|
|
Fantasy and Science Fiction September 2026 |
|
|
|
|
|
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic
by Breanne Randall
Sadie Revelare has always believed that the curse of four heartbreaks that accompanies her magic would be worth the price. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer with only weeks to live, and her first heartbreak, Jake McNealy, returns to town after a decade, her carefully structured life begins to unravel. With the news of their grandmother's impending death, Sadie's estranged twin brother Seth returns to town, bringing with him deeply buried family secrets that threaten to tear Sadie's world apart. Their grandmother has been the backbone of the family for generations, and with her death, Sadie isn't sure she'll have the strength to keep the family--and her magic-- together--Provided by publisher.
|
|
| Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth DurstIn this 3rd in the Spellshop series, lone wolf supply runner Marin finds herself caught up in a revolution, ferrying refugees from the burning city of Alyssium. When one refugee, a musician named Dax, stays behind on the ship to explore the seas with her, Marin realizes maybe she is the one being saved. "Warmhearted and thoroughly entertaining" (Publishers Weekly), this whimsical cozy fantasy romance expands on the world-building of the previous Spellshop books. |
|
|
|
At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she's ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family. But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice--and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo--her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them--to turn back the clock and live their story a second time? A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself. |
|
| Sublimation by Isabel J. KimWhen you immigrate, you create a copy of yourself that stays behind. Soyoung Rose Kang hasn't spoken to her "instance" in years, but when she returns to Korea for a funeral, she realizes that the other Soyoung has a plan to steal her life. Fans of the TV show Severance will devour this provocative and complex speculative horror, along with similar titles such as Ezra Claytan Daniels' Upgrade Soul or Maud Woolf's Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulubelle Rock. |
|
| We Burned So Bright by TJ KluneThe people of Earth have about one month before a rogue black hole swallows the entire solar system. Married couple Don and Rodney plan to spend that month getting their old RV across the country from Maine to Washington State in order to take care of some unfinished business, no matter what it takes. TJ Klune's latest gives fans more of his trademark character-driven, emotionally intense storytelling in an apocalyptic road trip. For fans of: Above the Fire by Michael O'Donnell and The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson. |
|
|
|
The Strangers
by Naomi Alderman
From the bestselling author of The Power comes a part memoir, part speculative novel, following a writer wrestling with grief even as a new species is discovered, forcing humans to reconsider what it means to share our planet. They came from nowhere, and now they are everywhere. A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents' home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long, trunk-like nose. Suddenly these mimmoths are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they've come from. As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief--a place with its own logic and rhythms--the mimmoths spread. From the UK east and west, to the United States, to Russia, to India. They seem harmless, but oddly intelligent. They cannot be captured, they will not take food from humans, they have their own purposes. Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. Or is she just succumbing to 'mimmoth psychosis'? As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably? From the award-winning author of the international bestseller, The Power, The Strangers is a thrillingly original and devastatingly moving novel that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, inviting us to reconsider what it means to be human. It's like nothing you'll have read before.
|
|
| Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth LimBestselling author Elizabeth Lim's adult debut is a sweeping story of a mother-daughter bond and a family curse. Ha Yut Ying discovers she can turn invisible in Hong Kong during World War II, and is encouraged by her mother to keep her gift hidden. In 1980, Yut Ying's daughter Marigold races against time to save her mother from disappearing forever. Combining "the historically grounded and complex mother-daughter narratives of Amy Tan with the rich fantasy of Yangsze Choo" (Publishers Weekly), this sweeping novel is sure to please readers of all kinds. |
|
|
|
The Witches of Cambridge
by Alice Hoffman
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK The brand-new series from the bestselling author of Practical Magic, following two brilliant young women in 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they become immersed in a mysterious secret group of witches at Radcliffe known as the Lilith Society. Once upon a time, women were drowned in the river and the only witnesses were the crows in the trees. The Puritans blamed Eve for the sins of the world. That was when we began to meet in the name of Lilith, Adam's first wife--banished for refusing to do as she was told. We Fly Together... By the 1950s, Cambridge, Massachusetts feels far removed from the legendary witch trials that marked its early days as a colony. Ava, a bright young woman from a small town in Maine, arrives for her first year at Radcliffe College. There, she meets Lauren, her opposite in every way--the wild and brazen daughter of a wealthy and well-established Cambridge family. But the two have more in common than they think. Both are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret organization of witches at Radcliffe dating back to colonial times. As they learn more about their legacy, Ava and Lauren form a close bond that is put to the test as they learn to navigate their new power, friendship, and love. While Radcliffe seems like a safe haven, the shadow of McCarthyism looms large, an ever-present threat to the flourishing creative and intellectual life in Cambridge. And as girls from the Lilith Society begin to go missing, Ava and Lauren realize the witch trials of the past may not be as deeply buried as they once believed.
|
|
|
|
Daggerbound by T. KingfisherLearned Edmund, a disillusioned scholar, is transporting yet another precious relic from one stuffy temple to a different stuffy temple. Another great adventure for the ages... But when Edmund is set upon by bandits, in desperation, he breaks the cardinal rule and grabs for the relic, an ancient sword. To his surprise, instead of unsheathing a rusty, ancient weapon, an alarmingly handsome man appears, wielding daggers of blue steel and cutting the thieves down. This man is the Dervish, an immortal warrior who's been trapped for centuries in a sword of enchanted steel, and is angry as hell about it. He hates the curse that put him there, and he wants to hate Edmund, just as he has hated every wielder before him. But the damned scholar is just so sweet and clever and kind. And while the Dervish may be able to protect Edmund from bandits, cultists, dragons, and strange inhuman diplomats, he may find it much harder to protect his own heart.
|
|
|
|
Earth 7
by Deb Olin Unferth
An end-of-the-world love story, an epic full of pathos and humor, asking what can be saved of our planetWell, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places. Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love--or any love--seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts--and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do? By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a soul globule and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers.
|
|
|
|
|
|