Hamm (A Darkness So Sweet) launches a trilogy with this rocky romantasy. When a terrible plague threatens Princess Jessamine Harmsworth’s kingdom, she agrees to marry the heir to a neighboring kingdom who promises a cure. But tragedy strikes on her wedding day: Jessamine and her family are brutally murdered by her new husband, who seizes their thrones. In the “realm for the dead,” Jessamine meets the Deathless One, or Elric, a death god who was once worshipped by witches but whose followers have dwindled and who is now trapped in the underworld. Recognizing Jessamine as a Gravesinger, a rare and powerful type of witch, Elric offers her a deal: he’ll restore her to life if she will resurrect him. But to reclaim her throne, Jessamine must learn to fully embrace her magic and its dark consequences. Hamm’s writing shines in Jessamine and Elric’s electric chemistry but their slow-burning relationship far overshadows the fantasy elements, leaving the worldbuilding vague and the magic system frequently confusing. Despite a strong opening, the story drags in the middle, and the lackluster ending rushes through too many revelations. Romantasy fans will be taken with the leads but will hope for tighter plotting in the next installment. Agent: Rachel Brooks, BookEnd Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Combining dark fairy tale aesthetics with a medical mystery plot, this utterly delightful Snow White riff from Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kingfisher (A Sorceress Comes to Call) transports readers to a New Mexicoesque kingdom of deserts, mesa houses, and saints with the heads of venomous snakes. Kingfisher’s gift for charmingly kooky protagonists is on full display in healer Anja, an eccentric scholar of antidotes and obsessive problem solver who can’t resist the puzzle posed to her by the king, who seeks a cure for the mysterious illness plaguing his daughter, Princess Snow. The king suspects poison, but Anja can’t find any trace of it—until she catches Snow eating a strange, metallic-looking apple. Anja and her bodyguard, Javier, investigate, finding their way into a bizarre mirror world that may hold the key to Snow’s illness—or may lead to their deaths. The diagnostic mystery at the heart of this meticulously crafted secondary world fantasy makes for a refreshingly novel plot structure, and Kingfisher wows with her ability to effectively worldbuild using just a few choice details that then come together to create an almost dizzyingly satisfying climax. Meanwhile, the monstrous mirror-gelds are a Lovecraftian revelation and Anja’s feline sidekick, Grayling, will steal hearts. This is Kingfisher at her best. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Ryan (Born of an Iron Storm) successfully pivots from epic fantasy to post-apocalyptic thriller in this pulse-pounding vampire tale. Fifteen years before the start of the novel, an event dubbed “The Feeding” led to the evolution of three types of vampires: feral gammas; slightly more human betas; and powerful alphas, who are intelligent enough to pass as fully human. Since then, billions have died. Teen survivor Layla lives in one of the few remaining human strongholds, the Redoubt. After one of her fathers, Strang, contracts a lung infection, Layla is desperate to obtain antibiotics to treat it. With none available in the Redoubt, she successfully applies to join the Crossers, a highly trained unit that ventures into the feeder-infested Outside to search for precious resources. Each Crosser is also allowed to bring back a few personal items, and Layla hopes to hunt down the medication and get it to Strang in time. Scrappy Lyla is a wonderfully multifaceted heroine and, as she and her teammates face threats both from the voracious feeders and from one another, Ryan keeps readers on the edges of their seats. Fans of The Last of Us will be enthralled. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

