
BEHOLD: my annual list of the Fantasy and SciFi books that I consider unmissable!
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list – these are the SFF releases I personally am excited for, not every noteworthy release scheduled for 2025; and of those, only the ones with set pub dates. And yes, the focus is very much on queer/BIPOC/marginalized SFF. Feel free to find another most-anticipated list if this one doesn’t suit!
Pub dates are the first release day of the book in the UK or US, whichever comes first.
I’ll be doing my best to keep this list updated throughout the year as more books are announced/I find out about them, covers are revealed, and release dates are confirmed/changed! I recommend checking back once a month, if you want to keep up with edits.
You can tell which books ‘struck out’ with me by the way their listing has been struck out, but we’ll still know which books I was excited for, even if they were ultimately disappointing.
Lastly, I’ve done my best to be accurate, but please feel free to comment and correct me on what kind of representation a book has! And don’t hesitate to let me know of any titles you think I might want to add…
Now: the 2025 SFF releases I consider absolutely unmissable!
January

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children #10) by Seanan McGuire
Genres: Fantasy, Portal Fantasy
Representation: disabled MC
Published on: January 7th, 2025
Goodreads
Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.
Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.
Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she’d been missing from birth.
It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.
It wasn’t her.
Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake–and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyrreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.
But even in Belyrreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.
I was not expecting a book about Nadya, but I definitely don’t disapprove! It’s always interesting when someone you THINK is a minor character gets their own novella later in this series… Can’t wait to explore Belyrreka with Nadya!

Motheater by Linda H. Codega
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black bi/pan MC, sapphic MC
Published on: January 21st, 2025
Goodreads
In this nuanced queer fantasy set amid the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, the last witch of the Ridge must choose sides in a clash between industry and nature.After her best friend dies in a coal mine, Benethea “Bennie” Mattox sacrifices her job, her relationship, and her reputation to uncover what’s killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in a dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it’s right—but also because she hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs.Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can’t remember her true name, or how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she’s a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum and snake, with power in her hands and Scripture on her tongue. But the mystery of her fate, her doomed quest to keep industry off Kire Mountain, and the promises she bent and broke have followed her a century and half into the future. And now, the choices Motheater and Bennie make together could change the face of the town itself.
I was intrigued the moment I heard about this, but the excerpt (linked below) sealed the deal for me! Erewhon Press spoiling me rotten, as usual!
You can read an excerpt here!
February

The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: February 11th, 2025
Goodreads
A captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author’s All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises.
Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill.
Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she’s free – a rich young heiress with a world of possibilities in front of her. Then, to her horror, Violet learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet’s still-born brother was taken years ago after Hedrek sold him to a man bearing the mark of the mysterious Anchorhold.
Her father’s solicitor and the city’s bishop are insistent she fulfil her duty, but Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her – and it becomes if she wants to enjoy a future free of the interference of either solicitors, bishops or assassins, she’s going to have to clean up the mess her father made.
On her journey, Violet seeks the help of Miren O’Malley in the hidden estate of Blackwater, whose family once produced the purest, strangest silver; Ellie Briar of Silverton, the Briar Witch who guards the gateway to the realm of the Leech Lords; and Asher Todd of Whitebarrow, who did terrible things and found The Three Who Went Beneath.
Ultimately, Violet must go alone. Into the Darklands. To the Anchorhold where it all began. Where it will all end. To do what must be done.
By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter’s sinister and compelling fantasy world, where blood is currency and magic is a weapon.
Wait wait wait, SLATTER IS BRINGING TOGETHER THE HEROINES FROM HER LAST THREE BOOKS?! Did anybody see that coming?! I didn’t see that coming!!! I loved All the Murmuring Bones and adored Briar Book of the Dead, and now we’ll get the MCs of those books, PLUS Path of Thorns, PLUS new heroine Violet??? EEE!!! This is going to be epic!!!

The Desert Talon (The Crowns of Ishia #2) by Karin Lowachee
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: MLM MC
Published on: February 11th, 2025
Goodreads
The exciting sequel to the gunslinging, dragon-riding world of The Mountain Crown
Sephihalé ele Janan sits in a prison cell in the southern island of Mazemoor, dreaming of escape. After months in a provisional prison for fighting for the imperial Kattakans, Janan is sponsored by another refugee who was once a part of his scattered family. Yearning to build a life on his sister’s land with the dragons their people revere, the peace Janan seeks is threatened by a ruthless dragon baron who covets both Janan’s connection to the earth and the battle dragon to which he is covenanted.
The conflict may drive Janan to acts of violence he hoped to leave behind in the war, and bring more death to the land Janan now calls home.
The Desert Talon is a story of two groups of people who, despite a common ancestry, have diverged so far in their beliefs that there appears to be little mutual ground—and the conflict may well start to unravel the burgeoning hopes of a country, and a man, still recovering from the ravages of war.
The first book in this series, The Mountain Crown, blew me away, and I can’t wait to meet Janan at last! Lowachee is an incredible storyteller, and her dragons and the people who live alongside them are just amazing. If you’re not reading this series, you’re missing out!

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3) by Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: February 11th, 2025
Goodreads
The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she lovesEmily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world: How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.
I believe this is the end of the series (did anyone else not realise it was going to be a trilogy?) and my heart is in my THROAT wondering how Emily’s story is going to wrap up! I AM EXCITED BUT ALSO TERRIBLY ANXIOUS! Although I really shouldn’t be anxious; she’s made it VERY clear that she can handle anything the Folk can throw at her…!

The Antlered King (The Raven’s Trade #2) by Marianne Gordon
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: February 18th, 2025
Goodreads
In this stunning conclusion to the Raven’s Trade duology that began with The Gilded Crown, Hellevir’s bargains with Death to save the ones she loves—including the princess she risked everything to bring back to life—may just lead to the ultimate sacrifice.
Hellevir’s gift to raise the dead once thrust her into the center of a court filled with backstabbing and treason, where she became duty bound to protect Princess Sullivain, the sole heir to the kingdom’s throne and target of many rivals eager for the crown. But the more Hellevir risked to keep Sullivain alive, and the more deeply she fell in love with the princess, the greater the cost became—for Hellevir’s power can only be granted by the strange figure who rules the afterlife, and there is always a price to pay.
Now Hellevir may have risked too much, and Sullivain has become obsessed with consolidating power to vanquish her foes once and for all—by whatever means necessary. Cast out to the fringes of a country on the verge of civil war, Hellevir is torn between protecting her heart or giving what little she has left to finish what she started. Yet, her connection with Sullivain runs deeper than the mortal world, and saving her friends and family might mean risking the woman she is still bound to by soul and blood.
To stop a war, Hellevir must unravel the last of Death’s riddles and decide, once and for all, who deserves to live, what a life is worth, and whether she can pay the price. This explosive finale to the Raven’s Trade duology is sure to satisfy fans of dark fantasy and queer romance.
I loved Gilded Crown, the first book in this duology, with its delicate, elegant prose and lush worldbuilding. I have NO IDEA AT ALL where book two is going to go (I have very carefully not read the blurb!)(yes copying-and-pasting something you haven’t read IS tricky, actually) but I know it’s going to be excellent!


Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Minor nonbinary character
Published on: February 24th, 2025
Goodreads
The delightful charm of The Princess Bride meets the delicious bodyguard romance of From Blood and Ashin this cozy fantasy romance from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher
Halla has unexpectedly inherited the estate of a wealthy distant uncle. Unfortunately, she is also saddled with money-hungry relatives full of devious plans for how to wrest the inheritance away from her.
While hiding in her bedroom, Halla inspects the ancient sword that’s been collecting dust on the wall since before she moved in. On a whim, she unsheaths it―and suddenly a man appears in her bedroom. His name is Sarkis, he tells her, and he is an immortal warrior trapped in a prison of enchanted steel.
Sarkis is sworn to protect whoever wields the sword, and for Halla―a most unusual wielder―he finds himself fending off not grand armies and deadly assassins but instead everything from kindly-seeming bandits to roving inquisitors to her own in-laws. But as Halla and Sarkis grow closer, they overlook the biggest threat of all―the sword itself.
I have been hoping SO HARD that Kingfisher’s recent trad-pubbed successes would mean that some publisher would FINALLY be smart enough to nab her World of the White Rat books – AND IT’S HAPPENING! It makes me so happy to think of a whole new audience getting to discover this ‘verse…!
March

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: March 4th, 2025
Goodreads
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
The hardcover edition features beautiful interior illustrations.
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.
But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
If you’re not reading El-Mohtar you are DEPRIVING yourself, and why would you do that??? Stop it immediately! I discovered her through her exquisite honey-themed collection, The Honey Month, and of course she’s very well-known as the co-author of This Is How You Win The Time War. You should definitely read both, if you haven’t already! The River Has Roots is apparently a kind of retelling or reimagining of some old ballad? Don’t ask me which ballad, but this is Amal el-Mohtar, so it’s guaranteed to be mindblowing!
You can read an excerpt here!


The Tomb of Dragons (Cemeteries of Amalo #3) by Katherine Addison
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: March 11th, 2025
Goodreads
In The Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison returns to the award-winning world of The Goblin Emperor, deftly wrapping up The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy.
Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of Witness for the Dead is gone, what defines him?
While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.
Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; Iäna Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.
Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance.
This will be the last Cemeteries of Amalo book! So we must cherish it. I don’t think that will be AT ALL difficult!

Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman #1) by Olivia Waite
Genres: Science Fiction, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: March 18th, 2025
Goodreads
A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective
Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.
Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers―just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.
Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor―and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting―knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work―and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…
Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, this novella is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’ next installment.
As far as I’m aware, this is Waite’s first time writing sci fi – and I am HERE for it! Honestly, after her Feminine Pursuits trilogy, I would happily follow her ANYWHERE! And Murder By Memory sounds like something I’d want to read even if I didn’t already know the author is a genius!

Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy; Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic Chinese/Siksiká (?) MC
Published on: March 18th, 2025
Goodreads
From debut author Emily Yu-Xuan Qin comes a snarky urban fantasy novel inspired by Chinese and First Nation mythology and bursting with wit, compelling characters, and LGBTQIA+ representation
Readers of Seanan McGuire, Ilona Andrews, and Ben Aaronovitch will devour this gory story—and the sweet-as-Canadian-maple-syrup sapphic romance at its monstrous heart
Tam hasn’t eaten anyone in years.
She is now Mama’s soft-spoken, vegan daughter—everything dangerous about her is cut out.
But when Tam’s estranged Aunt Tigress is found murdered and skinned, Tam inherits an undead fox in a shoebox, and an ensemble of old enemies.
The demons, the ghosts, the gods running coffee shops by the river? Fine. The tentacled thing stalking Tam across the city? Absolutely not. And when Tam realizes the girl she’s falling in love with might be yet another loose end from her past? That’s just the brassy, beautiful cherry on top.
Because no matter how quietly she lives, Tam can’t hide from her voracious upbringing, nor the suffering she caused. As she navigates romance, redemption, and the end of the world, she can’t help but wonder…
Do monsters even deserve happy endings?
With worldbuilding inspired by Chinese folklore and the Siksiká Nation in Canada, LGBTQIA+ representation, and a sapphic romance, Aunt Tigress is at once familiar and breathtakingly innovative.
Chinese and Siksiká mythology?! That is NOT a combination I’ve seen before! And it sounds like it’s going to be brilliant. Eager to check it out!

