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.
SEVENTEEN 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, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary love interest
Published on: 31st March 2025
Goodreads
Elven sword-for-hire and member of the multi-kingdom sanctioned mercenary group known as the Taskers Guild, Alnyx takes on a job to destroy a shape-shifting monster that has been killing hunters in the Kingswood of Pugila. A recently instated rule that forbids Taskers to complete work solo sees him paired with Absinthe, mage of the Alabaster Square and eccentric socialite with a wit as sharp as their horns. In tracking the beast the two discover a new fissure in the Weave, the free-flowing energy that powers not only the gifts of the Mages but the beating heart of the very planet itself.
And after a few short days together, Alnyx has come to find it is not only the heart of the planet itself that seems to beat out of time when Absinthe draws near.
An eccentric socialite with HORNS named ABSINTHE??? SOLD!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Trans MCs
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
Unsex Me Here is a prayer book tied together by the strings of a corset. Glamorous ramblers, haunted by the sense of another world drawing near, wander in and out of its inexplicable twilight. From a West Texas town with a supernatural past to a stalactite cavern in the birthplace of Aphrodite, from hotel rooms to gardens to the far horizon of a thought, they seek the source of the disturbance in their minds. Heartbreak is not so far from rapture; holy babble is another kind of gossip. Every pilgrimage is as dense with symbolism as it is refined by desire.
Easily my most-anticipated book this week! I ADORED Fifth Wound, Mattia’s debut novel – it made my Best of 2023 list! – and I’m so incredibly excited for this collection of hers!!! (Seriously, her prose is SWOONWORTHY!)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual amputee MC, Black MC, queernorm setting
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
In the epic finale to the #1 internationally bestselling Fallen Gods trilogy that started with Godkiller, the fate of Middren hangs in the balance as mighty gods and mortal heroes clash in a final battle for supremacy.
War has come. The fire god Hseth is leading an unstoppable army south, consuming everything in her path. Middren's only hope of survival is to unify allies and old foes against a common enemy.
Elo navigates an uneasy alliance with Arren—his friend, his enemy, and his king. Now they each must decide how much they're willing to sacrifice to turn the tides of war.
Meanwhile, Inara joins her mother on their ship, the Silverswift, to seek aid. Still grappling with her powers, Inara must reconcile who she is and where she belongs, while Skediceth has to question if their bond will be enough to keep them safe.
Kissen has no allegiance to the old ways of Middren. But, as she tries to find her family, she is forced to question what, and whose, future she is fighting for.
In Faithbreaker, Hannah Kaner delivers a powerful conclusion to the Fallen Gods trilogy, masterfully weaving together love and sacrifice, loyalty and betrayal, and the true meaning of faith.
GODKILLER FINALE!!! I’ve really enjoyed this series and I am HYPED for the final book! Need to reread the earlier books before diving in, though, methinks.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC with dysgraphia, major neurodivergent character
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.
In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.
To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.
Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.
Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.
If you loved Tainted Cup I think you’re all but guaranteed to have a great time with this sequel!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
This cozy horror novel set in modern-day Toronto includes phenomenal characters, fantastic writing, and a queer romance—the perfect balance of dark and delightful
This stand-alone novel from the bestselling author of the Peacekeeper novels mixes the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Darcy Coates
Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful, and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways.
Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business) has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together.
Queer, cozy, and with a touch of eldritch horror mixed in just for fun, this is a charming love story about a small-town baker, a quick-witted PI, and, yes, an ancient evil.
Huff is always very hit or miss for me, but this sounds pretty lovely, so I’m hoping for a hit!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Disabled MC, nonbinary secondary character, lesbian secondary character
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
She knows the taste of death. He'll stoke her hunger for it.
Eighteen-year-old Sarai doesn't know why someone tried to kill her four years ago, but she does know that her case was closed without justice. Hellbent on vengeance, she returns to the scene of the crime as a Petitor, a prosecutor who can magically detect lies, and is assigned to work with Tetrarch Kadra. Ice-cold and perennially sadistic, Kadra is the most vicious of the four judges who rule the land - and the prime suspect in a string of deaths identical to Sarai's attempted murder.
Certain of his guilt, Sarai begins a double life: solving cases with Kadra by day and plotting his ruin by night. But Kadra is charming and there's something alluring about the wrath he wields against the city's corruption. So when the evidence she finds embroils her in a deadly political battle, Sarai must also fight against her attraction to Kadra - because despite his growing hold on her heart, his voice matches the only memory she has of her assailant...
A dazzling Ancient Rome-inspired romantasy debut, This Monster of Mine is a bloodbath of manipulation, deception, and forbidden love.
A few reasons this blurb isn’t sending me running in the other direction, which it otherwise would: the author is neurodivergent; the MC has a disability that isn’t fixed with magic; there is allegedly major nonbinary and lesbian rep; and I keep hearing major praise for the magic system and overall worldbuilding. So I will cross my fingers and give it a go!
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
“THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING . . . an ode to Tod Browning’s Freaks, Kathryn Dunn’s Geek Love, and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . Grotesque, creepy, and celebratory, Freakslaw is sure to be one biggest books of the year (and possibly, one of the defining novels of the century).” —CrimeReads
An LGBTQ Reads Most Anticipated 2025 • A CrimeReads and Goodreads Most Anticipated Horror Novel of 2025
In this riotous horror debut, a traveling carnival of troublemakers arrive in a small Scottish town and perform their favorite revenge.
It is the summer of ‘97 and the repressed Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.
Enter the Freakslaw—a travelling carnival of deviant queers and architects of mayhem. There’s Gloria, fortune teller and worm charmer; her daughter Nancy, a contortionist witch; big-hearted tightrope walker, Werewolf Louie; not to mention illusionists and conjoined twins, Cass and Henry, and tattooed human pincushion, the Pin Gal. Against Pitlaw’s miserably grey landscape, the carnival shines electric and bright, and it doesn’t take long for the town’s teenagers to be seduced by its neon charms and the possibility of escape.
But beneath it all, these newcomers are harboring a darker revenge. Revenge for being cast out, never allowed to settle, punished for purely existing. And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic, unwelcoming locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that has been bubbling for centuries is about to be unleashed . . .
Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love meets Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus in this sizzling debut by a writer as captivating as she is incisive, as wild as she is precise. Read this and try not to run away with the Freakslaw. Go on. We dare you.
This was out in the UK last year, and now it’s the US’s turn to experience the carnival! I predict great success.
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.
As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches readers into a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Where the Axe is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom.
I’m really not sure what to expect of this one – and what does an axe have to do with anything? – but I’ve seen a lot of love for it and I’m intrigued by the idea of Al governance. So we’ll see!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MCs
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
A transformational, transformative story about videogames, three queer friends, and the code(s) they learn to survive, from the winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Trans Fiction
It is 1998; Lilith, Sash, and Abraxa are teenagers, and they are making Saga of the Sorceress, a game that will change everything, if only for the three of them.
18 years later, Saga of the Sorceress still exists only on the scattered drives of its creators. Lilith might be the first trans woman to ever work as an Assistant Loan Underwriter at Dollarwise Investments in Brooklyn. Sash is in Brooklyn as well, working as a research assistant and part-time webcam dominatrix. Neither knows that the other is there, or that Abraxa, the third member of Invocation LLC, is just across the Hudson River, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s grandparents’ Jersey City home. They have never met in person, and have been out of touch for years, but none have forgotten the sorceress, or her quest, still far from finished.
This new book by Lambda Literary Fellow Jeanne Thornton, one of trans America’s brightest literary stars, queers our notion of nostalgia as it expertly blends literature with technology.
I believe this is only borderline spec fic – one character experiences hallucinations/delusions and there may be a bit of ‘is it magic or luck?’ going on – but I very much want to take a look at it. Again, been hearing wonderful things!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Black sapphic MC, F/F
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
The dark and thrillingly romantic debut vampire fantasy that questions what it truly means to sacrifice for love.
You have no idea what I’ve done for love. Just as you have no idea what you may one day do.
Once long ago, a girl named Favre sacrificed her wings for love. Thana, the young goddess she so willingly gave them up for, sacrificed that same love for power. But everything has a cost.
