceral epic series weaving together the mythologies of a dozen pantheons of gods and heroes to create something new and magical, this tale of the revolt against the tyranny which began in Against All Gods is a must-read from a master of the fantasy genre.
IT’S THE FINALE OF AGE OF BRONZE!!! This isn’t my favourite Cameron series, but that doesn’t mean much when they’re ALL freaking excellent – I’m still massively excited to see how this trilogy wraps up! I have some theories and suspicions re how things might go down, but who knows if I’m right about any of it???
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
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