Fantasy and Science Fiction
June 2025

Recent Releases
The Keeper of Lonely Spirits
by E.M. Anderson

Find an angry spirit. Send it on its way before it causes trouble. Leave before anyone learns his name. After over two hundred years, Peter Shaughnessy is ready to die and end this cycle. But thanks to a youthful encounter with one o’ them folk in his native Ireland, he can’t. Instead, he's cursed to wander eternally far from home, with the ability to see ghosts and talk to plants. Immortality means Peter has lost everyone he’s ever loved. And so he centers his life on the dead—until his wandering brings him to Harrington, Ohio. As he searches for a vengeful spirit, Peter’s drawn into the townsfolk’s lives, homes and troubles. For the first time in over a century, he wants something other than death. But the people of Harrington will die someday. And he won’t. As Harrington buckles under the weight of the supernatural, the ghost hunt pits Peter’s well-being against that of his new friends and the man he’s falling for. If he stays, he risks heartbreak. If he leaves, he risks their lives.
The Empress
by Kristin Cast

What happens when a no-nonsense modern woman stumbles into a world of magic, mystery, and one ridiculously hot, broody hero? She breaks all the rules, obviously. Hannah has always played by the book, until a tarot reading goes sideways and drops her into a world where magic is real, danger lurks in the shadows, and men look like they've stepped out of a fantasy novel. Case in point: Kane, the kingdom's gruff yet infuriatingly gorgeous protector, who claims Hannah's arrival isn't an accident. Apparently, she's the key to saving his realm from ruin. Hannah's priorities? Get her tarot card back. Find a way home. Absolutely not fall for the battle-scarred warrior who makes her want to forget all her plans. But as the palace's secrets unravel, and enemies close in, the line between duty and desire blurs. Because if Hannah wants to return to her world, she'll have to embrace the magic inside her and trust the one man who makes her question everything.
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
by Caitlin Rozakis

Two parents and their recently-bitten-werewolf daughter try to fit into a privileged New England society of magic aristocracy. But deadly terrors await them, ancient prophecies, remorseless magical trials, hidden conspiracies and the PTA bake sale. When Vivian's kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire. As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society, shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal Trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents' WhatsApp group. And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it's about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door.
Spark of the everflame
by Penn Cole

When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn. In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by their cruel, magical offspring called the Descended, healer Diem Bellator yearns to escape her poor village. Her mother’s sudden disappearance, and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past, offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock a web of mysteries left behind by her mother. With the dying King’s handsome yet enigmatic heir watching her every move and a ruthless rebel alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem must navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family, and all of mortalkind.
The Cat Who Saved the Library
by Sosuke Natsukawa

Nanami Kosaki loves reading. The local library has become a home from home. Books are her friends. When Nanami notices that some of her favorite books are disappearing from the library shelves, she becomes suspicious of a man in a grey suit whose furtive behavior doesn’t feel right. Should she follow him to see what he’s up to? It wouldn’t be dangerous, would it? When a smart-talking tabby cat called Tiger appears and issues a grave warning about how dangerous that would be, they decide to team up and investigate. Where have all the books gone? And can the unlikely duo overcome the challenges ahead?
Where the Axe Is Buried
by Ray Nayler

All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end. In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world. As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation's palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
The Lamb
by Lucy Rose

In their secluded forest cottage, Margot and her "Mama" welcome in lost strangers, only for Mama to fully consume them. But when an alluring new stray named Eden enters their lives, Margot must confront her own desires and decide what she wants for herself. This gothic horror fairy tale will give fans of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda something fresh to sink their teeth into.  
When the Moon Hits Your Eye
by John Scalzi

One day, suddenly and without explanation, the moon turns into a ball of cheese. For some, it’s an opportunity. For others, it’s time to question their life choices. How can the world stay the same in the face of such absurdity and uncertainty? Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and patients at the end of their lives, over the length of a lunar cycle, each gets their moment in the moonlight. To panic, to plan, to wonder and to hope, to laugh and to grieve. All in a story that goes all the places you’d expect, and to many others you could never anticipate. For the people of the earth, this could be the end, or the beginning of a whole new world.
Sestia
by G. R. Macallister

While a fragile peace has begun to settle across the Five Queendoms of the known world, trouble brews beneath the smooth façade. The first gate between the Underlands, where Eresh rules over the shades of the dead, has already been opened, and the scheming shade of a dead sorcerer has evil plans he hopes to unleash on the world. In the world Above, the Scorpicae struggle to find a path forward in defeat, the embattled regent of Paxim gets more than she bargained for, and a young woman who barely survived the Sun Rites finds herself the indispensable right hand of a priest-queen whose sanity appears to be slipping away. As living women across the Queendoms take desperate action to stay alive, and dead women plot to regain what they've lost, the time for the next Sun Rites nears. When five queens gather in the Holy City of Sestia for the most important ritual of their lives, who will be left standing?
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Albert Lea Public Library
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Albert Lea, Minnesota 56007
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