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Autumn 2025
Forthcoming SF Books
A Rebel’s History of Mars by Nadia Afifi, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58945-2.
The fates of two people, separated by space and time, collide when a crew of time-travelling historians travel to Mars to learn why their ancestors left for a distant galaxy. They find an aerialist in the Martian circus who triggered a chain of events when she was infected with an alien substance, one that could spell humanity’s end or salvation. Kezza, an aerialist in the Martian circus, can never return to Earth – but she can assassinate the man she blames for her grim life on the red planet. Her murderous plans take an unexpected turn, however, when she uncovers a sinister secret. A thousand years into the future, Azad lives a safe but controlled life on the beautiful desert planet of Nabatea. His world is upended when he joins a crew of space-travelling historians seeking to learn the true reason that their ancestors left Mars. Separated by time and space, Kezza and Azad’s stories collide in the Martian desert.
Cold Eternity by S. A. Barnes, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50823-2.
Billed by the publisher as a new space horror that blends the dystopian dread of Severance with the catastrophic approach to AI from M3gan. Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: Elysian Fields, a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth's most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago… The cryo program, created by trillionaire tech genius Zale Winfeld, is long defunct, and the AI hologram 'hosts', ghoulishly created in the likeness of Winfeld's three adult children, are glitchy. The ship feels like a crypt, and the isolation gets to Halley almost immediately. She starts to see figures crawling in the hallways, and there's a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents. It's not long before Halley realises she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from…
Hearthspace by Stephen Baxter, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61467-2.
In the far future, among a billion planets and a star that burns a billion times as brilliant as the Sun of Earth, humanity exists where it has never belonged… A thousand years have passed since a human expedition was launched to the system of the ‘Hearth’, a dark matter star. Humanity – its origins forgotten – has peacefully colonised many planets. But now an expansive slaving culture begins to cross Hearthspace… Ulla Breen, young space-navy officer, must lead the fight against the slavers, and ultimately seek out the origin of humanity in the Hearthspace.
Robots Past & Future Short Stories edited by Chris Beckett, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62292-6.
Anthology. The world of Generative AI, Robots and Artificial Intelligence are moving rapidly in new directions. This new Robots anthology delves into the fascinating evolution of robots – from the mechanical marvels of the past to the imaginative possibilities of the future. Whether exploring the nostalgia of retro robotics, envisioning futuristic automatons, or unique stories that bridge the two, this exciting collection brings together classic fiction of robots from the past and combines them with new stories by modern authors.
A Crime Through Time by Amelia Blackwell, Pan, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-054091.
Pemberley, 1799. When Miss Georgiana Darcy attempts to escape an unwanted marriage proposal, she isn’t expecting to end up quite so far from home. But after encountering a mysterious object in the nearby woods, she finds herself transported almost two hundred years into the future. Saltram, 1995. At a grand country house where a film crew are busy shooting the latest Jane Austen adaptation, a terrible crime has been committed. And Miss Darcy – newly arrived, impeccably dressed and thoroughly confused – is the only witness. It soon becomes clear that, somehow, Georgiana was meant to solve this riddle. With the help of a distractingly handsome Irishman named Quinn and a border collie named Watson, she sets out to stop the killer before they can strike again. But trouble is brewing back at Pemberley, and time, it seems, is not on her side.
Whalesong by Miles Cameron, Gollancz, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-139-9-61508-2.
Space opera. As Marca Nbaro begins scaling the DHC’s political ladder, terrorism, espionage and the distant Aliens War all threaten the Human Sphere. When Nbaro is almost killed, treason is revealed, and a single merchant ship stands between humanity and extinction.
Title to be confirmed by Michael Connelly, Orion, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-398-71907-1.
This is a genre-adjacent technothriller. An company has a product that may have been responsible for the murder of a young girl….
Doctor Who: Fear Death by Water by Emily Cook, BBC Books, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94961-6.
An original Who story with the Gatwa Doctor. Northumberland, 1838. The TARDIS crash lands on board a sinking steamship. Stranded, the Doctor and the few survivors fight for their lives – while the local lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Grace Darling, risks her life to row to their rescue. Lauded a heroine, Grace struggles to cope with her new-found fame. But the Doctor senses something else is troubling Grace. She’s been tormented by the terrifying vision she saw out at sea in the storm. There’s a monster in her mind, wrecking ships and stealing the souls of the drowned. And it’s real.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Oxford University Press, £6.99 / US$8.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-198-86434-9.
The volume is full of famous cases, including ‘The Red-Headed League’, ‘The Blue Carbuncle’, and ‘The Speckled Band’, as well as the first appearance of Irene Adler. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of The Strand Magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Sherlock Holes was one of the first modern superheroes with an uncanny ability for detective work.
To Cage a Wild Bird by Brooke Fast, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN: 978-1-911-75100-7.
Billed by the publisher as The Hunger Games meets Prison Break in this enemies-to-lovers, fantasy romance series that's perfect for fans of Veronica Roth and Tahereh Mafi who loved the 2010s dystopian era and are looking for the adult version of those books. A deadly prison. A forbidden romance. A fight for survival. In Dividium, all crimes are punishable by life in prison. A prison that’s a life sentence in more ways than one. Where the wealthy can hunt the inmates for sport. Raven’s mission is simple: infiltrate the infamous and deadly Endlock Prison to save her brother. There’s just one problem: Raven has a target on her back. Her reputation as the most ruthless bounty hunter in Dividium precedes her, and the inmates she’s sent to Endlock want their revenge.
Doctor Who: Spectral Scream by Hannah Fergesen, BBC Books, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94962-3.
An original Who story with the Gatwa Doctor. When a psychic shriek for help nearly overwhelms the TARDIS, the Doctor and Belinda track the source to a distant planet. There they find a sentient, telepathic bio-ship named Adama and ragged colonists descended from the original crew. Adama is dying, and their spectral screams are growing strong enough to kill anyone in the vicinity. When Adama crashed 100 years ago, it was with a great treasure on board, stolen from the ruthless Gangnax Imperium – technology that could either unite worlds or destroy them. If they are to save the bio-ship, the Doctor and Belinda must survive suspicious colonists, greedy bounty hunters and military forces determined to reclaim what’s theirs – before Adama’s final death throes destroy them all.
Coldwire by Chloe Gong, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
To escape rising seas and rampant epidemics, most of society lives “upcountry” in glistening virtual reality, while those who can’t afford the subscription are forced to remain in crumbling “downcountry.” But upcountry isn’t perfect. A cold war rages between two powerful nations, Medaluo and Atahua – and no one suffers for it more than the Medan orphans in Atahua. Their enrolment at Nile Military Academy is mandatory. Either serve as a soldier or risk being labelled a spy. Eirale graduated the academy and joined NileCorp’s private forces downcountry, exactly as she was supposed to. Then Atahua’s most wanted anarchist frames her for assassinating a government official, and she’s given a choice: cooperate with him to search for a dangerous program in Medaluo or go down for treason. Meanwhile, Lia is finishing her last year upcountry at Nile Military Academy. Paired with her academic nemesis for their final assignment, Lia is determined to beat him for valedictorian and prove her worth. But there may be far more at stake when their task to infiltrate Medaluo and track down an Atahuan traitor goes wrong… Though Eirale and Lia tear through Medaluo on different planes of reality, the two start to suspect they are puzzle pieces in a larger Conspiracy – and the closer they get to the truth, the closer their worlds come to a shattering collision.
Doctor Who: Lux by James Goss, BBC Books, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94955-5.
A trip to 1950s Miami takes a dangerous turn, leaving the Doctor and Belinda at the mercy of Mr Ring-a-Ding. A cartoon come to life who wants something that only the Doctor can give him. Can Belinda save the Doctor? Or will they be trapped by a trick of light? Featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Varada Sethu as Belinda.
Doctor Who: Empire of Death by Scott Handcock, BBC Books, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94953-1.
Enlisting UNIT in their search for an enigmatic woman who appears all throughout time and space, the Doctor and Ruby uncover deeper mysteries. What is the secret of Susan Triad? What happened on the night that Ruby was born? The answers lead the Doctor and Ruby to a horrifying confrontation with the greatest evil of all... Russell T Davies' epic two-part finale of Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the Doctor is novelised by series script editor Scott Handcock, reinstating material from earlier drafts.
Final Orbit by Chris Hadfield, Quercus, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43596-2.
1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation. But a third power is rising, in the race to dominate space. As NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, three of the six astronauts are killed in an unexplained accident. And from a remote location in east Asia, a capsule secretly launches with China’s very first astronaut aboard, purpose unknown… Full of Cold War intrigue and real historical characters, Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion – and brings to life the loneliness, majesty and pure rush of space flight, with all of the hard-won experience of a writer who is himself one of the most decorated astronauts alive…. From the author of The Apollo Murders
Afrofuturism Short Stories edited by Sandra M. Grayson & Isis Asare, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62264-3.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture defines Afrofuturism as exploring ‘Black identity, agency and freedom through art, creative works and activism that envision liberated futures for Black life’. This new anthology expands on the success of Black Sci-Fi Short Stories and First Peoples Shared Stories with fresh stories from open submissions and by invitation. Dr Sandra M. Grayson is a tenured full professor in the English Department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her publications include the books Visions of the Third Millennium; Symbolizing the Past; A Literary Revolution; and Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change. Isis Asare is the CEO/ Founder of Sistah Scifi, the first Black-owned US bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the US. She also serves as Exec. Director of Aunt Lute Books, an intersectional, non-profit feminist press. Asare holds degrees from Stanford, Harvard and Columbia. She hails from Harlem, New York, and lives in Oakland, CA.
The Rule of Chaos by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-473-23425-3.
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. As three timelines begin to converge, Asha must decide exactly what she’s willing to sacrifice in order to save the universe.
Lucid by Oraine Johnson, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61016-2.
Science fiction. This explores the nature of our subconscious through the lens of Joseph Jacobs, an everyday college student in a dystopian, near-future Birmingham – until he’s not . . . Due to be awakened to his true identity, on his eighteenth birthday he receives a package that changes reality itself. As Joseph begins to learn the truth, it becomes clear – we cannot have dreams without nightmares.
Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Skipper Shimizu lives in the epilogue of our world. With her sisters Carmen and Nora, she scavenges her family's survival out of the ruins around them: finding food despite the blight that ruined the crops, keeping their grandmother and uncle afloat in a drowning world. When their oldest sister disappears, Skipper and Carmen brave a dystopian ocean full of storms, toxic waste, and pirates to find her and bring her home. But they're not the only ones looking for Nora. Renewal – the seed corporation that has controlled their world since the blight – wants what Nora has discovered. Luckily, the Shimizu sisters know a thing or two about survival.
The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations – until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life but she's haunted by disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her friends. Someone will betray her along the way.
Cixin Liu: The Collected Short Stories by Cixin Liu, Head of Zeus, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90393-1.
Cixin Liu is one of China's leading SF writers and author of The Three-Body Problem – the first ever translated novel to win a Hugo Award. Prior to becoming a writer, Liu worked as an engineer in a power plant in Yangquan.
All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu, Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91594-1.
A near-future thriller set in a world where the dark algorithms of AI have permeated every aspect of life, from politics to culture to dreaming. At 14, Julia Z became infamous as the "orphan hacker," a teenage prodigy who broke the law and captivated a nation. Now, years later, she’s trying to leave that life behind, hiding in the quiet suburbs of Boston. But her fragile anonymity is shattered when a desperate lawyer bursts into her life, begging for her help to find his wife—a celebrated artist who uses AI to craft dreams for thousands and who has been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate. Julia embarks on a harrowing journey across the country, drawn ever-deeper into the shadows of the American dream. Resourceful, relentless, and deeply contemptuous of authority, Julia must dig deep into her unique skill set and fractured psyche to uncover the truth – and to hold onto hope when everything around her descends into darkness.
Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution by Una McCormack, BBC Books, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94954-8.
Belinda Chandra grew up longing to travel - but never imagined rocket ships would be part of the deal. Abducted by killer robots and taken to a strange planet, Belinda must join forces with the Doctor to put right a revolution that might just be her fault... Reach for the stars as the Doctor and Belinda - as played by Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu - embark on their first adventure together. This novelisation of Russell T Davies' script.
Opposite World by Elizabeth Anne Martins, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58960-5.
Science fantasy? You can’t always trust your dreams. But what if you can’t trust your waking life either? Piper “Pip” Screed remembers nothing about her mother’s mysterious death or the strange episode that left her in a deep, unexplained sleep. All she knows is that her father uprooted them to a secluded mountain cabin, severed all ties to the outside world, and refuses to answer her questions. Blending science fiction with psychological horror, surreal fantasy, and an aching tremor of human longing, Opposite World is an exploration of memory, identity, and the thin divide between perception and reality.
Royal Gambit by Daniel O’Malley, Gollancz, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62169-4.
When the Prince of Wales dies abruptly, and all signs point to an unnatural assassination, Alix is assigned to be his sister’s lady-in-waiting. Thrust into the limelight overnight, both in the everyday world and in the underground world of the Checquy, Alix must juggle her responsibilities and her loyalties as she attempts to unravel the murder, keep Louise safe and learn how to smile graciously while eerie threats loom around every corner. A princely murder, a supernatural assassin, an undercover bodyguard… a royal nightmare!
Forged by Beth Overmyer, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58951-3.
This is the third book in Overmyer’s 'Blade and Bone' series. Verve is meant to rule and unite the mortal and magical realms. There are several challenges standing in her way, however. Dacre, her former captor and greatest enemy, seeks to set up a kingdom with himself crowned as king and Verve as his queen. That is, until Verve tumbles through a portal leading to a realm from which there are no known means of escape…
Requiem by John Palisano, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58954-4.
Ava must fight an entity locked in on taking out the crew of ‘Eden’, a moon-sized cemetery in space, as it brings back the souls of the dead buried aboard. One such soul is Ava’s lost love, Roland. The spirits of the interred on Eden haunt those aboard, including a visiting musician is tasked with writing a new song for the dead. Her Requiem calls a cosmic entity that illuminates their darkest fears and secrets. One by one, they’re driven mad. Ava fights her grief and must rise up before they’re lost and the entity reaches Earth.
Doctor Who: The Well by Gareth L. Powell, BBC Books, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94956-2.
A terror from the past is rising from the darkness five miles deep. Joining a military rescue mission to an isolated mining colony, the Doctor and Belinda find a single survivor of a violent catastrophe. What killed the colonists? Why is every mirror in the base smashed? The chilling truth spells horror and death... This features the Doctor and Belinda as played by Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu.
One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford, Nightfire, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04827-4.
a scientist desperately searches for a cure to a zombie virus while also hiding a monumental secret – her undead husband. Kesta’s husband Tim was the last person to be bitten in a zombie pandemic. The country is now in a period of respite, the government seemingly having rounded up and disposed of all the infected. [; But Kesta has a secret.. Tim may have been bitten, but he’s not quite dead yet. In fact, he’s tied to a bed in her spare room. And she’s made him a promise: find a cure, bring him back. A scientist by day, Kesta juggles intensive work under the microscope alongside Tim’s care, slipping him stolen drugs to keep him docile, knowing she is hiding the only zombie left. But Kesta is running out of drugs – and time. Can she save her husband before he is discovered? Or worse… will they trigger another outbreak?
Halcyon Days by Alastair Reynolds, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61177-0.
Yuri Gagarin is a private investigator aboard the Halcyon – a starship, hurtling through space, carrying thousands of passengers with thousands more sleeping the journey away. His usual investigative work – cheating spouses and small-time cons – takes a turn when he’s hired to look into a death in one of Halcyon’s most elite families… and then warned off the case again. Yuri finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery in which, at any moment, he could be the latest victim.
Shadows Upon Time by Christopher Ruocchio, Head of Zeus, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-92066-2.
The trumpet sounds. The end has come at last. After his victory at Vorgossos, Hadrian Marlowe finds himself a fugitive, on the run not only from the Extrasolarians, but from his own people, the Sollan Empire he betrayed – and who betrayed him. What's more, the inhuman Cielcin have have vanished, unseen for more than a century. The armies of men have grown complacent, but Hadrian knows the truth: the Cielcin are gathering their strength, preparing for their final assault against the heart of all mankind. Only Hadrian possesses the power to stem the tide: an ancient war machine, forged by the daimon machines at the dawn of time. The mighty Demiurge. With it, Hadrian must face not just the Cielcin horde, but their Prophet-King, and the dark gods it serves – the very gods who shaped the universe itself. This must be.
Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63323-9.
Collection of shorts. Spanning the genres of fantasy and science fiction, this collection features stories from beyond the bounds of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe.
Along with the never-before-seen novella Moment Zero, Tailored Realities will include Snapshot, Perfect State, Defending Elysium (a novella set within the world of Skyward), five other stories that were originally published individually elsewhere and many that have never before been available in print. The collection will also include a black-and-white illustration for each story.
The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-08293-7.
For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay. But there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war. The Colonial Union, the Earth and the Conclave are at risk of being dragged into the conflict, whether they want to be involved or not. Gretchen Trujillo is a former Colonial Union diplomat, trying to forge a new life away from the conflicts of nations, human and alien. But when she is called to take part in a secret mission involving representatives from every powerful faction in space, what she finds there has the chance to redefine the destinies of each – or destroy them forever
59 Minutes by Holly Seddon, Orion, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-398-70949-2.
This is a genre-adjacent thriller. It’s an ordinary evening. People are coming home from work, cooking dinner for their children, cuddling on sofas with their lovers. And then the message arrives, shattering everyone’s worlds: Missiles are set to destroy England in fifty-nine minutes. Everyone should seek immediate shelter. 59 Minutes follows the journey of three women trying to make it home to and protect their families. But with a schoolchild seeking help, a teenage daughter suddenly going missing and dangerous criminals on the prowl, there is peril at every corner…
Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman, BBC Books, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94959-3.
This novel has Who provenance. It is based on the Big Finnish, Jubilee audio play with the Paul McGann Doctor. 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring... But something must be stirring. Something hidden in the shadows. Something which kills the servants of an old Edwardian mansion in the most brutal and macabre manner possible. Exactly on the chiming of the hour, every hour, as the grandfather clock ticks on towards midnight. Trapped and afraid, the Doctor and his companion, Charley, are forced to play detective to murders with no motive, where even the victims don't stay dead. Time is running out. And time itself might well be the killer...
Doctor Who: Jubilee by Robert Shearman, BBC Books, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-785-94957-9.
This novel has Who provenance. It is based on the Big Finnish, Jubilee audio play that became the basis of Shearman's Ecclestone Doctor Who episode, 'Dalek'. It is time to celebrate! Let all the citizens of the glorious English Empire come together and give thanks to that mysterious soldier in time and space known only as the Doctor. For 100 years ago he destroyed a Dalek invasion force without mercy, and became the saviour of us all. We have just one real Dalek left. Kept alive in the Tower of London, all these years our prisoner. And tomorrow we are going to blow it up, just for you! So put up your Dalek bunting and raise a glass of Dalek Juice. Who knows, there may be a special guest in attendance – the Doctor himself! Oh, you lucky people! Time to get this party started…
The Last Man and The Journal of Sorrow by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Oxford University Press, £10.99 / US$13.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-198-89279-3.
Mary Shelley’s The Last Man is a novel set in the aftermath of climate disaster and a war between Greece and Turkey in the late twenty-first century. It is one of the first post-apocalyptic novels Shelley’s ‘Journal of Sorrow’ was written after the death of her husband and provides the personal background to the novel. This includes a new introduction drawing out connections between Shelley’s novel and the journal, and their relationships to political science fiction and life writing.
Stars Like Us by Stephen K. Stanford, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58965-0.
In the sequel to Stanford’s Jubilee Col Pereolo is security chief for the artificial mini-world of Jubilee – a kind of Vegas-in-space. But his peaceful life is shattered by a surprise attack, and desperate to save his young family, he flees with an unlikely crew including ex-wife, Sana. But the League base he reaches is riven by politics and infiltrated by the enemy. Col must escape again, this time to his birth planet, where he faces long dormant personal demons. Where is Jubilee? What’s happened to Col’s wife and kids? How can he stop these politically incorrect feelings for Sana from bubbling up? Only the stars can tell…
Conform by Ariel Sullivan, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07225-5.
One man could offer her the world. The other will help her destroy it… Born to an Elite family, Emeline has been marked as different from birth, both for her heterochromia – her differently coloured eyes – and by a society that judges all its citizens on their ability to conform. Emeline only has one role open to her: to become a mother. Offered a pro-creation contract with Collin, a member of the Illum – the governing body of the Elite – Emeline finds herself increasingly torn between her growing complicated feelings for her proposed mate, and another man who lives on the margins of their society who challenges her ideals. When the marginalised rise up in rebellion, Emeline begins to question everything she has ever believed in. It’s time to choose a side…
When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43648-8.
Decades from now, two women sit around a fire on Beltane, May Eve, and reflect on their life stories. Activist Lucy’s earliest memories are of living with her grandparents during the 2020 pandemic, and discovering her grandmother’s love of birds. Filmmaker Hester, born on the day of the Chernobyl explosion, visits the plant in 2021 to film its feral dog population, and encounters the wilded Exclusion Zone – and a wolf-dog. Over half a century, their journeys take them from London to Balmoral to Somerset, through protests, family rifts, and personal tragedy. Lucy’s path leads to the fight to restore Britain’s depleted natural habitats and bring back the species who once shared the island, whilst Hester strives to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Both dream of a time when wolves once again roam England’s forests.
The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43992-2.
Ignored by her family, Mary Bennet hides herself away and carries out experiments, hoping that she might discover something that will allow her to live independently, without having to worry about marriage. Then, a chance combination of a bird’s corpse, the right chemicals, and a lightning strike find her considering the impossible: she may have just brought the dead back to life…
Out of Time by Jodi Taylor, Headline, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-40604-3.
The Time Police are accustomed to jumping to the past. This time, however, the past has come to them. What connects a dead dinosaur with Romulus the founder of Rome, a shocking cover-up at TPHQ and a plot to murder the Princes in the Tower? The Time Police are determined to find out, helped - and occasionally hindered - by a wayward member of St Mary’s and a recently reunited Team 236. Each in their own unique way, obviously. As if all that wasn’t enough - something somewhere in the Timeline is wrong. Very, very wrong. What is the Time Map trying to tell them? Can the Time Police find the answers before Time runs out?
Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Head of Zeus, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91144-8.
Outreach is that part of the Pal machine responsible for diplomacy – converting enemies into friends, achieving through words what an army of five thousand could not, for urging the oppressed to overthrow the bloody-handed priests, evil necromancers and greedy despots that subjugate them. Angilly, twelve-years-old, a child of Pal soldiers stationed in occupied Jarokir, does not know it yet, but a sequence of accidents and questionable life choices will lead her to Outreach. As she travels from Jarrokir to Bracinta, Cazarkand, Lemas, The Holy Regalate of Stouk and finally, Usmai, she’ll learn that the price of her nation’s success is paid in compromise and lost chances, that the falling rain will always be bitter.
This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07926-1.
Two estranged lovers fight monsters on a giant Titanic-like submarine… Sergeant Nix Marr is a damn good soldier, but she’s desperate to leave her haunted past behind. She lost her best friend and her old flame In the galaxy’s most deadly sunken mines. But even the icy bioluminent ocean can’t extinguish some fires. When Kessandra, everyone’s favourite princess and Nix’s much-loathed ex, requests Nix’s help investigating a massacre in the abyssal city of Fall, Nix refuses. Vehemently. But Kessandra always gets what she wants. Consigned as Kessandra’s bodyguard, Nix grudgingly boards a luxurious submersible that offers the only transportation to the city of Fall. It’s frustrating, irritating, how quickly Nix and Kess fall back in sync. And much as she tries to fight it, Nix can’t deny their spark. But Kessandra wasn’t truthful - surprise, surprise - and Nix quickly realizes their ‘investigation’ isn’t into the massacre that killed her friend. But they’re seeking what caused it: an illness that incites its victims into a violent craze. When another royal is brutally murdered, it becomes apparent the disease has spread - and no one on the submersible is safe. Suddenly, survival hinges on trusting each other. And this would be a hell of a lot easier if Kessandra didn’t keep lying. Injured and fighting for both their lives, Nix has to decide if she can trust Kessandra again . . . and what she’ll lose this time if she does.
Golgotha by Lavie Tidhar, Apollo – Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-804-54356-6.
Two men, decades apart, traverse the same land in search of fabled treasure. But as the land changes and war erupts, the fate of both men leads them unerringly towards a place of skulls. Bandits and poets, dreamers and killers bar their way as Golgotha shifts from the peaceful backwater of Ottoman Palestine to the frantic final week of the British withdrawal from the Holy Land, in an extraordinary slice of a history of violence.
Journey to the Moon by Jules Verne, Oxford University Press, £9.99 / US$12.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-198-94178-1.
A new translation of Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, telling the story of an audacious journey to the Moon that inspired generations of writers and astronauts. This edition contains a wealth of contextual information and unpublished research and is the first text to appear as the author wished.
Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50784-6.
SFnal technothriller. In 2050, investigative journalist Marcus Tully is still grieving the loss of his wife and unborn child in the deadly heatwave that struck the Persian Gulf ten years ago. Now, the world is both burning and drowning, and the decision has been taken to elect a global leader to steer humanity through the worsening climate apocalypse. The final two candidates are ex-US president Lockwood, and Solomon, an Artificial Intelligence. As election day races closer, Tully begins to unravel a conspiracy that goes to the highest level. Then Solomon’s creator is murdered, and Tully is pulled in to find the culprit. As the two investigations intertwine in ways he could never have imagined and the world hurtles ever closer to the brink, Tully must find the truth, convince the world to face it and make impossible choices to secure the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, Flame Tree Press, hrdbk, £9.99 / Can$16.99 / US$12.99, 544pp, ISBN 978-1-835-62284-1
Collectable Classic edition of H.G. Wells’ classic tale. Cylinders land on Earth and invaders from Mars begin to destroy houses, then whole cities, creating panic and mass evacuation before a foul black smoke is released by the aliens. Includes a new introduction, the short story ‘A Dream of Armageddon’ and The First Men in the Moon.
The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61685-0.
Three years after the Atlas Heist, Malia is bored. That is until she lands herself in trouble with one of the most dangerous gangs on Kepler Space Station. She’s offered a deal: take down the corrupt politician interfering with the gang’s business, or die. The person she’s working for is just as bad as the person she’s taking down, and there are darker things lurking in the shadows. Things tied to Malia’s past. Things that could decide her future.
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Autumn 2025
Forthcoming Fantasy Books
Itch by Gemma Amor, Hodder and Stoughton, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Folk horror. Something moves on the forest floor… Josie is at rock bottom. Burned out, heartbroken and recovering from an abusive relationship, she lives a haunted existence after returning to her isolated hometown on the edge of the Forest of Dean. But the tall, dense pine trees are not the only things casting shadows across her skin.
Josie's hopes of a fresh start are horribly derailed when she stumbles across a dead woman's decaying, ant-infested body in the woods. The grim discovery sends her into a downward spiral, forcing her to face uncomfortable truths about the victim and her own past - all whilst battling the swarming black ants that seem to have burrowed into her mind… and her flesh. As Josie struggles with infestations of all kinds, she scratches the surface of an age-old mystery - a masked predator stalks the forest around Ellwood, a place deeply gripped by ancient folklore and strange customs. So when the village dresses up for its annual festival, Josie gets closer and closer to unveiling a monster, and begins to ask herself: Are these dark crawling insects leading her to uncover the truth? Or is she their next victim?
Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch, Orion, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-473-226722.
‘This isn’t London. The rules are different up here, and so are the allegiances.’ Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he’ll need one when this is over… When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off. Something may be stirring beyond the bay – but there’s something far stranger in the sky…
Birth of a Dynasty by Chinaza Bado, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
We shall not forgive. We shall not forget. We will have our vengeance. This is centred around three families’ fight for power in Ahkebulin, a land where magic is feared, giants are real, and prophecy holds sway. Between scheming ladies at court, backstabbing princes on the prowl, and paranoid kings, M’kuru and Zikora must do what they can, no matter how terrible, to save their people and claim vengeance for their families. But they are just two young people against an entire kingdom – and a prophecy destined to thwart their dreams – and the last thing they can do is trust anyone… even each other.
Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree, Tor, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-03594-6.
Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling ennui, she transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her! If only things were so simple… It turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint. A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior surviving on inertia, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover. As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when there isn’t a job to get in the way.
The Devil She Knows by Alexandria Bellefleur, Transworld, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-99860-1.
Billed by the publisher as My Roommate is a Vampire meets Casey McQuiston in this funny and heartfelt queer paranormal romance… In less than 24 hours, her life has unravelled, leaving her single and with nowhere to live. Adding insult to injury, she’s trapped in an elevator with a gorgeous woman claiming to be a demon. Daphne is not at all what Samantha expected from someone claiming to be an evil supernatural entity. She’s pretty, witty, dressed in pink, and smells nice. And she’s here to offer Samantha a deal she can’t refuse. Six wishes in exchange for one tiny trade – Samantha’s soul. There’s a glaring loophole in their contract, one Samantha fully intends to exploit so she doesn’t fork over her soul. After all, she only needs one wish to win her ex back. Hell-bent to gather the last of the one thousand souls she needs so that she can be free of her own devilish deal, Daphne grants each of Samantha’s wishes… with a twist, so that Samantha is forced to make another.
A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair, Arcadia, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44799-6.
As the King’s Blade, Keera is the most talented spy in the kingdom – and the king’s favourite assassin. When a mysterious figure moves against the crown, Keera is called upon to hunt down the so-called Shadow. But as she tracks her target, she’s shocked by what she learns and can’t help but wonder who her enemy truly is: the king that destroyed her people or the Shadow that threatens the peace?
A Shadow Crown by Melissa Blair, Arcadia, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44802-3
Sequel to the above. To the kingdom, Keera is the King’s Blade. But in secret, she works with Prince Killian and his Shadow – the dark, brooding Fae, Riven, who sets her blood on fire. Together, they plot to kill a tyrant king. But when a traitor is discovered in their midst, Keera is the top suspect. And now she has more to lose than she ever imagined.
A Vicious Game by Melissa Blair, Arcadia, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44802-3
Sequel to the above. A new king is on the throne and the rebellion lies in ruins. With new intelligence about the magical seals left behind by Keera’s ancient kin, the Light Fae, she rallies to face her demons and unleash the formidable powers she inherited from her people. But a shocking truth is hiding in plain sight, one with the power to unravel the entire rebellion.
An Honoured Vow by Melissa Blair, Arcadia, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44808-5
Sequel to the above. Keera’s discovery of a staggering secret about her lover and the kidnapping of one of her closest allies threatens to tip her back into darkness, but she has no time to rest. Opening the kingdom’s magical seals has transformed Keera in ways no one could have anticipated, and now she and her allies must gather an army to meet Damien’s forces in a final confrontation of epic proportions.
Falling in a Sea of Stars by Kristen Britain, Gollancz, £20, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-473-22653-1.
Magic, danger and adventure abound for messenger Karigan G’ladheon, the Green Rider.
Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07086-2.
No war can be fought with clean hands. Not even the ones waged for the right reasons. Not even the ones you win. Tisaanah bargained away her own freedom to save those she left behind in slavery. Now, bound by her blood pact, she must fight the Orders’ war – and Max is determined to protect her at all costs. But, when a betrayal tears apart the land of Ara, Max and Tisaanah are pushed into an even bloodier conflict. Tisaanah must gamble with Reshaye’s power to claim an impossible victory. And Max, forced into leadership, must confront everything he hoped to forget: his past, and his own mysterious magic. All the while, darker forces loom – far darker, even, than the Orders’ secrets. As Tisaanah and Max become ensnared in a web of ancient magic and twisted secrets, one question remains: what are they willing to sacrifice for victory, for power and for love?
Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07083-1.
Her life for freedom. Her blood for love. Her soul for vengeance. Ripped from a forgotten homeland as a child, Tisaanah learned how to survive with nothing but a sharp wit and a touch of magic. But the night she tries to buy her freedom, she barely escapes with her life. Desperate to save the best friend she left behind, Tisaanah journeys to the Orders, the most powerful organizations of magic Wielders in the world. To join their ranks, she must complete an apprenticeship with Maxantarius Farlione, a handsome and reclusive fire wielder who despises the Orders. The Orders’ intentions are cryptic, and Tisaanah must prove herself under the threat of looming war. But even more dangerous are her growing feelings for Maxantarius. The bloody past he wants to forget may be the key to her future… or the downfall of them both. Tisaanah will stop at nothing to save those she abandoned. Even if it means gambling in the Orders’ deadly games. Even if it means sacrificing her heart. Even if it means wielding death itself.
The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk by Carissa Broadbent, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05164-9.
Mische made the ultimate sacrifice to save those she loves – and plunged the world into an eternal night. Now, imprisoned by the gods and obsessed with revenge, Asar is desperate to find her again. When a goddess offers them a final path to redemption – and back to each other – Asar and Mische embark on an extraordinary mission. Together, they must seize the power of the god of death so that Asar can do the impossible: ascend to true divinity. Their journey will take them through mortal and immortal realms, alongside both old friends and ruthless enemies. But, as the underworld teeters on the brink of collapse and the gods prepare for a war, Asar and Mische must decide what they are willing to sacrifice for the power to defy death. In a game of vengeful gods and ancient betrayals, there are some debts that even love may not be able to repay.
The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-63726-9.
The world of unknowable objects - magical items that most people have no idea possess powers - has been quiet for decades... But three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world - and keep the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artefact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends the Society's newest member, author Magda Sparks, to investigate. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artefact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.
Aphrodite edited by Stephanie Budin, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62268-1.
Aphrodite, the mesmerising Greek goddess of beauty, love and passion, continues to fascinate. Born of sea foam, her tale is as profound as the ocean itself. Misunderstood as a fertility goddess, she embodies sensuality, sexuality and maternal grace. This 'Myths, Gods & Immortals' book unveils her myths, cultural legacy and re-imaginings.
An Echo of Children by Ramsey Campbell, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58978-0.
The Incubations by Ramsey Campbell, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk. 978-1-78-758929-2
These are special hardback editions. If you are into fantastical horror and have yet to discover Ramsey then this is your chance to dive in.
In the Veins of the Drowning by Kalie Cassidy, Gollancz, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-632096.
Romantasy. Imogen Nel is in hiding. From a cruel kingdom that believes Sirens are monstrous, from a king who viciously hunts her kind and from her own alluring abilities. When a neighbouring king comes to visit, Imogen can no longer hide. He knows precisely what she is – and he believes she is a lost Siren heiress who can save both their kingdoms from an even greater monster. Soon, it is clear the only way Imogen can defeat a monster is by becoming one herself.
The Nightblood Prince by Molly X. Chang, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63022-1.
Vampire romantasy. Prophesied to become empress, Fei knows her destiny is to marry the Crown Prince. When the opportunity arises to seize her own fate, Fei takes it – but lands at the mercy of a runaway prince from a rival kingdom. To outrun her destiny, Fei must spark a wave of events that will change the world as she knows it. Caught between two princes and two kingdoms on the brink of battle, Fei must reckon with the fact that love alone may not stop the coming war.
Paris Celestial by A. Y. Chao, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
All aboard the Immortal Express - Lady Jing is off to Paris where she will encounter romance, danger and vampires. Now a Minister of Hell, Lady Jing is mind-numbingly bored. All she wants is plain talk and time with her beau Tony Lee, who has been distracted with mortal matters of late (impending war is such a drag). But then Aengus, a visiting Celtic deity, turns up boneless and drained of yin qi. The only way to help him is to return him to his pantheon's healer, in residence in Paris. Ready for a new adventure, Jing immediately volunteers for the task. Accompanied by Tony Lee, the group settle into the Immortal Express for what should be a run-of-the mill journey… until the train is hijacked by the Vampire Republic, who are seeking hostages in their bid to demand recognition by the international pantheons. Jing fears the worst, but when she unwittingly reveals her heritage, the vampires embrace her as one of their own… if she abandons her friends. Caught in an impossible situation, can Jing use her wit and spark to save them all?
The Decadence by Leon Craig, Sceptre, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Haunted house story. At the height of lockdown, a group of flailing twenty-something friends makes an illicit break for freedom. A grand country house stands empty. Once the home of Theo's great uncle, it seems like the perfect place to get high and hang out in the spring sunshine, as they eschew adult responsibilities. Since meeting as teenagers, rifts have grown amongst the group. Even as they are determined to enjoy
themselves, tensions cast shadows between them - politics, sex and lies. The house, too, has its own dark history and exudes a palpable sense of menace. Where do the drugs end and the supernatural begin? Will anger and jealousy tear the friends apart, or will it be more ominous forces? Their stay at Holt House will change them all...
Our Vicious Oaths by N. E. Davenport, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Princess Kadeesha has no choice but to obey her father and marry the Hyperion High King. But she can decide to spend one last night of freedom in the arms of an intoxicating stranger. Unfortunately, Malachi is no stranger. Kadeesha’s husband-to-be decimated the Apollyon Court, and as its new king, Malachi wants his pound of flesh. When he attacks on her wedding day, Kadeesha’s father is killed, her groom is wounded, and she is taken back to Malachi’s land. But she won’t stay his hostage for long. The two form a pact: they will use public displays of their ‘love’ to lure the jealous High King so Malachi can kill him once and for all. In return, Malachi will not harm Kadeesha or the Aether people she now rules. But fae oaths are unbreakable and the powerful attraction between them might prove even more irresistible…
The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J. R. Dawson, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-01824-6.
Love doesn’t die; people do… At the edge of Chicago, nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, is a way station for the dead. Every night, the newly departed travel through the city to the Station, guided by its lighthouse. There, they reckon with their lives before stepping aboard a boat to go beyond. Nera has spent decades watching her father – the ferryman of the dead – sail across the lake, every night just like the last. But tonight something is wrong. The Station's lighthouse has started to flicker out. The terrifying, ghostly Haunts have multiplied in the city. And now a person – a living person – has found her way onto the boat. Her name is Charlie. She followed a song. And she is searching for someone she lost. A devastating story of magic, family and those who leave us – but who might not remain lost.
Human Rites by Juno Dawson, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Niamh is back from the dead … but she hasn’t come back alone. Elle mourns a son she never had. Ciara languishes in a prison for witches. And Leonie reels from a very unexpected surprise. Five very different witches with one thing in common: they were unwittingly chosen by the dangerously charming Lucifer, the demon king of desire, to fulfil a dark prophecy. But Lucifer has a deadly offer for fledgling witch Theo: help him and her coven – her family – will be spared as the rest of humanity perishes in a hellish new reality. Save the ones she loves? Or save the world? The choice is hers… The final confrontation between good and evil is about to commence.
Our Lady of Blades by Sebastien de Castell, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-787-47150-4.
cutthroat, destroying lives with impunity. Now the city’s all-powerful Ascendant Houses have started buying and selling verdicts to enslave and even execute those who oppose them. Into this depraved world of licensed death comes a mysterious duellist who dares to foil the intrigues of the city’s elite. They call her Lady Consequence, and she’s on a quest for vengeance…
Tales of a Deadly Devotion by Jennifer Delaney, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61608-9.
As Fey wage hopeless war against the oncoming storm of mortal conquest, Fairfax Manor lies in ruins. Katherine Woodrow might have survived persecution at the Institute of Magic and journeyed across the lands to study magic with the legendary Lord Emrys Blackthorn himself, but losing her heart and almost her life wasn’t on the curriculum. With more demons escaping from the cursed texts the mortals failed to guard, the world is slipping back into darkness. And something is returning… A tale of deadly devotion.
A Dance of Serpents by Lauren Dedroog, Gollancz, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61615-7.
Diana has claimed her birthright as the daughter of the Lord of Hell, Lady of Demons and the Chosen of Darkness Incarnate. Her powers have grown beyond anyone’s expectations, and with the friends she has to support her, the future is bright, and justice in reach. But she can’t forget the wrongs she suffered. The line between justice and revenge is thin, blurred and faint. In attempting to punish the wicked, will she keep true to herself, or slip into the very creature her enemies fear her to be?
Witchlight by Susan Dennard, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-03035-8.
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.
Our Vicious Descent by Hayley Dennings, Hodderscape, £25, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
New York, 1927. Separated from the reaper she loves, Elise Saint journeys through the city alone. But with the Saint family in decline and a dangerous new reaper-venom drug on the market, Harlem is more dangerous than ever. And amidst this chaos, Elise's sister, Josi, goes missing. Layla Quinn, also reeling from her lost love, navigates the shifting alliances in the New York underworld. When an ancient reaper reappears, and a murderous beast starts terrorising the city, a mystery emerges that could help explain Josi's disappearance. But as they are drawn back together by long-held secrets, Elise and Layla must ask themselves: is there a future for the reapers in New York? And does it hold a place for their love?
Ice by Jacek Dukaj, Head of Zeus, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-786-69728-8.