Favre never got over the loss of her wings. And Thana’s choices led to a life of eternal night, and later, their destruction. Favre has bided her time ever since, waiting for the chance to resurrect the girl she loves who turned her into the creature she hates.
Now, a thousand years later, Leyla, the crown princess of the malichora—an ancient race that survives on human blood —must travel to the Island of the Dead when her best friend is captured during an attack on her nation’s capital. Along with Najja, a fierce, beautiful seer, and the last person she expected to help her, Leyla forges down a dangerous path, intent on saving her friend. But nothing is as it seems. The closer she gets to her goal, the more she risks awakening an ancient evil and destroying everything she holds dear.
Set in the aftermath of a war between vampires, humans, and the gods that created them, Patrice Caldwell’s devastatingly romantic fantasy debut, Where Shadows Meet, centers the heart-wrenching pain of loss and the struggle of self-discovery to ask: do we choose our fates, or do our fates choose us?
Having read the sample available on the Big River site, I suspect this one is not for me, but I still wanted to boost it!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Demisexual MC, demisexual love interest, secondary F/F
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
It's been nearly two years since Vanja brought down the cult she started, and she’s still paying the price. As the Pfennigeist, she bucks the law in order to help the desperate and haunt the corrupt all across the empire—and no matter what, she works alone.
But an impossible killer is tearing through royalty, and leaving Vanja’s signature red penny on every victim. Suddenly the Pfennigeist is no longer a folk hero but a nightmare. When even the Blessed Empress falls, the empire’s seven royal families must gather to elect her successor within a matter of weeks, or risk the collapse of reality itself… even though it puts every house in the killer’s sights.
Vanja tells herself she’s wading into the royalty’s vicious games only to save the name she made, and the loved ones also in jeopardy. But the Order of Prefects has also put their sharpest official on the case, the one who swore he’d always find Vanja—until she broke his heart. Journeyman Prefect Emeric Conrad may no longer be the boy Vanja knew, but they’ll have to work together one last time to have any chance of surviving the deadly catastrophe coming for them all.
With bloody conspiracy, sinister magic, and old adverseries closing in, it will take everything Vanja has to save not just the people she loves, but the future she’s fought for. In this thrilling final chapter of the Indie Next series Little Thieves, New York Times-bestselling author Margaret Owen shows us the pain and beauty of choosing which demons to face, and which to forgive.
MARGARET OWEN CAN DO NO WRONG I WILL NOT BE TAKING QUESTIONS AT THIS TIME.
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Sapphic MC, major nonbinary character
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
A grieving smuggler.
A fugitive mage.
A turncoat Huntsman.
The heist of their lives.
Teenage smuggler, Armina, never intended to inherit the Blackblood, a truck loaded with illegal magical artifacts. But when tragedy strikes, leaving her in charge with only her irritable ex-girlfriend for company and with the magic-hating Huntsmen on her tail, she's determined to follow in the footsteps of her murdered Captain.
When Armina discovers a fugitive mage hiding aboard her truck, dripping their black blood, she can't ignore their pleas for help. The mage desperately wants to rescue their mother from the Huntsmen's headquarters in the Western mountains, a mission Armina knows is doomed to fail, but one she can't ignore.
As they tear across a dust bowl wasteland toward the dark spires in the west, secrets from Armina’s past come into view, lit by the blinding headlights of the roaring truck.
Secrets that could endanger the mission, the truck, and her splintering found-family.
Tiny Ghost Press keep turning out great-looking queer SFF; this one allegedly has Fullmetal Alchemist vibes!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
Zoe Hana Mikuta delivers a bloody and unrelenting fantasy about young witches dangling on the edge of love and obsession, of magic and madness, of life and death (and death and death and death). . .
Just like her mother and her mother’s mother, 18-year-old Vanity Adams is destined to lead a lavish life under the patronship of the Museum, someday taking her place as its premiere necromantic Spectacle and the centerpiece of their weekly soirees thrown for the City’s elite.
But until that day, Vanity (and the other young witches of the Museum) is isolated from the outside world and purged of her magic—magic being particularly unstable for teenagers and often leading to antisocial conduct, mood swings, bloodlust, delusions, and, most concerning, a habitual, violent obsession with one another.
To all of this, Vanity thinks: Well, whatever. Better than being confined to the Sanatorium with the less fortunate witches, imprisoned in a chemically induced coma as her blood is harvested to make World, the City’s favorite designer drug. At least she’ll be dead someday, there’s always that. And at least the Museum has Arrogance, Vanity’s twin sister, who just might remember how to do magic, and who just might be where our story begins. . . .
Very mixed (and sometimes confusing) reviews, but I want to give this a try. Queer witches always deserve a try.
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, YA
Published on: 1st April 2025
Goodreads
Eighteen-year-old Sasha Clems didn’t mean to steal a seadragon’s magic. Or err… More correctly, she did. She just didn’t mean to get caught.
Sasha is tired of being poor. Tired of foreclosure notices tacked to her family’s fridge, tired of working four jobs, tired of dreaming about college rather than attending.
When one morning she witnesses a dying seadragon expel its magic in the form of a basketball-sized jewel, she grabs it. The last time this happened, the jewel sold in the high nine-figures, but only after a kidnapping, three deaths, and an international manhunt by the Magic-Handlers’ Alliance.
No reward without a little risk.
Sasha bolts off on a cross-country race to the single person she trusts to help auction off the jewel. Chasing her is the government, the Magic-Handler’s Alliance, more dragons, and the hottest teenage magician on the face of the planet.
Even worse, the more Sasha discovers about the world of magic and the nature of the seadragon itself, the more she realizes there are things and people that just might be more important than money.
Maybe…? Because Sasha is really done with being poor.
Kind of love this premise! I don’t often see characters who are really, genuinely struggling with poverty, and I am already deeply invested in Sasha getting her happy ending!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 2nd April 2025
Goodreads
In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a clone meets her replacement.
Reed’s debut made my Best of 2024 list so yes, I am very interested in a short story from her! This will go up on reactormag.com on the 2nd, where it’ll be free to read.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 4th April 2025
Goodreads
Deubrise is a land blessed by the breath of the slumbering gods. Magíq lives within nature, powerful and beautiful. Few else can harness it besides the gryphons that reside in the mountains near Nico De Falco’s home, and the rare magíqon like Nico’s little sister. But magíqon are shunned and feared by modern society.
To protect himself from such treatment, Dr. Ackerleigh Sebring keeps his magíq a secret. Yet his “radical” teachings of magíqal history gets him fired from Ravensbourne University. Desperate, he finds a gamekeeper job caring for an imprisoned gryphon. Finally, he can be his whole self.
That is, until Nico follows a misguided impulse and frees the gryphon, injuring Ackerleigh accidentally.
Their fates—and feelings—become entangled in their determination to protect the sacred magíq of the gryphon. Ackerleigh and Nico will stop at nothing for the sake of liberation.
This sounds lovely, and I have yet to see a review that isn’t glowing. I believe this one won’t be available on the Big River site, but you can find all the preorder links for the ebook here and the paperback here!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 6th April 2025
Goodreads
Atreus has carved out a quiet, stable life among humans on the island of Baia Vita, earning their respect while hiding a dangerous he is Mer. Exiled by his own people for the color of his scales, he has learned to navigate life as an outsider, finding solace in the rhythms of the fishing village. But his fragile peace is shattered when Nyel, a naïve and determined runaway Mer fleeing the suffocating traditions of his home, lands on the island.
Nyel’s arrival disrupts everything Atreus has built. Though they clash at first, their growing friendship—and the flicker of something more—forces both men to confront the prejudices and traditions that shaped them. But their personal struggles are interrupted when a powerful criminal family begins stripping Baia Vita’s bay of fish, threatening the village’s survival. As starvation looms, Atreus and Nyel must join forces to save the humans they’ve both come to care for. Yet, with their secrets on the verge of exposure, they must tread carefully. After all, the very people they hope to protect might destroy them first.
Storm and Sea is a heart-wrenching novel by Tereza Kane. If you enjoy found family, mythical creatures, and LGBTQ+ representation in fantasy, you'll love this captivating tale of acceptance, betrayal, and finding a home in the unlikeliest people.
Apparently this does very cool things with the Mer worldbuilding? Here for 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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