Point of Hearts (Astreiant #6) by Melissa Scott
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC, bisexual MC, M/M
Published on: 20th March 2025
Goodreads
Secrets and danger stalk the streets of Astreiant…
Point of Hearts, Astreiant’s pleasure district, is being disrupted by an influx of scheming nobles who have descended upon the city for an aristocratic wedding. Mysterious carts smuggling something unknown through the night time streets and civil unrest are creating suspicion and turmoil. Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe and his lover, Philip Eslingen, captain in the City Guard, are keeping an eye on an aristocrat under self-imposed house arrest when Rathe is injured during a riot. Pursued by false accusations, Eslingen takes him on the run to Point of Knives while they try to unravel a plot against the queen and her government that could destroy the city they love. Can they count on alliances from their pasts to keep them safe long enough to solve the mystery?
NEW ASTREIANT NEW ASTREIANT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
We were originally told this would be out around December last year, if I remember correctly, BUT I FORGIVE AND FORGET ANY DELAY BECAUSE IT’S 240 PAGES AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
(A novella!!! They said it would be a novella!!! IT’S NOT A NOVELLA WE’RE GETTING A WHOLE NEW NOVEL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!)

Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC, queer MC
Published on: March 25th, 2025
Goodreads
A delightful queer romantic fantasy full of friends-to-lovers chemistry, found family, rival family drama, and cozy garden magic from two acclaimed YA authors making their debut in the adult space.
Yael Clauneck is the only scion of an obscenely wealthy banking family with its fingers in every pie in the realm. They’re on the precipice of a predetermined life when they flee their own graduation party, galloping away in search of…well, they’re not sure, but maybe the chance to feel like life can still be a grand adventure.
Margot Greenwillow—talented plant witch, tea lover, and greenhouse owner—has never felt further from adventure in her life. She’s been desperately trying to keep what remains of her family’s magic remedies business afloat. So when her childhood friend and former crush, Yael, rides back into her life, she’s shocked. But perhaps this could be a good thing. After all, Margot could use an assistant in the greenhouses.
Yael has no experience or, honestly, practical skills, but they’re delighted to accept. They can lay low for a while, flirting with Margot while they figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, Margot has plans of her own—but plans are notoriously unreliable things, unlikely to survive a swiftly blooming mutual attraction, not to mention the machinations of parents determined to get their heir back . . . no matter the cost.
Delighted to see one of my favourite YA authors writing Adult (it’s Podos, Podos is my fave) and Homegrown Magic sounds soft and sweet and potentially hilarious. I’M HERE FOR IT!
April

Unsex Me Here by Aurora Mattia
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: April 1st, 2025
Goodreads
“A fairy tale, in the classic, sparkling, and powerful ways.” —Michelle Tea
If Aurora Mattia’s debut novel, The Fifth Wound, was a switchboard, then Unsex Me Here is the call log. Please hold. There’s someone on the other line. A spider, a sibyl, an angel, a mermaid, a goddess, or an ex-girlfriend.
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.
Mattia’s Fifth Wound became an instant fave, and made my Best of 2023 list, and the NOISE I MADE when I discovered she had a new book coming out!!! This promises to be just as breathtakingly magical as Fifth Wound, and I’m SO EXCITED!


A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC with dysgraphia, major neurodivergent character
Published on: April 1st, 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.
I wasn’t expecting to utterly adore the first book in this series, but I did, and I am SO MAJORLY EXCITED for book two! This might be my favourite (so far!) of any of the settings Jackson’s created, and I can’t wait to get back to it!

Faithbreaker (Fallen Gods #3) by Hannah Kaner
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual disabled MC
Published on: April 1st, 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.
SO NOT READY FOR THIS, WILL BE SHOWING UP ANYWAY! Another finale I have no predictions for – I have no clue where this is going to go; I just know I’ll follow wherever Kaner leads me!

Don’t Sleep With the Dead by Nghi Vo
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: queer MC
Published on: April 8th, 2025
Goodreads
From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don’t Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby.
“A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence.”―NPR on The Chosen and the BeautifulNick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He’s good at watching, and he’s even better at pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he’s forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone’s been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face at a club one night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn’t done with him.
In all paper there is memory, and Nick’s ghost has come home.
Nghi Vo has a place on my Unmissable list WHATEVER she writes, and I’m more than happy for ‘whatever she writes’ to be a return to the characters and setting of The Chosen and the Beautiful! *pounces!*

Somadina by Akwaeke Emezi
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: West African setting and cast
Published on: April 15th, 2025
Goodreads
From the National Book Award finalist and author of Pet comes a novel set in a magical West African world, about a teen girl who must save her missing twin while learning to navigate her own terrifying new powers.
Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, are practically the same person: they finish each other’s sentences and make each other whole. When the twins come of age, their magical gifts begin to develop, but while Jayaike’s powers enchant, Somadina’s cause fear to ripple through her town.
Always an outsider, Somadina now faces blatant–and dangerous–hostility. And things go from bad to worse when her brother—the one person she trusted—vanishes. Somadina knows that no matter the dangers, she must track him down. Even if it means entering the Sacred Forest. Even if it means grueling, otherworldly travel she may not survive. Even if it means finding the hidden places where those closest to the spirit world don’t dare to go. Does Somadina have the strength –within both her body and her soul — for the trying journey ahead?
National Book Award finalist Akwaeke Emezi masterfully weaves a tale of family, identity, and the power of the past, in a world where the extraordinary is ordinary.
If you’re not reading Emezi, why on earth not??? So far I have yet to read an Emezi book I didn’t adore – including the non-SFF ones! – and Somadina sounds amazing. Not going to lie, I’m so excited for a new SFF novel from Emezi!

Saint Death’s Herald (Saint Death #2) by CSE Cooney
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer brown MC, secondary F/M/F polyamory, queerplatonic F/F
Published on: April 22nd, 2025
Goodreads
Much-anticipated follow-up to the whimsical, joyous, zombie-packed World Fantasy Award-winning Saint Death’s Daughter
Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones is the necromancer that Doédenna, god of Death, has been praying for.
True, she’s always been more interested in books and pastries than in creating abominations and raising armies of the undead. But still—she lives to love and serve Saint Death. And damn it duodecifold, Saint Death needs her! Lanie has many talents—her powers of death magic are growing more complex and stranger every day—but first and foremost is her ability to lay the unrestful dead to their unending slumber.
Unfortunately for Lanie, the most restless of these “unrestful dead” happens to be her own great-grandfather, the powerful necromancer Irradiant Stones. After having escaped from his temporary prison, he is possessing people from all over the realms, sucking them dry of their magic and discarding their bodies when there’s nothing left to take, growing stronger and stronger all the time. His ultimate goal? To return to the icy country of Skakmaht, where he died, and finish conquering the North for his own. First the North—then the world! After Irradiant takes care of his pesky great-granddaughter Lanie, that is: the only person on Athe who can stop him.
Saint Death’s Daughter, the first book in this series, is one of my all-time favourites; if I could only pick one 2025 release to read this year, it would be Saint Death’s Herald, the sequel. If I could read only one book this year, full-stop, it would be this one! Which should tell you everything you need to know!

Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: April 22nd, 2025
Goodreads
A twisted, tangled story about workplace love-affairs, and plants with a taste for human flesh
During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED’ sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents’ house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she’s been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.
An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He’s young, he’s hungry, and he’ll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats – nobody he eats – can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves.
This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow.
Listen, this was absolutely on my radar, but it rose to the rank of Unmissable when I learned that IT’S NARRATED BY BABY.
AKA, THE PLANT.
SIA NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDS!

When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Boricua MC, M/M
Published on: April 29th, 2025
Goodreads
With lush illustrations and buoyant prose, Venessa Vida Kelley blends historical fantasy with epic romance at the turn of the 20th century in this unforgettable New York fairytale of queer identity and found family.
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. Benny’s work earns him an invitation to join the show’s eclectic crew of performers—his first welcome in the city—and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon.
The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Río as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Río means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what’s right, and find a love strong enough to free them both.
I (and many others!) have been waiting for this book for YEARS. Vanessa Kelley is an incredible artist, so there are LOTS of us who freaked out in the best way when she announced she was publishing a(n illustrated) novel! We’ve already had glimpses of the interior illustrations and snippets of the prose, and I’m swooning already. Can’t wait!

Awakened by A.E. Osworth
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MCs
Published on: April 29th, 2025
Goodreads
A coven of trans witches battles an evil AI in the magical coming-of-middle-age romp about love, loss, drag shows, and late capitalism.
On a morning much like any other, 30-something queer Brooklynite Wilder makes the miraculous discovery: suddenly, as if by magic, they can understand every language in the world. Dazed and disconnected, Wilder is found and taken in by a small coven of trans witches who have all become Awakened with mystical powers of their own. Quibble, a handsome portal traveler, Artemis, the group’s caretaker and seer, and Mary Margaret, a smart-ass teen with telekinetic powers all work to make the cagey and suspicious Wilder feel comfortable, both within their group and with the knowledge that magic is, in fact, real.
Just as Wilder is finding their footing, a malicious AI threatens to dismantle the delicate balance of the coven and the world as they know it. Newly assembled and tenuously bound, the group scrambles to stay united as they parse the difference between difficult and dangerous, asking themselves continuously: is any consciousness—be it artificial, material, or magical—too dangerous to exist?
Awakened is an exhilarating, hilarious and thought-provoking reflection on the ways that we are responsible for creating our own realities, a story of finding community, and a meditation on what it means to have a body (and if it might be far worse never to have had one at all).
What about this am I NOT supposed to be head-over-heels for?! And this is from the author of We Are Watching Eliza Bright! As if I needed any more convincing!!!

