 Supporting COMMUNITY. Inspiring DISCOVERY. Promoting LITERACY. |
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Fantasy and Science Fiction July 2026 |
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The Children
by Melissa Albert
The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother's beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.
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The Farewitch of Foxe Holler
by Ellen Pauley Goff
Steel Magnolias meets Practical Magic in this charming contemporary fantasy about a thirty-something kitchen witch who is recruited to help a reclusive warlock and discovers love on the other side of the next bake.
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| Love Galaxy by Sierra BranhamIn this romantic science fiction thriller, trash collector Tenmi receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete on the galaxy's most popular dating show and win a chance to marry the heir to an empire. But when contestants start turning up dead, it soon becomes apparent not everyone is here to make friends and find love. For fans of: romantic and suspenseful LGBTQIA+ science fiction rife with intrigue. Read these next: Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth or Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit. |
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| The Devil and Mrs. Gooch by Oliver DarkshireIn the city of Verdigris, house spirits known as hobs are disappearing, leaving the buildings in decay. At the heart of this chaos is Mrs. Gwendolyn Gooch, who's kidnapping the hobs to manage her extortionate rental apartments; and the Devil, who can't help but be swayed by her capitalist zeal. It's up to Professor Green and his mysterious book to put things back in their proper order. Fans of Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil will be enchanted by this next book in the Household Gramarye series, perfect for lovers of socially conscious fantasy with a heap of humor and heart. |
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| The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El SayedIn this Arabfuturist story set on a generation ship halfway through its 400 year journey, the crew of the Safina start to chafe against the Administration's expectations for them to toil for their ancestors in cryostasis who will never know them. As blackouts start to roll through the ship, unrest boils over until the breaking point arrives, changing life on the Safina forever. For fans of: richly detailed and thought-provoking space flight stories such as Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder trilogy. |
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The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance
by Chiara Bullen
A young aspiring scholar is sent to research the mysteries of an adventurer's inn--only to uncover a centuries-old secret, while finding true friendship and a new home, in this uplifting cozy fantasy.
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| Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada HoffmannKelli Reynolds, a script supervisor for an AI conglomerate that controls what stories are told, is caught between the security of her current life and the world she wishes for when her ex-boyfriend asks for her help with a black market trade to pay for his gender confirmation surgery. Fans of autistic and LGBTQIA+ representation in science fiction and hopeful depictions of the future during massive upheaval will also enjoy Key Lime Sky by Al Hess and Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer. |
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Valet
by J. P. Lacrampe
For fans of Kevin Wilson and Andrew Sean Greer, a helper robot and his 35-year-old ward embark on a mad-cap adventure to save the fate of the family company in this whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster.
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Moss'd in Space
by Rebecca Thorne
Torian Razner finally bought a starship, and contrary to Amelia's assessment, it was not a meteoric sign of stupidity. Sure, the alien starship may have been abandoned for a century, and it may be covered in moss now... but it's Torian's ticket to freedom, regardless of what her ex... ah, captain... said. Except Torian's first flight reveals a surprise passenger: the moss is actually an organic computer with a snarky attitude and serious abandonment issues. The target of its loathing? The immortal alien who built it (and then parked the starship, with Moss inside, and forgot about it). The same alien who just found Torian and accused her of stealing the ship. It's entirely possible that Amelia was right about this meteoric stupidity.
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The Mulai
by Munir Hachemi
Interstellar via Invisible Cities: spec-fic translated from Spanish imagines life on another planet.An archeologist travels to a distant planet to spend time among a mysterious community: a people who live in temperature-controlled domes, worship a deity called Dog, and repeat an elliptical phrase from which they draw their name: mulai, the tree comes. The descendants of a long-forgotten space mission, the Mulai have abandoned the social norms that once bound them to Earth.Over centuries of isolation, their language has become more about change than stability, and the ways they eat, write, reproduce, bury their dead, and understand gender have all transformed into something almost unrecognizable. As the archeologist records his attempts to understand their world - a strange negative of our own - questions of translation, meaning-making, and the ultimate precarity of civilization come to the fore.Drawing on Borges, Le Guin, and Calvino, The Mulai is a mind-bending work of metafiction whose interlocking puzzles resound with Munir Hachemi's singularly playful and eclectic style.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Mary Riley Styles Public Library
120 N. Virginia Ave, Falls Church, Virginia 22046 703-248-5030 (TTY 711) mrspl.org
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