This engrossing if formulaic grimdark adventure from the prolific Moore (The War Born), who died in 2024, provides red meat for sword-and-sorcery devotees. The eponymous protagonist is introduced looking back on his time as a prisoner of the Alhakka, a reptilian people at odds with his bloodthirsty father, Forris Grimm, who has already sacrificed the lives of Korrigan’s siblings by not adhering to the terms of a truce with his foes. During his years in captivity, Korrigan became enamored of Whisper, an Alhakkan princess, who trained him to fight. When he was 19, Korrigan escaped, with the help of pearls produced from the glands of dragons, after Whisper warned him that his execution was imminent. Following a brief reunion with Forris before his death, Korrigan seeks out the mightiest dragon, the immortal Great Wyrm, to gain immortality for himself. The prose can be clunky, but there’s never a dull moment as Korrigan fights battle after battle, utilizing magic to take on legions of foes. Readers looking for high fantasy with a classic feel should check this out. (May)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Leede (American Rapture) spins the chilling story of a prodigal FBI agent called back to Denver, the site of an unsolved case, where he confronts the dark forces that have shaped his life to solve a series of brutal murders. Agent Daniel Stansfield, born with the ability to see supernatural shadows that most people can’t, is on the brink of retirement when he receives news of a string of murders apparently committed by the same sadistic killer he failed to catch four years prior. It’s a unique m.o.: the victim’s flayed skin is draped over unsuspecting strangers, who wake with no memory of how they came to be wearing it. Present and past converge when Daniel meets one such stranger, Hannah Lawrence, who shares his paranormal gift, and together they set out to catch the killer. Along the way, a deeper trauma from Daniel’s past rears its head. After a strong start, the pacing wobbles a bit as the plot tangles in the weeds of the characters’ backstories. The leads feel somewhat two-dimensional, but fascinating villains and a rich mythos will keep readers invested. Blending frights, folklore, and an exploration of the lifelong effects of trauma, this will be good fun for horror fans. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Retired U.S. Navy officer and bestselling author Campbell (the Doomed Earth duology) puts his military experience to good use in this action-packed account of an extraplanetary mission to investigate new planets. Navy ensign Osiris Aquino has been assigned to command the marines stationed onboard the Darwin, a civilian vessel. While working to overcome his charges’ distrust of a leader from a different part of the military, Aquino must also figure out how the understaffed contingent, only half of a full squad, can function, a task made harder by his suspicion that the six marines and their sergeant are not the cream of the crop. Those concerns are tested after an interstellar jump takes Darwin to Janus Five, a planet whose former inhabitants appear to have gone extinct with no evidence of why they vanished. A reckless decision by the scientific team dispatched to that planet’s surface, possibly linked to the agenda of the private entities funding the expedition, puts lives in danger, and forces Aquino to learn his capabilities, and those of the marines, in an extreme situation. This taut, entertaining military SF plot will appeal to fans of Jack McDevitt. (May)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

Former rivals in a magical game must learn to work together in this light and humorous blend of sports romance and contemporary fantasy from Kim (The God and the Gwisin). Two years ago, Taissa Cho was caught using magic to cheat by Kion Locke, effectively banning her from carriwitchet, a sport played on the backs of dragons, wyverns, and other flying beasts, collectively called Wingeds. Now Kion’s team, the Stymphs, are on the verge of dissolution due to a generational losing streak. To save them, he recruits Taissa. She knows she’s an excellent player and the Stymphs were once a good team, so when things don’t improve after she joins up, she becomes convinced their abysmal performance can only be explained by a curse. Meanwhile, Wingeds fall into comas, confirming that curses abound in the carriwitchet circuit. Taissa and Kion’s largely antagonistic relationship is magnetic and frequently hilarious, and investigating two major mysteries buoys their slow-burning romance. Somewhat clunky worldbuilding (the magic system is never properly explained) holds this underdog story back a bit, but it’s still easy to root for the chaotic and diverse Stymphs and their snarky mounts. Readers in it for the romance will be well pleased. Agent: Emily Forney, BookEnds Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

An exercise in elaborate worldbuilding, this ambitious outing from Hugo and Nebula Award winner Walton (Or What You Will) transports readers to the fantastical city of the Serenissima, “built on nothing but layers of magical mist and memories and dreams.” The Serenissima’s geography shifts with the fog that drifts through it, “opening a new square here, closing up an old canal there, like a face caught in the fleeting act of changing expression.” Its waterways, maintained by shared belief in their existence, connect eight disparate worlds, including Earth. The Venetians believed the Serenissima into being first, and through it soon found neighbors: beings who look much like the Venetians, but with the faces of cats, dogs, or domino masks garlanded with flowers and feathers, and who connect to the magic of the Serenissima in their own ways. Against this inventive backdrop, a fisherman wakes from a dream that the city will elect its first doge. A local mystic confirms that she can see this coming to pass—and also sees a cure for the plague that blights the fisherman and his lover—after which the city itself pulls everyone around him into the rush to fulfill the prophecy. Told through the eyes of nine different characters, each with a perspective and backstory rich enough for its own novel, the relatively low-stakes plot still manages to feel personal and affecting. This fascinates. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

