Must-Have Monday is a feature where I gather together the books I think you should know about from the coming week’s new releases. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I want to highlight out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other stuff occasionally makes it in too. Corrections and suggestions are very welcome!
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, Cosy Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, agender MC, F/NB
Published on: 6th July 2026
Goodreads
Deep beneath the earth, a forgotten god awakens to the blazing light of the first prayer it has received in uncountable centuries. But the world it knew is not the world outside now, and the priest whose words fill its prison-temple is not the sort of priest it is used to. She's bubbly, terrified, an over-sharer totally overwhelmed by the supernatural world she's found herself thrust into...
And she might be coming to kill it.
You've Got Mail but make it Buffy meets a lonely god-monster in this cozy horror short story about making first impressions count, by the author of the award-winning How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster).
This was once part of some anthology, but now it’s becoming available on its own! Cardno calls it ‘cozy horror fantasy’, which sounds promisingly interesting!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: Autistic MC, gay POV character, POV character with dyslexia and speech impediment, queernorm setting
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
“A first-rate fantasy novel” that blends military fantasy with courtly politics, vast worldbuilding, and a diverse cast of characters (Orson Scott Card, New York Times–bestselling author of Ender's Game)
The newly-edited, definitive edition of the first book in the acclaimed Inda series, set within Sherwood Smith’s epic fantasy universe, Sartorias-deles!
Indevan-Dal is the second son of the Prince and Princess of Choraed Elgaer. Like all second sons, he is to be privately trained at home by Tanrid, the elder brother whose lands Inda and his future wife Tdor would one day protect.
When the King’s Voice comes to summon Inda to the Military Academy, he might well feel foreboding, or even fear—war is imminent—yet ten-year-old Inda feels only excitement.
But there are things that Tanrid hasn’t prepared him for, and Inda will soon learn that the greatest threats to his safety will not come from foreign enemies, but from supposed allies within his own country. And he will be called on to use skills he was scarcely aware of in an entirely new life.
This is a new edition – revised and updated! – of one of my favourite books EVER EVER EVER! The prose, the worldbuilding, the incredible cast, the magic, the pirates, the intrigue–!!! EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS!!!
(I emailed the author to ask how extensive the revisions were, and she sent back “That’s actually hard for me to answer. Nothing in the story itself has changed, but a billion errors were corrected in the text. Also very minor tweaks here and there through all four books, to align consistency with the later stories. So, kind of no, but yes. I also corrected the errors on the maps.”)
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says View Preview beside/beneath the book cover)
My review! (Of the old edition)
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
The Brides is a dual timeline novel, told through letters, diary entries and psychiatric reports that places women at the centre of literature’s most famous vampire story. Before Dracula, there were the brides...
Come to me, and be mine for eternity...
1903. Sir John Seward, survivor of Count Dracula’s murderous campaign ten years before, takes up a post as a psychiatric doctor at an Oxford public asylum. There, a new patient arrives whose traumatic experiences resurrect horrors John has spent a decade trying to forget.
1884. Mafalda Lowell journeys from London to Budapest to care for her recently widowed aunt Reka. She uncovers the chilling truth about her uncle’s death, and writes to her secret love Lucy North for comfort. Chaperoned by her former schoolfriend Eliza and lady’s maid Alice, Lucy travels across the continent to be with her beloved.
Only Alice, beset by nightmares and terrifying visions, notices the strange black-clad man who seems to follow them wherever they go. When Eliza is struck down with a mysterious wasting illness, her doctor orders her to take the healing waters of Transylvania, which forces her to make a journey with devastating consequences.
Four women. Three brides. Which one escaped . . . ?
Released in the UK a few months ago, Brides comes to the US this week! I believe it’s a kind of prequel to Dracula, but canonically/on-page queer!
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says View Preview!)
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
“Markov moves fluidly between pitch-black humor and deeply felt depictions of grief, and between the mythological and the viscerally embodied. They find in Slavic legend a rich vocabulary for queer desire, loss, and transformation. The result is a collection that refuses to look away from darkness while still, against the odds, reaching for hope.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A perfect twilight read, this book will stick with readers as they devour story after story (just as some of Markov’s characters devour their prey). A stunning, thrilling, and eerie collection of short stories that will delight readers of gothic fiction.” —Kirkus
“Stylish, macabre, and startling as a cigarette burn . . . A haunting debut.”