The Sun Blessed Prince by Lyndsey Byrd
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: April 29th, 2025
Goodreads
On a hotly-contested battlefield, a prince whose touch creates life meets a soldier chosen by death. But can they forge a future together, from opposite sides of a great war?
This is a lyrical and character-driven queer fantasy for those who loved She Who Became the Sun, The Song of Achilles and Lucy Holland’s Sistersong.
Prince Elician is a Giver. With a touch he can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country fight an endless war he can do nothing to stop. Reapers can kill with a single touch. And when one attacks Prince Elician near the battlefield, but fails, the Reaper expects to harshly punished. Instead, Elician offers him a chance at a new life and a new name on enemy territory. The Reaper didn’t realise he could still find something, or someone, to make life worth living – until Elician. And the prince is unaware that his kindness is part of his enemy’s plan, until danger engulfs him in turn.
As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, featuring abduction, treachery and forbidden magic, the stakes rise and tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. As the fires of conflict burst into new flame, who will wield the powers of life and death? And could love really change a world and stop a war?
A powerful and richly-imagined tale from a bold new voice in fantasy fiction.
Lyrical??? Lyrical is an excellent sign! This story with lyrical prose? SOLD! *grabby hands*
May

Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: May 6th, 2025
Goodreads
A new Queer, Asian-inspired fantasy novella about a renowned dragon slayer who never takes her armor off in public, Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame reads like She Who Became the Sun meets The Mandalorian, with dragons!
The fiercely independent nation of Quanbao is isolated, reclusive, and something of a mystery to the rest of the world. It is rumored that there, dragons are not feared as is right and proper but instead loved and worshiped.
Yeva is perhaps a strange emissary to these people. Not only because their face has never been seen in public, but because they are a hero born to a birthright that makes them suited for their task―hunting dragons.
And so the dragon hunter must woo Quanbao’s queen―the Lady Sookhee―to understand what secrets she is hiding. A woman reasonably suspicious of Yeva’s intentions, and the imperial might of the throne she represents, Sookhee bears the burden of the safety of her entire people. How can she trust this stranger newly arrived to her court, a weapon forged in blood and fire, to understand what her people need and how best to safeguard their future?
Like everyone else on the planet, I’m a huge fan of Neon Yang’s Tensorate series, and even if I wasn’t, I would still be wild for dragons and queer knights!!!

A Letter from the Lonesome Shore (The Sunken Archive #2) by Sylvie Cathrall
Genres: Science Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, MLM MC, MC with OCD
Published on: May 6th, 2025
Goodreads
‘An underwater treasure-chest to be slowly unpacked, full of things I nosy and loving families, epistolary romance, gorgeous worldbuilding, and anxious scholars doing their best to meet the world with kindness and curiosity’ Freya Marske, author of A Marvellous Light
The charming conclusion to the Sunken Archive duology, a heart-warming magical academia fantasy filled with underwater cities, romance of manners and found family, perfect for fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.
Former correspondents E. and Henerey, accustomed to loving each other from afar, did not anticipate continuing their courtship in an enigmatic underwater city. When their journey through the Structure in E.’s garden strands them in a peculiar society preoccupied with the pleasures and perils of knowledge, E. and Henerey come to accept–and, more surprisingly still, embrace–the fact that they may never return home.
A year and a half later, Sophy and Vyerin finally discover one of the elusive Entries that will help them seek their siblings. As the group’s efforts bring them closer to E. and Henerey, an ancient, cosmic threat also draws near. . .
The first book in this duology, A Letter to the Luminous Deep, was an unexpected but instant favourite for me – kind of cosy, massively character-driven, totally enchanting. And after how the first book ended, I’m feral to find out what happens next!

Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: May 6th, 2025
Goodreads
In the late 1980s, a coven of queer witches on New York’s Fire Island strives to protect a young man facing a devastating tragedy.
A gripping novel of magic, romance, and hope—perfect for fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea, the Tales of the City series, and Red, White, and Royal Blue.
It’s 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island—and young men like Joe—from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven’s protective powers have been seriously damaged.
Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe’s longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island—a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom.
The Disco Witches need to find help—fast—if they’re to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how? Fans of queer romances with a dash of fantasy will fall in love with this stunning novel of community, love, sex, magic, and hope in desperate times.
Well this sounds UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL! Disco witches, aquatic love interests, a Great Darkness…YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

Overgrowth by Mira Grant
Genres: Horror, Science Fiction
Published on: May 6th, 2025
Goodreads
Annihilation meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse.
This is just a story. It can’t hurt you anymore.
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she’s an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has been willing to listen.
Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it’s already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia’s biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?
Not me snapping to attention because I was also that kid insisting I wasn’t human! Mira Grant is the penname under which Seanan McGuire writes sci fi and horror, and I will show up for anything she writes under any name!

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: autistic MC, queer MCs
Published on: May 20th, 2025
Goodreads
From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.
Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.
Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.
As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.
Starling is a magnificent author – The Death of Jane Lawrence was just *chef’s kiss* – and like many others on this list, I’ll pounce on anything and everything she chooses to write. Especially something this weird!

Behooved by M. Stevenson
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: MC with a chronic illness
Published on: May 20th, 2025
Goodreads
A charming slow-burn romantasy featuring a duty-bound noblewoman with a chronic illness, a prince who would rather be in a library than on a throne, and a magical ride through a world of cozy enchantment
Bianca knows her duty comes before her heart. So when the threat of war looms, she agrees to marry the neighboring kingdom’s heir. But not all royal weddings are a fairytale, and Prince Aric, Bianca’s betrothed, is cold, aloof, and seems to hate her on sight.
To make matters worse, on their wedding night, an assassination attempt goes awry—leaving Aric magically transformed into a horse. Bianca does what any bride in this situation would do: she mounts her new husband and rides away to safety.
Sunset returns Aric to human form, but they soon discover the assassination attempt is part of a larger plot against the throne. Worse, Bianca has been framed for Aric’s murder, and she’s now saddled with a husband who is a horse by day and a frustratingly attractive man by night.
As an unexpected romance begins galloping away with their hearts, Bianca and Aric must rely on each other to unravel the curse and save the throne.
“Behooved is bewitchingly charming, a romantic fairy-tale adventure that will sweep you off your feet (or hooves)!”—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop
I’m sorry, he gets turned into a WHAT??? I am amused and I am charmed and I am here for it!

Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity edited by Lee Mandelo
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: May 27th, 2025
Goodreads
Revolutionary and visionary, these twenty-two speculative stories edited by Lambda, Nebula and Hugo finalist Lee Mandelo explore the vast potentialities of our queer and trans futures.
From self-styled knights fighting in dystopian city streets to conservationists finding love in the Appalachian forests; from social media posts about domestic “bliss” in a lottery-based, state-housing skyscraper to herding feral cats off of one’s scientific equipment; from street drugs that create doppelgangers to dance-club cruising at the edge of the galaxy—Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity interrogates the farthest borders of the sci-fi landscape to imagine how queer life will look centuries in the future—or ten years from now.
Filled with brutal honesty, raw emotions, sexual escapades, and delightful whimsy, Amplitudes speaks to the longstanding tradition of queer fiction as protest. This essential collection serves as an evolving map of our celebrations, anxieties, wishes, pitfalls, and—most of all—our rallying cry that we’re here, we’re queer—and the future is ours!
Featuring stories by Esther Alter • Bendi Barrett • Ta-wei Chi, trans. Ariel Chu • Colin Dean • Maya Deane • Dominique Dickey • Katharine Duckett • Meg Elison • Paul Evanby • Aysha U. Farah • Sarah Gailey • Ash Huang • Margaret Killjoy • Wen-yi Lee • Ewen Ma • Jamie McGhee • Sam J. Miller • Aiki Mira, trans. CD Covington • Sunny Moraine • Nat X. Ray • Neon Yang • Ramez Yoakeim
Look at that line-up! If you’re not starry-eyed, you don’t know enough of these authors – this collection is CLEARLY going to be something special!

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: May 27th, 2025
Goodreads
Two parents and their recently-bitten-werewolf daughter try to fit into a privileged New England society of magic aristocracy. But deadly terrors await them – ancient prophecies, remorseless magical trials, hidden conspiracies and the PTA bake sale.
From the NYT-besetselling author of Dreadful, Big Little Lies goes to magic school, cosy fantasy perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Olivia Atwater and Heather Fawcett.When Vivian’s kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire.
As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors and demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society – shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal Trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents’ WhatsApp group.
And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it’s about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door…
I immediately fell in love with this premise, but I wasn’t completely sold until we got an excerpt over on Reactor – and now I’m in COMPLETE grabby-hands mode!
You can read an excerpt here!
June

Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC
Published on: June 3rd, 2025
Goodreads
Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the World Fantasy Award.
“Look at you, eating magic like you’re one of us.”
Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions.
Walden is good at her job–no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school safe with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from–is herself.
I loved Tesh’s first novel, Some Desperate Glory, and when I read how she described this one, I was sold SO HARD!
“What if the teachers at a magical school were actually doing their jobs? THE INCANDESCENT is a book about risk assessments, lesson planning, predicted grades, and how to prevent teenage magicians from enthusiastically feeding themselves to demons; also about privilege, power, and pedagogy.”
Bonus: “Chaos bisexual is OVER, highly competent thirtysomething career focused bisexual is HERE.” !!! GIMME, Sia neeeeeeds!!!


A Dance of Lies by Brittney Arena
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Disabled MC
Published on: June 5th, 2025
Goodreads
The epic, unmissable new romantic fantasy. 2025’s most-anticipated debut romantasy is filled with hope after heartbreak, secrets, betrayal, dancing – and the touch of a goddess of death.
My protector is gone, revealed to be a monster. But I remind myself that I am not a damsel. I’m no princess bound within a tower.
I am a shadow.
Twenty-two-year-old Vasalie Moran was once a gifted dancer in King Illian’s court – until he framed her for murder without explanation. Barely surviving her two years in the dungeons at the cost of her mind and body, she’s suddenly called to face her King. He offers her a deal: become his spy at the month-long royal Gathering and he’ll grant her freedom.
But dark forces are at work within the Gathering’s halls. As Illian’s orders grow bloody and dangerous, forcing her to harm and betray those around her, Vasalie discovers the monster she serves may be aligned with a bigger monster – one far closer to home. With her world and freedom threatened, Vasalie enlists the help of Illian’s brother and greatest adversary, the King of the East, who despite his devil-may-care reputation proves himself to be both politically astute and surprisingly kind.
As the rivalry between brothers escalates with Vasalie caught in the middle, the truth of her past, including her imprisonment and the real reason Illian chose her as his spy, comes to light. If she wants to survive, she must decide who to trust, who to fight for, and how much of her soul she’s willing to damn in the process.
I can count on the fingers of one hand how often I’ve come across disabled MCs in Fantasy, and I’m always eager for more! And here we have one playing kings off against each other? With a goddess of death somehow involved? ALL THE YES!

Helm by Sarah Hall
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: June 5th, 2025
Goodreads
A wondrous, elemental novel from ‘a writer of show-stopping genius’ (Guardian).
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind – a subject of folklore and awe, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.
Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over this phenomenon, Helm’s extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm – and the farmer’s daughter who loved Helm. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.
Rich, wild and vital, Helm is the story of a unique life force, and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.
I’ve always been fascinated by bodiless beings and gods, and the being Helm sounds like a bit of both! Really looking forward to see what Hall does with this premise! (And delighted that Helm isn’t gendered in the blurb – hopefully that means Helm is beyond gender in the book too!)

The Witch Roads (The Witch Roads #1) by Kate Elliott
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Published on: June 10th, 2025
Goodreads
An epic tale of class, rank, and power from one of the finest writers of epic fantasy.
Status is hereditary, class is bestowed, trust must be earned.
When an arrogant prince (and his equally arrogant entourage) gets stuck in Orledder Halt as part of brutal political intrigue, competent and sunny deputy courier Elen—once a child slave meant to shield noblemen from the poisonous Pall—is assigned to guide him through the hills to reach his destination.
When she warns him not to enter the haunted Spires, the prince doesn’t heed her advice, and the man who emerges from the towers isn’t the same man who entered.
The journey that follows is fraught with danger. Can a group taught to ignore and despise the lower classes survive with a mere deputy courier as their guide?
The Witch Roads is the latest epic novel by fan favorite, Kate Elliott.
NEW KATE ELLIOTT! Specifically, Elliot has said that this is the book that made her fall in love with writing again, which only makes me more eager to read it!

Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MCs
Published on: June 10th, 2025
Goodreads
NO KING CAN RULE THEM.
THE TUDOR QUEENS AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE – DISCOVER YOUR NEW EPIC FANTASY OBSESSION.
The king has been appointed by god to marry six queens. Those six queens are all that stand between the kingdom of Elben and ruin. Or so we have been told.
Each queen vies for attention. Clever, ambitious Boleyn is determined to be Henry’s favourite. And if she must incite a war to win Henry over? So be it.
Seymour acts as spy and assassin in a court teeming with dragons, backstabbing courtiers and strange magic. But when she and Boleyn become the unlikeliest of things – allies – the balance of power begins to shift. Together they will discover an ancient, rotting magic at Elben’s heart. A magic that their king will do anything to protect.
A captivating epic fantasy filled with dragons, court politics and sapphic yearning, perfect for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and House of the Dragon. This is the Tudor Queens as you have never seen them before.
See, if THIS had been what we were learning about, I would have paid FAR more attention in history class! I love everything about this premise, can’t wait to see what Race does with it!

The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: June 17th, 2025
Goodreads
From New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton comes the start of a sweeping epic fantasy series where a talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love—either way, her choice will upend the world.
Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?
Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father’s organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.
Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire’s fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance—and an obligation—to bring down the entire corrupt system. She’ll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her. But love is a two-way street, and Iriset’s own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all.
You couldn’t pay me to skip a Tessa Gratton book! Gratton is one of those incredible authors who becomes better and better with every book, and their strange, queer fantasies are everything I ever wanted! The Mercy Makers is the first in a trilogy, and has been comped to Kushiel’s Dart, one of my all-time faves. (I’d usually be warier about comps, but it’s Tessa Gratton, so I have no doubts at all that this comp is justified.) I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED!
(Plus according to the acquisition announcement we’re dealing with ‘the magic of human architecture’, and I have no idea what that means but I NEED TO KNOW!)

A Covenant of Ice (The Crowns of Ishia #3) by Karin Lowachee
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC/s
Published on: June 17th, 2025
Goodreads
The exciting conclusion to the gunslinging dragonrider trilogy!
Havinger Lilley has finally reunited with his former comrade and lover Janan in the southern island state of Mazemoor. Now, partnered to both Janan and Meka, Lilley hopes he can heal from the experience that changed his life forever: being bonded to a king dragon of the north and to the Ba’Suon man Raka who sacrificed his life to save it. Raka is now, in some strange way, a part of the dragon too, and Lilley is plagued by dreams and thoughts that he knows are not his own.
Compelled by these dreams to return to the frozen north that was once Raka’s home, Lilley and his partners make the arduous journey toward an arctic confrontation with the power-hungry Kattakans that could result in another devastating war.
In this final chapter of The Crowns of Ishia series, the survival of the Ba’Suon people, their dragons, and the land itself rests on the decisions of Lilley, Janan and Meka.
The finale of the Crowns of Ishia series! And another blurb I had to copy and paste without reading, since as of this writing we don’t have book two yet…

Seventhblade by Tonia Laird
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Indigenous MC
Published on: June 17th, 2025
Goodreads
For readers of N.K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, a fast-paced, anti-colonial, Indigenous-led, secondary-world fantasy debut from a fresh new Indigenous voice that explores twisted power dynamics and the effects of settler colonialism
After the murder of T’Rayles’s adopted son, the infamous warrior and daughter of the Indigenous Ibinnas returns to the colonized city of Seventhblade, ready to tear the streets asunder in search of her son’s killer. T’Rayles must lean into the dangerous power of her inherited sword and ally herself with questionable forces, including the Broken Fangs, an alliance her mother founded, now fallen into greed and corruption, and the immortal Elraiche, a powerful and manipulative deity exiled from a faraway land. Navigating the power shifts in a colonized city on the edge and contending with a deadly new power emerging from within, T’Rayles must risk everything to find the answers, and the justice, she so desperately desires.
Loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, and set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, Seventhblade is a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright, emerging Indigenous voice.
It’s entirely possible this might end up too grim for me, but after reading about how Laird wanted to build a high-fantasy world through an Indigenous lens – which is, critically, not the same as, and an even bigger deal than, ‘just’ writing high fantasy with an Indigenous lead! – I am officially now WILD to read this, hi yes I need it YESTERDAY!

Silvercloak (Silvercloak Saga #1) by L. K. Steven
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: June 24th, 2025
Goodreads
From an award-winning YA author comes the first in an addictive new romantic fantasy series: In a corrupt world where magic is created and enhanced by pleasure and pain, to avenge her parents’ deaths a young woman goes undercover amongst a vicious magical mafia organization only to fall into an intricate web of lies and deception. . . as she tries not to fall for the cutthroat son of the man who killed her parents.
Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron Killoran’s parents, destroying her idyllic childhood. Hell-bent on revenge, she lies her way into Silvercloak Academy—the training ground for her city’s elite order of detectives—with a single goal: to bring the Bloodmoons to justice.
But when Saff’s deception is exposed, rather than being cast out, she’s given a rare opportunity: to go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside.
Descending into a world where pleasure and pain are the most powerful currencies, Saff must commit some truly heinous deeds to keep her cover—and her life. Not only are there rival gangs and sinister smuggling rings to contend with, but there’s also her growing feelings for the kingpin’s tortured son, with his vicious pet fallowwolf, his dark past, and the curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saffron’s hand.
With each day testing her loyalties further, Saff finds her web of lies becoming harder to spin. And when one false step could destroy everything and everyone she’s ever loved . . . the detective who’s dedicated her life to vengeance just might die for it.
All right, this doesn’t sound like my usual thing at all, but there has been so much praise for it – especially the magic and the worldbuilding, which we KNOW are my catnip! – that I can’t resist.

Meet Me at the Crossroads by Megan Giddings
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black MC
Published on: June 30th, 2025
Goodreads
From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.
On an ordinary summer morning, the world is changed by the appearance of seven mysterious doors that seemingly lead to another world. People are, of course, mesmerized and intrigued: A new dimension filled with beauty and resources beckons them to step into an adventure. But, perhaps inevitably, people soon learn that what looks like paradise may very well be filled with danger.
Ayanna and Olivia, two Black midwestern teens–and twin sisters–have different ideas of what may lie in the world beyond. But will their personal bond endure such wanton exploration? And when one of them goes missing, will the other find solace on her own? And will she uncover the circumstances of what truly happened to her once constant companion and best friend?
Megan Giddings brings her customarily brilliant and eye-opening powers of storytelling to give us a narrative that dazzles the senses and bewitches the mind. Meet Me at the Crossroads is an unforgettable novel about faith, love, and family from one of today’s most exciting and surprising young writers.
After Giddings’ book The Women Could Fly, I SHRIEKED to see she had a new novel coming! And this one’s about magic doors? WHERE DO THEY LEAD? I must know!
July

Stone and Sky (Rivers of London #10) by Ben Aaronovitch
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Black biracial MC
Published on: July 3rd, 2025
Goodreads
“This isn’t London. The rules are different up here…”
All Detective Constable Peter Grant wanted was a nice holiday up in Scotland.
He’ll need one once this is over…
Sea: check.
Sand: some.
Sun: sort of – but that’s not the only thing in the sky…
I am an unabashed fan of the Rivers of London series, and I won’t hesitate to drop everything and RUN to get my hands on book 10 when it’s out!

Moonrising by Claire Barner
Genres: Science Fiction, Queer Protagonists
Representation: QBIPOC cast
Published on: July 8th, 2025
Goodreads
A debut near future romance, where Sea of Tranquility meets Winter’s Orbit, told against the backdrop of the Moon’s first lunar colony, with a multicultural and LGBTQ+ cast, about a cynical agronomist and charming Emirati businessman who fall in love, and battle eco-terrorists.
In 2073, controversial agronomist Dr. Alex Cole has dedicated her life to mutagenetic food, the only solution to feeding a world torn apart by climate change. When fierce opposition from radical environmentalists wipes out her lab funding, a surprising lifeline appears in the form of Mansoor Al Kaabi, a charismatic Emirati businessman who needs a sustainable food supply for his guests on the Moon’s first hotel.
Alex moves to the Moon colony with Mansoor, and they immediately dive into the challenging work. As she smuggles in illegal chickens, fights a vexing tomato fungus, and dreams of olive groves on the Moon, Alex is surprised to find herself falling in love not just with the lunar colony, but with Mansoor, whose vision for the future of the Moon extends far beyond luxury hotels.
Back on Earth, eccentric genius Victor Beard and Mansoor’s younger brother Rashid fight to push the Homestead Act through Congress. Without the support of the US government, they’ll never be able to achieve their goal to relocate humanity to the Moon and secure a second chance for life on Earth.
When eco-terrorists threaten the lunar colony, Alex, Mansoor, Victor, and Rashid must choose what they’re willing to die for–and what they’re really living for. Is it their grandiose visions of saving the planet–or is it each other?
Something about this hooked me the moment I learned about it, and I’m not-very-low-key obsessed. Gimmeeeeeeeeee!

