Exploring religious trauma through an enemies-to-lovers romance, Reid’s evocative debut is as gothic as a cathedral and as haunting as the moors. Raised by the watchful elders of the Abbey, deeply devout Maeve has been trained as an iconographer, creating the paintings of saints that the Abbey’s faithful pray to. Now she’s tasked with visiting Jude, an exiled saint, and painting his updated icon. Jude, however, is decidedly hostile to the idea of her staying at his house and digging into his secrets. But when Maeve reveals the strange trance that comes over her when she paints, Jude realizes he must be honest with her about the terrible price the Abbey exacts from its faithful, rewriting their memories and perceptions of reality each time they pray. As a saint, Jude’s memories similarly erode each time someone prays to him. Meanwhile Maeve, who has more magic than she understands, is in terrible danger from her superiors. Between the two of them, they hold the key to bringing down the whole Abbey—if only they could remember it. Though the complex worldbuilding raises more questions than it answers, it’s deeply satisfying to watch Maeve start to question all that she’s been taught. Reid’s dreamlike twists of logic and vivid imagery will linger in readers’ minds. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Ashing-Giwa (A Splinter in the Sky) wows in this brilliantly immersive novel set 500 years after humanity left an overpopulated Earth to begin again on Newearth, an exodus enabled by the help of mysterious aliens known as the Makers. Despite the new lease on life offered by this opportunity, impatient settlers recklessly sped up the terraforming process, leading to dire environmental consequences felt in the present day. As ecological catastrophe looms, Newearth’s autocratic leaders, who have adopted the theory that criminal tendencies are genetic, stifle dissent. When heroine Fenyyang “Fen” Mekantai was just six, her fathers, both ambassadors, were arrested for encouraging citizens to air concerns about the future. Their arrest doomed Fen to a life of involuntary servitude to a nobleman, Onath, who trained her as a bodyguard. Years later, her fathers are assassinated in prison and Onath is ordered to kill Fen. Instead, he enables her escape, faking her death and giving her directions to reach the Broken Masks, a rebel force. What she finds when she does so is unexpected, and complicates her hopes for the future. Ashing-Giwa’s dystopian sci-fi worldbuilding is staggering, and her heroine proves easy to root for. Readers will be enthralled. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Berman (editor of Brute) brings together 15 haunting tales loosely riffing on Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. As Berman puts it in his introduction, the anthology is “an homage to Erik—the first truly human monster of modern horror—and to those still drawn to his tragic song.” Several stories, such as “Trompe l’Oiel” by Tim Newton Anderson and “The Road of Mirrors” by James Bennett, offer straightforward tribute; both are set in turn of the 20th-century Paris and studded with invocations of and appearances from the Phantom himself. Some stories, however, go to truly unexpected places, such as Orrin Grey’s standout “The Phantom of the Wax Museum,” starring a young lesbian reporter in 1930s Hollywood covering a series of strange events following Phantom actor Lon Cheney’s death. Addison Smith’s eerie and grotesque “The Music We Became” is another highlight, following two teen girls who seek to create their own world in a sinkhole behind a theater. Capturing much of the menace and enchantment of the original, this will be a treat for Phantom fans. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Jacobs (A Lush and Seething Hell) sends Florida ship captain Samantha Vineyard into peril in this nerve-rattling maritime horror novel. Too broke to fix her boat, Sam accepts a gig as an engineer on the Blackwatch, a supposedly haunted ship set to sail from Puget Sound to the Panama Canal and then across the Atlantic. She has a complicated history with Loick Archambault, the estranged friend who offers her the job, and the ship’s captain, Hank Huntington, and is familiar with most of the crew except for the first mate, a woman called Seabees, and three wealthy wannabe sailors all named Steve, who’ve paid Hank for the learning experience. During the journey, Sam finds a decrepit journal from the sailboat’s first voyage that details the captain’s increasingly erratic behavior and fascination with a mysterious ritual. After Sam begins to hear voices, one of the Steves disappears in San Diego, and a crewman falls from a mast in Panama City, where Sam meets a witch who warns her about disasters to come. Jacobs walks a fine line between foreshadowing and telegraphing, but manages to conceal enough surprises to make even seasoned horror fans jump. This delivers the goods. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Wolf (Beyond Enemies) launches her Arcane Hoard series with this thrilling if familiar fantasy. In an abandoned area of Broadside, gang leader Cima discovers a long-buried treasure chest overflowing with “loose gems, intricate jewelry, [and] gold, silver, metals she didn’t recognize.” Together with her friends Gaudi, Terio, Ackles, and Meesh, she begins selling off the loot, changing their lives overnight. When Cima comes back for more, however, the dragon Yagen appears and tells her the truth about the stolen treasures: they contain magic, a force that has otherwise vanished from Broadside in the wake of a catastrophic event called the Cataclysm and which is capable of corrupting anyone who handles the objects. As if to prove Yagen’s words, fire erupts, a building collapses, and two of Cima’s gang are killed. To save her remaining friends and all of Broadside, Cima must return the stolen items to the chest. But the merchants who’ve purchased from her aren’t eager to let their new treasures go, especially not the members of the ruling Council, which has its own agenda for magic. Though some subplots feel bloated, the search for these precious items propels the plot forward and the found family vibe between Cima and her gang adds charm. This is a promising start. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Entanglements—romantic, criminal, and quantum—shape this fanciful brainteaser from Lanza (The Grand Biocentric Design) and Kress (The Eleventh Gate). Nobel laureate Sam Watkins runs an outré research clinic in the Cayman Islands where reality-altering microchips are implanted into patients’ brains so they can create new realities and (maybe) attain immortality. When the chief neurosurgeon dies in a diving accident, Watkins recruits his grandniece, doctor Caro Soames-Watkins, as a replacement. Caro, who’s facing a misogynistic social media fire storm after accusing a prominent coworker of sexual harassment, seizes on the opportunity to escape. Rebuffing advances from Watkin’s womanizing right-hand man, Caro befriends the project’s mastermind, Weigert, a soft-spoken widower who educates her in quantum physics, particularly the idea that “probabilities turn into matter or energy only when they are observed.” It’s not long before Caro figures out Weigert wants the microchip so he can travel to the multiverse and reunite with his late wife and dogs; meanwhile her uncle, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, hopes the operation will make him immortal. When a staffer turns up murdered and the institute’s research reaches the dark web, Caro must use all her wits to untangle the mystery. The fascinating science and fun interpersonal puzzle will appeal to fans of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Dr. Moreau. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Iker puts a fresh spin on dark academia in their exciting if uneven debut. Zora Robinson arrives at Bricksbury—the oldest HBCU in America—with a few goals: finish her thesis on Black spiritual history, get her graduate degree in Appalachian Studies, and put her poor relationships with her sister and family out of her mind. This last aim is complicated by the fact that her sister, Jasmine, teaches on campus, but things initially go well: her thesis adviser encourages her to go deeper, she quickly integrates herself in the conjure community on campus, and finding friends comes easy. But through her research, she discovers tales of a beast in the woods outside Bricksbury—and then a student goes missing from campus. As her own conjuring power grows, Zora realizes that what’s going on is more than mere folklore, and Bricksbury’s secrets may have placed all its students in terrible danger. Iker’s setting feels intricate and lived-in, with intermittent chapters about Bricksbury’s founder illuminating the school’s history. Unfortunately, the dialogue can be stilted, secondary characters are underdeveloped, and long expositional passages about Zora’s personal history break up an otherwise well-paced plot. Still, there’s enough that’s original in this creeping gothic to please horror and mystery fans alike. (Nov.)

Correction: A previous version of this review used the wrong pronoun to refer to the author.

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Raasch (Go Luck Yourself) enchants with this queer fantasy romance. Sebastian “Seb” Walsh is a hot-headed college student studying the magical discipline of evocation and preparing to apply for a research grant he needs to graduate and secure a job in the nonprofit sector. Also competing for the grant is Elethior “Thio” Tourael, a conjuration student from a wealthy family who run an unethical magical research and military development company. Between their departments’ long-standing rivalry and Seb’s personal and moral qualms with the Tourael family, the two students are sworn enemies. Their grant proposals, however, are strikingly similar, leading the college to award the funding to both boys with the stipulation that they work together, hoping the collaboration will end the animosity between the two departments. Forced to share a lab, they butt heads as they work towards their goals, all while sexual tension mounts, especially when Seb learns that Thio doesn’t support his family’s immoral practices. Raasch pulls from familiar fantasy and romance tropes while adding in enough unique worldbuilding details to keep things fresh, and she handles themes of trauma and family strife with care. The fun magic school setting, animated and complex characters, and steamy enemies-to-lovers romance will have readers hooked. Agent: Amy Stapp, Wolfson Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Sapkowski returns to his Witcher series with this standalone prequel following an 18-year-old Geralt on his first ever adventure as he is pulled into a complicated quest for vengeance by an elder Witcher with a checkered past. Preston Holt rescues Geralt from an angry mob; trains him at his estate, Rocamora (“revenge” in the Elder language); and offers to continue on as his patron. But Geralt, suspicious of Holt’s connection to the infamous Witcher massacre at Kaer Morhen, takes his leave, wandering off to find his own monsters to hunt. When other powers take an interest in the fledgling Witcher, however, Geralt gets sucked back into Holt’s schemes to eliminate the anti-Witcher agents who threaten both them and their priestess allies. Sapkowski presents the young Geralt as a blank slate upon whom others feel free to write their own agendas, while keeping his base decency intact. Anyone wishing to learn more about Geralt’s early years will be pleased to see the Witcher in action again, even as he stumbles a bit. This is a gift for series fans. Agent: Patricia Pasqualini, Patricia Pasqualini Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

This satisfying conclusion to bestseller Roberts’s Lost Bride trilogy lovingly spotlights various kinds of family while slowly building to a thrilling finale. The story picks up where The Mirror left off, in the aftermath of a tragic vision showing the brutal deaths of the seven ghost brides of Lost Bride Manor, all of whom were murdered over the past two centuries by the evil witch Hester Dobbs. To free the spirits from Dobbs’s continued torment, the house’s living owner, Sonya MacTavish—supported by her lover, Trey; best friend, Cleo; cousin (and Cleo’s lover) Owen; and their menagerie of pets—must find the seven brides’ rings, break Dobbs’s curse, and bring peace and renewal to the manor once and for all. Despite these seemingly high stakes, much of the novel focuses on the pleasant mundanities of summer in a picturesque coastal Maine town, with regular interruptions from Dobbs to keep the plot moving. With plenty of wish fulfillment and strong character work and relationship building on full display, Roberts once again showcases what she does best. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink