MOST ANTICIPATED SFF BOOKS 2025
Welcome to our annual Most Anticipated post!
Not to blow our own trumpets, but this Most Anticipated post is becoming a Much Anticipated Post in of itself! So gird your TBRs and settle in, we’ve rounded up our contributors to bring you a huge list of titles to look out for in the coming year.
(Note: The list was curated by our contributors, and is ordered by expected (UK) publication date. All blurbs and publication information have been gathered from Goodreads, Amazon, and publishers’ websites. We’ve included links to Goodreads and to sites where you can pre-order the books where available: adding not-yet released books to your “want to read” list massively helps authors, especially debuts, and pre-ordering them even more so – please go make someone’s new year extra happy!)
January
Breath of the Dragon
Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee
The first novel in a sweeping YA fantasy duology based on characters and teachings created by Bruce Lee!
Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Earth to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s honor—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.
But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. There is no future in honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breathmarked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place.
As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself.
Expected release: 7th January (Hodderscape)
Lightfall
Ed Crocker
An epic fantasy of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the debut novel of Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings.
No humans here. Just immortals: their politics, their feuds—and their long buried secrets.
For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.
Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.
There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.
Expected release: 14th January (St Martin’s Press)
ChloroPhilia
Cristina Jurado
Kirmen is different from the other inhabitants of the Cloister, whose walls protect them all from the endless storm ravaging Earth. As a result of the Doctor’s cruel experiments, his physical form is gradually evolving into something better fit for survival in the world outside.
Kirmen worries about becoming a pariah, an outcast among the other denizens of the domes. But his desire for affection and acceptance, and his humanity, fade a way as the Doctor’s treatments progress. What will happen when the metamorphosis is complete ? What will be left of Kirmen and the group of survivors that he knows and loves?
In English for the first time (translated by Sue Burke), ChloroPhilia, an Ignotus Award – nominated novella by Cristina Jurado, is a strange coming – of – age story while addressing life after an environmental disaster, collective madness, and sacrifices made for the greater good.
Expected release: 14th January (Apex)
Jonathan’s review | Goodreads | Waterstones
The Rule of Chaos
Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
Trapped inside the mysterious Order of Legends, Asha is struggling to become the hero that the hundred worlds need. Her sister is dead, her mother won’t wake up, Obi is gone, and Xavior keeps visiting her dreams.
Unable to reach through the realm of heroes to summon the weapon that could change everything, she sets off to find the fabled gauntlet of Chasca, and meets new friends and old enemies…
As three timelines begin to converge, Asha must decide exactly what she’s willing to sacrifice in order to save the universe.
The Rule of Chaos is the second instalment in The Order of Legends trilogy, a centuries-spanning adventure unmissable for fans of the spacefaring found family of Becky Chambers, the magical London of V. E. Schwab, and the epic climate-craft of N. K. Jemisin.
Expected release: 15th January (Gollancz)
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Grady Hendrix
A twisted Southern Gothic horror from Grady Hendrix, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group.
‘I did an evil thing to be put in here, and I’m going to have to do an evil thing to get out.’
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid . . . and it’s usually paid in blood.
Expected release: 16th January (Pan Macmillan)
The Outcast Mage
Annabel Campbell
The Outcast Mage is an unmissable epic fantasy debut, packed with adventure, mystery and dragonfire, where a young mage’s struggle to master her magical powers could spell disaster for an entire continent
In the glass city of Amoria, magic is everything. And Naila, student at the city’s academy, is running out of time to prove she can control hers. If she fails, she’ll be forced into exile . . . or consumed by her own power.
When a tragic incident threatens her place at the Academy, Naila is saved by Haelius Akana, the most powerful living mage. Haelius risks his reputation to help her to harness her abilities, but he has many enemies who desire him – and Naila – to fail. Trapped in the deadly schemes of Amoria’s elite, Naila must discover the truth of her powers, or watch Amoria descend into civil war.
For there is danger brewing on the wind, and greater forces at work across the wider world. Forces who could use her powers for good . . . or destroy everything she’s ever known.
Expected release: 28th January (Orbit)
The Way Up Is Death
Dan Hanks
With no understanding of what the tower is or why they’ve been chosen, thirteen seemingly random strangers must battle to reach the top of a tower before the countdown clock reaches zero… and the world faces a potentially catastrophic fate.
When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.
As a grieving teacher, a reclusive artist, and a narcissistic celebrity children’s author lead the others in trying to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone… is up.
And so begins a race to the top, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares, as the group fights to hold onto its humanity, while the twisted horror of why they’re here grows ever more apparent – and death stalks their every move.
Expected release: 28th January (Angry Robot)
Modern Divination
Isabel Agajanian
A Discovery of Witches meets The Atlas Six in Modern Divination by Isabel Agajanian, a dark contemporary fantasy from a brilliant new talent. Modern Divination is the first book in the Spells for Life and Death duology.
The colour of magic was gold . . .
Twenty-three-year-old witch Aurelia Schwartz has always had to carefully balance her human life with her secret magical one. With a place at an elite Cambridge University college, she almost has everything she could possibly want within her grasp. Just so long as she follows the rules: make no promises. Tell no one what you are. And never stay the night.
Except Aurelia’s gift of green magic has begun to fade. Worse still, someone is hunting witches – and stealing their powers. Reluctantly, Aurelia needs the help of fellow witch – and dreadfully arrogant classmate – Theodore Ingram. Together, they seek refuge among his family in the remote corners of an already-desolate town. But as she grows closer to Teddy, the power-hungry witch-killer, too, draws nearer. And they threaten to destroy everything Aurelia holds dear . . .
Modern Divination by Isabel Agajanian is a magical cosy fantasy with witches, featuring an academic rivals-to-lovers romance, found family and yearning.
Expected release: 30th January (Tor)
At The Bottom Of The Garden
Camilla Bruce
A murderous aunt, strangely gifted children and witchcraft come together in Camilla Bruce’s new intensely dark adult Gothic fairytale. For fans of Catriona Ward and C.J. Cooke
The dead won’t stay silent forever…
Clara Woods has a secret. At the bottom of the garden is a flowerbed, long overgrown, where her murdered husband rests in peace – or so she always thought. Then the girls arrived.
Lily and Violet, her adolescent nieces, are recently orphaned and in urgent need of care. Raising teenagers is certainly not what Clara had envisioned for herself, but they come with a hefty sum attached.
There is only one problem: both girls are untrained witches. Lily can literally see how people feel. And young Violet can see the dead man wandering at the bottom of the garden. In fact, she can see all the dead and call them back.
Soon, Clara finds herself surrounded by apparitions – and two girls who know far more about her dark past than they should. A war is waging in this house, and only one side can win…
Expected release: 30th January (Oneworld Publications)
February
Grave Empire
Richard Swan
Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.
A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.
But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse.
Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days-the Great Silence.
It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save . . .
Grave Empire is the first novel in an unmissable new epic fantasy series from Sunday Times bestselling author Rich Swan, packed full of action, intrigue and adventure
Expected release: 4th February (Orbit)
Waterblack
Alex Pheby
Local Haunts
Adam Scovell
For more than a decade, writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell has been preoccupied by the strange connections between place and culture: curious about the graves of writers, determined to find the locations of iconic films, intrigued by the landscapes that inspired novels.
From classic films to obscure British television, the poems of playwrights to the psychogeography of Weird Fiction, Local Haunts brings together a collection of essays, photographs, travelogues, and journalism that explores the connections between art and the landscapes that inspire it. With particular focus on several key figures that emphasised place in their work – including W.G. Sebald, Alan Garner, Agnès Varda, M.R. James, and Marguerite Duras – Scovell explores culture that is haunted by locales, rural and urban.
Taken from a range of print and digital publications, including work published by Sight & Sound, Literary Hub, Caught By The River, and Little White Lies, as well as Scovell’s Celluloid Wicker Man site that brought many ideas surrounding Folk Horror and the Urban Wyrd to prominence in the early 2010s, Local Haunts brings together a decade of work treading the ghostways and the corpse roads of film, literature, and art.
Expected release: 6th February (Influx Press)
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales
Heath Fawcett
The third instalment in the enchanting light academia Emily Wilde books, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves, from Sunday Times bestselling author Heather Fawcett.
Emily 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 could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-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.
Expected release: 11th February (Orbit)
Symbiote
Michael Nayak
World War III rages, and the scientists at the South Pole are thankful for the isolation – until a group of Chinese scientists arrive at the American research base with a dead man in their truck. The potential for a geopolitical firestorm is great, and, with no clear jurisdiction, the Americans don’t know what to do. But they soon realize the Chinese scientists have brought far more with them than the body…
Within seventy-two hours, thirteen others lie dead in the snow, murdered in acts of madness and superhuman strength. An extremophile parasite from the truck, triggered by severe cold, is spreading by touch. With rescue impossible for months, it is learning from them. Evolving. It triggers violent tendencies in the winter crew, and, more insidiously… The beginnings of a strange symbiotic telepathy.
From an exciting new voice comes this propulsive SF-thriller, infused with authentic details about life in one of the world’s harshest, most mysterious landscapes, Antarctica.
Expected release: 11th February (Angry Robot)
Wooing the Witch Queen
Stephanie Burgis
Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis is the start of a delightful, funny and seductive romantasy trilogy, set in a gaslamp-lit world where hags and ogres lurk in thick pine forests and genteel court intrigues can turn deadly . . .
Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.
When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. ‘Fabian’ is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well . . .
Little does Saskia know that the ‘wizard’ she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, he’s in danger from Saskia’s enemies and her new-found allies, too. So when Saskia finally discovers the truth, will their love save them – or be their doom?
Expected release: 20th February (Bramble)
Theo’s review | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
Dengue Boy
Michel Nieva
The year is 2272. New York and Buenos Aires were submerged years ago and the Patagonian archipelagos are the only habitable lands on Earth. Here, Dengue Boy is a humanoid mosquito whose monstrous appearance repulses everyone, including his own mother.
As the world spirals to its end, Dengue Boy searches for the meaning of his life and his true origins. Elsewhere, adults exploit the value of pandemics on the Stock Exchange and waste the last of Earth’s resources, while their privileged children plug into virtual realities and stream violent video games. For readers of China Miéville, Samanta Schweblin and Mariana Enríquez, with joyful, savage flair, Dengue Boy blends body horror and cyberpunk to deliver an extraordinary portrait of a demented future.
Expected release: 20th February (Profile Books)
Jonathan’s review | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
Death of the Author
Nnedi Okorafor
The future of storytelling is here.
Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she’s suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister’s wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she’s not sure what comes next.
In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life – she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.
What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu’s life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.
Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.
Expected release: 20th February (Gollancz)
Model Home
Rivers Solomon
Two bodies lie in the garden of a sprawling property in Oak Creek Estate, a wealthy gated community in Dallas, Texas.
The bodies belong to the parents of Ezri, Eve and Emmanuel, who have long since abandoned the childhood home in which their parents remained all these years. A home that has haunted and hollowed them throughout their lives, in a neighbourhood where they grew up as the only Black family, hoping to survive a place that wanted to claim them, expel them and ruin them all at once.
In the wake of their parents’ death, Ezri and their siblings are forced to confront the reasons they left, the nightmares that have held them captive and the possibility that realities exist beyond those that have forged them.
Bold and tender, Model Home is powerful meditation on the power of memory, loss and identity.
Expected release: 20th February (Cornerstone)
Greenteeth
Molly O’Neill
Narrated by a lake-dwelling monster, Greenteeth is an utterly charming tale of fae, folklore and found family, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.
Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce . . .
Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake by an angry mob, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving. Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. All she wants is to return to her husband and children, still trapped under his baleful influence.
Though they have nothing in common, these two unlikely companions must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Temperance’s family, Jenny’s lake, and possibly the very soul of Britain.
Expected release: 25th February (Orbit)
The Dark Mirror
Samantha Shannon
Everything is about to change.
Paige Mahoney is outside the Republic of Scion for the first time in more than a decade – but she has no idea how she got to the free world. Half a year has been wiped from her memory.
As she makes her way back to the revolution, her journey takes her to Venice, where she learns a dangerous secret – one that could change the face of the war between humans and immortals. Before she can return to London, she must help the Domino Programme unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist.
And it soon becomes clear that the one person who could recover her memories – Arcturus Mesarthim – might also hold the key to saving Italy.
Lyrical, touching and action-packed, The Dark Mirror drives the bestselling Bone Season series forward, showing Samantha Shannon at the height of her powers.
Expected release: 25th February (Bloomsbury)
Dance of Shadows
Gourav Mohanty
A season of peace is the finest time to plant the seeds of war.
A pirate-queen discovers the only gold around is in the bars of her cage.
A temple-courtesan’s heart dances for the archer she was tasked to destroy.
A librarian learns how to steal to save the world from an ancient plague.
As the Conclave of Peace dawns in the Tree Cities of the East to decide the future of the realm, deaf swordswomen and exiled snakelings, spoilt heroes and lovesick princes, immortal assassins and their apprentices will find no sun to light their path.
For the Son of Darkness rises, boiling over with a wrath that all the oracles in the world cannot hope to stop. After all, seeing the future is one thing, changing it is quite another…
…Unless it is through a heist.
Expected release: 27th February (Head of Zeus)
Shroud
Adrian Tchaikovsky
They looked into darkness. The darkness looked back . . .
An utterly gripping story of survival on a hostile planet from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time.
A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.
Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.
But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .
Expected release: 27th February (Tor)
Theo’s review | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
The Scorpion and the Night Blossom
Amélie Wen Zhao
A new dark romantasy based on Chinese mythology by New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Amélie Wen Zhao. Perfect for fantasy C-drama fans!
In a world falling into eternal night, Àn’yīng is desperate to protect her family from the demons that hunt mortals.
Armed with her crescent blades, she decides to enter a magical tournament, in the fabled immortal realm, with the hopes of winning a pill of immortality that will save her mother, who is dying after a vicious demon attack.
But first, Àn’yīng must survive the ruthless practitioners she’s up against … and guard her heart from an irresistibly wicked rival.
Expected release: 27th February (HarperVoyager)
March
Once Was Willem
M. R. Carey
Eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England, I, Once Was Willem, rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham. The words enclosed herein are true.
I speak of monsters and magic, battle and bloodletting, and the crimes of desperate men. I speak also of secret things, of that which lies beneath us and that which impends above. By the time you come to the end of this account you will know the truth of your own life and death, the path laid out for your immortal soul, your origin and your inevitable end.
You will not thank me.
Expected release: 4th March (Orbit)
The Ragpicker King
Cassandra Clare
The epic follow-up to the Sunday Times bestselling Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare, praised by George R. R. Martin as ‘everything I look for in fantasy.’ In The Ragpicker King, Lin and Kel must chart a perilous course between love and lies.
His life is an illusion. Her lie is a gamble. Can two outliers save a kingdom?
The royal court is in turmoil, following a massacre. So Kel, Prince Conor’s body-double, is hunting for traitors. The notorious Ragpicker King, ruler of Castellane’s criminal underworld, holds the only clues. But they lead to a dark conspiracy to destroy the royal family – headed by the man set to marry the women Kel loves.
Lin will be judged, after claiming to be the legendary Goddess Reborn. And her people’s charismatic leader is ready to test her powers. Failure will mean exile, and only further dangerous deception can save her now.
As the simmering tensions in Castellane reach fever pitch, Prince Conor demands that Lin heal his father’s madness. However, the King is tormented by an ancient magic, and Lin cannot deny its allure – any more than she can deny her growing passion for the prince. Lin and Kel must decide who they can trust. Yet any false move will mean death – or worse.
Lose yourself in a vibrant world of power, intrigue and magic in this spellbinding epic from an internationally bestselling sensation.
Expected release: 4th March (Tor)
Fallen Gods
Rachel Van Dyken
Fallen Gods is a new Norse-inspired adult fantasy romance from Rachel Van Dyken, filled with ancient secrets and perilous desire.
The legends of the past are never truly dead and buried . . .
Liv Olson has been drawn to Norse Mythology her entire life. After earning her degree and working as a curator at one of New York’s most prestigious museums, she gets an unexpected offer for her dream job in Norway – the same place her brother disappeared months ago – after a cryptic message about finding their long-lost father.
She finds herself surrounded by superstitious townspeople who refuse to even look at the water. Liv soon realizes that the small town of Vonn is nothing like it seems. Shops close before dark, and things she’s only read about seem to suddenly exist. To top it off, her new boss, Tristan, is insultingly mean and engagingly beautiful – and, as part of the job, she must live with him in his mansion.
As her life quickly unravels into chaos, she’s left wondering who’s pulling the strings in this mysterious place where nothing makes sense, yet everything feels familiar. Her studies have always told her the gods are who you trust. But what happens when the man who’s destined to kill you – is your savior?
For fans of sexy romantasy and Neon Gods by Katee Robert, Rachel Van Dyken’s Fallen Gods duology is a steamy, dramatic myth retelling.
Expected release: 6th March (Bramble)
Servant of Rage
Alex Knight
Kill an heir, claim their magic.
Subei and his brothers have been raised on stories of the Great Khan, their ancestor who conquered the world with might, mind, and fearsome magic. But the Great Khan is long dead and his power vanished.
The brothers live by his laws still, even as infighting consumes their once-proud people. When a sacred artifact is destroyed in an attempt on their lives, Subei, Bataar, and Kashi find themselves imbued with slivers of the Great Khan’s magic—and they’re not alone.
Under the tutelage of a famed commander, and the guidance of a stoic monk, the brothers are ordered to hunt the other ‘heirs’ and claim their magic for the khanate. With each kill, they grow stronger. But the magic that empowers them is no mere tool. Something ancient, alive, and angry dwells within it.
Kill an heir, claim their magic. But at what cost?
Expect release: 11th March (Portal Books)
City of Jackals
Aman J. Bedi
A WARRIOR WITH A DEBT. A GANGSTER WITH A SECRET. A CONFRONTATION WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Kavi’s people were once warriors who acted as the vanguard to an imperial invasion. Now, they drive steam rickshaws.
But when the most dangerous gang in the city takes control of the Imperial Rickshaw Company, Kavi’s people are cast out again, and Kavi is forced to work for the gang as a low-level enforcer. Her only hope lies in the annual Blade and Warlock tournament at the Vagola – the prize money from which will buy back the company and her people’s future.
But the shadow of the Kraelish Empire still hangs over the city, and as conspiracies unfold on the Raayan border and dark truths come to the surface, Kavi finds an insidious new desire slither its way into her heart. One that she cannot ignore. One that will leave blood flowing through the gutters of her city.
Vengeance.
Expected release: 13th March (Gollancz)
raw content
Naomi Booth
Grace’s work requires her to be careful. She spends her days reading and editing legal case files, making sure the latest judgments are published as quickly and accurately as possible.
But outside of her work, Grace is not a careful person. Her father’s history as a police officer working across an infamous case shadows her life, as does the violent history entrenched across the Colne Valley landscape of her childhood, and her fears often surface as recklessness.
When Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she tries to accommodate her boyfriend and the prospect of the baby in her life. But after the relief and strange joy of the birth, Grace starts to imagine all sorts of terrible injuries and deaths befalling her child. The steep stairs to her apartment, the kitchen scissors, a boiling kettle all suddenly hold visceral and overwhelming potential for disaster. The baby’s vulnerability terrifies her: fault-lines in her relationship begin to show, and her family history and repressed memories of violence break to the surface.
Tender, gripping and life-affirming, raw content tells the story of a woman grappling with a new form of love that feels like a disaster.