The Secret Market of the Dead by Giovanni De Feo
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: July 8th, 2025
Goodreads
An Italian-inspired gothic historical fantasy debut in which a young woman competing with her twin brother to inherit the family forge finds her power in the nocturnal world that lurks beneath her own.
Just beyond the waking edges of Lucerìa, an 18th-century town in the kingdom of Naples, lies the Night: an enigmatic fiefdom governed by seven immortals and fueled by Moira, the power to reshape one’s destiny.
On this porous border separating Day from Night, Oriana spends her time fantasizing about becoming a smith in her father’s forge and eavesdropping on whispered tales of beasts and men who roam the nocturnal realm. But in the Night, these stories come alive, as Oriana saw for herself after she inadvertently trespassed into the Secret Market of the Dead, where vendors hawk Moira to those desperate enough to accept its immeasurably steep price.
Years later, when her father chooses her twin brother to succeed him, Oriana challenges her sibling to a series of trials to determine the forge’s true heir. But as the twins’ fierce competition escalates, with the town and her own family set firmly against her, Oriana realizes that to break free from the stifling confines of Day, she must once again embrace the Night—and, as always, everything comes with a cost.
It’s been a while since I read anything describing itself as ‘gothic fantasy’, but this sounds amazing! A woman who wants to be a smith is already something we don’t see often, and the Night? Hi, how soon can I visit, please and thank you???

The Bloodless Queen by Joshua Phillip Johnson
Genres: Science Fiction
Published on: July 8th, 2025
Goodreads
From Joshua Phillip Johnson, an odd, melancholic near-future sci-fi standalone about two parents determined to save their daughter, turned strange and fae after her death, by seeking answers deep within mysterious nature preserves
On the autumnal equinox of 1987, the countries of the world closed the gates on vast fenced-in nature preserves called Harbors, created to combat the escalating effects of climate change.
132,329 people died that day, but instead of going cold, they endured, becoming odd and fae before disappearing beyond the fences, never to be seen again. Each autumnal equinox thereafter, the same happens again.
In the present day, Evangeline and Calidore are working as fencers: government-employed protectors of the Harbors with magical powers. Returning home after an equinox spent patrolling, they find their daughter Winnifred, not yet six, has died and grown fae, killing her babysitters and leaving strange symbols etched into the walls.
Unwilling to surrender their child, Evangeline and Calidore chain her in iron and carry her into the lands beyond the fence, crossing over into enemy territory with a desperate plan: use Winnifred to find the Faerie Queen, kill Her, and steal whatever power She holds over death to bring Winnifred back.
An imaginative and melancholic sci-fi standalone, The Bloodless Queen is an atmospheric odyssey set against a tense chase as parents race to reclaim the life of their lost child.
The description specifies TWICE that this is sci fi, but…faeries? Faeries in sci fi??? All right, you most definitely have my attention!

A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: July 15th, 2025
Goodreads
As World War II rages around her, a witch abandoned by her coven must journey to find a book of unspeakable power before it lands in Nazi hands
Stubborn, plain-spoken and from an unimpressive family, Lydia Polk never expected to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Witches. Now, with Hitler’s army rampaging across Europe, the witches of Britain have joined the war effort, and Lydia is key to the cause: she must use her magic to track down magical relics before Hitler and his sycophants can. When a Nazi witch infiltrates the Academy with heart-breaking consequences, the coven is left shaken, exposed and divided. The elder British witches have no interest in further loss of coven life in service of a government that has forced them into hiding for decades, no matter the consequences to the world. But with the discovery of the Grimorium Bellum, an ancient book that leaves a trail of death and destruction wherever it goes, Lydia knows her mission has never been more urgent.
Alone and woefully outnumbered, Lydia makes her way to the heart of occupied France, where she finds allies in Rebecca Gagne—a fierce French resistance fighter chockful of secrets—and Henry Boudreaux—a handsome Haitian-American art historian with a little magic of his own. Together, they traverse the country, stalked by the natural and supernatural alike, in search of the grimoire. But, as Lydia soon discovers, finding the book is only half the battle—the Grimorium Bellum has a dark agenda all its own. Lydia must subdue it before the Witches of the Third Reich can use it—but she’ll have to survive the book herself, first.
That is a FANTASTIC premise, and though I was initially a little wary, I’ve been encouraged by the early reviews that claim this is beautifully written.

Daughters of Flood and Fury (Stormbringer Saga #2) by Gabriella Buba
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Filipino-inspired setting and cast, bisexual MC, sapphic MC
Published on: July 22nd, 2025
Goodreads
In this powerful sequel to Saints of Storm and Sorrow, Lunurin and Alon struggle to unify the archipelago against the returning Codicíans, while Inez embraces her power and makes new allies among the ruthless pirates of the South Sea.
Enthralling Filipino-inspired fantasy for fans of The Hurricane Wars, R.F. Kuang and Tasha Suri.
Several years after the defeat of the Codicíans in Aynila, Lunurin and Alon are fighting to solidify their alliances across the archipelago. But petty rivalries, suspicion and conflicted loyalties threaten to undermine their efforts.
Inez has been training as a tide-touched healer with Alon, but the gentle side of Aman Sinaya’s gift does not come naturally to her. When she hears a rumour that her sister Catalina is living among a group of missionaries on a nearby island, Inez embarks on a dangerous journey over the sea. Aboard a pirate ship, she meets Umali, the boat’s fierce fire-tender captain. Umali has never been gentle, and she burns brighter than anyone Inez has ever known.
Lunurin and Alon are desperate to follow Inez, but the Codícians are closing in with a powerful armada to retake Aynila. To stand any chance, Lunurin must unify the disparate factions of her forces before the festival of the eclipse, when the world’s magic will be at its strongest.
Three goddesses stand behind them. But without human allies, even that power may not be enough to save their islands and the people they love.
I adored the first book, Buba’s debut, and while I wasn’t expecting the second book to focus on Inez, I’M TOTALLY GOOD WITH THAT! Although it does sound like Lunurin will still be a main character too – wonderful!

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC/s
Published on: July 22nd, 2025
Goodreads
A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical.
A gorgeous hardcover edition featuring sprayed edges!
The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.
Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?
I always swoon for Khaw’s prose, ever since I read and adored their novel The All-Consuming World. Khaw + magic school? No way could I resist that! GIMME!

Beasts of Carnaval by Rosália Rodrigo
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Puerto Rican MC
Published on: July 29th, 2025
Goodreads
For fans of THE NIGHT CIRCUS, GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW, and BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER, Rosália Rodrigo’s Puerto Rico inspired fantasy debut follows a woman recently freed from slavery as she searches for her missing brother at the Carnaval of Beasts and learns why nobody who enters Carnaval ever leaves.
When night descends, el Carnaval de Bestias rises.
They come chasing paradise…
Within the shores of Isla Bestia, guests from around the world discover a utopia of ever-changing performances, sumptuous feasts and beautiful monsters. Many enter, but few ever leave—the wine is simply too sweet, the music too fine and the revelry endless.
Sofía, a freedwoman from a nearby colonized island, cares little for this revelry. Born a mestiza slave to a tobacco plantation, she has neither wealth nor title, only a scholarly pragmatism and a hunger for answers. She travels to el Carnaval de Bestias in search of her twin brother, who disappeared five years ago.
There’s a world of wonder waiting for her on the shores of this legendary island, one wherein conquerors profit from Sofia’s ancestral lands and her people’s labor. But surrounded by her former enslavers, she finds something familiar in the performances—whispers of the island’s native tongue, music and stories from her Taike’ri ancestors…a culture long hidden in the shadows, thrust into the light.
As the nights pass, her mind begins unraveling, drowning in the unnatural, almost sentient thrall of Carnaval. And the sense that someone is watching her grows. To find her brother and break free, Sofia must peel back the glamorous curtain and face those behind Carnaval, before she too loses herself to the island…
Well this sounds amazing. And the author’s said that it’s drawing on Puerto Rican history and mythology! I am PSYCHED!

Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: African MC
Published on: July 25th, 2025
Goodreads
What if a mystifying revolt precluded the Civil War and changed history as we know it? The vampire origin story is brilliantly reimagined in this terrifying novel of ancient lore, startling revenge, and immortal emancipation in eighteenth-century America.
In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.
Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.
One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.
Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.
I’m not especially interested in vampires for the sake of vampires – but reinventions of them? THAT has my attention immediately! Plus, most things that ‘changed history as we know it’ are my catnip – I’m so looking forward to seeing what this changed history looks like!

Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai
Genres: Science Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MCs
Published on: July 29th, 2025
Goodreads
Inception meets Indiana Jones in this propulsive fungal science fantasy following a headstrong academic and her equally stubborn bodyguard as they unearth an ancient secret that rocks the foundations of their society—and challenges their unspoken love for one another.
*A Publishers Marketplace BUZZ BOOKS Selection*
Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key wants to do research for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye.
Valerian IV’s twin swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.
But when Key collects a memory that diverges from official history, only Vale sees the fallout. Key’s mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding; her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then days.
As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key’s obsessive drive for answers, the women uncover a shattering discovery—and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit, or they can jeopardize everything for the truth.
Either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.
We have been promised mushroom anthropologists and feral girls, and that’s pretty much all I need to hear! Tsai’s debut, Bitter Medicine, was full of subversions and I enjoyed it a lot – and I’m pretty confident I’ll love this one!
August

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Desi MCs, F/F
Published on: August 5th, 2025
Goodreads
Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as ‘Great Wisa’. To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.
Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?
I got to read this when it was first released in India – but now it’s coming to the US!!! I cannot WAIT for this to get more of an audience – it deserves it!

Villain (Hench #2) by Natalie Zina Walschots
Genres: Sci Fi, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Disabled bisexual MC
Published on: August 12th, 2025
Goodreads
The Boys meets Starter Villain and Assistant to the Villain in Natalie Zina Walschots’s electrifying, sharp, violent, and hilarious sequel to the highly acclaimed novel, Hench, in which the Auditor must confront the near-impossible in order to right the many wrongs in the superhuman industry…or cause more of them. She’s not picky.
Anna, better known to superheroes as the Auditor, has carved out a name for herself. Any hero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, success should taste she has an incredible job with lots of perks, and her boss will literally annihilate anyone who crosses her, and her greatest enemy, the former hero Supercollider, has been utterly defeated and literally ground to a pulp.
But Anna still has her sights set on a greater destroying the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s most powerful superheroes. These “heroes” have shown time and time again that they do more harm than good, and now is the time to stop the damage at its source.
Yet all is not well for the Auditor and her fellow evildoers. Her employer, Leviathan—the world’s most feared supervillain—is not coping well with Supercollider’s defeat at someone else’s hands. Moreover, her unlikely ally and unexpected friend, Quantum Entanglement, has vanished without a trace, leaving Anna to examine all the ways they deceived each other. Tension and uncertainty fill the air, and fear that this moment of triumph is about to crumble looms over all of them.
Anna soon finds herself facing down an opponent unlike any she’s taken on before—not another superhero, but someone like her…someone much more the Draft’s Chief Marketing Officer. This isn’t a test of physical prowess, but ideas, and as the fight spirals deeper and deeper, with new foes popping up every day—she’ll need more than just her superpower—data research—to keep ascending through the supervillain ranks.
It’s guerrilla ad warfare, and the Auditor might have finally met her match.
A SEQUEL TO ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVES! Hench was a masterpiece, and I’m beyond eager to see what Walschots does with a return to this verse – and to Anna!