The 13 chilling stories in Bram Stoker Award winner Langan’s masterful sixth collection (after 2022’s Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies) exemplify literate horror. Langan has a gift for putting fresh spins on familiar tropes through formal innovation, as showcased in the brilliant title tale, which exposes the truth behind a cult favorite horror movie through its 10th anniversary Blu-Ray’s special features. In a conversation between the film’s cast and crew, director Sarah Fiore comments that the movie, about what befell a film crew upon entering “an abandoned mine in search of a mysterious woman who disappeared there decades ago,” began as a documentary. This revelation sparks a new investigation into how much of the film should be taken as true. Another standout, “My Father, Dr. Frankenstein,” is presented as the endnotes for a review of a book of the same title. The notes gradually disclose a horrific series of experiments, ostensibly aimed at insuring the survival of humanity after catastrophic climate change. Langan sweats the details, making suspending disbelief effortless, and populates his nail-biting plots with three-dimensional characters. This is an author at the height of his powers. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Intricately plotted with luxuriant worldbuilding, the dark fantasy debut from illustrator Wong announces her as an exciting new voice. Alma is 11 years old and living in disgrace with her unwed mother when her aristocratic father, Lord Zander Avera, comes to retrieve her. As head of one of the Four High Houses of Kugara, Zander needs an heir to serve as a vessel for their elder god, the Dread Beast. He amputates Alma’s left arm and sacrifices it to the god. Soon thereafter she learns her mother has died, and falls into despair. Then, suddenly, a silver-haired boy appears before her, wearing her left arm as his own. This apparition is the Dread Beast, who has taken the form of her imaginary childhood friend and promises, “You’re not alone, Alma.” Going by Aster, he will oversee her training for the next eight years so she can join her father’s mission to prevent a powerful falling star from bringing darkness to the land. Aster, however, fears that Zander is too selfish for the task and encourages Alma to seek revenge on her father for abandoning her and her mother. Wong masterfully constructs a gothic coming-of-age tale replete with love, politics, and betrayal, helmed by a wonderfully earnest heroine. Elegant illustrations peppered throughout enhance the experience. Fans of manga and heroic fantasy will be thrilled. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Megayachts and breezy rivalries animate Chawaga’s wild sci-fi mystery debut set in hurricane-plagued near-future Florida. Deep sea diver Triss Mackey is looking for underwater salvage when she discovers the body of Edgar Ortiz, leader of Miami’s most powerful corporate mafia, the Mourners. Pulled into a high-stakes whodunit, Triss finds herself in the midst of a deadly power struggle for control of the waterlogged city. Along the way, she befriends Ortiz’s estranged son, Riley, and learns that a “cryptocult” called the Church of the Invisible Hand is secretly rebuilding the city using massive construction robots, endangering both a colony of python-repelling purple flamingos and a hippie commune hiding in the mangroves. If this setup weren’t inventive enough, Chawaga ties the murder to a rare Series 1 Ultimon game card (most of which were “lost when the convention center in Seattle collapsed during the Great Cascades Earthquake”). Highly valued among Miami’s nostalgic salvage collectors, the card is lodged inside gnarly wreckage. If Triss can muster the will to make the perilous dive, she’ll be closer to both solving the murder and retiring with her girlfriend, Myra, in their “semi-sentient” houseboat. Unfortunately, all this zany worldbuilding—plus a jumble of secondary characters with their own quirky backstories—overwhelms. This sunshine state extravaganza starts strong, but quickly gets lost in the weeds. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Radford’s outstanding debut elevates the classic zombie tale through its impressive psychological acuity, deep emotional resonance, and literary prose. In the near future, England is just recovering from a viral zombie outbreak that has been contained only through the eradication of all those infected. Now biomedical scientist Kesta Shelley is tapped for Project Dawn, a London-based research project tasked with developing a vaccine in preparation for future outbreaks. The appointment is a godsend because her husband Tim was among the infected—and she’s secretly keeping him alive, breaking all protocol to preserve him in his “undead state” until a breakthrough cure is found. Kesta is well aware that Tim’s zombie taint presents the risk of future outbreaks, and the subterfuges she devises to keep his continuing existence under wraps as she and her team race against the clock to find a cure infuse the tale with taut suspense. The novel’s heart, though, lies in Radford’s wrenching depiction of Kesta’s passionate devotion to Tim, and the painful concessions and moral decisions she makes in her care for a victim of a devastating terminal disease. Readers will be moved and thrilled in equal measure by this unique supernatural extravaganza. (July)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Nebula Award winner Anders (All the Birds in the Sky) brings gentle humor and a clear-eyed sense of justice to this lovely standalone contemporary fantasy. Literature grad student Jamie Sandthorne has a secret. She doesn’t fully know how it works and can’t think about it too much, but for years she has quietly been practicing witchcraft. Years after the death of her mother Mae, Jamie decides to share this gift with Serena, her surviving mother, who’s still trapped in a spiral of grief. However, fierce, driven former lawyer Serena sees magic not as a gift but a weapon, and ropes Jamie into a mission of revenge. Anders lets the unintended consequences of this revenge quest unfold alongside a clever framing narrative centered on a pair of 18th-century women novelists and uses the dual plots to tease out a skillful commentary on social precarity and the way vulnerable people trying to make a difference can become casualties in the culture war. With a lovably messy trans protagonist and a deep, tender-hearted exploration of grief, guilt, and the difficulty of asking for the things one wants, this is perfect for seasoned readers of queer feminist speculative fiction looking for a cozy escape that still challenges. Agent: Russ Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

The masterful latest queer horror novel from Bram Stoker Award winner Piper (All the Hearts You Eat) is a surreal and complex examination of desire and control. Kinky couple Carmen and Blanca have been struggling with their sex life due to Carmen’s recent lack of arousal even in response to the most intense of BDSM scenes. Then Blanca meets an alluring woman named Smoke, who offers to loan them her copy of a mysterious play titled The King in Yellow, which has mind-altering properties. It seems to solve their problem: if Carmen reads from the book—briefly—it induces a sort of euphoria that brings her back into her body and allows for a frenzy of lust and desire. But when the effects wear off, the play’s power is seductive and addictive. Carmen wants to read more, and more, and more—but, as Smoke warns, “These pages? They read you, too.” Piper has an impressive gift for dealing in repressed memories and heightened sensations, crafting a dreamlike but still utterly absorbing page-turner. Readers will become enamored with Carmen and Blanca and hope for their relationship to survive this supernatural roller coaster. There’s lots here to sink one’s teeth into. Agent: Lane Heymont, Tobias Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

This chilling gothic horror novel from bestseller Cañas (Vampires of El Norte) transports readers to 18th-century Mexico, where a plague outbreak in Zacatecas forces Alba Diaz and her devout Catholic family to flee the city. They escape to Mina San Gabriel, an isolated mining village in the mountains, to stay with Alba’s fiancé, Carlos, and his family. But instead of finding a quiet, rustic life, Alba is troubled by sleepwalking and terrifying hallucinations. Carlos’s cousin Elías is newly arrived from Spain, hoping to make a quick fortune off the family’s silver mine. There’s immediate romantic tension between Alba and Elías, despite him knowing that she is off-limits. When Alba attempts to kill him during one of her mysterious episodes, Elías recognizes the signs of demonic possession and sets out to help her. The pair work together to rid Alba of the demon, while confronting the Catholic church’s stance on the supernatural and family secrets. Cañas creates a lush, detailed atmosphere thick with tension and dread. Despite a slow opening and somewhat uneven pacing throughout, the richly layered narrative offers much to hold readers’ interest as it probes themes of colonialism, patriarchy, and autonomy. Cañas’s fans will not be disappointed. Agent: Kari Sutherland, KT Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink