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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

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

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

This brutal, unsparing horror novel from Felker-Martin (Manhunt) brings film, queer history, and unspeakable terror together in mid-1980s New York City. Ellen Kramer, a closeted archivist working at the Path Foundation, an embattled film restoration company, has been tasked with restoring Black Flame, a legendary lost film from Weimar-era Germany. As she grapples with her repressed sexuality, her work results in her consciousness becoming warped by horrific visions. Her daily life and relationships begin to disintegrate as she uncovers the truth behind Black Flame—and her own history. After the Path Foundation receives blowback for their restoration of a racist movie, Ellen is given the opportunity to share Black Flame with the world to help divert the PR storm, resulting in a terrible reckoning as she comes to terms with the consequences of things kept hidden from polite society—and from herself. Felker-Martin’s stunning prose is equal parts grotesque and lyrical as she turns an unflinching gaze on the extremes of compulsion and desire on the way to a truly devastating climax. The story threads the difficult needle of presenting unsympathetic characters and complicated relationships without compromising its vision, and the results are spectacular. Readers will be unable to shake this one soon. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

May (Wild and Wicked Things) mixes romance, body horror, and dark academia in this disappointing queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Thora Grieve has been trapped all her life, first by her undertaker father’s expectations and rituals and then by her socialite husband’s “short temper and shorter leash.” Now an orphaned widow, she leaps at the chance for a freer life of study at the university of St. Elianto with botanist Petaccia. Upon reaching the university, Thora becomes obsessed with the high-walled, overgrown garden outside her room—and with Olea, the mysterious and captivating woman who tends to its dangerous, poisonous plants. May conjures a fascinating gothic atmosphere, but doesn’t bring many new ideas to Hawthorne’s original apart from a basic gender swap. Meanwhile, the relentless repetition, especially the frequent descriptions of Thora sweating, distracts. Thorny Thora proves a difficult narrator to root for as she bites the head off anyone she talks to and alternately argues with and bullies Olea. For dark romance fans looking for a queer gothic, the literally toxic relationship will be a feature not a bug, but others may be frustrated, especially as the narrative offers no real resolution to their love story. This is all vibes, no follow-through. Agent: Diana Beaumont, DHH Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Skipping ahead many years from the events of She Who Knows, Nebula Award winner Okorafor picks up heroine Najeeba’s life after the loss of her daughter, Onyesonwu. After not using her spiritual powers for the majority of her adult life, Najeeba embraces her self-taught ability to transform into a kponyungo, a mystical creature, in middle age. Through magic, she discovers that, though Onyesonwu has erased the history of Okeke slavery and genocide from the land, some evils remain. Among them is the Cleanser, a mysterious figure who takes young girls from Najeeba’s hometown and returns them strange and altered. To kill him, Najeeba knows she’ll need to improve her kponyungo abilities and turns to her daughter’s old teacher, the sorcerer Aro. So begins her journey to become a full-fledged witch, all the while dealing with grief, processing her trauma, and carrying the weight of being one of the only souls left that remembers the old history of Okeke. Okorafor’s straightforward and succinct prose lays bare Najeeba’s turmoil and struggles alongside the pride and strength of her witching accomplishments. The plotting is loose, setting things up for book three more than telling a self-contained story. Still, the strength of the world, and the heroine, makes this one shine. Agent: Angeline Rodriguez, WME. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Stirling revisits the band of time travelers introduced in To Turn the Tide in this bombastic alternate history. Bringing modern tech and medicine to ancient Rome, time traveling professor Arthur Vandenberg and his four grad students give Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his troops the tools to defeat the northern German invaders. But trouble reappears in the east as the Roman ambassador to China barely escapes the Han court, which has its own futuristic secret weapons courtesy of a group of time traveling refugees fleeing the 2032 nuclear war. With both modern groups seeking world domination by a single power to avoid the creation of nuclear weapons, Rome and China are set on a collision course. Stirling is scrupulous with historical details, taking time out of his plot to admire the intelligence of real-life figures like Claudius Galen, but the pace of change wrought by the time travelers seems improbably breakneck. His protagonists’ hyper-competency similarly strains belief, and the rivalry between East and West is clearly portrayed in Rome’s favor, making for a tilted conflict. The result is hardly subtle, but die-hard military sci-fi fans will find plenty to hold their interest. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink