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Fantasy & Science Fiction August 2025 |
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Arcana Academy
by Elise Kova
"Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards--a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy. Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape--for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time. In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be. Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world--and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?"
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Hemlock & silver
by T. Kingfisher
"From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of "Snow White" steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind Healer Anja regularly drinks poison. Not to die, butto save- seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on. But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja's unorthodox methods can save her. Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick. Or it might be the thing that kills them all"
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The irresistible urge to fall for your enemy / : Book 1 of the Dearly Beloathed Duology
by Brigitte Knightley
"Loyalties are tested in this enemies-to-lovers romantasy following a healer and assassin from enemy sides who are forced to work together and find the source of two deadly diseases, all while resisting the urge to kill each other-and, just maybe, fall in love. When Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order, a society of assassins, finds himself sick with a degenerative disease, he needs the expertise of a very specific healer. As fate would have it, that healer is a member of his enemy Order, the Haelan. Aurienne Fairhrim's Haelan Order is besieged by the need to care for thousands of sick and dying children suffering from Platt's Pox, an almost forgotten disease that has suddenly reemerged with extreme virulence. Unable to get the funding needed to immunize the sick children, her Order is desperate. So desperate that when Osric Mordaunt breaks into her office to offer her a bribe that would completely fund their Order's immunization efforts, in exchange for her healing services, the Head of the Haelan commands Aurienne to accept. Despite being enemies, as Osric and Aurienne work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of the Pox, they find themselves ardently denying an attraction that seems only to fuel the tension between them"
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The library at Hellebore
by Cassandra Khaw
"A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical. The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that's what Alessa Li is told when she's kidnapped andforcibly enrolled. But there's more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa's class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school's library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone. Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?"
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Katabasis
by R. F. Kuang
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.
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The book of lost hours
by Hayley Gelfuso
"A spectacular historical and speculative novel about a WWII-era girl who grows up trapped in the "time space," a cavernous library featuring books that house memories--but while government agents burn memories they wish to erase, she saves them, until an affair with an American CIA agent as a young woman changes the course of her life"
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These Memories Do Not Belong to Us
by Yiming Ma
Decades from now, the world is run by an authoritarian state called Qin. In Qin, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of not only recording but transferring memories between minds. The technology gives birth to a new economy, referred to as Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation—memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain.
When a man inherits his deceased mother’s Mindbank—a collection of memories from before, during, and after the global war that landed Qin atop the international food chain—he’s unsure what he’ll find inside, or whether the Party has gotten to her memories first, altering the experiences she left for him. Either way, he is adamant that he must share them with the world before they are destroyed forever, even if the cost of doing so is his own life.
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