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Fantasy and Science Fiction February 2026 |
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The Bookshop Below
by Georgia Summers
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 powerful bargains and deadly ink magic. 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 and unscrupulous collectors. Then Chiron dies under mysterious circumstances. And if Cassandra knows anything, it's this: the bookshop must always have an owner. But she's not the only one interested--
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Exo
by Colin Brush
A debut sci-fi mystery set on an abandoned future Earth, featuring a twisty mystery straight out of a John le Carr novel, a group of larger-than-life characters who'd be at home in the work of John Scalzi, and a deeply weird and dangerous hyperdimensional entity to haunt the dreams of any reader of Kim Stanley Robinson. Humanity is dying. Banished from the Earth, our descendants eke out lives in orbital habitats and moon colonies--and look with longing on our former home. But Earth is deadly. Over hundreds of years, its oceans have transformed into an annihilating liquid entity--the Caul. Every living creature approaching its shores is irresistibly compelled to enter. . . and is never seen again. Scientists, some of the few inhabitants left, work in facilities seeking to understand and stop the Caul. And scavenging the shores are the penitents--those who resist its siren lure. Among them is penitent Mae Jameson, an octogenarian former Service agent who arrived on Earth thirty years ago to find her lover. When she encounters Siofra, a mute girl, wandering alone by the shore and returns her home, they discover the girl's father, rogue scientist Carl Magellan, hanging from a noose. He's been murdered. Unwilling to leave the matter in the hands of the facility Carl abandoned years ago, Mae takes Carl's journals--which detail his obsession with the Caul and its mysteries--and sets about investigating. In this page-turning, dual-timeline novel, both Mae and Carl's quests for the truth put them at the center of a dangerous conspiracy. Someone believes they can use the secret of the Caul to shape humanity's future, and they aren't afraid to kill to keep control of it.
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A Fae in Finance
by Juliet Brooks
A woman working in finance gets trapped in a magical realm of faeries and must find a way to get home-- Provided by publisher.
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Extremity
by Nicholas Binge
London Detective Julia Torgrimsen leaves her forced retirement to investigate the murder of billionaire Bruno Donaldson. When the crime scene reveals two perfectly identical bodies, Julia discovers an underground world of cloning, time travel, and a conspiracy that could end humanity as she knows it. This cinematic and intriguing time-bending procedural will delight fans of A.G. Riddle's Lost In Time and Matthew Fitzsimmons' Constance.
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Fallen City
by Adrienne Young
Luca Matius has one purpose: to carry on the family name, maintaining its presence in the Forum once his powerful and cruel uncle dies. But his noviceship with the city's Philosopher places him in the middle of a catastrophe that will alter the destiny of his people. Maris Casperia was raised amidst the strategic maneuvers of the Citadel's inner workings, and she knows what her future holds--a lifetime of service to a corrupt city. But her years of serving as a novice to the last Priestess who possesses the stolen magic of the Old War has made her envision a different kind of future for the city. When she meets Luca, a fated chain of events is set into motion that will divinely entangle their lives. As a secret comes to light and throws the city into chaos, Luca and Maris hatch a plot to create a calculated alliance that could tip the scales of power--
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The Ganymedan
by R. T. Ester
A dark science fiction debut examining agency and sacrifice through one man's desperate attempt to reach home after he murders his tyrannical employer. Verden Dotnet made an easy living mixing drinks for the creator of all sentient tech in the galaxy--until he decided to kill the creator. Now this man is dead, really dead, no cloud back-ups, and V-Dot is on the run, carrying a galaxy-shattering secret in his pocket. When he misses the last ship back to Ganymede, he convinces an old, outdated but still sentient ship, TR-8901, to give him a lift. But TR suspects that something is up--it is hearing rumours about his creator's death, and the man who fled the scene. But TR is a dutiful ship, and will carry out its duties until proven otherwise...
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The Sacred Space Between
by Kalie Reid
The Abbey has controlled the minds of its patrons for a millennium through memory magic, stolen from exiled saints. At fifteen, Jude was exiled from the Abbey to the bleak moors in the countryside, to maintain their control over his bourgeoning magic. Almost a decade later, he wants to live a normal life free from the Abbey's oppressive gaze. When they send Maeve, a stubbornly devout iconographer, to paint an updated icon of him, Jude makes it his mission to get rid of her as soon as possible. That is until he discovers she holds the same tainted magic of the saints as he does, and that the icons she paints may be the key to destroying the Abbey's power. As Jude and Maeve draw closer, the two of them face a choice--they can take on the full power of the Abbey and risk their lives for freedom or escape back to exile and make the most of their fading memories. But this institution has eyes everywhere, and the only thing the Abbey loves more than a saint is a martyr--
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Haze: Illustrated with Bonus Short Story
by Katharine Kerr
Illustrated edition with bonus (never before published) short story.Once, Dan flew amongst the stars as a decorated Fleet Officer. Now destitute, he sleeps on the streets of Gleam, trading his body for a drug called Haze that dulls the pain of what he's lost with nothing left to his name but a battered knife, a damaged mind, and a past he can't escape. But he is given a rare second chance when former comrades track him down and make an offer that he never expected.Across the galaxy, the invisible lanes of faster-than-light travel-the shunts--are beginning to fail. One has already vanished without warning. If the rest collapse, entire civilizations will be cut off, stranded, and left to die. The Fleet needs someone who can read the hyperspace currents like no one else. Someone like Dan. But bringing him back into the fold won't be easy--and keeping him alive may be even harder.Thrown together with a crew of misfits and old friends carrying wounds of their own, Dan boards a disguised merchant ship on a secret mission to uncover the truth. What they find will challenge everything they believe--about the shunts, about the Fleet, and each other. And through it all, Dan must battle the addiction that nearly destroyed him... and still might.Haze is a bold, character-driven space adventure that blends high-stakes intrigue with raw emotional depth. Gritty, moving, and impossible to put down, it's a story of redemption, found family, and the fragile ties that hold the stars--and ourselves--together.
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This Gilded Abyss
by Rebecca Thorne
From USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Thorne comes This Gilded Abyss, a thrilling lesbian fantasy where Arcane meets Titanic Sergeant Nix Marr is a damn good soldier, but she's desperate to leave her haunted past in the bioluminescent ocean, buried alongside old friends...and old flames. Unfortunately, even the icy ocean can't extinguish some fires. When Kessandra, everyone's favorite princess--and Nix's 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 Fall. It's frustrating, irritating, how quickly Nix and Kess fall back in sync--much as she tries to fight, Nix can't deny their spark. But Kessandra wasn't truthful--surprise, surprise--and Nix quickly realizes their investigation isn't about the massacre, but rather 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, which would be a hell of a lot easier if Kessandra didn't keep lying. Injured, fighting for their lives, Nix has to decide if she can trust Kessandra again...and what she'll lose this time.
