TOP PICKS – September 2025
Welcome to this month’s Top Picks!
Every month, we like to share with you our favourite reads of the month. We’ve rounded up our contributors and asked them each to recommend just one favourite read of the month.
A big thank you to Nils for coming up with this feature, and our contributors for taking part!
Let’s find out what the team has read this month…
Nils: The Tower of the Tyrant by J. T. Greathouse
I started off the month by finishing off the Emily Wilde trilogy by Heather Fawcett and I absolutely loved it. Compendium of Lost Tales was set entirely in the Fae world and I thought Fawcett did a fantastic job of showing how magical it was but how equally creepy it was too.
Another highlight for me was by an author I’ve not read before—Rise of the Ranger by Philip Quantrell. This was a classic fantasy featuring elves, assassins, mer-men and a dark lord vying to break free. It had all the nostalgic vibes I was looking for!
The Scour by Richard Swan was a pretty impressive novella from one of my favourite authors. We are treated to a tale of Justice Konrad Vonvault and his foul mouthed companion Bressinger as they investigate a haunted lighthouse. It was the perfect read to get me in the mood for the spooky season but it also held some thought provoking themes.
My Top Pick goes to The Tower of the Tyrant by JT Greathouse, which is an upcoming dark fantasy standalone—again great for the spooky season. A haunted tower, a sorceress scholar investigating and an abundance of supernatural and magical beings, this one delivered a complex but addictive read. What I loved most was the philosophical debates throughout and the intricate magic systems. A very impressive novel.
Theo: Slow Gods by Claire North
In a relatively busy (for me) reading month of eight books, only two were speculative fiction but both were, in different ways, delightful.
As a long time admirer of Louis Sachar’s sophisticated children’s books I happily dived into and enjoyed The Magician of Tiger Castle with its idiosyncratic first person narrator and the charming romantically entwined couple he is struggling to save. In any other month Sachar’s first venture into (cosy) adult fantasy would be an easy top pick.
But this is the month I got an ARC of Claire North’s Slow Gods, which is released on 18th November, and for which I have already written a full review. This is going to take some beating as my top pick of the year with its unique protagonist, diverse and inclusive cast of characters, elegant world building and astute commentary on the political and environmental ailments of our modern times. Cathartic, entertaining, inventive – amazing to read the author’s own blog and how much trepidation she had about stepping into the genre of space opera for the first time – she absolutely smashed it!
Theo’s review | Pre-order here
Cat: What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
I’m currently deep into Slow Gods too, so can confirm how excellent it is! But my favourite picks of the month are actually a trilogy (of which I hope there’s more to come).
I revisited T. Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier books in readiness for the latest, What Stalks the Deep – and was reminded all over again just how brilliant they are. Pratchett-esque dry humour mixes surprisingly well with eldritch horrors of the darkest sort, and this contrast makes the mysteries all the more engrossing, with genuine humanity and a fierce sense of peril. I love the narrator’s voice so much but every character is memorable, and while I found myself racing through these short tales in just a few hours each, the atmosphere stuck with me long after. Perfect quick reads for spooky season!
Vinay: Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff
September had its highlights and just like Cat, it was a trilogy that occupied my time this month.
I took on the quest of finishing Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire trilogy and boy, it was an absolute treat from start to end. In a world where the sun has failed, and humanity tries to survive against armies of vampires, Gabriel De Leon recounts this tale even as he awaits execution. It’s a fantastically written series of blood, tragedy and loss while being unapologetically salacious. Each book is above 700 pages but it’s so deftly and lightly written that you never feel the length.
My favorite of the series and the Top Pick for the Month is Empire of the Dawn (out in Nov). I was lucky to get an early copy thanks for the Hive and this is a fantastic series capper that wildly oscillates between “Oh, Shit!!!!” And “Well, Shit!!!!” Moments with a “No Shit” thrown in between as well. It’s a relentless book with some masterful writing and deceitful plotting especially towards the ending. I plan to review each book in the series even as we work our way towards the Nov release date .
Beth: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
I too have had a super busy reading month; I finished six books and I’m currently half way through another two, and I’ve split them equally between speculative and non-speculative.
This month I read Stephanie Burgis’ A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience and A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence. These were wonderfully imagined gas-lamp supernatural romantasies where a scholar finds herself in an arranged marriage with a vampire. They’re not spicy, but they are wholesome and perfect for these darkening evenings; Honeymoon especially is ideal for a Halloween read!
My top pick however, like Cat, goes to T. Kingfisher. She’s been my top pick author a number of times this year already, and I doubt this will be the last as I have at least another four books of hers lined up on my TBR! This month, I read A Sorceress Comes to Call and was blown away once more by how varied her storytelling is. This time around we had a regency setting, and two protagonists – the lonely Cordelia who is very much abused by her sorceress mother, and the older Hester, whose wealthy but single brother the sorceress has set her eyes upon. It certainly the darkest of her books that I’ve read so far; not an outright horror, but it has plenty of gruesome elements, heartbreak, and very dark themes. I loved every page.
What was your favourite read of the month? Share with us in the comments!