Expected release: 13th March (Corsair)
Faithbreaker
Hannah Kaner
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.
Expected release: 13th March (HarperVoyager)
Landscapes
Christine Lai
Set in a near-future fraught with ecological collapse, Christine Lai’s mesmerising and prismatic debut novel Landscapes is a brilliant exploration of memory, empathy, preservation, and art as an instrument for recollection and renewal.
In the English countryside—decimated by heat and drought—Penelope archives what remains of an estate’s once notable collection. As she catalogues the library’s contents, she keeps a diary of her final months in the dilapidated country house that has been her home for two decades and a refuge for those who have been displaced by disasters. Out of necessity, Penelope and her partner, Aidan, have sold the house and its scheduled demo¬lition marks the pressing deadline for completing the archive. But with it also comes the impending return of Aidan’s brother, Julian, at whose hands Penelope suffered during a brief but violent relationship twenty-two years before. As Julian’s visit looms, Penelope finds herself unable to suppress the past, clinging to art as a means of understanding, of survival, and of reckoning.
Recalling the works of Rachel Cusk and Kazuo Ishiguro, Landscapes is an elegiac and spellbinding blend of narrative, essay, and diary that reinvents the country-house novel for our age of catastrophe, announcing the arrival of an extraordinarily gifted new writer.
Expected release: 13th March (Influx Press)
The Geographer’s Map to Romance
India Holton
Their marriage is one of convenience.
Inconveniently, they’ve fallen in love . . .
Professor Elodie Tarrant is an expert in magical disasters. Nothing fazes her—except her own personal disaster, that is: Professor Gabriel Tarrant, the grumpy, unfriendly man she married for convenience a year ago, whom she secretly loves.
Gabriel is also an expert in magical disasters. And nothing fazes him either—except the walking, talking tornado that is his wife. They’ve been estranged since shortly after their wedding day, but that hasn’t stopped him from stoically pining for her.
When magic erupts in a small Welsh village, Elodie and Gabriel are accidentally both assigned to the case. With the fate of the country in their hands, they face perilous conditions like explosions, domesticated goats, and only one bed.
These geography professors are lost. But can they find their way into each other’s hearts – and save the day?
Expected release: 20th March (Penguin Books)
The Wolf and His King
Finn Longman
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…
Expected release: 20th March (Gollancz)
Luminous
Silvia Park
In a fictional near-future Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are housekeepers and policemen, teachers and bus drivers. They are our lovers. They are even our children.
Siblings Jun and Morgan Cho haven’t spoken to each other in several years. The children of a celebrated robot designer, both are still grieving the loss of their brother Yoyo, the earliest prototype for what humanoid robots have now become—nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. But Yoyo was always bound for a darker purpose, and his absence has left a chasm in the siblings’ lives.
When a strange disappearance thrusts the siblings back together, neither of them realizes that the investigation will not only force them to confront their fractured family’s past, but will also bring them back to Yoyo himself.
At once a thrilling page-turner and a heartfelt story of the ties between siblings, Luminous is an unforgettable literary debut.
Expected release: 20th March (Oneworld Publications)
Tideborn
Eliza Chan
A dragon queen, a vengeful sea witch, and a mythical titan converge on the underwater city of Tiankawi in this sequel to the no. 1 Sunday Times bestselling epic fantasy, Fathomfolk.
A tsunami and a dragon’s wish have wrought changes upon the city of Tiankawi that have never been seen before. But shared experiences have not healed the rift between the city’s fathomfolk and human citizens, and scars from years of oppression still remain.
Mira, a half-siren and activist, fights politicians and her own people to rebuild her city, and to uncover a deadly conspiracy. And Nami, the dragon princess, undertakes a daring ocean voyage alongside friend and foe, in order to convince a mythical Titan not to destroy Tiankawi for its crimes…
Expected release: 25th March (Orbit)
Dissolution
Nicholas Binge
In this staggeringly mind-bending speculative thriller for fans of Blake Crouch and Ted Chiang, a woman dives into her husband’s memories to uncover a decades-old threat to reality itself…
Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for her elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together. It’s the loneliest she’s ever felt in her life.
When a mysterious stranger named Hassan appears at her door, he reveals a shocking truth: Stanley isn’t losing his memories. Someone is actively removing them to hide a long-buried secret from coming to light. If Maggie does what she’s told, she can reverse it. She can get her husband back.
Led by Hassan and his technological marvels, Maggie breaks into her husband’s mind, probing the depths of his memories in an effort to save him. The deeper she dives, the more she unravels a mystery spanning continents and centuries, each layer more complex than the last.
But Hassan cannot be trusted. Not just memories are disappearing, but pieces of reality itself. If Maggie cannot find out what Stanley did all those years ago, and what Hassan is after, she risks far more than her husband’s life. The very course of human history hangs in the balance.
Expected release: 27th March (HarperVoyager)
When The Moon Hits Your Eye
John Scalzi
One day, suddenly and without explanation, the moon turns into a ball of cheese.
For some, it’s an opportunity. For others, it’s time to question their life choices. How can the world stay the same in the face of such absurdity and uncertainty?
Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and patients at the end of their lives – over the length of a lunar cycle, each gets their moment in the moonlight. To panic, to plan, to wonder and to hope, to laugh and to grieve. All in a story that goes all the places you’d expect, and to many others you could never anticipate. For the people of the earth, this could be the end – or the beginning of a whole new world.
From the Hugo and Locus Award-winning author John Scalzi, When the Moon Hits Your Eye is an entirely serious take on an entirely unserious subject.
Expected release: 27th March (Pan Macmillan)
Nils’ review | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
The Prince Without Sorrow
Maithree Wijesekara
Drawing on inspiration from the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India, debut author Maithree Wijesekara plunges readers into the first amazing book of the Obsidian Throne trilogy, a new fantasy series of hunted witches, romantic angst, and political intrigue. Perfect for fans of The Hurricane Wars and The Jasmine Throne.
A prince born into violence, seeking peace.
Prince Ashoka is the youngest son of the tyrannical Emperor Adil Maurya. Considered an outcast by his father for his rejection of the emperor’s brutal onslaught against the witches of the empire, Ashoka longs for change. When the sudden and unexpected death of his father leaves the monarchy in disarray, Ashoka is sent to govern a tumultuous region annexed by Emperor Adil that is terrorized by nature spirits—a task many see as doomed to fail. Suspected by a disdainful governor and evaded by distrustful witches, Ashoka must question his rigid ideals and fight against becoming the one person he despises the most—his father.
A witch shackled by pacifism, seeking revenge.
Shakti is a a witch bound by a pacifist code. After witnessing the murder of her aunt and village at the hands of the emperor, Shakti hurtles down a path of revenge, casting a curse with unexpected consequences. Posing as a maidservant in the famed palace of the Mauryas and armed with newfound powers beyond her imagination, Shakti attempts to dismantle the monarchy from within by having the royal progeny ruin themselves and turn their father’s legacy into nothing but ash.
In a world where nature spirits roam the land, and witches are hunted to extinction, Ashoka and Shakti will be forced to grapple with the consequences of to take it for themselves or risk losing it completely.
Expected release: 27th March (HarperVoyager)
April
Commedia Mortale
Wayne Holloway
Liguria, Italy. In a mountain village sits an old farmhouse that stores the memories of those who have lived there and suffers the tales of the visitors who come and go. The house weaves its magic on all who encounter it.
New owners move in and over time become entangled with a parade of oddball characters. From pagan ritual to the antics of modern village life, the clash between outsiders and locals, Commedia Mortale seeks to understand what is authentic in both: the tall tales of ageing Second World War Partisans, the dreams of a chef to travel to parts unknown supported by a Greek chorus of drunks, a talking parrot, and asylum-seeking footballers with their own dreams, and miraculously a visit to the village by Anthony Bourdain himself.
Parsed through the eyes of a film maker, the ultimate outsider, Commedia Mortale summons dreams of kinship and nightmares of enmity. Ranging across philosophy, food, history, love, loss and landscape, Holloway conjures up a unique portrait of a place, the fables of its past and the dilemma of how to live now.
Expected release: April (Influx Press)
A Drop of Corruption
Robert Jackson Bennet
An impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air – abducted from his quarters in a building whose entrances and exits are all sealed.
The brilliant and mercurial investigator, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant Dinios Kol have been called in to crack the case.
Before long, Ana discovers that they’re actually investigating a murder. Worse, the adversary seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.
Ana’s solved impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and the investigators seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, has Ana finally met an enemy she can’t defeat?
Expected release: 1st April (Hodderscape)
Gifted and Talented
Olivie Blake
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.
Where there’s a will, there’s a war.
Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.
Or at least, so they like to think.
Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You’re welcome! If only her father’s fortune wasn’t her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.
Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he’s losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.
Eilidh, once the world’s most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she’d been his favorite all along.
On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?
Expected release: 1st April (Tor)
Mere
Danielle Giles
Mere by Danielle Giles is a hypnotic historical novel about fear and survival, power and position, and a love that takes hold in the darkest of places.
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous marsh, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can.
But when the deep waters of the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.
Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow . . .
Expected release: 3rd April (Mantle)
A Song of Legends Lost
M. H. Ayinde
A SONG OF REBELLION. A SONG OF WAR. A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST.
In the Nine Lands, only those of noble blood can summon the spirits of their ancestors to fight in battle. But when Temi, a commoner from the slums, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war.
But not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor. And some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine.
Expected release: 8th April (Orbit)
A Palace Near The Wind
Ai Jiang
Liu Lufeng is the eldest princess of the Feng royalty and, bound by duty and tradition, the next bride to the human king. With their bark faces, arms of braided branches and hair of needle threads, the Feng people live within nature, nurtured by the land. But they exist under the constant threat of human expansion, and the negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop—or at least delay—the destruction of their home. But come her wedding day, Lufeng plans to kill the king and finally put an end to the marriages.
Trapped in the great human palace in the run-up to the union, Lufeng begins to uncover the truth about her peoples’ origins and realizes they will never be safe from the humans. So she must learn to let go of duty and tradition, choose her allies carefully, and risk the unknown in order to free her family and shape her own fate.
A powerfully imaginative, compelling story of a young woman seeking to save her family and her home, as well as a devastating meditation on the destruction of the natural world for the sake of an industrial future.
Expected release: 8th April (Titan Books)
A Granite Silence
Nina Allen
A Granite Silence is an exploration – a journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestley lives with her mother and father.
Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen’s the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts.
Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again.
Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen’s disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood – where everyone knows everyone, at least by sight – and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history.
Full of echoes, allusions and eerie diversions, A Granite Silence is an investigation into a notorious true crime case, but also a stylish, imaginative inquiry into who gets to tell a story, how it is told, and why .
Expected release: 10th April (Quercus Publishing)
The Book That Held Her Heart
Mark Lawrence
The secret war that defines the Library has chosen its champions and set them on the board
The fate of an infinite library hangs on one book, a book that holds the power to break the unbreakable. In the face of such forces, fragile things like hearts, family, and the world seem certain to fail.
The people most vital to Livira are scattered across time and space, lost, divided into factions, in mortal peril. Somehow, she must bring them together and resolve the unresolvable argument that fuels the library’s war. The bond between Livira and Evar has stretched and stretched again. Can it hold at the end, when things fall apart? Can it bring them together against impossible odds? This is the last chapter, the final page. The end threatens and no one, not characters, readers, or even the author, will emerge unscathed.
Expected release: 10th April (HarperVoyager)
The Ashfire King
Chelsea Abdullah
The Ashfire King continues the tale of myth and magic that began with The Stardust Thief, Chelsea Abdullah’s unmissable debut.
Neither here nor there, but long ago…
After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.
The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter she puts herself in the centre of a centuries-old war.
Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?
Expected release: 15th April (Orbit)
Some Body Like Me
Lucy Lapinska
As the world falls apart around them, piece by piece, Abigail Fuller spends humanity’s final days looking after her husband David.
But that’s not true, not really. Abigail isn’t David’s wife. She’s not even human. She’s a replacement, built in the image of the real Abigail, who died sixteen years ago.
When the law changes in three weeks, Abigail won’t need to be David’s wife any longer. She won’t need to be a woman, or a human, if she doesn’t want to be. She’s going to be able to find out exactly who she is.
But if she’s not Abigail Fuller, who is she?
Both tender and powerful, Some Body Like Me explores the boundaries of sexuality and the indefinable human capacity for love at the end of the world. Perfect for fans of Emily St John Mandel, Kazuo Ishiguro and Sequoia Nagamatsu.
Expected release: 17th April (Gollancz)
Deliverywoman
Eva Wyles
Deliverywoman is the stunning debut collection from Eva Wyles – thirteen short stories that dive into the complexities of human connection, the pursuit of meaning, and modern-day loneliness.
Across a diverse cast of characters – from teachers and gas station workers to hedonistic revellers and wealthy gamers – Wyles explores the strange dimensions of our world and the dangers of ordinary life, with needle-sharp writing both real and surreal.
Deliverywoman sits alongside A.M.Homes’ The Safety of Objects and Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World, announcing the arrival of a powerful new voice in contemporary fiction.
Expected release: 17th April (Influx Press)
Eat The Ones You Love
Sarah Maria Griffin
A twisted, tangled story about workplace love-affairs, and plants with a taste for human flesh from the acclaimed author of Spare and Found Parts and Other Words for Smoke.
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 fiance, 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.
Expected release: 22nd April (Titan Books)
The Gentleman and his Vowsmith
Rebecca Ide
Set in Regency England, a sparkling historical fantasy filled with arcane magic, deadly conspiracies and an irresistible queer romance.
Lord Nicholas Monterris is trapped. The only heir to a declining dukedom, Nic is destined for a marriage of convenience. What he didn’t expect was for his bride to be Lady Leaf Serral, daughter of his father’s hated rivals. Now they must all be locked inside mouldering Monterris Court for the duration of the contract negotiations, along with head negotiator, master vowsmith Dashiell sa Vare—beautiful, perfect Dashiell sa Vare—an old flame Nic has neither forgiven nor forgotten.
What could go wrong?
Only a dead body turning up mere hours after they lock the doors. The first could be an accident, but a second death reveals something sinister is unfolding at Monterris Court, and long-buried secrets begin to surface. As accusations fly, Nic must work with his former lover and his future bride to uncover the killer before they become the next targets.
Perfect for fans of Freya Marske, Alexis Hall, and Bridgerton mixed with magic and murder
Expected release: 24th April (Tor)
Exclusive excerpt | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
City of all Seasons
Oliver K. Langmead, Aliya Whiteley
A vibrant and emotional science fantasy about cousins trapped in mirrored worlds – the resplendent and verdant summer city and the ice-carved wastes of the winter city. For fans of Every Heart a Doorway and This is How You Lose the Time War.
Welcome to Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in perpetual winter, its windows and doorways bricked shut to keep out the freezing cold, its residents striving to survive in the arctic conditions.
Welcome to Esther Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in constant summer, its walls crumbling in the heat, its oppressive sunlight a relentless presence.
Winter and Summer alike, have both fallen under the yoke of oppressive powers, that have taken control after the cataclysm.
But both Fairharbours were once a single, united city. And in certain places, at certain times, one side can catch a glimpse of the other. As Jamie and Esther find a way to communicate across the divide, they set out to solve the mystery of what split their city in two, and what, if anything, might repair their fractured worlds.
Expected release: 29th April (Titan Books)
May
The Sun Blessed Prince
Lindsey Byrd
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.
Expected release: 1st May (Tor)
Midnight Blue
Joe Lane
Vincent Black, Scottish-Brummie sound engineer and aspiring folk singer, is turning fifty. A Communist, former train engineer, and a heroin addict who took his name from the Richard Thompson song ‘Vincent Black Lightning 1952’, he is obsessed with mystical dreams about dead singers such as Nico, Sandy Denny, and Janis Joplin.
After the drug-related deaths of a number of Vincent’s friends leave him confused and frightened, he tries to deal with his sense of loss by playing music, and by escaping into a romantic affair with a younger woman who is just his type: artistic, spiritual and possessed of a sense of humour. Then, she disappears under mysterious circumstances.
And when a lover from his student days begins stalking him, Vincent is panic-stricken – because that person is supposed to be dead…
Midnight Blue is Joel Lane’s third and final novel, never published until now, completing the informal trilogy that began with From Blue to Black and continued in The Blue Mask.
Fueled by a passion for music–especially the protest songs and traditional ballads of British folk–and the fullest expression of Lane’s allegiance to socialism and how left-wing politics intersect with creativity, Midnight Blue is the coda to a remarkable career of a writer now beginning to gain the critical praise he deserved.
Expected release: 1st May (Influx Press
The Devils
Joe Abercrombie
Europe stares into the abyss.
Plague and famine stalk the land, monsters lurk in every shadow and greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions. Only one thing is certain: the elves will come again, and they will eat everyone.
Sometimes, only the darkest paths lead towards the light. Paths on which the righteous will not dare to tread . . .
And so, buried beneath the sacred splendour of the Celestial Palace, is the secret Chapel of the Holy Expediency. For its congregation of convicted monsters there are no sins that have not been committed, no lines that will not be crossed, and no mission that cannot be turned into a disastrous bloodbath.
Now the hapless Brother Diaz must somehow bind the worst of the worst to a higher cause: to put a thief on the throne of Troy, and unite the sundered church against the coming apocalypse.
When you’re headed through hell, you need the devils on your side.
Expected release: 6th May (Gollancz)
A Letter From The Lonesome Shore
Sylvie Cathrall
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. . .
Expected release: 6th May (Orbit)
The Strength of the Few
James Islington
Expected release: 6th May (Simon and Schuster)
The Incandescent
Emily Tesh
A Deadly Education meets Rivers of London in this captivating contemporary fantasy from Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Dr. 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 with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. But it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from, is herself . . .
Expected release: 13th May (Orbit)
Damned
Genevieve Cogman
The stakes have never been higher . . . Damned by Genevieve Cogman is the final book in the Scarlet Revolution series, a spellbinding adventure of magic, vampires and mayhem.
1794. Eleanor, once a lowly English maid, is now a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel and a promising conjuror. With a vampire plot thwarted in Paris, the League’s next daring rescue is of the Pimpernel’s beloved wife, Lady Marguerite, imprisoned in her London townhouse on unjust charges of treason and espionage.
But Lady Marguerite’s captivity is only the first threat from the League’s vampiric enemy. With the King known to be ill, possibly mad, England is not as it should be. Vampires conspire to take control over the whole country whilst challenging Eleanor and the League at every turn.
But then, using her growing magical powers, Eleanor uncovers a devastating, centuries-old secret. It is one so steeped in blood, that it will change not only England, but the entire vampire world, forever . . .
Damned is the unmissable third book in the Scarlet Revolution trilogy from Genevieve Cogman, author of The Invisible Library series. Discover where Eleanor’s journey first began in Scarlet, a Sunday Times bestseller.
Expected release: 22nd May (Tor)
The Sleepless
Jen Williams
Welcome to a world where gods roam the earth, but monsters do too . . .
Meet Elver, who was saved by the Queen of the Serpents when she was just a child, and Artair, who spends his nights shut up in a tower because of the dangerous spirit that overtakes his body when he sleeps.
When Artair is sent on a mission to steal a monster cub that is under Elver’s protection, he – and Lucian, the other spirit inhabiting his body – are set on a collision course with the monster girl that will challenge everything they think they know about their world.
Get ready to fall hopelessly in love with the first epic YA romantasy from multi-award-winning fantasy author Jen Williams.
Expected release: 22nd May (Pan Macmillan)
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
Caitlin Rozakis
From the NYT-bestselling author of Dreadful, Big Little goes to magic school, cozy fantasy perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Olivia Atwater and Heather Fawcett. Featuring orange sprayed and stencilled edges, with magic symbols, unicorns and baked goods from the book.
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.
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 cross-country 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 reels 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…
Expected release: 27th May (Titan Books)
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me
Django Wexler
The hilarious sequel to How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler!
Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.
Davi has left the horde behind her, hoping to find a peaceful solution to keep the Kingdom from being destroyed this time. But her plan to guide the Kingdom to peaceful prosperity is thwarted when she finds her usual love interest, Prince Johann, already married and the bloodthirsty Duke Aster running the government. Johann’s new husband is everything Davi is not, but he holds a key to the one mystery she can’t solve – the origins of the time loop that has entrapped her.
With restless armies at her doorstep, Duke Aster reaching for power, and an ancient magician hounding her every turn, Davi must scheme her way to peace and uncover the truth behind her curse if she is to break the spell that binds her once and for all.
Expected release: 27th May (Orbit)
June
A Foreign Country Is The Past
Fernando Sdrigotti
At a secluded weekend home, a girl becomes entranced by the sound of the cicadas, as she grapples with the stifling summer heat, and her mother’s recent death.
Overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding, a young man seeks solace in a privatised cathedral, comically navigating religious bureaucracy, economic crisis, and existential angst.
A journey to scatter his grandparents’ ashes turns into a tragicomedy, as an unnamed man explores the changes in the city he left behind.
A Foreign Country is the Past is the sensorial new collection from the acclaimed author of Jolts. Centering on identity and memory, viewed through a distinctive Argentine lens, these fifteen tales are a profound exploration of the spaces between places and the echoes of time.
Expected release: 5th June (Influx Press)
The Burial Witch
Cari Thomas
A Threadneedle novella
Expected release: 5th June (HarperVoyager)
The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death
Helen Marshall
A young woman is seduced by the glamour of the circus and drawn into dangerous world of violence, cruelty and revenge. For readers of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Helen Oyeyemi’s Mr Fox.
A dark fantasy tale infused with mystery and threat from the award-winning author whose work has been described by Paul Tremblay as “intelligent, dark, wildly inventive”
Sara Sidorova lies dying. As she hovers between life and death, she receives a visitation from Amba, the tiger god who will devour creation if he is released from the chains that bind him. Amba gives Sara Sidorova an extraordinary gift: a glimpse into the future.
Years later, her granddaughter Irenda will grow up in a wartorn country where survival means obedience. When a devastating attack robs her of her mother, she travels to Hrana City. There, her grandmother agrees to teach her the ultimate secret: how to tame death. But it won’t be easy…
In the circus that offers her first taste of power, Irenda will have to tame another tiger if she is to survive. Amongst the magicians, the strongmen and the contortionists, she will start down a dangerous road, to carry out a revenge decades in the making… and bring justice into the world for herself and for her family.
Rich with glamour and strangeness, brutality and deceit and the dark magic of the circus, this haunting fable will chill your bones and make your heart ache.
Expected release: 10th June (Titan Books)
Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil
V. E. Schwab
From V. E. Schwab, the No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying, unforgettable novel to sink your teeth into.
Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532.
London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.
Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.
One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.
And all of them grow teeth.
Expected release: 10th June (Tor)
A Far Better Thing
H. G. Parry
H. G. Parry’s A Far Better Thing is a standalone, portal fantasy where Jonathan Strange & Mr. NorrelI meets A Tale of Two Cities in a heart-rending fantasy of faery revenge set during the French Revolution.
I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse.
The fairies stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faerie Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead.
It will take magic and cunning—cold iron and Realm silver—to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition.
Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine.
Expected release: 17th June (US ONLY – Tor)
Heart of the Wyrdwood
RJ Barker
‘That thing in Tiltspire, it keeps Cahan like a trophy. It says to us, here is your strongest and I have killed him.’
Cahan Du Nahare is lost, taken by a dark god whose tendrils reach throughout the world, intent on its destruction. Those who followed Cahan are spread across the land, desperate and lost now fate has turned against them. The Reborn warriors are toys for the enemy, the warrior Dassit, forestal Ania and monk Ont are drawn to the dangerous north but do not know why. Udinny is forced into the company of a woman who desires nothing more than her death and the Rai, Sorha, leads a dwindling band on a mission even she believes is doomed to failure. Only the trion Venn remains hopeful, slowly growing in power and trusting in the path of their god.
But maybe all is not lost, the great Wyrdwoods of Crua may be ancient and slow to act, but something in them is waking.
Wyrdwood is coming.
Expected release: 24th June (Orbit)
The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver
Rafael Torrubia
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 by Jay Kristoff, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
Expected release: 26th June (Gollancz)
July
The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam
Megan Bannen
From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a new heart warming fantasy rom-com with an opposites-attract twist set in the delightful world of Tanria.
Immortal demigod Rosie Fox has been patrolling Tanria for decades, but lately, the job has been losing its lustre. After one hundred and fifty-seven years of being alive, everything is beginning to lose its lustre. When Rosie dies (again) by electrocution (again) after poking around inside a portal choked with shadowy thorns only she can see, she feels stuck in the rut that is her unending life.
Thanks to Rosie’s meddling, the portal inventor, Dr. Adam Lee, must come in person to repair the damage. When all the portals begin to break down, he declares an emergency evacuation of Tanria. In the mad rush to get out, Rosie and Adam end up trapped inside the Mist. Together.
And uptight Adam Lee in his bespoke menswear seems to know a lot more about what’s happening than he lets on. . .
Expected release: 8th July (Orbit)
The Jasad Crown
Sara Hashem
In the thrilling conclusion to the Egyptian-inspired Scorched Throne duology, a fugitive queen may be the key to restoring her lost kingdom of Jasad, but it could cost her everything and everyone she loves.
Held deep in a mountain refuge, Sylvia has been captured by the Urabi, who believe she can return their homeland to its former power. But after years of denying her legacy and a forbidden alliance with Jasad’s greatest enemy, Sylvia must win the group’s trust while struggling to keep control of both her magic and her mind.
In the rival kingdom, Arin is caught between his father’s desire to put down the brewing rebellion and the sacred edicts he’s sworn to uphold. Arin must find Sylvia before his father’s army, but his search will call into question the very core of Arin’s beliefs about his family and the destruction of Jasad.
War is inevitable and Sylvia cannot abandon her people again. The Urabi plan to raise the Jasadi fortress, and it will either kill Sylvia or destroy the humanity she’s fought so hard to protect. For the first time in her life Sylvia doesn’t just want to survive. She wants to win.
The fugitive queen is ready to come home.
Expected release: 15th July (Orbit)
A Witch’s Guide To Magical Innkeeping
Sangu Mandanna
An enchanting novel about a witch who has a second chance to get her magic – and her life – back on track, from the author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.
Sera Swan was once one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her magical Guild.
Now she runs an inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests’ shenanigans, tries to keep the fox in check, and longs for the magical future she lost.
Until she discovers an old spellbook that could hold the secret to restoring her power – and turns to Luke Larsen, brilliant historian and human glacier. Luke has his own reasons for staying at the inn, and none of them involve letting certain grumpy innkeepers past his icy walls. So no one is more surprised than he when he not only agrees to help, but also finds himself thawing.
And as Luke and Sera work together to decipher the book, Sera starts to realise that love – and the family she’s made – could be the best magic of all . . .
Expected release: 15th July (Hodderscape)
Seven Recipes for Revolution
Ryan Rose
The Bear meets Attack on Titan in this exhilarating, food-based epic fantasy filled with high stakes and monster steaks, perfect for fans of Pierce Brown and Jay Kristoff.
Paprick is a common butcher, carving slabs of meat from gargantuan monsters so elite chefs can prepare magic-granting meals for the rich. But Paprick’s true passion is cooking, and if he can learn the secret art, his dreams of liberating his people and sharing the monsters’ magic with the world could come true. He steals the precious ingredients needed to practise recipes at home, but if he’s caught, he’ll be executed.
As his desperation grows, he ventures into the black market and uncovers a spice imported from unknown lands. Combining it with the last of his stolen meat, he cooks a dish the world has never tasted before, with side-effects he couldn’t have foreseen.
The dish’s magic grows Paprick to kaiju-size, and legends of his powers spread among the people. Immediately, the rulers arrest him, but Paprick convinces them to make him a chef’s apprentice-if they ever want to learn his Recipe. However, his exposure to the world of high cuisine reveals the rot at its centre, and with his new power, rebellion is only a few recipes away…
Expected release: 22nd July (Daphne Press)
August
Black Flame
Gretchen Felker-Martin
Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin is back with Black Flame, a historical horror about one woman’s deadly obsession with a haunted film, perfect for fans of Midsommar and Night Film.
Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in New York City.
When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes over its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.
She’s soon convinced that the acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality. And they’re happening to her…
Expected release: 5th August (Tor Nightfire)
The Damned King
Justin Lee Anderson
The revolution continues in the thrilling third novel of Justin Lee Anderson’s epic Eidyn Saga, perfect for fans of Anthony Ryan and David Gemmell.
The eternal light keeping demons at bay has been extinguished and Eidyn’s last bastion is under brutal siege. Aranok and his allies draw the final battle lines as the war for the kingdom nears its end.
With death threatening from every shadow and truth itself at stake, Eidyn’s defenders must put aside their grudges and come together. But is it possible to save everyone when some prefer the lie?
Expected release: 19th August (Orbit)
September
Whalesong
Miles Cameron
An explosive space opera, set in the rich world of Artifact Space and Deep Black
Recently retired DHC space pilot Thor Storkel is hired to move cargo from Terra in a shady deal he would never have accepted, had it not come from his former squadron mate, Marca Nbaro.
Every part of the mission is loaded with doubt, and Storkel quickly realises that he hasn’t just been handed a cargo; he’s the stalking horse in a high-stakes game to uncover a violent political conspiracy – and some will stop at nothing to kill him and the cargo he carries.
Expected release: 4th September (Gollancz)
The Iron Road
David Wragg
Sequel the The Company of the Wolf and the final instalment in Wragg’s Tales of the Plains trilogy.
Expected release: 11th September (HarperVoyager)
All Hail Chaos
Sarah Rees Brennan
The sequel to Long Live Evil, coming from Orbit Sept 2025.
Expected release: 16th September (Orbit)
October
First Mage On The Moon
Cameron Johnston
From the Angry Robot newsletter: NEW CAMERON JOHNSTON being announced very soon! | Grimdark master Cameron Johnston returns in this innovative space fantasy where wizards race to be the first to touch the moon, also known as the land of the gods… a fast paced read, perfect for fans of Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Expected release: 14th October (Angry Robot)
No further information currently.
November
Witchlight
Susan Dennard
The highly anticipated finale in Susan Dennard’s New York Times bestselling Witchlands series.
Paths converge and prophecies unfold as Safi and Iseult – the legendary Cahr Awen – fight their way across the Witchlands to heal the final Origin Well. With ancient figures rising from the past, the Raider King’s armies gathering for war, and the magic at the heart of everything dying too fast, the entire world is now on the brink of collapse.
But, when Safi and Iseult reach the Air Well with the Bloodwitch Aeduan at their side, they discover too late that Eridysi’s Lament is not the prophecy they thought it was – and their journeys are only just beginning.
Expected release: 6th November (Tor)
The Last Contract of Isako
Fonda Lee
‘Inspired by samurai movies and Fonda’s former business career, The Last Contract of Isako is a searing space opera like no other that takes aim squarely at late-stage capitalism. Get ready to meet an aging contractor, Ithmus Isako, whose final mission thrusts her deep into a world of espionage and sword fights on an isolated colony planet.’
‘From World Fantasy Award-winning author Fonda Lee comes a searing space opera in which a battleworn samurai’s final mission thrusts her deep into a world of corporate espionage, dark secrets and tarnished honour, where she uncovers a conspiracy that could upend society on an isolated colony planet.’
Expected release: 4th November (Orbit)
Untitled Sequel to The Gods Below
Andrea Stewart
No further information currently
Expected release: 4th November (Orbit)
The Blackfire Blade
James Logan
Winter has come early to Korslakov, City of Spires, and Lukan Gardova has arrived with it. Most visitors to this famous city of artifice seek technological marvels, or alchemical ingenuity. Lukan only desires the unknown legacy his father has left for him, in the vaults of the Blackfire Bank.
But when Lukan’s past catches up with him, his key to the vault ends up in the hands of a mysterious thief known only as the Rook. As Lukan and his companions race to recover the key, they soon find themselves trapped in a web of murder and deceit. In desperation, Lukan requests the help of Lady Marni Volkova, scion to Korslakov’s most powerful family.
Yet Lady Marni has secrets of her own. Worse, she has plans for Lukan and his friends. Plans that involve a journey into Korslakov’s dark past, in search of a long-lost alchemical formula that could prove to be the city’s greatest discovery . . . or its destruction.
Expected release: 6th November (Arcadia)