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The King Must Die
by Kemi Ashing-Giwa
Fen's world is crumbling. Newearth, a once-promising planet gifted by the all-powerful alien Makers, now suffers from failed terraforming, leaving its people on the brink of collapse. Fen has spent her life working as a mercenary bodyguard for a cunning magistrate, entangled in the politics of the empire that shattered her family. But then her fathers--her last remaining tether to hope--are executed by the ruthless Sovereign, who marks Fen for the same fate. With nothing left to lose, Fen escapes with a single map and an old quarterstaff, embarking on a dangerous quest to seek out the last remnants of her parents' rebellion. But the underground insurgents she finds may be even more dangerous than the Sovereign's army. At the center of it all stands Alekhai, the Sovereign's heir--a brutal, power-hungry force of destruction. Though he embodies everything Fen despises, his dangerous plans might be the empire's last chance at survival...or the final push to its doom--
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Turns of Fate
by Anne Bishop
Most people come to Destiny Park for entertainment. They come to have their cards read to tell them a bit about their future. They come to walk through a beautiful park and to eat in the hotel's restaurant. They come in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Arcana, the paranormal beings who rule the Isle of Wyrd. But some people come to make a bargain with the Arcana--to change their fate. And some people come for dark purposes. When Detective Beth Fahey is sent to Destiny Park to inquire about a 'ghost gun, ' she will begin a strange journey, where she must learn to navigate the Arcana's unforgiving laws and dangerous attractions. Her search will draw her into seemingly impossible cases and the secrets of her own past as tensions rise between the Arcana and their human neighbors across the river--
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The Merge
by Grace Walker
Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer's. Her daughter Amelia, a once fiery and strong-willed activist, can't bear to see her mother's mind fade. Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world's first experimental merging process for Alzheimer's patients, in which Laurie's ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia's healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one. Soon Amelia and Laurie join the opaque and mysterious group of other merge participants: teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancâee Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his addict daughter Lara--
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An Unlikely Coven
by Am Kvita
After seven long years Joan Greenwood is finally returning home. Unfortunately, no one reminded her family. The outcast daughter of a powerful family of witches, Joan's homecoming is lukewarm at best, but soon turns disastrous when news hits that someone has created a spell that can turn an unmagical human into a powerful witch, threatening the balance of the magical world and the Greenwood's place at the top of it. When her best friend confesses that he has secretly, accidentally, saved this human-turned-witch from an uncertain fate, Joan is thrust headfirst into a desperate race to undo the spell before it does permanent damage to its unwilling host. Soon, Joan finds herself drawn deeper into the heart of the city's magic, into an uncertain alliance with a (very attractive) family rival, and far beyond the limits of everything she thought her own magic capable of--
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Outlaw Planet
by M. R. Carey
This is the story of Bess - or Dog-Bitch Bess as she came to be known. It's the story of the gun she carried, whose name was Wakeful Slim. It's the story of the dead man who carried that gun before her and left a piece of himself inside it. And it's the tale of how she turned from teacher, to renegade, and ultimately to hero. This is also the tale of the last violent engagements in an inter-dimensional war - one of the most brutal the multiverse had ever seen. This is how Bess learned the truth about her world. Came to it the hard way, through pain and loss and the reckless spilling of blood, and carried it with her like a brand on her soul. And once she knew it - knew for sure how badly she'd been used - she had no option but to do something about it--
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Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
by Emily Krempholtz
Guy Shadowfade is dead and Violet Thistlethwaite doesn't know what to do with herself. Having spent her life as the dark sorcerer's right hand, the powerful witch is now at loose ends. But she does know one thing: she doesn't want to be evil anymore. For once, she wants to sprout peonies instead of poison. The quaint town of Dragon's Rest, she decides, will be her second chance at life--a place where she can set down roots, open a flower shop, keep her sentient (and mildly homicidal) houseplant out of trouble, and quit dark magic after a lifetime of villainy. While Violet's vibrant bouquets and feats of plant magic soon charm the welcoming townsfolk, nothing she does seems to impress the prickly yet dashingly handsome Nathaniel Marsh, an alchemist sharing her greenhouse--
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Project Hanuman
by Stewart Hotston
The Arcology, a pan galactic utopia where trillions live online, forever and in bliss, is missing. Praveenthi 'Prab' Saal, who tired of heaven and left for the real world and pilot Kercher, printed into a physical body to serve time for sedition against the Arcology, must discover what is going on, or it could be the end of everyone and everything that calls the Arcology home. Their only resource is their living ship, carrying all the Arcology's knowledge and culture. But this nameless ship is dying - slowly being swallowed whole by the universe of information it's been asked to hold. The three embark on a quest to save themselves and, just maybe, the Arcology as well.--
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Rochester Hills Public Library
500 Olde Towne Rd
Rochester, Michigan 48307
248-656-2900www.rhpl.org/ |
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