14th July 1924. It should be high summer but Warsaw is buried under feet of snow and Benyedikt, a dissolute young Polish mathematician, is about to be roused from his bed by two officials from Russia’s Ministry of Winter. Russia and Europe are being devoured by the ever-westward march of a supernatural winter. Agriculture has collapsed and people have flocked to cities seeking protection. But out there, on the ice, there is an incredible new wealth to be had. In winter’s wake, ‘black physics’ transmutes matter into strange and valuable forms, allowing new technologies, industries and economies to prosper. At the heart of it all lies Siberia – the ‘Wild East’ – a magnet for the political, religious and scientific fevers shaking the world. And that is where Benyedikt, once he has been woken, will be sent. He will have to decide whether to embrace the ice, or to destroy it.
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04237-1.
Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium. This should have been the end of her story… Yet, one day, Terlu awakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes and freshly baked honey cakes – at least until she’s ready to sail home. But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to – the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing – causing the death of everything within them – Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.
Before We Collide by Kate Dylan, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
One forbidden prophecy. Two hearts destined to collide. Raya Wryvern was supposed to be a prodigy. As the daughter of two powerful Shades - world-renowned for seeing the future - she was expected to follow in her parents' footsteps and graduate the Academy at the top of her class. Instead, she's failing. And the cost of failure is having her magic bound. Desperate, Raya asks the future a forbidden question. But instead of an answer, it shows her the end of all magic and the death of her kind. And at the heart of the vision, Ezzo, the boy it claims she's destined to love. Except Ezzo's not just a boy, he's an illegal half Shade who's spent the last year drinking away his past, and he's not interested in the future - his or hers. With time running out on a prophecy only she can see, Raya must convince Ezzo to help her decipher the vision - before it's too late to steer (their) fate onto a different path…
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, Nightfire, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-07365-2.
He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster. Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty. In a complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile. As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice. Guy doesn’t have a choice.
No Life Forsaken by Steven Erikson, Transworld, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-63288-2.
A goddess awakens to a new world, only to find that some things never change. Amidst the ashes of a failed rebellion in Seven Cities, new embers are flaring to life. There are furrowed brows at the beleaguered Malazan Legion headquarters in G'danisban for it would appear that yet another bloody clash with the revived cult of the Apocalyptic is coming to a head. Seeking to crush the uprising before it ignites the entire subcontinent Fist Arenfall has only a few dozen squads of marines at his disposal, and many of those are already dispersed - endeavouring to stamp out multiple brush-fires of dissent. But his soldiers are exhausted, worn down by the grind of a simmering insurrection and the last thing Arenfall needs is the arrival of the new Adjunct, fresh from the capital and the Emperor's side.
House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50796-9.
A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumoured witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986, Philippines. Carigara, 1986. Josephine del Rosario is the town pariah, left destitute after her parents were assassinated, and destined to marry a man twice her age. So when Hiraya Ranoco, an old friend, offers Josephine an escape, she can't say no. All she needs to do is spend one night in the Ranoco’s home and play a children’s game of hide and seek. If she wins, she can have anything she wants. Even, perhaps, Hiraya’s heart.
A Fate So Cold by Amanda Foody & C. L. Herman, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61216-6.
Neither Domenic Barrow nor Ellery Caldwell wanted to be a Chosen One, burdened with the responsibility of saving their nation from catastrophe. But when they are both Chosen together, they’re at least consoled by the fact that they won’t bear this burden alone. Yet over the course of fulfilling their prophecy and falling very much in love, they realise an unthinkable truth: they aren’t fated allies, but rivals – and the only way to fulfill their duty is for one of them to slay the other.
Blackthorn by J. T. Geissinger, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07601-7 .
Twelve years ago, Maven 'May' Blackthorn fled her hometown of Solstice, Vermont, making her way to New York City to reinvent herself. Now Maven's back for her grandmother’s funeral, bringing along her daughter, Bea. What starts as a family reunion quickly takes a turn for the worse when Maven comes face to face with lost love Oliver Croft – scion of the powerful Croft Pharmaceutical dynasty, supposed murderer of her mother and, unbeknown to anyone but Maven herself, Bea's father. As a Croft, Oliver belongs to the very same family that burned one of Maven's ancestors at the stake nearly 300 years ago. Amid rumours that there is more to the tales of the Blackthorns’ supernatural legacy, Maven and Oliver might just be able to forge a new path with the family they created. If Maven can only avoid becoming the Blackthorns’ next casualty.
Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63133-4.
Most students believe the stories taught in Folklore 517 are just fiction. There isn’t a phone number you can call to find out the time you’ll die. There’s not a haunted hotel bar in LA frequented by the devil. There’s no such thing as magic. But Holland St. James believes different. She hopes to prove that some infamous old Hollywood deaths were actually murders committed by the devil – a quest that will lead her into a deadly world of centuries-old secrets and unimaginable lies.
Holly by Adalyn Grace, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63277-5.
Something strange is happening at Wisteria Gardens, the magical manor that Blythe and Aris call home. All they want is a peaceful holiday season with their family, but a group of restless spirits is determined to threaten their festivities. With a new mystery to solve, Signa, Death, Blythe, and Fate must uncover what happened to Wisteria’s ghostly inhabitants and help the spirits move on before it’s too late.
Bitten by Jordan S. Gray, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A fast-paced and romantic fantasy debut, in which a teenage girl must survive ruthless werewolves, a glittering court, and deadly politics to exact revenge on the monsters who destroyed her. The night her best friend is brutally slaughtered by wolves, Vanessa Hart's life is changed forever. Because these are no ordinary wolves… they're werewolves. And when Vanessa's father discovers that she has been bitten, he hands her to them - and to the treacherous Wolf Queen's court. Taken as prisoner to the enchanted Castle Severi, Vanessa vows to seek vengeance for her friend, even as she finds herself mesmerised by the golden prince Sinclair Severi, and his brooding disgraced cousin, Calix. Vanessa has two choices: swear her life to the Court, or die the agony of a lone wolf. But the malevolence of werewolf society goes far beyond a single murder in the forest. The Court is at war, and Vanessa just a pawn in its deadly game…
The Tower of the Tyrant by J. T. Greathouse, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61783-3.
The world beyond the walls is a fractured place, its history bloody, its people divided, its lands littered with dangerous magical remnants left by the First Folk – ancient beings who are now but the whisper of a memory. It is those whispers that sorceress Fola is hunting down. She must navigate threats from both the living and the dead to find her answers and to make it back home alive.
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow , Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-06117-8.
A genre-defying adventure through time, as a reluctant lady knight and a not-so-heroic historian will fight through time and space to rewrite their tragic fates… and finally reveal the hidden truths beneath the greatest legend ever told. It begins where it ends: beneath the yew tree – a girl not yet a knight, and a boy without a story. It is where she pulls a sword from the heartwood and becomes a legend. And it is where, more than a thousand years later, he will find her – and lose her – and find her – and lose her again. It is where a new story will be written – but whose will it be?
Ghost by Finbar Hawkins, Zephyr – Head of Zeus, £14.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-837-93307-5.
What calls across the centuries to three girls drawn together to lay to rest an ancient evil in the woods? 12AD A blackbird calls a warning. A slave girl escaping her Roman master pauses as she lifts a druid carving she's found in the tunnel where she's hiding. The last thing she sees is a tangle of matted fur, a sheaf of claws, a flash of fangs, as she unleashes a hungry animal presence. 1783 AD Centuries later, white witch Sarah Gibson wanders the woods. She's at ease until one moonlit night, she senses a restless spirit. The blackbird calls a warning. Present day Marie is ill at ease with the world and her future. She’s staying with her aunt to try to find some peace. But the woods nearby are hiding something. Marie can feel it. She hears the local gossip about tragic happenings here. Hopelessly caught by the ghostly voices of the past that echo uneasily in her present, Marie must pit her wits against powerful old magic.
The End of the World As We Know It: Tales of Stephen King's The Stand edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, Hodder and Stoughton, £25, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Anthology. Since its initial publication in 1978, The Stand has been considered Stephen King's seminal masterpiece of apocalyptic fiction. It has sold millions of copies and has been adapted twice for television. Generations of writers have been impacted by its dark yet ultimately hopeful vision of the end and new beginning of civilisation, and its stunning array of characters. Now for the first time, Stephen King has fully authorised a return to the harrowing world of The Stand through this original short story anthology, as presented by award-winning authors and editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene. Bringing together some of today's greatest and most visionary writers, The End of the World As We Know It features all-new stories set during and after (and some perhaps long after) the events of The Stand - brilliant, terrifying, and painfully human tales that will resonate with readers everywhere as an essential companion to the classic novel. Featuring an introduction by Stephen King, a foreword by Christopher Golden and afterword by Brian Keene.
The Drowning Sea by David Hair, Quercus, £12.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-42291-7.
The Falcons have shed blood to uphold the Triple Empire. But now, the Empire has betrayed them. Scattered throughout the land and on the run from their former allies, the Falcons must band together again and save their world.
Brimstone by Callie Hart, Hodderscape, £25, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Saeris Fane doesn't want power. The very last thing she needs is her name whispered on an entire court's lips, but now that she's been crowned queen of the Blood Court, she's discovering that a queen's life is not her own. A heavy weight rests upon her shoulders. Her ward - and her brother - need her back in her homeland . . . but the changes that have strengthened Saeris have also made her weak. Born under blazing suns, Saeris will surely die if she makes her way home through the Quicksilver. Which means that, once again, she must send someone else in her stead… Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate has defeated armies and survived all manner of horrors, but travelling back to Zilvaren with Carrion Swift might just be the death of him. The male just will not shut up. Hidden dangers await them down the narrow alleyways of the Silver City. Unfolding secrets pose
impossible threats. Fisher must wrangle the smuggler and accomplish his goals quickly if he wants to see his mate again. A darkness falls across Yvelia. The realm and their friends are in danger. Together, Saeris and Fisher will pass through fire and brimstone to save them.
Princess of Blood by Sarah Hawley, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62699-6.
Kenna Heron is still reeling from her lover’s betrayal and the threat of an impending war. With only her two closest – and most powerless – friends by her side, she must navigate the treacherous politics of Mistei while coming to terms with her new identity as not just Fae, but princess of her own house. For Kenna has the power to shape Mistei’s future… but someone’s willing to kill to make sure she never gets the chance.
No Friend to This House by Natalie Haynes, Mantle, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-06154-3.
A defiantly feminist retelling of the myth of Medea. This is what no one tells you, in the songs sung about Jason and the Argo. This part of his quest has been forgotten, by everyone but me… Jason and his Argonauts set sail to find the Golden Fleece. The journey is filled with danger, for him and everyone he meets. But if he ever reaches the distant land he seeks, he faces almost certain death. Medea – priestess, witch, and daughter of a brutal king – has the power to save the life of a stranger. Will she betray her family and her home, and what will she demand in return? Medea and Jason seize their one chance of a life together, as the gods intend. But their love is steeped in vengeance from the beginning, and no one – not even those closest to them – will be safe.
Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Transworld, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50818-8.
Drawing on the darkness to be found in small-town American and familial life, the story of a group of individuals who’re trapped by a Faustian pact made over one hundred years before – a compelling, terrifying novel of which Stephen King would be very proud… Sometimes you think you can see things behind the fence. Bad things. So it's better not to look… In Lock Haven, a quiet little town in Washington State, there is a very special street. Bird Street. The residents of Bird Street are all successful, wealthy, healthy and happy. And their children are all well-mannered and smart and high achievers. At least they are for eleven months of the year. In November, however, the 'Darker Days' begin. For November's the month when things take a turn for the worse: accidents, bad luck, familial conflict and illness take hold. And it is in November that a stranger comes to Bird Street to collect the debt owed by the residents. Because, you see, there is a price that must be paid for all the happiness and good fortune they enjoy for the other eleven months of year. And that price is one human life. Every November. Without fail.
Medusa by Rosie Hewlett, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50777-8.
A retelling that reclaims the story of mythology’s most infamous monster. You know her name, you know her story. Just not the right one... Within the depths of the Underworld the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had enough. Tired of being eternally and unjustly brandished a villain, Medusa has found the courage to face her tragic past and speak out. Determined to expose the centuries of lies surrounding her name, Medusa gives unparalleled insight into her cursed life, from her earliest memories and abandonment at birth, right through to her tragic and untimely death at the hands of the hero Perseus. Through telling her story, Medusa finally reveals the lost truth behind antiquity's most infamous monster.
Assassin's Apprentice: Volume 3 by Robin Hobb, Harper Voyager, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The third and final instalment of Assassin's Apprentice, the first book in Robin Hobb's fantasy 'Farseer Trilogy', brought to life in comic form. Having barely escaped with his life during Skill training, Fitz is convinced he will fail Galen’s final test. The students will be separated and must use their connection through The Skill to find their way back to the keep. But when tragedy strikes in Buckkeep, Fitz will have to decide between completing Galen’s test or following his instinct to rush to the aid of those most dear to him.
Unseen Gods by Justin Holley, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58957-5.
Careful what you search for, you may just find it! With grotesque glimpses of the disappeared, the past is alive and well. After winning an old casefile at auction outlining the disappearance of a hunting party back in the nineties, Kory and his pregnant wife invite their friend and mentor, Professor Frank Colista, and others, for a casual long weekend of exploring the mystery onsite with very little hope of finding anyone or anything. When one of their factions disappears without a trace, Kory and Colista fear the past may repeat itself. Then the deaths start. As a savage, unexpected snowstorm sets in, the disappearances and ungodly sightings of the deceased ramp up, and an old woman rambles about end-of-days and sacrifice.
Secrets of the First School by T. L. Huchu, Tor, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05548-7 .
Ropa Moyo is dead, banished to the Other Place by the reanimated spirit of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville of Scotland. Turns out being on the losing side sucks worse than being skint. Now, the Cult of Dundas intends to ascend to godhood, spreading their corrupting reach from Edinburgh to all of Scotland’s schools of magic. Ropa must find some way to escape the Other Place, save her sister and gather allies across the country before Edinburgh falls. A royal plot, a family secret and a stolen body. As Scotland descends into petty in-fighting, Ropa’s only hope lies in her grandmother’s final secret: the first school of magic. An ancient power is returning… and is hungry for revenge.
The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Horror. A picture is worth a thousand nightmares… Struggling painter Lewis Dixon can’t shake the feeling there’s something powerful – and slightly disturbing – about his work. Especially when the British Museum begin to show a surprising interest in his most horrifying piece, a recreation of one of his ancestor’s infamous paintings. He accepts their invitation only to be met with a test: to see if he possesses the magic necessary to enter the paintings – and the strength to escape them. Because his ancestor’s pieces carry unnatural abilities and a terrible curse. And Lewis must destroy them all. Under orders from the museum and partnered with handsome agent Noah, Lewis plunges into a world of black markets, gothic magic, and unspeakable terror. But if he’s to succeed, he’ll have to locate the long-lost final work, and its powers might be the most devastating of all…
The Damnations: M. R. James Short Stories by M. R. James, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$32.95 / US$24.95, hrdbk. ISBN 978-1-787-58940-7.
With his subtle sense of dread and use of modern settings, M. R. James’ ghost stories formed a firm foundation for the modern horror story with his presence felt in all forms of literature and media. This special collectable edition of stories features a new introduction by the greatest current inheritor of the Jamesian mantle, Ramsey Campbell.
Bittershore by V. V. James, Gollancz, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-473-22577-0.
Exiled witch Sarah Fenn and her daughter Harper fled Sanctuary after the death of a young boy drove the town mad with grief, seeking refuge. Instead, they find hope carried on whispers of a dangerous magic and a centuries-old legend promising power. Until a brutal magical crime throws them all back into the crucible. Murder mystery meets dark fantasy in this scorching fusion of modern-day witchcraft, small-town secrets and the persecuted reclaiming their power.
Dream by the Shadows by Logan Karlie, Headline, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-42862-5.
No one told me that damnation could be beautiful. The Kingdom of Noctis is plagued by Corruption: a curse that spreads through dreaming. The Shadow Bringer rules from his castle in the Dream Realm, stealing souls one dreamer at a time. Only an elixir, taken every night before sleeping, can halt dreams and ward off the curse. But for some, the allure of the Dream Realm proves too strong. Esmer Havenfall desperately wants to escape her curse-stricken village. When her sister, Eden, succumbs to Corruption and their elixir-dealing parents are accused of a horrific crime, Esmer’s life unravels into a nightmare. Then she dreams of the Shadow Bringer and learns that his sinister magic might be a part of her, too. Enticed by the prospect of ending her kingdom’s curse and avenging her family, Esmer follows him deeper within the Dream Realm. But the prince of darkness has a haunted past, one that might change the fate of Esmer’s kingdom-and her heart-forever.
Warrior Princess Assassin by Brigid Kemmerer, Harper Voyager, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
WARRIOR. King Maddox Kyronan’s fire magic has earned him a ruthless reputation on the battlefield, but now his kingdom is slowly burning. Ky’s only chance to save his people is to enter a marriage alliance with the neighbouring nation of Astranza. PRINCESS. With war looming on the horizon, Princess Jory’s home needs the protection of the fearsome warrior king, but she is hiding a dangerous secret: her family’s magic is fading. When she meets her intended, Jory is surprised to discover that beneath Ky’s daunting exterior is a compassionate and sharp-witted man who sets her heart aflame. But what will he do when he realises she's deceiving him? ASSASSIN. Asher’s done what he must to survive, even if that means getting his hands dirty. Once a young nobleman in Astranza’s palace, where he and Jory caused mischief together, now he’s part of the Hunter’s Guild, employing much darker skills. When a lucrative job comes his way, Asher can’t say no – until he discovers the targets.
You Like It Darker by Stephen King, Hodderscape, £ Price not provided, pbk, ISBN not provided.
A new collection of twelve stories, many never before published.
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05267-7.
Healer Anja regularly drinks poison. Not to die, but to save – seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on. But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her. Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow – but nothing seems to work. Nothing, that is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick. Or it might be the thing that kills them all.
Arcana Academy by Elise Kova, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Romantasy. A woman who wields magical tarot cards lands herself in a false engagement with the headmaster of a mysterious Academy. Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy. Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time. In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be. Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?
Dragon Cursed by Elise Kova, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Every teen, in the final human stronghold of a blighted land, is subject to brutal tests designed to separate the dragon hunters from the dragon cursed, and one young woman, declared a hero reborn, must fight for her life amidst growing suspicions that there is more to this curse than meets the eye...
Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff, Harper Voyager, £22, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Gabriel de León has lost his family, his faith, and his last hope of ending the endless night – the Holy Grail, Dior. With no desire left but vengeance, he and a band of loyal brothers journey into the war-torn heart of the Augustin Empire to claim the life of the Forever King. Unbeknownst to the Last Silversaint, the Grail still lives – speeding towards Augustin’s besieged capital in the frail hope of ending Daysdeath forever. But deadly treachery awaits within the halls of power, and the Forever King’s legions march ever closer. Gabriel and Dior will be drawn into a final battle that will shape the very fate of the Empire, but as the sun sets for what may be the last time, there will be no-one left for them to trust. Not even each other.
Katabasis by R. F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, £22, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld. Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick. But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him. But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together. That’s if they can agree on anything. Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?
La Vie De Guinevere by Paula Lafferty, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Sometimes legends don't tell the whole story. In the present day, after the sudden death of her boyfriend, Vera would have been happy to spend her life completely unnoticeable, washing bed sheets and cleaning toilets in a Glastonbury hotel. But everything changes when a strange new guest reveals himself to be Merlin and drags her back to seventh century Camelot, a place she knows only from legends. He tells her that only Vera (or Queen Guinevere, as Merlin calls her) can right the course of history and save Arthur' s kingdom from the will of a power-hungry mage.
Never the Roses by Jennifer K. Lambert, Bramble, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07498-3.
Unstoppable war. Unspeakable sins. Impossible love. The Dread Sorceress Oneira has retired. She’s exhausted from fighting the endless wars of kings and queens, and has long accepted that her death is near. Alone at last but for a few uninvited companions – a near-mythical wolf, a goddess’s avatar, and a feline that embodies magic itself – Oneira realizes that she’s bored. On a whim, or perhaps at the behest of fate, she makes an unlikely trip to the most extensive library in existence: the home of her most powerful rival, the sorcerer Stearanos. When she recklessly steals a book from him, Oneira inadvertently initiates a forbidden correspondence. Taunting notes and clever retorts reveal a connection neither has found – nor could ever find – in any other. But Oneira soon learns that Stearanos, bound to a vile king, is tasked with waging war on the queen she once served. A relationship with him is far too dangerous to pursue despite their mutual desire – and yet, Oneira can’t seem to stay away. A bond with Stearanos could alight the long-extinct flame of life within her . . . or it could destroy her entirely.
Dawn of Fate and Fire by Mariely Lares, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
They call her many things. Witch, Nagual warrior, lady, Pantera. And after defeating the Obsidian Butterfly, Leonora carries a new name: Godslayer. Peace in Mexico City is fragile. Rebellion brews in the North, and with the people’s safety at risk, Pantera must once again become the demure viceregent Leonora to stop a war before it begins. But her friends are scattered, Tezca is gone, and one wrong move could seal her fate. Caution is her ally, for the real Prince of Asturias – her former betrothed – has arrived at court, reigniting rumours Leonora and Pantera are one. Meanwhile, a greater threat looms in the mountains, where a false king seeks to summon the god of night using a weapon of untold power. It’s up to the Godslayer to confront this enemy… and the one growing within her. Only by embracing her divine origins can Leonora triumph over the forces of darkness – and maybe even spark a revolution that could change Mexico’s fate forever. But in doing so, she risks losing herself…
Daughter of the Otherworld by Shauna Lawless, Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91129-5.
An epic historical fantasy novel set in an alternate magical Ireland at the time of the Norman invasion. An epic historical fantasy set in the tumultuous, magical world of medieval Ireland during the time of the Norman invasion. Ireland, 1169. A century after she went missing, Isolde, born to one mortal and one magical parent, inexplicably reappears. Yet Isolde is barely eighteen years old. Her mother's kin, the Descendants, are one of Ireland's two magical races, but they cannot explain Isolde's disappearance, and worse yet, she is Giftless: born with no magical ability, a dangerous thing when the Descendants' ancient enemies have risen in power. Those enemies, the Fomorians, seek to spread their dangerous webs wider in the mortal world by encouraging the Pope to authorise an invasion of Ireland by England’s Norman lords. But when death and destruction seem inevitable, Isolde’s true worth will show itself, for she is far more than she seems.
When They Burned The Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee, Wildfire, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-42992-9.
Newly independent, a city of immigrants grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters are the last conduits of the gods their ancestors brought with them, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place where magic has not been assimilated and legislated away. Loner schoolgirl Adeline Siow has never needed more company than the flames she can summon at her fingertips. But when her mother dies in a house fire with a butterfly seared onto her skin, Adeline hunts down a girl she saw in a back-alley bar fight - a girl with a butterfly tattoo - only to discover that she’s far from alone. Ang Tian is a Red Butterfly: one of a gang of girls who came from nothing, sworn to a fire goddess and empowered to wreak vengeance on the men that abuse and underestimate them. Adeline’s mother led a double life as their elusive patron, Madam Butterfly. Now that she’s dead, Adeline’s bloodline is the sole thing sustaining their link with this goddess. Between her search for her mother’s killer and the gang’s succession crisis, Adeline becomes quickly entangled with the girls’ dangerous world, and even more so with the charismatic Tian. But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbour gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she’s got to keep it.
Thirsty by Lucy Lehane, Bramble, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07739-7.
Charlie needs to revamp his career. Writing advice columns was hard enough before the whole internet was dying to know how to date the undead – but Charlie’s as human as they come. And he has no idea how to answer the messages flooding his inbox, like My Workplace Slack Is Haunted; Should I Cross Dimensions For a Fling? and How Exactly Do You Smash A… When a chance nocturnal meeting at a local coffee shop sees him reuniting with Lorenzo – a vampire with an axe to grind – Charlie thinks he’s found his ticket to immortal career success. But Lorenzo has plans of his own: to get revenge on Charlie for separating Lorenzo from the love of his life years ago. When Lorenzo draws Charlie into his world of monsters and mayhem, he finds new friends and old souls that span centuries of existence, yet are somehow just as lost as the two of them. But as Charlie and Lorenzo grow unexpectedly closer, the secrets they dwell under might just crush them. Can their love survive demons and drama? And which will prove deadlier… bloodlust or betrayal.
Once a Villain by Vanessa Len, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
When monsters rule, who will be left to stop them? After Joan's failed attempt to stop Eleanor, she now rules over a cruel new timeline where monsters live openly among humans, preying on them and subjugating them. Nick -once a hero to humans, and Joan's first love - is tormented by the choice he made to save her over the timeline itself. And Aaron - the ruthless heir to a powerful monster family - now finds himself in a world where monsters have power beyond imagining while his feelings for Joan grow. Wrenched between love and rivalry, the three of them must negotiate their fractured pasts to survive the new world and restore what was lost. Because only they remember that there was once a better timeline. But how will they defeat a whole world of monsters with control over time itself?
The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Certainty Bulrush just wants to be useful. To the Guild of Mages that took her in as a novice six years ago, to the little brother whose future depends on her, and to anyone else she can help along the way. Unfortunately, her tepid magical abilities (she can commune with objects) haven't yet proven of much use. So when she's given the chance to finally earn her magehood via a seemingly straightforward assignment, she leaps at it. (Nevermind that she'll be supervised by Mage Aurelia, the brilliant, unfairly attractive overachiever who's managed to alienate everyone around her.) The two are tasked with transporting a cache of minorly magical artifacts to somewhere safe: Shpelling, the dullest and least magical village in the kingdom. There, all they have to do is store the objects, complete their inventory, and, above all else: avoid complications. The Guild's uneasy relationship with citizens is at a tipping point, and the last thing anyone needs is a magical incident.
House of Dragons by K. A. Linde, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05938-6.
Ten years ago, half-Fae, half human Kerrigan Argon was discreetly dropped off at the steps of Draco Mountain with nothing but a note. Her life changed completely as she was swept into the care of the House of Dragons – an elite training programme for gifted Fae. On the year of their seventeenth name day, each student is chosen by one of the twelve tribes of Alandria to enter society. This year, everyone is chosen, except Kerrigan. So, she strikes a bargain with the Dragon Society: convince a tribe to select her or give up her birthright forever. With the unlikeliest of allies – Fordham Ollivier, the cursed Fae prince who escaped his dark throne – she has to chart her own destiny to reshape the world.
The Robin on the Oak Throne by K. A. Linde, Bramble, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04524-2.
Love is a monstrous game… The job was supposed to be simple: steal a goblin-made bracelet off of the Queen of the Nymphs in her own palace. Until everything goes sideways and Kierse ends up needing help from the one person she was determined to avoid: Graves. As enigmatic and devilishly handsome as ever, Graves’s help always comes with strings. And Kierse wants nothing more than to be in charge of her own destiny. After playing the part of pawn for ruthless men, she doesn’t want to be lured back in to his centuries-long game. But lured she is. Since she left New York City, Kierse has been plagued with nightmares of a past she doesn’t remember. Determined to learn about her parents and her new-found identity, she puts her hopes in the temptation of the Goblin Market. If the market can provide answers, she may never have to play his game again. But resisting Graves is only the beginning – and a choice she knows could change everything.
Circle of Shadows by Marisa Linton, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Private detection is no profession for a woman of standing. Evie Winstanley doesn't care. When Evie's father, a collector of occult books, dies in suspicious circumstances, she decides to uncover the truth. Her only clue is a mysterious reference to the 'circle of shadows.' Her investigation takes her from a séance in a manor house on the Yorkshire moors to a sinister cult hidden amongst the elite of an Oxford University college… and all the while, she is haunted by whispers of an ancient monster, and an ominous, ever-changing symbol. When the body of a young woman is discovered floating in the Cherwell, marked with the same occult symbol, Evie realises that her investigation is far bigger than one death - and that her own life, and the lives of those she loves, might very well be in danger.
Stormborn: Book 3 of the Seaborn Cycle by Michael Livingston, Head of Zeus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90585-0.
The Fair Isles sail to battle, legends become real, and new magicks threaten to shatter the world. Bela sails the skies with a reader and a metal man, searching for a path to peace. Shae faces the truth of what it means to love and what she is willing to sacrifice for it.Alira leads desperate refugees seeking a new home—and may at last find one for herself. War rises. Blood sings. And the world of the Seaborn will never be the same. Helm to the end.
The Blackfire Blade by James Logan, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43284-8.
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.
The Lore of Silver by Ruth Frances Long, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Lyta is trying her best. She is determined to stay out of trouble, avoid Sylvian and the queen, and, above all, not embarrass Kit. So when Kit asks Lyta to help the temple recover their stolen relics, Lyta has no choice but agree. Who better to track down thieves than the one blessed by Ennin himself? But when her search lands Lyta in trouble with the blacksmiths, and Sylvian steps up to protect her, keeping away from the palace and its politics is harder than Lyta imagined. Kit misses Ben - the scholar has been busy working at the blacksmith's guild on a secret project, and their time together has been reduced to a few stolen moments. Then, to save his workshop, Kit is forced to help Lord Alderton search for his missing sister. But when his quest leads him to the very same blacksmith's guild, it is clear that there is more at stake than just one missing girl. For when Lyta travelled across the veil, she ripped a path out of it - and something is clawing its way to Amberes. Something vast and deadly. Something so terrible that the gods quake in fear…
The Invocations: H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$32.95 / US$24.95, hrdbk. ISBN 978-1-787-58942-1.
H.P. Lovecraft, the inventor of cosmic horror, weird fiction and the Cthulhu mythology, inspired a generation of writers to explore the horrors that lurk along the corridors, at the edges of perception. This special collectable edition of Lovecraft’s short stories features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell along with one of his own tales.
Red City by Marie Lu, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07941-4 .
Billed by the publisher as perfect for fans of V. E. Schwab, Red City is a dark and deadly contemporary fantasy of magical warfare, star-crossed ambition and the pursuit of perfection at any cost, set in a glittering alternate Los Angeles. Alchemy is the hidden art of transformation, an exclusive power wielded by crime syndicates who market it to the world’s elite in the form of sand – a drug that enhances those who take it into a more perfect version of themselves: more beautiful, more charismatic, simply more. Among the gleaming skyscrapers and rolling foothills of Angel City, alchemy is controlled by two rival syndicates. For years, Grand Central and Lumines have been balanced on a razor’s edge between polite negotiation and outright violence. But when two childhood friends step into that delicate equation, the city – and the paths of their lives – will be irrevocably transformed. The daughter of a poor single mother, Sam would do anything to claw her way into the ranks of Grand Central in search of a better life. Plucked away from his family as a boy to become a Lumines apprentice, Ari is one of the syndicates’ brightest rising stars. Once, they might have loved each other. But as the two alchemists face off from opposite sides of an ever-escalating conflict, ambition becomes power, loyalty becomes lies, and no transformation may be perfect enough for them both to survive the coming war.
Were Wolf Short Stories edited by Karen E. Macfarlane, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62265-0.
There’s more to being a wolf than howling at the Moon! This Gothic Fantasy volume blends modern werewolf tales with medieval folklore and mythology. Explore Old English origins, Norse legends like Fenrir, and Slavic myths of stolen wolf-skins. New stories explore wolves which might have been human, changing by choice at the howl of the Moon, or people cursed and damned to be wolves for all time. Is that why the lone wolf is alone? The wolfish grin is a little shy? Is that why we wolf down our food? Is there a wolf inside us all, in the forests around us, hunting us, haunting us, protecting itself and its kind? A book with tales of humans, wolves, power, identity, horror and romance.
Voidwalker by S. A. MacLean, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61661-4.
Romantasy. This follows the heated fallout from a heist between worlds gone terribly wrong when demon-hunter Fionamara finds herself ensnared in the claws of a vampiric immortal… Her only hope of survival is to agree to help him take down his traitorous rival, but she never could have prepared herself for the temptation that is about to consume her…
Ring the Bells (The Stranger Times 5) by C. K. McDonnell, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50539-2.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas… For most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation, but not for the staff of The Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn't unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book-club -triple-murder either, as it features a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity who has broken through from another dimension and is hell-bent on vengeance. He's made a list, but he's not checking it twice as the whole of humanity is on it. Who would want to summon
such a thing? And how is anyone going to be able to send it back? As if that wasn't enough to be dealing with, a shocking revelation about a member of The Stranger Times team's past brings family together, but not in a way that's ever going to make it into a Hallmark film. Featuring demonically possessed Santas, blood-thirsty books and the ghost of a legendary nightclub, it's beginning to look a lot like a Christmas apocalypse…
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Once, Sera Swan was one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her powers, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she helps Jasmine run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with their quirky guests' shenanigans and longs for a future that seems lost. Until she finds about an old spell that could restore her power… Enter Luke Larsen, handsome magical historian, who might have the key to unlocking the spell's secrets. Luke has no interest in the inn's madcap goings-on, and is even less interested in letting a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls. So no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help. Running an inn, reclaiming lost power, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera is about to discover she doesn't have to do alone – and that love might be the best magic of all.
This Bursted Earth by Garth Marenghi, Coronet, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Part of the TerrorTome series.
Cinder House by Freya Marske, Tor, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-03943-2.
Meet Cinderella as you’ve never seen her before. Sparks fly in Cinder House, a Gothic fairy tale romance from bestselling author Freya Marske. Perfect, say the publishers, for fans of Naomi Novik and T. Kingfisher, this Cinderella retelling is filled with yearning and a gorgeous queer romance. Ella is a haunting. Murdered at sixteen, her furious ghost is trapped in her father’s house, invisible to everyone except her stepmother and stepsisters. Even when she discovers how to untether herself from her prison, there are limits. She cannot be seen or heard by the living people who surround her. Her family must never learn she is able to leave. And at the stroke of every midnight, she finds herself back on the staircase where she died. Until she forges a wary friendship with a fairy charm-seller, and makes a bargain for three nights of almost-living freedom. Freedom that means she can finally be seen. Danced with. Touched. You think you know Ella’s story: the ball, the magical shoes, the handsome prince. You’re halfway right, and all-the-way wrong…
The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04875-5.
The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark… Billed by the publisher as s perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, and Naomi Novik. As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the forest's curse has plagued her village. But the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to listen to heretics with false tales of monsters. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the woods and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution. When she ventures into the blood-soaked woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only after Malka helps her fulfil an ancient promise by freeing the imprisoned rabbi who created her. But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save – and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.
House Rules edited by George R. R. Martin, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
An anthology of connected tales set in the 'Wild Cards' universe
created by the global bestselling author of A Game of Thrones. This third volume in The British Arc (following Knaves Over Queens and Three Kings) includes stories by: Stephen Leigh, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Caroline Spector, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Peter Newman, and Peadar O Guilín.
Murder Most Haunted by Emma Mason, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50671-9.
Billed by the publisher as Scooby Do for adults, a gripping, twisty murder mystery set during a haunted house tour. This locked-room mystery is perfect for fans of Tom Hindle, Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz… On her last day as a Detective, Midge McGowan is given the retirement present from hell: a ticket to take part in a haunted house tour. She’ll have to spend a weekend ghost-hunting in an isolated mansion, with a group of misfits, including a know-it- all paranormal investigator and a has-been pop star. It isn’t long before the tour starts to spiral out of control. Midge and the guests see an unsettling figure walking the grounds late at night. Then the unthinkable happens – someone is murdered in a room that’s been locked from the inside. Heavy snow cuts them off from help, the house’s own dark secrets begin to surface, and Midge can’t shake the creeping sense that they are walking into a nightmare. Could a ghost really be responsible, or is the culprit one of the guests?
Bonds of Hercules by Jasmine Mas, Harper Voyager, £22, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Every hero has their monsters. And Alexis is bound to hers: tied eternally, irrevocably to the Underworld’s dark heirs in a marriage that has shaken the foundations of Olympus – and everything Alexis once believed. Reeling, she enlists in the Assembly of Death with her mentors, set on wrecking vengeance on her husbands and uncovering the truth behind her deadly powers. She will soon teach them all that a god can’t be manacled. And a monster can’t be caged…
Fire Spirit by Graham Masterton, Aries – Head of Zeus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91621-4.
A series of horrific fires has left top arson investigator Ruth Cutter baffled. The victims seem to have nothing in common except the unnatural intensity of the flames that engulfed them - and the child who haunts each crime scene. Ruth doesn't believe in the paranormal - in her job she needs to be level-headed, factual. She can't be distracted by superstitions and coincidences. But, as her investigation deepens, she has no choice but to consider a terrible possibility: these are no ordinary fires. They have a goal - to make the whole world burn...
House of Flies by Graham Masterton, Aries – Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-837-93111-8.
A clergyman is murdered in his bed in the dead of night, triggering a chilling chain of events, each more bizarre and unnerving than the last – brutal killings, corpses vanishing, decomposed bodies digging their way out of graves. These shocking events seem unconnected but, at each scene, people report witnessing swarms of flies – hundreds, thousands, even millions of them. As DI Patel and DS Pardoe hunt for the mastermind behind these atrocious crimes, they are forced to ask: is this person human – or is all of this linked to the mysterious figure caught on CCTV, running at speed without moving its legs? And can they stop the swarm before they themselves are consumed?
A Curse of Shadows and Ice by Catharina Maura, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-629775.
Princess Arabella of Althea is left no choice when Felix Osiris, the fearsome Shadow Emperor known for his deadly powers and his thirst for conquest, threatens to overthrow her home unless she agrees to marry him. As Felix teaches Arabella how to control her forbidden and volatile magic, her feelings for him turn from hatred to passion… soon, she realises that she must break the curse, or she’ll forever lose him and everyone they love to the ice and shadows.
The House at Devil's Neck by Tom Mead, Aries – Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-837-93262-7.
Paranormal mystery. A former First World War field hospital, the spooky old mansion at Devil's Neck attracts spirit-seekers from far and wide. When stories spread of a phantom soldier making mischief, illusionist-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector joins a party of visitors in search of the truth. But the house, located on a lonely causeway, is soon cut off by floods. Before long, the stranded visitors are being killed off one by one. The only possible culprit? The ghostly soldier... With old ally Inspector Flint working on a complex case that has links to Spector's investigation, the two men must connect the dots before Devil's Neck claims another victim... Spector himself.
Mistress of Bones by Maria Z. Medina, Magpie, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Swashbuckling, grand, and tragically romantic, start to a duology about love, loss, and, of course, death. Necromancer Azul del Arroyo only wants one thing:
to steal her sister back from Death by reclaiming her sister's bones. But the Emissary of the Lord Death will do anything to stop her, no matter how alluring he finds her… As their paths collide, they're drawn into a deadly game of pawns and power with a scheming court, a faceless witch, and the fate of the lands hanging in the balance. For long ago the gods raised the continents, binding them with their own bones to keep humanity alive. But in an era when the gods' sacrifice has been forgotten, Death might not be the only resentful god Azul must defy.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44171-0
Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches: that was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told Minerva – stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why she has become a graduate student focused on researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva discovers that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: decades earlier, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying, and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate… who then disappeared. As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still haunt the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch. Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
No Man’s Land by Richard Morgan, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-0-575-13018-0.
In a world ravaged by the Huldu – an ancient and monstrous fae race – Duncan Silver will stop at nothing to show the Huldu that the world is not theirs for the taking. But all hell breaks loose when he is hired to rescue a four-year-old girl who was taken from her mother and replaced with a Changeling – and Duncan quickly realises the girl is a pawn in a much bigger game, and several long-buried secrets from his past are about to be violently resurrected.
Fever Dreams edited by Mark Morris, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58872-1.
Anthology. Fever Dreams is the sixth volume in the non-themed horror series of original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris. This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which have been commissioned from some of the top names in horror, and 4 selected from the hundreds of stories sent to Flame Tree during a short open submissions window.
The Wrath of the Fallen by Amber V. Nicole, Headline Eternal, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41459-8.
As the rebellion intensifies, Dianna discovers more of her past and soon finds herself immersed in a tumultuous family history that she and Samkiel never saw coming. Forced to venture through the Otherworld, Dianna and Samkiel start to comprehend the real power of the medallion, as figures and threats from the past surface once again to threaten their future together, and Samkiel finds himself faced with a choice: will he truly become the World Ender once again? And what does that mean for Dianna?
The Demon and the Light by Axie Oh, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The battle is over, but the war is just beginning… With the help of her friends and allies, Ren managed to topple the General's insurrection, but the Floating World and its territories are still under threat of attack from the rival Volmaran Empire. And worse, she was powerless to save Sunho from being overcome by the monstrous power in his blood. Now he's gone, transformed into a feral, deadly creature that doesn't even recognize her anymore, and her heart aches for the sweet boy she's grown to love. But the escalating war will not pause for her grief. Seen by some as a heavenly saviour and others merely a figurehead to be manipulated, Ren must use all her courage and cunning to survive the royal court's game long enough to find Sunho and bring him home before he loses himself to the Demon forever.
The Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick, Aria – Head of Zeus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91481-4.
Greta Perks was once the shining star of the iconic Maple Gold coffee commercials, the quintessential TV wife and mom. Now, fame has faded, her marriage is on the rocks, her teenage daughter has become distant, and Greta’s once-glittering career feels like a distant memory. When Greta stumbles upon a mysterious coffee shop, serving a magical brew, she wishes for the perfect life in those past Maple Gold commercials. Next thing she knows, Greta wakes in the make-believe town of Mapleville, where the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and second chances fill the air. Given the opportunity to live the life she dreamed, Greta is determined to rewrite her own script. But what will happen when Greta has to choose between perfection and real life, with no turning back?
Rainforest by Michelle Paver, Orion, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-398-72321-4.
A ghost story. The virgin rainforest seems a paradise to Englishman Simon Corbett. A last chance to salvage his career. A final refuge from a terrible secret. But the jungle is no Eden. It hides secrets of its own. It does not forgive. As Simon is drawn deeper into its haunted shadows, he learns to his horror that the past will not stay buried. For there are places in the forest where the line between the living and the dead is thinner than the skin of water.
The Last Wish of Bristol Keats by Mary E. Pearson, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05424-4.
Everyone needs something to hold onto, even if it’s a lie. After Bristol nearly loses Tyghan to the monsters her mother unleashed, their love deepens to a whole new level. Together, Bristol and Tyghan work to understand and reconcile their differences, moving forward with their common goal of saving Elphame. But, when a daring rescue attempt turns disastrous and a beloved knight dies, Bristol is forced to confront the fact that her mother is more powerful than she could ever have imagined – and more dangerous, too. Meanwhile, Tyghan’s heart is laid bare when he re-encounters his betrayer, Kierus, and must wrestle with a new secret that throws everything he thought he knew about his past into question. Bristol is Elphame’s last chance for survival, but where do her loyalties truly lie? If she embraces the magic that has always been her birthright, she could become a monster just like her mother. Is she willing to risk losing the people she loves most if it means keeping them safe?
The Dark is Descending by Chloe C. Penaranda, Wildfire, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41538-0.
‘The blood that binds them, may become the weapon to end them’. Reeling from the shocking betrayal that her buried memories revealed, Astraea’s lost battle has only ignited a greater war. With a race against time to break Nyte’s curse, Astraea must choose between putting her faith in the hand of darkness or that of her enemy, in order to bring him back. With daylight quickly fading away and her realm on the brink of ruin, Astraea and her company set off to retrieve the Maiden’s broken key. There’s only one weapon that can vanquish the vengeful gods and only one hand with the ability to wield it true. Dragons will fly and their bonds may choose friend or foe. Gods will face gods, fathers will face sons, and all will face the end of the world in their race against time to claim it for themselves…
Badlands by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Aries – Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91570-5.
Supernatural thriller. In the New Mexico desert badlands, a woman's skeleton is found with two rare artefacts clutched in her hands: lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods. Was it suicide... or a sacrifice? FBI Special Agent Corrie Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found in identical circumstances, they realise the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price.
The Rose Field: The Book of Dust Volume Three by Philip Pullman, Penguin and David Fickling Books, £20 / US$29.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-241-45869-3.
When readers left Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth she was alone, in the ruins of a deserted city. Pantalaimon had run from her – part of himself – in search of her imagination, which he believed she had lost. Lyra travelled across the world from her Oxford home in search of her demon. And Malcolm, loyal Malcolm, too journeyed far from home, towards the Silk Roads in search of Lyra. In The Rose Field, their quests converge in the most dangerous, breathtaking and world-changing ways. They must take help from spies and thieves, gryphons and witches, old friends and new, learning all the while the depth and surprising truths of the alethiometer. All around them, the world is aflame – made terrifying by fear, power and greed. As they move East, towards the red building that will reunite them and give them answers – on Dust, on the special roses, on imagination – so too does the Magisterium, at war against all that Lyra holds dear. Marking thirty years since the world was first introduced to Pullman’s remarkable heroine Lyra Belacqua in Northern Lights, The Rose Field is the culmination of the cultural phenomenon of The Book of Dust and His Dark Materials.
Loki edited by Matt Ralphs & Tom Birkett, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62269-8.
Anthology. This new Myths, Gods & Immortals title explores Loki, the shapeshifting Norse trickster, known for his complex ties with Odin, Thor and the Aesir. From myths to modern media, Loki’s forms, offspring and ambivalent nature define him as a classic figure. With fresh stories and insights, this book celebrates his enduring, imaginative appeal.
North is the Light by Emily Rath, Quercus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43653-2.
Billed by the publisher as Katherine Arden meets Naomi Novik in an epic fantasy. In the depths of the Finnish wilderness, best friends Aina and Siiri are inseparable. But when Aina is kidnapped by a death goddess and taken to the mythical underworld, Siiri embarks on a dangerous quest to save her friend.
The Sacred Space Between by Kalie Reid Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Jude is a saint with dangerous magic – exiled by the Abbey to live out his days alone in a decaying estate on the moors – until gifted iconographer Maeve is sent to paint his icon. Suspecting she’s a spy for her beloved Abbey, Jude makes it his mission to get rid of Maeve as soon as possible. That is, until he discovers that Maeve holds the same tainted magic as he does, and she may be the key to destroying the Abbey’s power… But this institution has eyes everywhere, and the only thing the Abbey loves more than a saint is a martyr.
The Library of Second Chances by Molly Reid, Headline, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41944-9.
‘What’s a girl to do to get her happily after, like the ones in all the books? If only it were that simple...’ When Chloe moved back to Wellbridge after her parents’ deaths, she didn’t think she’d still be there a year later. What was meant to be a short-term visit now has her stuck in a rut - a hideous cycle of bad Tinder dates, working overtime at the local library with Clementine, the resident library cat, and hiding behind the pages of her favourite books. One stormy night while trying to forget yet another one of her terrible dates, Chloe discovers a faint glow coming from one of the books. A surprisingly familiar figure interrupts her peaceful evening among the library’s dusty tomes. Under the watchful eye of the head librarian, Mrs. Cook - who seems to know more than she lets on - Chloe finds herself with the perfect opportunity to learn how to be lucky in love from some of literature’s most swoon-worthy heartthrobs. But do Chloe’s literary love interests hold the answers she’s looking for, or is love already waiting for her where she least expects it?
A Curse for the Homesick by Laura Brooke Robson, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The island of Stenland is cursed: women, chosen at random, awaken with three black slashes on their forehead. The first person they meet eyes with turns to stone. This is how Tess Eriksson's mother killed Soren Fell's parents. It was an accident, but that has never made it any easier to forgive. Since then, all Tess has wanted is to leave Stenland. All Soren has wanted is to stay. The only thing they want more… is each other. But how can you love one person more than everything else combined? And how do you take the risk on love, if it could mean destroying the person you hold most dear?
The Empty Craddle by Lisa Rookes, Orion, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-398-71653-7.
A modern-day Rosemary’s Baby. After Amy learns of her husband’s affair with her best friend, she flees to a Yorkshire village. There, a group of women take her under their wing. Soon, they are in her life, in her home. Amy wakes one night to find herself in the fields. Strange offerings are left on her doorstep. Strangest of all, she’s suddenly pregnant. The women are incredibly invested in Amy’s pregnancy. And their interest doesn’t always seem safe. What do the women want with her – or her baby?
Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross, Magpie, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Born to the fire-lit domain of the underworld, Matilda is the youngest goddess of her clan, blessed with humble messenger magic. But in a land where gods kill each other for magic, Matilda must come of age sooner than most. She may be known to carry letters through the realms, but she also carries secrets of her own: one of them deadly, the other a mortal boy who dreams of her, despite the fact they have never met… Ten years ago, Vincent of Beckett wrote to Matilda on the darkest night of his life – begging the goddess he befriended in dreams for aid. But his prayer went unanswered, forever hardening his heart against the gods. That is until the same goddess comes tumbling through his window, bearing a letter to change both their destinies. For Matilda and Vincent are tangled together by threads of fate and the promise of a future beyond dreams, one that might rewrite the dark, blood-soaked ways of the gods… or end them.
Between These Broken Hearts by Lexi Ryan, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A human princess armed with death's kiss and a fae shifter on the run become unlikely allies when a mission to assassinate an evil king collides with a fatal prophecy. Princess Jasalyn has eleven days to live. Jasalyn is facing the repercussions of a deadly bargain. Her life, and the future of the shadow court, are forfeit on her birthday unless she can stop the evil fae king Mordeus. She needs to face her greatest fears and find him before she runs out of time, but even after everything, Kendrick won't let her face this alone.
Shape-shifter Felicity has vanished. Felicity disappeared from King Misha's dungeons, and her friends have been searching for her to no avail. But even if she's found, Felicity will never be able to escape the oracle's tragic prophecy for her and her family. In her lonely battle with fate, Misha is the last person she can ask to stand by her side, but the first one she'll need.
A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan, Transworld, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50613-9.
Prime Minister Churchill, the Witches of Britain are at your service... 1940, and war rages across Europe. The future looks bleak. But now, emerging from the shadows, the Royal Academy of Witches offers its help. And so it is tasked with finding an ancient artefact that, were it to fall into Nazi hands, would help Hitler fulfil his twisted Aryan dream…
The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar, Mountain Leopard Press, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-42659-1.
If saving your family, your life, your kingdom meant destroying true love - could you do it? In 1523, in a far-away, bankrupt kingdom, there lives a magician named Anatole who considers himself to be the greatest in the land, having cured the King of a deadly illness decades ago. Except now, Anatole’s spells have dried up. He can’t even turn sand into gold - the most basic magic. Anatole’s chance presents itself. The wedding of the century approaches, with the princess to marry a neighbouring prince. The only problem is she’s fallen in love with a lowly apprentice scribe. Anatole can save everything and everyone if he can forge the elusive anti-love potion to put an end to the young lovers’ romance. But as he spends more time with them both, he begins to question what and who is right. Who is he to determine the fate of true love? Is that the purest form of magic after all?
Immortal by Morning by Lynsay Sands, Gollancz, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-612845.
Crispinus Delacort is an immortal rogue enforcer and ahomicide detective, more likely to round up teenage truants than criminals in his quiet city. But when human bones are found buried in a residential garden – discovered by the insatiable, distracting Abril Newman, no less – Crispin realises there’s a rogue involved. But Crispin can woo Abril, solve the case and stop a dangerous rogue by morning… right? All in a day’s work.
Crossroads of Ravens by Andrzej Sapkowski, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63347-5.
On his first mission from the Witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen, Geralt will discover monsters, traitors, some new friends and some familiar faces.
He will be betrayed, he will seek vengeance, he will learn his limitations – and in the end, will have to make a choice. One which will impact the rest of his life.
Lore of the Tides by Analeigh Sbrana, Magpie, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Romanatasy. Lore Alemeyu wakes up to discover she’s on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Held prisoner and with no way to escape, she’s faced with a dire set of circumstances… A crew that’s distrustful of Lore’s magic capabilities… Her betrayal by a Fae she thought she could trust… A dangerous quest for the sun book, which, if placed in the wrong hands, will make the Alytherian Fae even more powerful. Lore must navigate threats on the ship and beyond, into the ocean’s magical and mysterious depths, in order to find the sun book herself and help free the humans. All the while, Lore can’t help but feel the intense pull of one Fae male who has been helping her all along. But is she willing to risk her human heart for creatures that have burned her in the past, and jeopardize her
people’s future?
Thorns & Fire by Helen Scheuerer, Bramble, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-06731-2.
A golden thread joined them, a bond that went deeper than love – and it had nearly destroyed them. Wren Embervale and Torj Elderbrock share a dark and bloody history. With Thezmarr on the brink of another war, and overwhelmed by the force of their feelings for one another, Torj discovers there is far more to their bond than mere passion. The legendary Warsword is determined to protect Wren at all costs, even if it means lying to her . . . Even if it means losing her forever. Meanwhile, Wren is struggling to find her place in the world – both as an advanced student of alchemy at the ancient academy of Drevenor, and as one of the heirs to a lost kingdom. With the midrealms once again facing destruction, Wren must decide: loyalty or liberation? Legacy or love? As new political players emerge, Wren discovers that her gift for alchemy is more powerful than she ever imagined – and that it could tear the kingdoms apart. Will she and Torj find their way back to each other, or will the ancient magic that binds them become their undoing?
Metal Slinger by Rachel Schneider, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-63398-7.
Rebellion. Loyalty. Friendship. Magic. Love. What would you do to have it all? Brynn has lived among the Alaha – an exiled community – waiting for the chance to attend the annual market hosted by Kenta – the people who exiled them. A rite of passage for all young guards, Brynn never expects to break a century-long peace treaty while there . . . Nor does she anticipate a dangerous encounter with an enemy soldier that threatens both the fragile peace between their people and everything she once believed in.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab, Tor, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-06464-9 .
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.
The Moon Glow Bookshop by Dongwon Seo, Wildfire, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-42544-0.
What if you could turn the pages of your own life, like the pages of yourfavourite book? Somewhere along the ordinary alleys you pass by every day, a mysterious shop appears between all the other familiar buildings. Surely, you didn’t see it yesterday or the day before. A large sign reads ‘The Moon Glow Bookshop’ but it seems to have a smaller poster on its window saying, ‘If only your life were like a book’. The faint glow of light from the shop somehow seems to offer you comfort. From just looking at the poster, you can’t really tell if it’s a bookstore, a bar, or a cafe. Upon opening the door and entering, the first thing that catches your eye are the shelves filled with bottles. It seems to be a bar, and as you take a sip of your desired cocktail, you feel yourself slowly entering a different world... Boreum, a moon rabbit, and Moon, the guardian of a magical library, have abandoned their jobs as celestial custodians and started operating a mysterious shop on Earth called The Moon Glow Bookshop. At the end of a weary day, around the time when the Moon rises, people make their way into the shop and choose cocktails to relive their most regrettable moments. When guests choose a drink, they’re served a matching dish as part of the magical experience. The dish that goes well with the cocktail you chose could be a simple egg omelette or perhaps a ripe, juicy tomato that you cannot bear to eat because of its perfect roundness. The result could be a coincidence or destiny. From a musician who lost her mother due to perilous mistake and is fated to lose her lover and father again, to a novelist who has become obsessed with success, and a working adult who, obsessed with making money, completely forgot their childhood dreams - everybody goes looking for answers in The Moon Glow Bookshop.
Atonement Sky by Nalini Singh, Gollancz, £16.99, trdbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62606-4.
The hunt for a stealthy predator takes a damaged J-Psy to the heart of falcon territory in this new 'Psy-Changeling Trinity' novel. Everything that could’ve been between Eleri and Adam was lost years ago, a shimmering promise crushed. As they work to uncover a monster, the moment of reckoning looms ever closer. Soon, there may be no more time left for either atonement… or love…
The Dragon Wakes by K. X. Song, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A young woman who wields the power of the dragon must decide where her loyalties lie - and where her heart belongs - in this enthralling re-imagining of the legend of Mulan. The war may be over, but Hai Meilin is still paying a heavy toll. Upon her return to Anlai, she is cast into prison. Her crime? Wielding a sword as a woman. In the palace, Meilin is a pariah. But beyond the imperial walls, her legend has taken on a life of its own. To the east, a rebel leader needs Meilin to helm his revolution. In the south, a former enemy prince seeks her aid in restoring balance to the Three Kingdoms. And back home, Liu Sky, Meilin's commander and first love, wants Meilin by his side in his bid for the throne. Pulled in all directions, Meilin vows that this time she will not be so quick to trust. Yet there is one she cannot help but listen to - for he dwells within her.
Rose in Chains by Julie Soto, Magpie, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Romantasy. The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead. Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, Princess Briony Rosewood is stripped of her magic and auctioned off to the highest bidder. She’s sold to Toven Hearst: scion of a family known for their cruel control of magic – and her long-time, and unresolved, infatuation. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost.
A Sword of Gold and Ruins by Anna Smith Spark, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58969-8.
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps – but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts.
Witch Queen Rising by Savannah Stephens, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62453-4.
A reclusive witch who fled the burden of her bloodline rises to be the greatest among them in this haunting fantasy debut. For New Orleans witchkin, there is no greater honour than to become the Prime – chosen to rule. But the title is meant to pass between two rival Houses of magic. Not to the prodigal daughter of the former Prime who died under mysterious circumstances. As a girl, Seraphine Barreau was dubbed the Tick Witch for her ability to feed on magic and make it her own. But Phine must learn to make peace with her past to save her – and all of witchkin’s – future.
Between Two Kings by Lindsay Straube, Arcadia, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-445893.
Tem’s goal was straightforward: learn the art of love from a basilisk so she could marry a prince. But nothing’s simple when love is on the line. In the all new, explosive sequel to Kiss of the Basilisk, the steamy romance that broke the internet, Tem will find herself tested in new and extraordinary ways.
The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
If you want a story that will change your life, Chiron's bookshop is where you go. For those lucky enough to grace its doors, it's a glimpse into a world of deadly bargains and powerful, magical books. For Cassandra Fairfax, it's a reminder of everything she lost, when Chiron kicked her out and all but shuttered the shop. Since then, she's used her skills in less… ethical ways, trading stolen books and magical readings to wealthy playboys looking for power money can't buy. Then Chiron dies. And if Cassandra knows anything, it's this: the bookshop must always have an owner. To restore the shop, she'll need the help of Lowell Sharpe, a rival bookseller who is everything Cassandra is not – and knows it, too. But as she is plunged into a world of unscrupulous collectors, deadly ink magic and shady societies, a dark force threatens to unravel the bookshops entirely…
Brighter Than Nine by June C. L. Tan, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The world has moved on. With the missing death god restored to the underworld, it appears that equilibrium has been regained. But the Nothing continues to threaten the underworld - and the mortal realm. Trapped in Hell, Zizi fights the takeover of his soul by Four's. As he begins to access Four's memories, he discovers a tragic love story that could be the key to keeping the mortal realm safe. Now, Zizi must defy his fate and escape Hell once more.
Never Ever After by Sue Lynn Tan, Hodderscape, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Yining stopped believing in dreams the day her beloved uncle died. Driven to survive, she's become a good thief and an even better liar. When she acquires an enchanted ring that could yield the key to a better life, it is stolen by her grasping step aunt, and Yining must venture into the imperial heart of the Iron Mountains to seize it back. Amid the grandeur of the palace, Yining catches the eye of the ruthless and ambitious Prince Zixin, who tempts her with a world she's never imagined. But nothing is as it seems as she's soon trapped in a tangle of power, treachery, and greed-her only ally a cunning advisor from a rival court who keeps dangerous secrets of his own. Desperate to secure her freedom, Yining embarks on a perilous quest where she must choose who to trust, unravel the mystery of her past, and fight for a future that both frightens and calls to her.
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao, Gollancz, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62896-9.
This is not coming out until January (2026) but the publisher rates this debut novel and so we pass on advance notification (well, we thought you'd want to know) – Gollancz have been a leading British SF/F for much of the 20th century in no small part in the decades up to the late 2010s due to its publisher and one of the 2014 Worldcon's Guests of Honour, Malcolm Edwards. So this novel has an appropriate publishing home. It is an epic, coming of age tale, a love story with a twist, and a gripping mystery novel – all in one. It is about a young woman who enters the Imperial court as a concubine, only to embark upon a secret quest to learn poetry magic to kill the tyrannical heir to the throne. The problem is: the only spell that can kill the prince is a love poem… This such a powerful read, the publishers say that writing is beautiful and so much is packed in to its 400 pages and they bill it as perfect for fans of She Who Became the Sun, The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Poppy War. This is a standalone, so no prior/further reading required. Gollancz acquired rights here in the British Isles in an incredibly competitive six-way auction and it was similarly competitive in the US. This, Gollancz believe, is going to be a major, global, debut launch and they are so excited to have this as one of their 2026 releases… The author: Shen Tao, immigrated to Canada at an early age and grew up inspired by both Chinese and Western stories. She has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. The Poet Empress is her first book.
Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07169-2.
A whimsical fantasy tale of how the most unlikely characters may become the most heroic. Making friends has never been so important. Welcome to Fountains Parish – a cesspit of trade and crime, where ambition curls up to die and desperation grows on its cobbled streets like mould on week-old bread. Coppelia is a street thief, a trickster, a low-level con artist. But she has something other thieves don’t… tiny puppet-like companions: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works.
Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-07157-9.
The Church of Armes of the Light has battled the forces of Darkness for as long as anyone can remember. The great prophecy has foretold that the Dark Lord Darvezian will be defeated by a band of misfits led by a high priestess, armed with their wits, the blessing of the Light and an artefact stolen from the merciless Spider Queen. Their journey will be long, hard and fraught with danger. Allies will become enemies; enemies will become allies. And the Dark Lord will be waiting, always waiting…
Alchemy and a Cup of Tea by Rebecca Thorne, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-03149-8.
Reyna and Kianthe have no trouble ruling the Queendom, battling evil alchemists and rescuing baby dragons, but can they save their town from the ravening influx of… tourists?! All Reyna wanted was a relaxing cup of tea. She didn’t expect to be kidnapped and dropped in a hidden cell, but never mind – she can adapt. But there’s a problem: an alchemy circle marred Reyna’s cell. What does a radical group of alchemists want with the Queendom’s newest sovereign, and why did they think they could get away with it? To make matters worse, Kianthe and Reyna’s hometown is having its own problems. Word of their bookshop – and its celebrity owners – has finally spread, and tourists are flooding into Tawney. As their friends struggle with the sudden influx, Kianthe and Reyna face a bigger conundrum than rogue alchemists: the fact that closing their business might be the only way to save their town…..
The Great Tales Of Middle-Earth Boxed Set by J. R. R. Tolkien, Harper Voyager, £90, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Illustrated box set. Tales' of Middle-Earth: The Children of Húrin, Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin. The sixth and final instalment in a series of collectible boxed sets celebrating the literary achievement of Christopher Tolkien. This set presents hardback editions of the three 'Great Tales' of Middle-earth, printed in full colour and with new art in each, and housed in a matching slipcase decorated with stunning new artwork by the books’ artist, Alan Lee.
The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by J. R. R. Tolkien & Charles Dixon, Illustrated by David Wenzel, Estates, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Illustrated and hand painted in full colour throughout, and accompanied by the carefully abridged text of the original novel, this handsome authorised edition will introduce new generations to a magical masterpiece – and be treasured by fans of all ages, everywhere. This new edition has been completely re-scanned from the original paintings to achieve more accurate and vibrant colours, with David Wenzel revisiting the work to provide sensitive improvements and additions to the original edition. The book includes a magnificent and completely new cover design by Wenzel himself.
The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver by Rafael Torrubia, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62367-4.
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 calls the veterans back to shore, they decide they’ll stop at nothing to stop the sorceress Crowkisser from unleashing an ancient power that could destroy them all.
Ghosted at Christmas by Holly Whitmore, Transworld, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-99757-4.
Billed by the publisher as Emily Henry meets BBC's Ghosts in this feel-good festive romcom, perfect for fans of Ashley Poston and Tessa Bailey. Mia’s been ghosted. Her festive spirits are at an all-time low, but at least her Christmas can’t get any worse. Or so she thought, until she discovered that her ex, Sam, is spending Christmas with her family. Now she’s looking at a whole week with the man who broke her heart and no chance of escape. John’s a ghost. After 30 years in limbo without a soul to talk to, he’s bored to death but still can’t seem to reach the afterlife. So when Mia screams at the sight of him, he can't help but wonder why this lovelorn girl can see him. Could helping to ease her heartbreak be his ticket to passing on?
Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken, Bramble, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05074-1.
The legends of the past are never truly dead and buried.. Liv Olson is a curator at one of New York’s most prestigious museums. Months ago, her brother travelled to Norway – and disappeared. So, when Liv suddenly receives an unexpected job offer, working as a curator in a tiny Norwegian town, she jumps at the chance to find him. But the small town of Vonn is nothing like Liv expected. Shops close before dark and superstitious townsfolk refuse to look at the water. What’s worse, her new boss, Tristan, is cold, cruel – and devastatingly beautiful. And, as part of the job, she must live with him in his mansion. Desperate to find her brother, Liv is soon plunged into a dangerous world filled with the Norse gods, giants and monsters from her research. And when she uncovers a deadly plot that promises immense suffering, she risks not only losing her heart, but her life…
The Whisper of Stars by Cristin Williams, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62132-8.
An anarchist, an aristocrat and a rogue witch imprisoned in a prison colony on a remote island must join forces to uncover the secret woven into the mysterious labyrinths of the Solovetsky Archipelago. But they’re not the only ones searching for the island’s legendary power…
Vesselless by Cortney L. Winn, Magpie, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Nizzara has always been able to perceive spirits better than the average caster. When she enters a deadly tournament to end her betrothal, she's determined to win without succumbing to the addictive spirit magic. Finding herself outmatched, Nizzara must face her fear of power and team up with Dagen – an enemy who is half-ghost and all charm – to survive the tournament. Dagen, the last King of Zarr, was killed by Nizzara’s father ten years ago. Now a half-ghost – able to phase between his human and spirit form – he is stuck in another realm, hunting wretched souls. When his keeper offers him a chance to reclaim his freedom in exchange for Nizzara’s soul, Dagen takes the deal. There’s only one catch: she must freely give it to him by the tournament’s end or his own soul is forfeit. Billed by the publisher as perfect for fans of Fourth Wing and The Serpent and the Wings of Night.
House of the Beast by Michelle Wong, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Born out of wedlock and shunned by society, Alma learned to make her peace with solitude, so long as she had her mother by her side. When her mother becomes gravely ill, Alma discovers a clue about her estranged father and writes a message begging for help. Little does she know that she is a bastard of House Avera, one of the four noble families that serve the gods and are imbued with their powers – and her father is a vessel of the Dread Beast, the most frightening god of all, a harbinger of death. In a desperate exchange for her mother’s medicine, Alma agrees to sacrifice her left arm to the Beast in a ceremony that will bind her forever to the House and its deity.
Uncharmed by Lucy Jane Wood, Macmillan, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04550-1.
Practically perfect, in every witch way From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Rewitched… Get ready for autumnal bliss with Uncharmed, Lucy Jane Wood’s cosy fantasy! Annie Wildwood is practically perfect in every witch way. Her life is a haze of pink, magic and impossibly high standards. But, when she is tasked with mentoring a troubled teenage witch with extraordinary powers, Annie’s charmed existence is quickly thrown into utter chaos
The Damned by Harper L. Woods, Transworld, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50837-9.
Billed by the publisher as The Vampire Diaries meets Shadow and Bone in this steamy, dark academia fantasy romance. Trapped. He fell through the gate to Hell to save my life. Beelzebub, the Lord of Gluttony, is no longer his own. He's been mine ever since he caught me singing to myself, falling prey to the magic of my song. If I can keep my distance, we can both move on. But now, he is caught under my spell, which makes him forbidden to touch. And yet, he is the only one I can trust to get me back to Crystal Hollow. We'll have to make it through the Nine Circles of Hell first.
The Iron Road by David Wragg, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Ree is at war. Determined to free the townships from the Guild's larcenous rule, she can’t take her eyes off victory. Not now, with the scent of blood in the air. Not for her consort, not even for her kid. Javani is ready for her own adventures. She’s no longer a child and determined to blaze her own trail, even if that means leaving Ree behind. With rebellion stirring, the past Ree's been running from and the future Javani’s striving for will collide. As tensions rise between mother and daughter, Guild and rebels – and with the fate of the Plains on the line – all that's certain is an explosive finale on the Iron Road.
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