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: August 12th, 2025
Goodreads
The Red Winter is a historical fantasy drawing on The Beast of Gévaudan, a werewolf origin story about a small mountain village in 18th-century France that was terrorised by a mysterious creature. Written as a memoir by the immortal narrator Sebastian, it’s full of sorcery, demons and debauchery, but most of all it’s a love story about one man who will live for ever and the nobleman he fell in love with, but may have made into a monster.
Just a short summary at the moment, but it’s more than enough to hook me! Doesn’t this sound epic???

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: August 19th, 2025
Goodreads
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind
Healer Anja knows little of politics but much of poisons. When she is summoned to treat the mysterious illness afflicting the king’s daughter, she finds herself against the clock, desperate to track down the source of the poison killing Princess Snow. But the chance discovery of a strange alternate world inside a magic mirror leads Anja to darker discoveries, including what really happened to Snow’s dead sister, Rose, and why their mother seemingly went mad and cut out her heart.
Aided by a taciturn bodyguard, a narcissistic cat, and a late Renaissance understanding of the scientific method, Anja must navigate the mysteries of the mirror world before the dark queen that dwells within rises to threaten them all.
I loved T. Kingfisher’s last trad-pubbed fantasy (I specify trad-pubbed because I’ve been following her self-pubbed books obsessively for years!) and I am HYPED for this one! Mirror worlds and a late Renaissance understanding of the scientific method’? This is going to be FANTASTIC!

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: August 19th, 2025
Goodreads
In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders’s own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.
A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic–with very unexpected results–in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.
Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training–she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she’s also a powerful witch.
Serena, Jamie’s mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.
Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.
Now it’s up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.
I have MASSIVELY enjoyed all of Anders’ Adult books, and am delighted that we’re getting another one! She’s also said this is her queerest book yet, which should be fun!

House of Dust by Deva Fagan
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: August 26th, 2025
Goodreads
A romantic epic fantasy featuring a fire-wielding nun grappling with her dark past and a young spy caught between her mission and a growing attraction to an enemy princess
With complex relationships, a rich and mythic world, and brisk pacing, House of Dusk is perfect for fans of Tasha Suri, Samantha Shannon, and Shannon Chakraborty
Ten years ago, Sephre left behind her life as a war hero and took holy vows to seek redemption for her crimes, wielding the flames of the Phoenix to purify the dead. But as corpses rise, a long-dead god stirs, and shadowy serpents creep from the underworld to hunt her, she has no choice but to draw on the very past she’s been trying so hard to forget.
Orphaned by the same war Sephre helped win, Yeneris has trained half her life to be the perfect spy, a blade slipped deep into the palace of her enemies. Undercover as bodyguard to Sinoe, a princess whose tears unleash prophecy, Yeneris strives to complete her true mission to recover the stolen bones of a saint. Sinoe’s prophecies may hold answers, but allying with the fiercely compassionate princess is perilous. Yeneris must find a way to balance her growing attraction for Sinoe with her duty to her people as they conduct a dangerous search for the source of the king’s power.
As Sephre investigates the signs of a looming apocalypse, she finds her beliefs tested by Nilos, a mercurial and charming agent of the serpent. He should be her enemy, but when Sephre is wrongly accused of heresy and desperate to rescue her innocent apprentice, she has no choice but to work with the enigmatic man. Together they embark on a treacherous quest, seeking answers in the labyrinthine underworld.
As gods are reborn and spirits destroyed, the world trembles on the edge of a second cataclysm. When the true enemy makes their bid for power, Yeneris must find a way to remain true to her full self and save both her mission and her heart. And Sephre must decide whether to be bound by her past, or to forge a better future, even if it means renouncing her vows and accepting a new and terrible power.
Phoenix-fire, dead gods being reborn, apocalypses??? I am most INTENSELY interested, please and thank you!

Katabasis by RF Kuang
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: August 28th, 2025
Goodreads
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:
The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.
That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….
Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.
With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.
Kuang + a trip to Hell? Let’s not even pretend I wasn’t instantly invested! AND another magic(k) school – more directly a magic school than Babel, it sounds like! YES YES YES!!!
September

A Blood as Bright as the Moon by Andrea Morstabilini
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: September 2nd, 2025
Goodreads
A vampire, desperately torn between worlds, is hunted down by a secret society bent on his destruction, in this elegiac and unsettling queer gothic horror, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Frankenstein, Germany. Ambrose, a young vampire, lives a life secreted away from the modern world with the rest of his clan, all of them under the spell of the charismatic Regina, who spins stories of salvation for their kind. Their grand plan? To build makeshift wings and fly to the moon where a safe haven awaits for all vampires.
But Ambrose harbours a secret: he is not ready to abandon the earth, and he is in contact with a human who believes he can be saved. As the rest of his kind prepare to flee their home, Ambrose is torn between loyalties.
However something else is on the horizon – the Royal Diurnal Society – a group with sinister plans for vampires, are closing in, and if Ambrose isn’t careful, he could find himself right at the centre of a terrifying and mysterious experiment.
I LOVE THE SOUND OF THIS!!! Completely bonkers, but I’m delighted with it. (A vampire safe haven…on the MOON?!) This one’s apparently a translation, too, which is always interesting.
You can read an excerpt here!

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: September 2nd, 2025
Goodreads
Ali Hazelwood meets Dungeons & Dragons in this enemies-to-lovers fantasy academia romcom where rival grad student wizards are forced to work together without killing—or falling for—each other.
Will they conjure love, or evoke chaos? Two rival wizards are about to find out.
Sebastian Walsh: Evocation Department. Human. The first of his family to pick college over the military.
Elethior Tourael: Conjuration Department. Half-elf. Pretentious asshole. The latest legacy Tourael at Lesiara U.
Both: Mageus Research Grant finalists.
Sebastian refuses to let anyone snatch this away, least of all a snob riding on old money. But what’s worse than a nemesis stealing your grant? You could both get it. Under the condition youwork together.
Sebastian is in hell. Thio’s broody. Takes up their shared lab space with his projects . . . and biceps. Brings treats for Sebastian’s familiar . . .
. . . and is nothing like Sebastian thought.
When Sebastian’s past with the Touraels forces him to choose his research or Thio, the decision should be simple. But while working with his rival is volatile . . . falling for his rival might blow up Sebastian’s future.
After how much I enjoyed Nightmare Before Kissmas, I am VERY EAGER to pounce on another queer fantasy from Raasch! Plus: magic university! We seem to be getting a few of those this year, and I very much approve!

Whalesong (Arcana Imperii #3) by Miles Cameron
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Black MC
Published on: September 5th, 2025
Goodreads
No blurb for this one yet, but I don’t need one; I’m obsessed with the Arcana Imperii books (I think I’ve reread the first book four or five times???) and I need book three immediately!!!

The Door on the Sea (The Raven and Eagle #1) by Caskey Russell
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Tlingit cast and setting
Published on: September 9th, 2025
Goodreads
An epic quest fantasy debut that is the Tlingit indigenous response to The Lord of the Rings
When Elān trapped a salmon-stealing raven in his cupboard, he never expected it would hold the key to saving his people from the shapeshifting Koosh invaders plaguing their shores. In exchange for its freedom, the raven offers a secret that can save Elān’s home: the Koosh have lost one of their most powerful weapons, and only the raven knows where it is.
Elān is tasked with captaining a canoe crewed by an unlikely team including a human bear-cousin, a massive wolf, and the endlessly vulgar raven. To retrieve the weapon, they will face stormy seas, cannibal giants and a changing world. But Elān is a storyteller, not a warrior.
As their world continues to fall to the Koosh, and alliances are challenged and broken, Elān must choose his role in his own epic story.
HI WHAT? WHAT??? THIS SOUNDS INCREDIBLE??? And featuring a mythology I know nothing about – that’s always so exciting!!!

Slow Gods by Claire North
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: September 16th, 2025
Goodreads
From one of the most original and dazzling voices in speculative fiction comes an intergalactic tale of conspiracy, war and the fall of empires.
My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.
In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about. I should make myself a hero. Pretend I was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.
Here is one truth: out there in deep-space, in the pilot’s chair, I died. And then, I was reborn. I became something not quite human, something that could speak to the infinite dark. And I vowed to become the scourge of the world that wronged me.
This is the story of the supernova event that burned planets and felled civilizations. This is also the story of the many lives I’ve lived since I died for the first time.
Are you listening?
Discover this thrilling and breathtakingly imaginative space opera from the multi-award-winning Claire North, perfect for fans of Ann Leckie, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Arkady Martine.
I fell hard for North’s fantasy books, written under the name Kate Griffin, but I haven’t had much interest in her other work until recently, when Notes From the Burning Age made me starry-eyed! And now she’s writing SPACE OPERA??? Gimme gimme GIMME!

The Summer War by Naomi Novik
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: September 16th, 2025
Goodreads
In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver and the Scholomance Trilogy, a young witch who has inadvertently cursed her brother to live a life without love must find a way to undo her spell.
Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother Argent left home. Furious at him for abandoning her in a war-torn land, she lashed out, not realizing her childish, angry words would suddenly become imbued with the power of prophecy, dooming him to a life without love.
While Argent wanders the world, forced to seek only fame and glory instead of the love and belonging he truly desires, Celia attempts to undo the curse she placed on him. Yet even as she grows from a girl to a woman, she cannot find the solution—until she learns the truth about the centuries-old war between her own people and the summerlings, the immortal beings who hold a relentless grudge against their mortal neighbors.
Now, with the aid of her unwanted middle brother, Celia may be able to both undo her eldest brother’s curse and heal the lands so long torn apart by the Summer War.
I’ll be honest, if this wasn’t from Novik, I probably wouldn’t be interested – nothing about this premise is all that interesting to me. But Novik ALWAYS knocks my socks off, so I’m going to trust her!

All Hail Chaos (Time of Iron #2) by Sarah Rees Brennan
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Queer PoV characters
Published on: September 16th, 2025
Goodreads
THE EMPEROR IS HERE. AND SHE MADE HIM WORSE.
Rae is a fantasy reader who’s been transported to her favourite fictional world of swords and sorcery, castles and monsters. Playing the villainess, she thought she could change the narrative, but this version of the plot is far much more deadly than the one she knew.
Her friends are on the run: the Cobra shelters in an eerie manor haunted by dark secrets, while Emer and Lia stoke a revolution in the gutters. Undead armies roam the kingdom, raiders camp at the city gates, and the irresistible emperor – Rae’s favourite character ever, now possibly the greatest monster in the land – wants her to be his evil queen.
What’s a villainess to do? It’s time for wicked bargains and fake engagements, in a fantasy where the most dangerous thing you can do is believe in someone.
All Hail Chaos is Sarah Rees Brennan’s wicked, unmissable sequel to the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling Long Live Evil (‘delicious, subversive’ Leigh Bardugo).
No blurb yet, but I don’t need one – I adored Long Live Evil, the first book, and I’m champing at the bit for the sequel!
WE HAVE A BLURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRB! And I am still VERY MUCH champing at the bit for this!!!

Sunward by William Alexander
Genres: Science Fiction
Published on: September 16th, 2025
Goodreads
A cozy debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning writer William Alexander, this story of found family follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.
Captain Tova Lir chose a life as a courier rather than get involved in her family’s illustrious business in politics. Set in humanity’s far future, hiring a planetary courier is essential for delivering private messages across the stars.
Encouraged by friends, Tova begins mentoring baby bots, juvenile AI who are developmentally in their teens, and trains them how to interact within society essentially becoming their foster mom. Her latest charge, Agatha Panza von Sparkles, named herself on their first run from Luna to Phoebe station. But on their return, they encounter a derelict spaceship and a lurking assassin, igniting a thrilling chase across the solar system.
Tova and Agatha’s daring actions leave Agatha’s mind vulnerable, relying on Tova’s former AI pupils for help. As Tova starts gathering her scattered family around her, she is chased through the solar system by forces who want her captured and her family erased. This debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning author William Alexander is a must-read for fans of Becky Chambers and Ursula K. Le Guin. Lovers of poignant science fiction, where the bonds of found family, the evolution of AI, and the building distrust of centuries of bias, come together in this visionary look at humanity’s future.
Baby AIs!!! (Actual ones, not the predictive text algorithms we have at the moment.) They sound ADORABLE – Agatha Panza von Sparkles?! – and I’m intrigued by the idea of planetary couriers; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sci fi setup that has couriers rather than machines getting messages across space. I wonder how that affects the worldbuilding?

Angel Maker (Karen Memory #3) by Elizabeth Bear
Genres: Sci Fi, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC
Published on: September 25th, 2025
Goodreads
Every cowboy story needs a horse no man can ride.
No man—but Miss Karen Memery is all woman. When she and her beloved Priya sign on to do stunts for a motion picture about a rogue Mechanical named Cowboy and a Wild West show, she finds the horse of her dreams: Angel Maker.
Her plans to rescue him from a deadly stunt are ambitious enough, but she’s soon beset by even greater threats when two men are murdered brutally. Cowboy and Priya are arrested for the crime, and Karen must prove them innocent—and save the life of the wild stallion too!
“The surprise sequel that Karen Memory fans needed! A novel of strong emotional bonds, chasing after mysteries, and adventures at the dawn of motion pictures. Ladies and gentlemachines, this book was worth the wait.”
—John Wiswell, author of Someone You Can Build A Nest In“Karen and her world are a delight!”
—Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
Karen Memory is a deeply escapist fave, but I honestly forgot that Bear had a new sequel in the works! You see why I need my calender of book releases, I lose track of even my most anticipated releases without it!
October

Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Black MC
Published on: October 2nd, 2025
Goodreads
From New York Times bestselling author Akwaeke Emezi comes a steamy paranormal romance set in the Black South—a bold new foray that takes us on a journey of magic and fantasy, from the whispering creeks outside the city of Salvation to the very depths of Hell itself.
Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different—that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. It has been a hollow ache inside her since her childhood, something she assumes she will always have to live with.
Until she meets Lucifer Helel. He’s fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact, but from the moment she lays eyes on him, Gali knows he’s not human. From her first incendiary touch, Lucifer knows something even Gali herself doesn’t—that she isn’t human either.
Enter: Leviathan. As Lucifer’s most trusted prince of Hell, Levi is ruthless and determined to eliminate the intolerable danger that is Galilee before she brings death and disaster to those he loves. While unseen battles rage between Hell, Heaven, and earth, Lucifer and Galilee’s attraction threatens to bring all the structures of their existence crashing down around them.
Soon, loyalties will be shattered and reformed as Kincaid secrets clash with the princes of Hell, driving even the most powerful to their knees. Galilee Kincaid must decide if she will step into herself and embrace the consequences of power in this astonishing, seductive, and wildly original fantasy.
I’m HOPING SO HARD that my info is correct and we are in fact getting Son of the Morning this year!!! I’ve been WILD for this one since the publishing deal was announced – I’m Very Into stories about Lucifer, and one by AKWAEKE EMEZI?! Be still my beating heart!!!

Queen Demon (The Rising World #2) by Martha Wells
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: October 7th, 2025
Goodreads
From the breakout SFF superstar author of Murderbot comes the remarkable sequel to the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling novel, Witch King. A fantasy of epic scope, Queen Demon is a story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs’ Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there’s something he isn’t telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.
Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?
And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?
Follow Kai to the end of the world in this thrilling sequel to the USA Today-bestselling Witch King.
WE’RE GETTING A SEQUEL TO WITCH KING!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
That is all.

Herculine by Grace Byron
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: October 7th, 2025
Goodreads
Manhunt meets Lord of the Flies in this blistering horror debut following a young trans woman after she arrives at the all-trans girl commune founded by her toxic ex-girlfriend, only to discover that demons, both literal and figurative, haunt her fellow comrades—and she’s their next prey!
Herculine’s narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story—conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes—but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she’s ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.
The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator’s growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn’t quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.
While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go.
I am HERE for trans horror with trans cults and also possibly-probably demons!

A Mouthful of Dust (The Singing Hills Cycle #6) by Nghi Vo
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: October 7th, 2025
Goodreads
Hunger makes monsters in this dark new tale in Nghi Vo’s Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle.
“Nghi Vo is so good.”―NPR on The Brides of High Hill
Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes.
Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly… because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nghi Vo is an auto-buy author, I will read anything she writes, and that will NOT be difficult because I love the Singing Hills series!

To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit #2) by Moniquill Blackgoose
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Indigenous bi/pansexual MC
Published on: October 14th, 2025
Goodreads
A young Indigenous woman and her dragon fight for the independence of their homeland in this epic sequel to the bestselling and multi-award-winning To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, “a remarkable novel that is bound to be a staple of fantasy shelves for years to come” (BuzzFeed).
Anequs has not only survived her first year at Kuiper’s Academy but exceeded all of her professors’ admittedly low expectations—and passed all her courses with honors. Now, she and her dragon, Kasaqua, are headed home for the summer, along with Theod, the only other Native student at the Academy.
But what should have been a relaxing break takes a darker turn. Thanks to Anequs’s notoriety, there is an Anglish presence on Masquapaug for the first time ever: a presence which Anequs hates. Anequs will always fight for what she believes in, however, and what she believes in is her people’s right to self-govern and live as they have for generations, without the restrictive yoke of Anglish rules and social customs. And fight she will—even if it means lighting a spark which may flare into civil war.
I could not have loved the first book in this series more, and I have been stalking any mention of the sequel. Which we’re getting this year!!! EXCUSE ME WHILE I SHRIEK WITH EXCITEMENT AT GETTING BACK TO THIS STORY!!!

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes
Genres: Horror, Sci Fi
Published on: October 14th, 2025
Goodreads
Monster hunters tangle with court politics in a dark and decadent fantasy adventure by critically acclaimed author Hiron Ennes
He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.
“I will follow this writer anywhere.” —Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.
In a complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile.
As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.
Guy doesn’t have a choice.
There wasn’t even a Goodreads page for this yet (never mind a blurb) when I first put it on the list, but after Leech, I’ll pounce on anything and everything Ennes writes!
…And now that we have a blurb, I am EEE!!! Brilliantly weird, as I knew it would be! WORMS THAT EAT ARTWORK! So, SO here for it!!!

When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Singaporean sapphic MC
Published on: October 21st, 2025
Goodreads
A fierce, glamorous sapphic fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, for fans of Jade City, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.
Singapore, 1972: Newly independent, a city of immigrants grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters are the last conduits of the gods their ancestors brought with them, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place where magic has not been assimilated and legislated away.
Loner schoolgirl Adeline Siow has never needed more company than the flame she can summon at her fingertips. But when her mother dies in a house fire with a butterfly seared onto her skin and Adeline hunts down a girl she saw in a back-alley barfight—a girl with a butterfly tattoo–she discovers she’s far from alone.
Ang Tian is a Red Butterfly: one of a gang of girls who came from nothing, sworn to a fire goddess and empowered to wreak vengeance on the men that abuse and underestimate them. Adeline’s mother led a double life as their elusive patron, Madam Butterfly. Now that she’s dead, Adeline’s bloodline is the sole thing sustaining the goddess. Between her search for her mother’s killer and the gang’s succession crisis, Adeline becomes quickly entangled with the girls’ dangerous world, and even more so with the charismatic Tian.
But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbor gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place for once, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she is to keep it.
…Okay, I’m fascinated! Fantasy Singapore, a fire goddess, a girl gang, AND it’s queer? Yeah, there’s no chance of me not pouncing on this one!

The Lost Reliquary (Divine Thrall #1) by Lyndsay Ely
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: October 21st, 2025
Goodreads
A divinely-blessed warrior bound to the last living goddess plots deicide to win her freedom in this propulsive epic fantasy for fans of Godkiller and Gideon the Ninth.
The Devoted Lands was once home to many gods: Salt, Stone, Storm, Green, Shadow. Now, after centuries of devastating wars, only Tempestra-Innara, the Eternal Flame, remains.
Conscripted as a child, Lys, potentiate of the Dawn Cloister, is outwardly a loyal servant to her goddess. If she harbors impossible dreams of deicide, that’s her business. But when a routine heretical execution erupts into a near-fatal assassination attempt on Tempestra-Innara, Lys sees a glimmer of hope for her freedom.
Lys is chosen to hunt down the heretics and find an ancient reliquary that holds the power to kill a god. Annoyingly, she’s not alone. Paired with Nolan, a potentiate from a rival cloister who is as pious as he is determined, Lys must feign devotion if she hopes to keep her own heretical thoughts hidden and god-killing ambitions within reach.
As they pursue a dangerous network of heretics linked to the assassination, Lys uncovers a world brimming with more possibility—and peril—than she ever anticipated.
‘If she harbors impossible dreams of deicide, that’s her business’ – SOLD! I love stories where gods are objectively real and directly relevant, and gods dying? Someone trying to assassinate one?! YES YES YES!

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: October 28th, 2025
Goodreads
From the New York Times bestselling author of Starling House, Alix E. Harrow, comes a moving and genre-defying adventure through time, as a reluctant lady knight and a historian with dreams of being a hero, will fight to rewrite their tragic fates and finish the greatest legend ever told.
It begins where it ends: beneath the yew tree—a girl not yet a knight, and a boy without a story.
That is where she pulls a sword from the heartwood and becomes a legend.
And it is where, more than a thousand years later, he will find her—and lose her—and find her—and lose her again.
It is where a new story will be written—but whose will it be?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NEW ALIX HARROW!!! I believe this is the ‘lady knight’ book she’s talked about, an expansion of her short story The Six Deaths of the Saint. I could be wrong about that, but even if I am – NEW ALIX HARROW, EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

An Unlikely Coven (Green Witch Cycle #1) by Am Kvita
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: QBIPOC cast
Published on: October 28th, 2025
Goodreads
After seven long years, Joan Greenwood has been called home.
As the only one in her elite family of witches who cannot manipulate magic, her return to New York City is lukewarm at best. But it’s upended by the disastrous news that someone has created a spell that can turn an unmagical human into a powerful witch.
While her family covets the ability to create a new generation of witches, Joan is wary of such power in the hands of her conniving relatives. When her best friend – who happens to be a vampire – confesses he has secretly, accidentally, saved this human-turned-witch from an uncertain fate, Joan is thrust headfirst into a desperate race to undo the spell before it kills its unwilling host.
But as the different factions of the magic world hunt Joan across the city, she gathers a new family of allies to help her. Soon, her race to the truth draws her deeper into the heart of the city’s magic, through uncertain alliances with a (very attractive) family rival, and far beyond the limits of everything she thought her own magic was capable of. Only now does Joan see… her power could rewrite the rules of the magic world-or bring the entire city to its knees.
This debut contemporary fantasy features a lovable cast of queer, BIPOC characters, witty writing, and a sapphic slow-burn romance, An Unlikely Coven is perfect for fans of A Discovery of Witches, An Unkindness of Magicians, and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.
Kvita is an author who crossed my dash and immediately had my attention, and I love the sound of their debut! I’ve never come across a story where ‘normal’ people can become magical non-humans (outside of werewolves and vampires, I mean). I’m already looking forward to seeing what kind of chaos that’ll result in!

The Changeling Queen by Kimberly Bea
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: October 28th, 2025
Goodreads
Sensual and romantic, The Changeling Queen combines folklore, desire, and sacrifice in a tale perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Natalie Hayes, and Outlander.
“I am Faery and Faery is me.”
On Samhain in medieval Scotland, pregnant Janet rescues her lover Tam Lin from being sacrificed by the Wild Hunt—but the callous Faery Queen is not finished with them yet. Over the span of a single night, the Queen and Janet spar over Tam Lin’s fate. The Queen aims to win, knowing how fickle mortals can be. Long before she was royalty, she was simply Bess, the changeling daughter of a midwife.
Born with magical and mortal blood, Bess feared there was no true place for her on either side of the veil. She found refuge in the arms of the charming Thomas Shepherd, the bastard son of a local noble. While villagers viewed her as a scandal, Bess’s cunning knowledge and secret dark gifts attracted the attention of the elf lord Adaman. Wily and silver-tongued, Adaman led Bess into Faery’s realm of decadence, where her heart warred against her destiny. She fought to keep both—but at what cost?
Inspired by Scotland’s famous “Ballad of Tam Lin” and weaving together mystical folklore and tragic romance, The Changeling Queen’s journey into memory, betrayal, and redemption will enchant you.
A changeling who becomes the Faery Queen of Tam Lin fame?! HI, ALL THE YES, GIMME! Erewhon is SPOILING us this year!

The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: October 28th, 2025
Goodreads
World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri’s next standalone novel about a knight and a witch who must change the fate of magic and the world by altering the end of their story, pitched as Green Knight meets THE STARLESS SEA with reincarnation
YES PLEASE! I will pounce on anything Suri writes – especially if it’s about ‘the fate of magic’!

The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver by Rafael Torrubia
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: October 30th, 2025
Goodreads
MEET YOUR NEW EPIC FANTASY OBSESSION
No one remembers the calamity that killed the gods and stole the names of their people. Now Shipwright and Shroudweaver are known only by their professions.
She’s a master of magical shipbuilding. He’s a maker of the gilded gods that fuel their sails, stitched from the souls of dead sailors.
When a chance to save their world sets the horizon alight, they decide they’ll stop at nothing to vanquish the ultimate evil, embarking on a deadly race against time to beat the grief-wracked sorceress Crow-kisser to the notorious mountain kingdom in the legend-infested north before she unleashes the ancient evil entombed at its heart – the one that could destroy them all.
The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver introduces the most exciting new voice in Scottish fantasy with an epic adventure set in a post-apocalyptic landscape of god-fuelled ships, goth-as-hell villains, shadow-warping assassins, effortless queerness, and well-worn love – unmissable for fans of The Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
Characters whose trades or interests are unusual are of HUGE appeal to me, and I doubt you can get much more unusual than the ones here! So unspeakably hyped for this one; I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I first heard about it, and can you blame me?!
November

The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Hawaiian MC
Published on: November 11th, 2025
Goodreads
In this spellbinding fantasy debut set in a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name.
Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.
At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.
Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—turns her world upside-down.
Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late?
I remember the pub deal announcement for this one, and I am still hyped! Language magic – magic working differently in different languages – independent spellsmithing! HI I NEED THIS IMMEDIATELY!

The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: November 27th, 2025
Goodreads
Step into the resplendent courts and forests of The Wolf and His King, the luscious adult fantasy debut from medievalist and YA author Finn Longman…
Bisclavret is cursed: to live his life in exile; to take a wolf’s shape involuntarily; to lie to everybody he meets. And yet he has always dreamed of knighthood, of brotherhood and belonging. When the old king dies unexpectedly, Bisclavret travels to the royal court to seek his rightful inheritance and swear fealty to the new king. It’s here that he discovers the mysterious young warrior now wearing the crown is willing to offer him far more than just his father’s lands, and suddenly the life that seemed like an impossible fantasy is catapulted within his grasp. But can someone who is hardly a man ever truly be a knight?
The king is lonely: recently returned to court from an exile of his own to inherit a crown he never wanted. And yet he’s fascinated by his newest knight, a man who carries secrets along with his sword, and fascination quickly turns to longing. When Bisclavret is seemingly killed by a wolf, the weight of the king’s grief almost destroys him. He swears to have his vengeance, but at the height of the hunt he encounters an animal that seems too intelligent to be the violent beast he seeks. One might even say it has the mind of a man…
I know this ballad! And am delighted someone decided to write it as a queer novel. Longman has mentioned that the lycanthropy is a metaphor for chronic illness in his take, which is fascinating. Can’t wait to see what else he’s made of this story!
December
Nothing for December – YET!
I’m sure these are only a fraction of the incredible SFF books we’ll get in 2025, but it’s plenty to get us started!
Wow, that list! Just, yes please :)
Indeed! :D
It was such a delight to open this and see that scroll bar shrink to next to nothing. Thank you for the amazing list! I didn’t even know about the first Akwaeke Emezi book!!
HEE, thank you! The scroll bar shrinking is so exciting with anticipated lists XD And you’re very welcome! I love expanding everyone’s tbr!
Thank you for the list! I always find so many new books on your list, it’s wonderful.
Regarding “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” by Lex Croucher, it seems like it’s coming out in early 2026 now instead of 2025, see their instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/lexcanroar/p/DB1XNP9tTTn/
“The Wolf and His King” by Finn Longmann also came up on Edelweiss for January 27:
https://www.edelweiss.plus/#sku=1645663078&page=1
And just so I’m not only popping in here to have you take books off your list, some of the 2025 books I’m looking forward to that I think you might like too are:
– “The Keeper of Lonely Spirits” by E.M. Anderson (Adult, queer cozy fantasy, M/M)
– “Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil” by Oliver Darkshire (Adult, cozy fantasy reimagining of a story in The Decameron)
– “Costumes for Time Travelers” by A. R. Capetta (YA, time travel romance, NB/M)
– “Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe” by C.B. Lee (YA, scifi & fantasy universe mashup coffeeshop AU, F/F)
– “This Princess Kills Monsters” by Ry Herman (Adult, queer reimagining of The Twelve Huntsmen)
– “Lady Dragon” by A.M. Strickland (YA, high fantasy romance with a dragon shifter, F/F)
– “The Maiden and Her Monster” by Maddie Martinez (Adult, fantasy gothic romance, F/F)
– “The Sleepless” by Jen Williams (YA, fantasy romance, M/F/demon in some sort of configuration)
– “Witchlore” by Emma Hinds (YA, NB/M? or maybe NB/F/M? romance) (hard to tell how it’s going to play out from the copy ^_^; )
You’re so welcome! I have SO MUCH FUN putting these together and keeping them updated :D
Alas I think you’re right, I already removed Umagical Life of Briar Jones before I saw your comment. (Insert tears emoji here, I’m so looking forward to it!)
I had NOT seen the listing for Wolf and His King, so thank you! I’m going to leave it up for now because I’m hoping it’s still coming out this year in the UK, which qualifies it for my list. (I’ll just have to put it on next year’s list too!)
Ahh, I love your suggestions! All of these are on my radar, and lots will probably show up in my Can’t Wait Wednesday posts, but I’m not confident enough in any of them to declare them Unmissable yet. (Will happily add them after I’ve read them if they turn out as excellent as they sound!)
Did you see the cover reveal for Maiden and Her Monster? Stunning!
Fingers crossed for Wolf and His King! And also hope the others turn out well, I have such high hopes haha. There are so many great-looking books coming out this year, my 2025 TBR list is already longer than my 2024 list and we don’t even have a lot of the fall books up for preorder yet! OTL
I had NOT seen the cover reveal yet, AAAAAAAHHH IT’S GORGEOUS!! *o* Off to scream about it in my discords!