—Angela Slatter, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Award winnerA murderous nine-headed monster from legend permits a podcast interview. The mall has opened its doors, and nothing, not even certain death, will keep the shoppers away. A dead man’s curse drives his descendants to drown themselves, no matter how far from home they flee. An eerie haunted house attraction receives an even more unnerving guest. A grieving widower, knife in hand, undertakes a painstaking, gruesome ritual to appease the gods. If seeking a boon from Baba Yaga sounds nerve-shattering, imagine having to live under her roof.
These thirteen tales from Bulgarian author Haralambi Markov meld Slavic mythology, pitch-black humor, and moving explorations of queer identity with vistas rooted in body horror and nightmares, yielding results that are sometimes deeply disquieting, sometimes surprisingly hopeful, and always strikingly novel. As Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer states in her introduction, Markov “writes with such power and intensity that you can’t imagine where they get the courage to put such words on paper. Their work challenges us to face our fears, our insecurities, and not look away.”
Cover art and design by Diana Naneva
MORE PRAISE FOR HARALAMBI MARKOV
“Like being flayed on the inside of your eyelids, but in a good way. So weird. So queer. So nauseating. And so, so beautiful.”
—C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award winner“Themes of mythology, traditional stories, and fairy tales resonate across the collection, as do complex family relationships and the idea of wrestling with history and legacy.”
—A. C. Wise, Bram Stoker, Nebula, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy award nominee
“A must-read for fans of Clive Barker, queer Weird lovers, and anyone with a taste for beautiful, creeping dread.” —Nino Cipri, author of Dead Girls Don’t Dream
"These terrifying tales speak truth in the language of hunger; the language of dirt, roots and seeds; the language of meat and bone; the language of knives. A haunting and harrowing debut by a rising star in horror.”
—Carina Bissett, Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson award nominee“An impressive debut collection from one of the most compelling voices of modern horror fiction. Haralambi Markov investigates the body and the self, unflinching from what makes these fragile cages beautiful, and what can transform them ... Come to these stories ready to be changed.”
—Martin Cahill, author of the USA Today Bestseller Audition for the Fox“Disturbing in all the best ways.” —Craig Laurance Gidney, author of A Spectral Hue
Several authors whose taste I pay attention to have enjoyed this collection, so I very much want to check it out!
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
From Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, comes Fabulous Bodies, a supernatural joyride where Drive meets Beetlejuice.
Poppy Stringer was born to be a star.
An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs.
When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner’s office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she’ll ever need—if everything goes to plan. But the night’s delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up.
Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.
Also by Chuck
Lucky Day
Bury Your Gays
Camp Damascus
Straight
<
New Tingle! I’ve only seen positive reviews for this, though several reviewers have said the MC’s queerness is a lot less relevant than it has been in Tingle’s earlier novels.
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says Read Excerpt beneath the book cover)
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
Lucinda Roy concludes her explosive speculative fiction trilogy, The Dreambird Chronicles, with the triumphant The Bird Tribe.
Yearning is the only compass you need to fly a way home.
Two years after Ji-ji’s miraculous flight on her own impossible wings, the Dream of Freedom has stalled. The Rising promised by Prophet Dreg has not occurred. Ji-ji’s fellow seeds, living in bondage on plantings, had started to believe the legend of Flying Africans was more than just a myth enslaved people told themselves.
But in a polarized nation, torn apart by a Civil War Sequel, faith is slippery.
Ji-ji’s quest to discover the truth behind her people’s origin story will send her, Afarra, and the men they love on a perilous transatlantic pilgrimage to find answers to questions that haunt Were Wingchildren engineered by those who experimented on imported humans? Or is she part of an improbable myth? An ancient tribe of Flying Africans from the Cradle, who etched their own remarkable story into the stuff of dreams.
Book three of The Dreambird Chronicles
The Dreambird Chronicles
The Freedom Race
Flying the Coop
The Bird TribeAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
I only just learned about this trilogy, and now VERY MUCH need to get my hands on a copy!
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says Read Excerpt beneath the book cover)
(And if, like me, you haven’t heard of these books before, there’s an excerpt of book one here!)
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Bisexual MC
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
A savage, hypnotic dive into the lives and deaths of a coven of vampires living in 19th Century Paris, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Laura Purcell and Elizabeth Kostova
Paris, 1869. The Théâtre Saint-Siméon is the place to be, if you can get in. The black slips of paper that guarantee entry are rare and highly desired, and given only to certain persons. The actors on stage are magnetic and ageless, performing only at midnight and never seen during the day…
Arnault and his clan of vampires have survived for as long as they have by observing a rigid set of rules. At night, they perform on stage at the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, picking off just enough people in the audience to survive. But they understand the city, and how to live in it without being noticed.
Their peace is shattered first with a visit from Béatrice, a witch who forms a strange connection to Arnault; then with the arrival of Victor de Rouvray and his sister Françoise, vampires from a very different world. And, as Arnault grows closer and closer to the beautiful, enigmatic Victor, he risks becoming distracted from the constant bickering of his immortal friends, from the daily running of the theatre, and worse, from the premonitions of blood, death and starvation that he receives at night.
For a terrible change is on the horizon, revolt and revolution are brewing in the streets and soon, the city, and Arnault will never be the same again.
The prose in this one is gorgeous, but it didn’t quite work for me. However, I did appreciate it more after reading this review over on ARB. I think maybe I’m just not clever enough/the right kind of clever for this one?
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says View Preview!)
Genres: Adult, Science Fantasy
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
Step into a portal fantasy wrapped in a wondrous science fiction adventure!
Lady Ada Quintrall, heir to her grandfather the Duke of Corbridge, wants nothing more than to see her family’s new planet successfully terraformed, restoring their fortune and ensuring them a stable future. That means shutting away her whimsical side (including the beloved Chronicles of Yeneh, a children’s portal fantasy written by her own ancestor)—and refusing the requests of Dr. Zamora, the xenobiologist who is begging to study the planet’s native life before it’s driven extinct.
Ada’s own encounters with the native life are vicious and unsettling. But when Zamora trespasses into an Infested Zone, Ada goes after him and discovers the astonishing Not only does this planet have native sentient life, but those beings share a connection to her family that’s older, deeper, and closer to her heart than she could have imagined.
This apparently mixes Portal Fantasy with Sci Fi? I’ve been enjoying Miles’ other books so I’m looking forward to this one!
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says View Preview beside/beneath the book cover)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC, secondary trans character
Published on: 30th June 2026
Goodreads
A thrilling adventure packed with laughs, escapes and kick-ass action, about a smart-talking bunch of rogues and dropouts being thrust into the destinies of empires. From the fan-favourite Warhammer 40k author, perfect for fans of Kings of the Wyld and Arcane.
Kitt Carver is one of the best diviners in the business at finding destinies for the rich and powerful. When she’s nearly killed, and her regular broker is murdered, it becomes clear that someone has an issue with the last destiny that she found.
Determined not to let anyone else die, Kitt gathers a mismatched group – including Two Tongue Derna, her childhood friend and now a renowned street duellist; Sulian the Swallowmage, powerful but plagued with intrusive visions of futures; and Donal Klae, Kitt’s one-night stand who was accidentally responsible for her near-murder – and sets off across the Timeless Lands to warn the destiny’s recipient.
However, unbeknownst to Kitt, she has her own destiny; one which might spell disaster for everyone.
This was released in digital formats last week, but this week is the paper release!
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says Read a free chapter beneath the book cover)
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy, YA
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
Eli and his found family must go back to the time when magic first arrived in London to uncover his lost past in this scintillating sequel to King of Dead Things, a young adult urban fantasy steeped in Afro-Caribbean folklore—perfect for fans of Legendborn and Leigh Bardugo.
Gods and secrets don’t stay buried forever.
The magical underbelly of London is no longer under threat from the malevolent daughter of Death after she was vanquished during an epic nine-night. But in her wake, certain truths have been unearthed that have left Malcolm, Eli, Sunny, and their friends fractured and desperate to lay the past to rest.
For Malcolm—a boy grappling with his inherited death magic—confronting his past means facing heartbreak, realities he isn’t yet ready to acknowledge, and perhaps even first love. On the other hand, Eli, a silver-tongued thief with no memories of his past, is more determined than ever to uncover his lost identity and find out once and for all where he came from, unless his past catches up with him first…
Something is lurking in Eli’s dreams, giving teeth to his nightmares. And when Malcolm finds a mysterious letter in the ruins of a former magical sanctuary full of its own secret histories, he and their friends set out to find a hidden key that may just be the answer to all their problems. If they want a chance against the shadow that’s been hunting Eli, they’ll need to learn the magic of their ancestors and go back to the very when magic first arrived in London.
I’ve heard only praise for this series! Now that the sequel’s coming out I have GOT to get to it!
You can read an excerpt of book one here! (Where it says View Preview beside/beneath the book cover)
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Space Opera, YA
Representation: QBIPOC cast, M/M
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
Kal and Cosmo are teen boys in love. It should be simple—except that Cosmo’s an alien deserter on the run from an intergalactic peacekeeping force!
In this YA sci-fi original graphic novel, teenager Kal is an Earthling without much purpose in life. Cosmot’urr Col Al’neyr, or Cosmo for short, is an alien struggling to find his place in the galaxy. Sparks fly when the two meet—but when Cosmo’s past catches up with him, Kal is forced to make a choice: remain on Earth or follow his crush into the great unknown. Easy choice, right? Now they just have to navigate the dangers of outer space, a megalomaniac pseudoparent, and their growing feelings for each other. Yeah. It’s complicated. Kloud 9 begins as a slice-of-life love story with fish-out-of-water humor before expanding into full-on space opera, packing every page with thrilling action and charming romance.
I don’t often get genuinely excited for graphic novels, but I am for this one! The art is simply GORGEOUS!
You can read an excerpt here! (Where it says Preview beneath the price)
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: F/F
Published on: 7th July 2026
Goodreads
In a land where glamorous knights compete in showy tournaments for fame and fortune, George wants to be the best. Being small and untrained means no knight will give her a coveted spot as their squire, but George won’t give up on her dreams so easily.
Serafina is the best knight around, no question. She’s so good that she’s getting bored and reckless in her jousts. It doesn’t help that everyone is mesmerized by Aethelberg, her sparkling rival, who is much better at playing to the crowd, while Serafina would rather keep to herself and practice her swordplay. When Serafina’s wife and patroness insists on her taking plucky George as a squire, Serafina suddenly finds herself in the position she never wanted—a mentor. Their partnership is going to be even harder than it looks, considering George can barely hold a sword without giving herself a black eye and Serafina is even pricklier than the lance she wields. But if either of them are going to take the league of knights by storm, they’ll have to learn that neither of them can do it alone.
In her author-illustrator debut, step into Fiona Marchbank’s (Fairest Of All: A Villains Graphic Novel, Of Her Own Design) colorful, medieval world for fans of Squire and Ella Enchanted and follow George on a quest to be the greatest knight in all the land . . .
Sounds very cute!
You can see some of the interior art here!
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
I love the Inda quartet!
Do you know if there has been a very great deal of alteration to the text?
Alas I do not, but I have emailed Sherwood Smith about it and will share anything I learn!
Thank you so much!
This is what she emailed back, when I asked about edits!
“That’s actually hard for me to answer. Nothing in the story itself has changed, but a billion errors were corrected in the text. Also very minor tweaks here and there through all four books, to align consistency with the later stories. So, kind of no, but yes. I also corrected the errors on the maps.”
So it sounds like it was mostly copy-editing. I’m still looking forward to a reread anyway!
Thanks so much!
I think this release may be what finally pushes me over the edge to dive into it. I’ve heard nothing but good things from anyone about it