This atmospheric but underbaked gothic novel from Gómez (The Nightmare Box and Other Stories) finds a queer Latina witch trying to reverse a curse in 1960s Oakland. Natalia “Nati” Fuentes has long renounced the witchcraft her grandmother taught her as a child. Then she hears a rumor about Violeta, the heiress to the wealthy Miramontes family, having been paralyzed by a strange illness, and suspects magic may be the culprit. Seeing an opportunity to make some cash, Nati infiltrates the Miramontes house, where her mother was once employed, as a caretaker for Violeta. As Nati searches for a way to break Violeta’s curse, the two quickly fall for each other, communicating first through a system of blinking, and, when Violeta gains more mobility, through the arrangement of Scrabble tiles. Meanwhile, Nati uncovers her own powers and learns there’s something sinister beneath the Miramontes’ gilded lifestyle. Gómez’s historical scene-setting impresses, but Nati and Violeta’s romance is rushed and underdeveloped, making it difficult to fully invest in their love and struggle to break free of their oppressive circumstances. Readers will wish for more depth. (June)

Reviewed on 04/03/2026 | Details & Permalink

YA author Lim (A Forgery of Fate) dazzles in her dark and deftly woven adult debut. Ha Yut Ying first discovers she can turn invisible while hiding from Japanese soldiers during WWII—the latest manifestation, her mother tells her, of a curse that passes through their family from mother to daughter. Her mother’s curse is that she sees horrible visions of the future. Based on these visions, she sends Yut Ying to live with Yut Ying’s father and his second wife in Hong Kong to escape the ongoing tumult in mainland China. Yut Ying ends up working as an unpaid cook for her stepmother. Denied the education she longs for, she dreams of escaping to America with her equally miserable half sister, Lily. In a dual narrative set in 1980, Marigold, Yut Ying’s Americanized middle daughter, cursed with the ability to see what haunts people in their past, flies to Hong Kong with her mother, who has begun involuntarily flickering in and out of existence. There, the women search desperately for a way to keep Yut Ying from vanishing entirely. Blending the historically grounded and complex mother-daughter narratives of Amy Tan with the rich fantasy of Yangsze Choo, this stunning tale will delight Lim’s fans and newcomers alike. This is a gem. (July)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Twenty years before the start of this spellbinder from Weed (The Afterlife Project), Professor Gregory Weatherhead, an expert in Mesoamerican shamanism, disappeared from his home in Vermont. Now, his daughter, Esme, is struggling to write a book about him. Convinced the disappearance is connected to a cave Weatherhead discovered on his property, she hires geologist Lucas St. Pierre to find the site. An old field journal also reveals that just before he vanished, Weatherhead had been experimenting with psilocybin mushrooms and recording his hallucinations of environs (“Blue sky, no clouds, smell of pine needles, rosemary, sunbaked earth”) and feathered serpents (“Quetzalcoatl???”). The journal makes cryptic reference to the cave containing a “stela,” a ceremonial column often found on Mesoamerican archaeological sites believed to mark the entrance to the underworld. Suspecting her father may have crossed into this land beyond life, Esme decides to repeat his carefully documented mushroom dosing with Lucas’s help. Meanwhile, Sebastian Bonney, the former host of Discovery Channel’s Archaeology on the Edge, hopes to nab the stela for himself, leading to an Indiana Jones–style dash in the novel’s climax. Weed does a nice job interposing the present mystery with Weatherhead’s research in both Vermont and Oaxaca, and balances esoteric mysticism with touching contemporary detail. This well-researched tale is sure to entertain. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Nebula Award winner Kim debuts with a strikingly original work of speculative fiction that brilliantly uses an audacious conceit—that immigration literally splits a person into two separate “instances” of themselves, one who moves to their new home and one who stays behind—to excavate questions of identity, belonging, and assimilation. Soyoung Rose Kang instanced at age 10 when she and her mother emigrated from Korea to the U.S., and the two versions of herself haven’t spoken in 20 years. When their grandfather dies, Rose returns to Korea for the funeral and is forced to reckon with the stranger her Korean self has become. The novel interweaves Rose and Soyoung’s fraught reunion with a story line following Soyoung’s best friend, Yujin, and his more recently instanced American counterpart, YJ, whose careful coordination with each other offers a pointed contrast to Soyoung’s and Rose’s estrangement. Meanwhile, large corporations are looking to commodify the process of reintegrating separate instances. Kim’s worldbuilding is impeccable, extending so far as to reimagine classic literature through the lens of instancing (“In the narrative, Odysseus dislikes the man his instance became after he left for Troy—weak willed and unable to stand up to his wife’s suitors”). The gorgeously rendered and deeply unsettling second-person narration enhances the intense and emotional reading experience. The result is a sharp, deeply felt first outing from a writer already at the top of her game. Agent: Steven Salpeter, Curtis Brown Ltd. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Told with remarkable compassion and grace, the elegant seventh installment in Vo’s Hugo Award–winning Singing Hills Cycle series (after A Mouthfull of Dust) flashes back to the beginning of protagonist Chih’s career as a cleric. Less than a year into their partnership with Almost Brilliant, a memory spirit in the form of a hoopoe bird, Chih, whose primary job is to record people’s stories, is stranded in the river city of Luntien after someone picks their pocket. So they take a gig waiting tables at Certain Compassion in exchange for food (described in loving, mouth-watering detail) and board. Tensions are high in Luntien as refugees from the war-torn Verdant Island, or Muyi, stream into the port. The local Temple of the Lady of the Thousand Hands is barred from turning anyone away, but that doesn’t mean the refugees are well received. As Chih endearingly struggles to find their footing as both a waiter and a cleric, they attempt to broker peace between the locals and the outsiders, take down lists of the refugees’ family members to carry with them in their travels, and investigate a gentle mystery about Certain Compassion’s late owner. Vo imbues all of her characters with dignity and depth, creating a moving, nuanced portrait of a refugee crisis. Complete with a thoughtful meditation on which stories are committed to history and which are lost, this proves another high note for the series. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink