30 SFF Titles to Look Forward to in 2026 - Reactor

The DEUS (Division for Engagement of Unusual Stakeholders) is a strange place to work—it’s an office whose main job is to make sure the supernatural world doesn’t touch the mundane, which sounds easy when most people’s eyes just kinda slide over what they don’t understand. Ben is still doing the best he can with the resources he has, which includes a team of competent and charismatic misfits: Jimmy, a psychic; Mei, a spellcaster and healer (and also my wife); and intern Fizah, a jinni, all Others, and all of whom you’ll fall in love with. It’s just so charming, this book—voicey, funny, with lots of magical little details especially with regards to the work bureaucracy and Singaporean mythology. City of Others is part office comedy and part supernatural detective story, but also very much about identity, found family, and the importance of community. (January 13, Orbit)

Up front let me tell you, don’t let the fact that this is a Bramble title fool you—it is a Romantasy only by the slightest technicality, which isn’t a good or bad thing, just a thing to note. It is romantic, both in the emotional sense and in the aesthetic sense, it is beautiful and moving and features many different kinds of love. But it’s also dark and violent, which makes the moments of tenderness all the more powerful. The Poet Empress follows Wei Yin, who in her desperation to save her starving family, puts herself forth to be considered for a prince’s concubine. The prince in question has a murderous reputation, and no one is more surprised than Wei when he chooses her. Now trapped with a man who tortures her every night, Wei knows the only way to save herself and the kingdom is to learn to read, write, and harness the magic of poetry to craft a spell powerful enough to kill the prince. The Poet Empress is a breathtaking novel, and I’m not kidding when I say there are a lot of complex emotions going on. What more could you ask for? (January 20, Bramble)

Occasionally I open a book and the first sentence just knocks me flat on my ass—and if we’re starting there, you just know the rest is gonna be devastating. So it was with On Sundays She Picked Flowers, the debut Southern gothic from Yah Yah Scholfield. Just—damn, BARS. You know? Just fuck me up. The novel follows Jude, who finally gets the strength to leave (sort of. you’ll see.) her abusive mother. After driving and driving, she finds herself at a house in the woods, one that used to be a plantation, and… well, it’s a horror novel, you know where this is going. But years of living with abuse has left Jude oddly prepared for life with haints, both house and woman haunted in their own way. It’s a love story covered in blood. And Jude’s life becomes weird and wild as she comes to terms with the way trauma has shaped her, and what it’s made her capable of. On Sundays She Picked Flowers is an absolutely beautiful, complicated read, and I swear to all things great and good if I don’t see Scholfield’s career skyrocket after this, I’m going to riot. The sentences are so good my dudes!!!! Holy shIT. (January 27, Saga)

Ana’s fabricated body (chassis) is breaking down, the only one her family could afford when she was a sick child—and it’s an Edgar, a male-presenting body, which is a hellish trap in and of itself. Her only hope is to gain entrance to Paragon Academy, a highly competitive school for magic, where she’ll be gifted a new body and taught to harness the mental illusion magic she has. The exam took so much out of her, so when the rejection letter comes, she decides to use her criminal employer’s intel to steal a new chassis. Now, I dunno about you, but if I were in a deteriorating body with only one magic spell to my name, I don’t know that I’d feel confident enough to be like, okay, it’s heist time for sure. But I support women’s wrongs and she’s got nothing to lose, so. Of course it doesn’t go as planned, and Ana’s caught. The ultimatum she’s given is this: be turned in for her crimes, or start working as a mercenary for the dangerous Paragon headmaster. Absolutely wild circumstances to be in if you ask me! But that’s why we love it! Queen of Faces is a gritty, atmospheric urban fantasy with a protagonist that just keeps getting into Situations—a little Six of Crows, a little Kalyna The Soothsayer, and a lot of fun. (February 3, Henry Holt & Co Books for Young Readers)

When Mavis gets into a nasty car accident, she’s just grateful her husband is there with her—he’s a comfort in the midst of all her anxiety, her survivor’s guilt, her pain. But it’s a weird coincidence that the other car was being driven by people she knows from her parents’ church, which Mavis left some years before. The church was, uh… intense, to say the least. Sexiest and shitty, to be blunt. Mavis still has a lot to unpack from that, understandably. But when more people associated with the church start showing up in her life (in increasingly violent and psychologically torturous ways), Mavis and her husband are put to the test as stuff gets real creepy real fast. The Body is one of those books that makes you think, oh my god, I hope these poor protagonists find a good therapist because this shit is absolutely wild. With this her first horror novel, Bethany C Morrow proves she can do any genre with skill and soul. (And I will once again use ~my platform~ to tell everyone to also read her first novel Mem it is excellent okay thank you love you!) (February 10, Nightfire)

Okay, you know when you get a description of a character before you actually meet them, and it’s like, oooh he’s so dark and mysterious and wealthy, but a loner and possibly violent, and you just KNOW he’s so hot. He’s gotta be soooooo sexy, there’s no other option. Is he also gonna murder our main character? Maybe! But that’s half the fun, right? The Saint of Silence (dark, mysterious, wealthy, violent) pays money for good secrets, and Leena, daughter of refugees, just happens to have one—she can see the dead, and that might just get her enough to pay for her brother’s healthcare. And so she finds herself in his employment, at a creepy old estate, on the hunt for a ghost the Saint is determined to find. Heba Al-Wasity’s debut is heavy on the gothic vibes—horse-drawn carriages, dark cobblestone streets, the whole shebang—but is also suffused with commentary on immigration, healthcare, and liberation. Weavingshaw is a decadent multi-tiered cake of a book, one you won’t wanna miss out on. (February 24, Del Rey)

Look, when Alix E. Harrow tells you to read a book, you listen. So when Alix mentioned that The Red Winter was one of the best things she’s read, I knew I was in for something with teeth, and this book did not disappoint. Narrated by occultist Sebastian (who feels sort of like if Henry Silver from Silver in the Wood was embedded in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein), alongside his demonic “guest” Sarmodel (who lives in his mind but also sometimes as a human-shaped projection, and who you will love), is a historical fantasy of epic proportions. Thought long dead, when the great Beast of Gévaudan starts killing again, Sebastian is called upon to help bring it down for good this time—and it’ll be a harrowing journey, indeed. The Red Winter is packed to the brim with rich detail (clothes, food, landscape, all the good shit), action, and history. There are FOOTNOTES. The vibes are EXCELLENT. (February 24, Tor Books)

Generation ships are rare, which is why it’s a unique opportunity for Vessel Iris and VIFAI (Vessel Iris’s Friendly AI, cute), the AI companion that lives in his head, to be assigned to the The Counsel of Nicaea, a ship that left First Earth centuries ago never to reach its intended destination. Now an artifact of its time, Iris’s task is to shepherd the dead souls of The Counsel of Nicaea (of which there are many) back to the One Beginning. It’s a big assignment, especially for a monk of his experience level, but an honor nonetheless. Iris is excited to basically be alone for a time (relatable), and the Nicaea is miraculously full of lush plant life and humid air. The visuals here are just gorgeous. But it turns out Iris isn’t there alone—the ship is full of surprises and mysteries, including a dangerous one. Reading this is a fragrant breath of fresh air, everything feels so vibrant. Iron Garden Sutra is a space mystery wrapped in a meditation on life, death, and companionship, and it’s gorgeously written by Sui. (February 24, Erewhon)

Former con woman Kasira has been conscripted into an army unit sent to kill the beasts of the forest—something they have been given a goddess’ blessing to do, because beasts are sinful and must be eradicated. Kasira doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t want to kill beasts despite being good at it, and everyone else kind of sucks, especially her commander. So when an ~altercation~ with him leads to an opportunity to get out, she takes it. Not that she has much other choice. But The Librarian (who they believe is working on something dangerous in secret) is calling for an assistant, and Kasira looks just enough like a noble girl to go in her place and infiltrate the Library as a spy. But the Library is nothing like Kasira imagined and the Librarian is most definitely hot and sort of Wizard Howl-ish so like, of course things get complicated. The latest from Kalyn Josephson is somewhere between big, epic, international war’s a-brewin type fantasy and a cozy romantic fantasy, which is the perfect sweet spot if you ask me. (March 3, Erewhon)

“Call me Ishmael” is one of the most famous first lines in the history of all of English letters, so to transform that into “Call me… call me whatever the fuck you like” is a truly bold move. Up there with Maria Dahvana Headley’s “Bro!” in her translation of Beowulf. It’s a task to modernize stories of such stature—often in SFF we get retellings/reimaginings that sort of just use the bones of the story to build something new upon, but it’s another thing entirely to stick close to the text while still working it into something speculative for a contemporary audience. Hell’s Heart does exactly that with Moby-Dick, taking the hunt for a great whale (or in this case, an alien Leviathan) to space. When our narrator, known simply as “I” (fighting depression, bit slutty, my type of broad), takes a job on a ship hunting Leviathan (their cerebrospinal fluid powers everything humans use) she’s looking for an adventure on purpose. But the Möbius Beast is no ordinary creature. Alongside the Latin-speaking harpooner “Q” and batshit captain “A”, this is no ordinary voyage. Alexis Hall’s take is clever, inventive, and an interesting new look at a classic. Oh, and there’s lesbians. Just in case you weren’t already sold. (March 10, Tor Books)

Hache Pueyo once again comin in hot with something for all you monsterf*ckers out there. The hot monster in question is Quaint, a flesh-eating gul, who shows up at Ariadne’s door claiming to be a friend of her missing mentor. She’s never met him before, but he’s charming and concerned about the man who trained Ariadne and then abruptly left five years ago. Oh, and he’s tattooed, that’s an important detail. But together they find evidence that something more sinister may have been behind the disappearance, which leads them to Cabaré—a club in Rio de Janeiro that I want to go to immediately. Against a background of political turmoil, they enter a world of opulence, blood, and conspiracy, and it will keep you at the edge of your seat. Pueyo is masterful with the novella format, the story rich and layered, sexy and thrilling, and emotionally resonant all the way through. (March 10, Tordotcom)

You know that scene in K-Pop Demon Hunters where the Saja Boys come on the scene for the first time, and all the girlies and aunties are absolutely losing it, heart eyes and all? I feel that way about groups of cool, kinda punky girls—which makes When I Was Death exactly my shit. It’s giving The Craft, it’s giving Scapegracers, it’s giving Birds of Prey, ja feel? The first YA outing from horror star Alexis Henderson centers Roslyn, who is in a deep depression after her sister’s mysterious death. She’s going through the motions of life when a group of devastatingly cool girls walk into the diner where she works and invite her to hang out. It turns out that they knew Roslyn’s sister right before she died, and that they’re working as reapers for Death. In order to find out what really happened to her sister, she might just have to join them. When I Was Death strikes a perfect note, one sure to resonate with all you gothy weirdos out there. (March 10, Putnam Books for Young Readers)

Daye is a girl made of flowers, a beautiful piece of spellcraft by Rory’s older sister, born to be his perfect playmate and constant companion. Rory adores her immediately, and they spend the summer running through the woods and making up games. But Daye is a seasonal thing, and must be remade—with apples and leaves in fall, evergreens and berries in winter, and so on. As the two grow older and closer, the nature (lol get it) of Daye’s existence becomes a complexity that colors every part of their relationship. It’s heart-wrenching, and the brutal passage of time hovers over them always. A fascinating combination of magic and science is discussed as Rory tries to find a way to save Daye, but their intense relationship is really what drives the narrative. Honeysuckle is inspired by the Welsh story of Blodeuwedd but has shades of Frankenstein as well, as it tackles issues of consent, bodily autonomy, and codependent relationships. Fridman-Tell has crafted a truly genre-defying story here, one that’ll fit perfectly next to Helen Oyeyemi and Carmen Maria Machado. (March 24, Bloomsbury)

No one comes back from the Gravewood, not ever. Unfortunately Shea’s really got no other choice but to make a deal with Lys—the Gravewood Devil, leader of a vampire gang that operates in the cursed woods that surround the town of Little Hill. But he’s the only one who can help her get batteries for her hearing aids, so she lets him have her blood. Which, like, I’d make that deal. Wouldn’t you make that deal? Seems simple enough. Nevermind that they both definitely wanna kiss each other. But when Shea’s best friend goes missing in the Gravewood and her brother is demanding to meet with Lys for answers, boy oh boy do things get complicated. Look, I’m no longer the type of reader who reaches for a book solely for the sake of “representation”—these days in SFF you really have to be intentionally avoiding marginalized voices to miss it—but it is exciting to see disability centered in the fantasy space (as opposed to sci-fi, where technology can provide aid) and it is an essential part of what makes this book so engaging. The Gravewood is a fun blend of dystopia, gothic, and fantasy romance, complete with snarky banter and emotional complexity that hits that Twilight/Hunger Games vibe in the most perfect way. (April 7, Scholastic)

L.D. Lewis is an icon of the SFF world, flat out. Not only an incredible writer, L is one of the people behind FIYAH Magazine and the Ignyte Awards, which have changed the face of an industry that has a tendency to celebrate the same types of voices year after year. The Ignytes are not only the most diverse genre awards but also the most interesting, and I will be forever grateful to L for the work she’s done over many years to celebrate and uplift historically marginalized voices in speculative fiction. Year of the Mer is her debut novel and is a rich, complex reimagining of The Little Mermaid complete with a pantheon of gods, a princess who is more Black Sails‘ Captain Flint than she is Disney, her loyal and loving queensguard/fiancée, and an extremely sexy cigar-smoking sea witch. Full of political strife, generational trauma, and feminine fury, Year of the Mer hits the ground running (or swimming?) and does not stop. (April 7, Saga)

One of the best aspects of sci-fi is that it makes space for asking big questions about existence and humanity and our place in the universe right? What We Are Seeking does exactly that, and it feels like that good old school sci-fi—a scientist discovering a far-away planet and its alien peoples, both sharing their culture and attempting to adapt and understand each other. This is a novel about gender, sexuality, and relationships, but also about food and plant life and science and everything that makes a world and a culture. Our protagonist John is a medic sent to accompany a translator in communing with a newly discovered colony, and is deeply unhappy about it. Not only is this new planet not nearly as green as he was promised, but he’s horrified to learn that its people have a culture of marriage—a brutal and repressive practice, to his mind—and there’s threat of invasion from Earth. He must now learn to live among these new species, and quickly becomes enmeshed in their world and its people. Full of wonder and inventive worldbuilding, What We Are Seeking is a tale of discovery and growth. (April 7, Tor Books)

Siying has no idea who this man was before he died, only that she’s been paid a ton to get his body back from the battlefield. As a Ganshi priestess, it’s her job to guide the dead home to their families—no I mean their bodies, not their spirits. Like, she’s leading a parade of corpses. They move on their own, but are otherwise devoid of life, so it’s a huge shock when this particular one starts talking back to her. It turns out the corpse belongs to the handsome Prince Renshu, who is now dead-but-n0t-dead and needing to consume qi to avoid being dead for real. He offers to pay Siying double for her help in purifying evil spirits for it (cuz they can’t just go around killing people for qi, obv.). And maybe they’ll just fall in love along the way. And maybe they’ll also get caught up in some intense political intrigue that results in everyone’s lives on the line. Normal stuff, right? Through it all, Siying navigates life and death with confidence, and honestly I’d follow her into a haunted forest any day. This is more of a romantic fantasy than a fantasy romance, if you get what I mean, and a really compelling debut from Tsai. (April 14, Wednesday)

I’m a sucker for books that are about language and its ability to shape our world (there are a few other books on this list that fit that bill, too). I’m especially a sucker when syntax is spellcraft, and translation is power. That’s the center of The Killing Spell, an urban fantasy that takes place in a world where language magic is heavily regulated. Only certain “of merit” languages can legally be used for spells, which means Kea’s ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi spells are technically illegal. Still, they work, and selling spells helps bring in a little extra cash as Kea struggles to lead her small clan in Los Angeles, under the magical protective ward of the city. When one of the city’s magical changemakers (who was in the process of getting Tagalog added to the magical language registry) is murdered with a Hawaiian spell, Kea is the prime suspect and must figure out the truth. What Kauwe has done here, carefully weaving together language, culture, and spellsmithing is inventive and just really, really exciting. I’m glad a book like this exists. (April 14, Saga)

Occasionally a book comes out and it’s clear the author is, for lack of a better phrase, leveling up. Japanese Gothic feels like a significant moment for Kylie Lee Baker, who has been doing great work in the YA space for a while now, and I for one am excited to see her latest adult novel is an absolute banger. The sentences in this one are just so good, y’all. Just so deliciously written, you’ll be immediately engrossed. In Japanese Gothic we meet Lee, who is, uh… interesting. Lee has done a murder recently and cannot remember why or what he did with the body, and he’s trying to be chill about it while he spends the summer at his dad’s house in Japan. But there’s something strange about the old samurai house his father and his younger girlfriend now occupy—there’s a blood stain that won’t go away, a window that isn’t always there, and a strange ghostly woman in the garden at night. Meanwhile, in 1877, Sen and her family are in exile—she continues to train as a samurai, but at any moment soldiers might come for her father, who isn’t the same after coming home from battle. And there’s that strange door that isn’t a door, and the young man who appears in the garden. What brings them together is just one of many spooky things about the house, and like any good gothic, it all gets darker from there. (April 14, Hanover Square)

It’s honestly a miracle that when Grace bumps into a boy who looks like the main character of the webnovel she writes and illustrates that she doesn’t just fall over and die right on the spot, because that’s definitely what I would do. I’d just have a heart attack and die right there, it’s over. Grace is better than me, thankfully, and doesn’t quite believe it when she first sees it. Her webcomic—based on Korean mythology, and about gods trapped in the bodies of teenagers—is a soothing balm to her stressful real life (high school shit + anxiety + Florida + racism = not a good time at all), but it’s all fiction. Right?? But this boy claiming to be the sun god Haemosu is very real, and he needs her help getting back to his world. Gods & Comics just plain fun—a playful, romantic delight of a book about fandom, Korean culture, romance, and coming of age. (also: KAT CHO SHAWOL I SEE YOU!!! SHINee FOREVER!!!!) (April 21, Nancy Paulson Books)

Okay okay okay hold on, I’m trying to think of a way to talk about this that isn’t just me frothing at the mouth and shaking you, because new work from S.L. Huang is always cause for shaking/screaming/frothing at the mouth, and also this is spectacular. They’re the type of writer that makes me feel like an absolute idiot in the best way—big, complex ideas, gorgeous sentences, and worldbuilding so inventive it blows everything else out of the water. The novel follows Ro, who is training to become a linguist—though he’s not the most disciplined student in the world. The ultimate achievement for linguists is to align translations so perfectly that a jump into another being’s consciousness occurs, allowing two minds to exist side-by-side, sort of. But jumping is permanent, which means once Ro is successful, he’s in for a nasty reality check. Not only is this novella (!!!!! how. Honestly? How is all this packed into a novella. Magic.) about culture and colonialism, it is an exploration of the impreciseness of language, where translations and interpretations succeed and fail in communicating feeling, truth, thought. Basically, reading The Language of Liars is the linguistic equivalent of watching Simone Biles nail the Yurchenko double pike on vault. Absolutely mind-blowing. (April 21, Tordotcom)

I have a type, okay??! You give me a DARK dark academia with a magical library and sexual tension and I’m IN. I’m a simple man, I don’t know what to tell you!! Honor & Heresy has an anxious aristocratic twink who likes books! And he’s given the opportunity to do research (in a society that executes scholars simply for doing scholarship) on the enemy (the Old Ones) instead of being a soldier in the war! And the library he’s brought to is SEVEN STORIES TALL with classical architecture! And it’s probably haunted! And there’s a cocky-but-charming rival scholar who he has to collaborate with! And it’s always winter so it’s vibey as hell and they’re also stuck in there together! And there’s a lot of waxing poetic about research and old books! This absolutely rules!!!! What was I gonna do, not put that on the list??? Ridiculous to even suggest. (April 21, Harper Voyager)

There is just something about a good portal fantasy that makes me feel absolutely feral. So you give me a young girl (in this case, Thea) working a dead end job in a small town, whose life gets upended by a magician (or two, Callum and Oliver) (both hot) and a potentially world-ending situation and I will be LOSING MY MIND ABOUT IT. Seriously, reading this made me so giddy I was kicking my feet and grinning at the laundromat. Because, you see, Thea’s got her dead mother’s mysterious ring, the ring that only magicians of the Sanctuary wear, which probably has something to do with why Callum’s watching her, and why Oliver interrupts her at the library, and why monsters attacked their barn party. The three of them are thrown together (cue bickering and flirting!!) and in order to escape danger, open a portal to the titular Labyrinth. LETS FKN GO!! A portal fantasy always hits, and The Labyrinth of Waking Dreams is just pure dopamine, baby. (April 21, Page Street YA)

GHOST CAT ALERT!!! EVERYBODY!!! GHOST CAT!!! I just needed everyone to know that up front, it is important. The latest from Sunyi Dean feels a little like Season 2-3 of Legend of Korra meets Peaky Blinders, vibes-wise—a busy, industrial city run by gangs, everything dark and smog-filled, Kowloon Walled City is very much a character in and of itself. Oh, and there are the ghosts, naturally. Mercy (older protagonist alert also!!) makes a living as a ghost talker for one of those gangs, and she is an absolute badass. I’m in love with her. Anyway! It’s not a bad life, especially for a woman who was once a girl washed up on a distant shore, robbed of her memories but companion to a rather violent inner voice that never left her. When Mercy learns that a powerful demon is looking for her, shit gets really real. It might hold answers about her past! It might kill her! Who’s to say. Sunyi Dean is a master not only of dark, moody worldbuilding, but of female characters who know how to look out for #1 and make no apologies for it. An intricate historical urban fantasy, The Girl with a Thousand Faces is just so damn cool. It’s the coolest thing you’ll read all year. (May 5, Tor Books)

Iskander is a translator (Arabek/Inglez) aboard the generation ship Safina, a ship that has been experiencing dangerous blackouts, trapping its residents and putting them at risk of carbon dioxide poisoning. (If you’re a person who pays attention to the world, you’ll know that regular blackouts are usually a sign of much larger systemic oppression.) The Safina also carries ancestors from the now destroyed Earth, and is halfway to their destination—just another 200 years until landing on a new planet. In the meantime, society aboard the ship has stratified—everything from labor to marriage is regulated, and the people aren’t happy. As tensions build aboard the ship, the narrative expands to give us multiple character perspectives—because no one can start a revolution on their own. The Republic of Memory, an Arabfuturist novel, centers resistance and community, as well as culture, religion, family, food, language, and everything that holds humanity together. If this is any indication, it’s gonna be a really good year for sci-fi, y’all. (May 5, Saga)

I know you, I know I probably don’t have to say more than “new Fonda Lee!” to get you chomping at the bit. But get this: new SCI-FI Fonda Lee. New SCI-FI CORPORATE HELLSCAPE DYSTOPIA Fonda Lee. New SCI-FI DYSTOPIA FEATURING AN OLDER WARRIOR PROTAGONIST ON ONE LAST MISSION Fonda Lee. Right??? Right. Isako is a contractor, brains and muscle for hire, and damn good at her job. When her exclusive client “retires” (you can guess what that means, in a dystopia), she finds her contract transferred to his rival, and that’s when things get really complicated. One last assignment, which puts her at the center of corporate espionage, secret agendas, and danger at every turn. The Last Contract of Isako is Lee at her best—worldbuilding with such detail it’ll make your head spin, complex characters having to make complex decisions, and a badass woman with a blade. Simply couldn’t ask for better. (May 5, Orbit)

“Two heroes. One brain cell.” Are you kidding me?? Not since “lesbian necromancers in space” has a cover quote gone so hard. That’s a 3 Michelin star chef’s kiss level blurb right there. And the text itself lives up to it—a cozy, silly, adventure-packed fantasy, Bromantasy is the perfect antidote to everything terrible in the world right now. We meet Juniper (sunshine) and Mo (grumpy), two bros bro’ing it out together on a farm, raising animals, totally normal, five feet apart cuz they’re not gay. Though he also enjoys adventure stories and good fight, and checks the king’s official quest list every chance he gets, Juniper is happy at home. Mo is built for a quest, but someone around here has to be practical and protect Juniper from himself. So when a drunken bar brawl leads to a “do a quest or else” situation, they set off into the sunset together to find dragons—or so they think. How these two idiots manage to stay alive is a dang miracle, and an absolute laugh riot the whole way. Máire Roche’s queer romantasy is cheeky, clever, and cute as hell. (May 26, Putnam)

I just don’t think we’re doing enough unicorns lately. We’re in a real dragon phase, fantasy-wise, and I get that dragons are cool and sometimes sexy, but it would be really great if unicorns could make a resurgence. It makes sense, right, coupled with all the medievalism and lady knight stuff we’re getting?? Thankfully, Katherine Arden is doing the good work and giving us a historical fantasy stunner. Anne of Brittany will do anything to keep her home from succumbing to the French conquerers. In order to avoid a forced marriage to the French king, she secretly agrees to marry someone else, and to pull it off, she’s got to sneak the whole wedding deep into the forest under the guise of unicorn hunting. Only then a real unicorn shows up, a creature no human has seen for an age. The unicorn’s presence disrupts everything, but might also be the key to saving the country. The Unicorn Hunters feels like exactly the kind of thing I’ve been looking for. (June 2, Del Rey)

I know this is controversial, but I’m actually a sucker for second person narration—it’s rare and hard to pull off, but it excites me. So of course I’m excited about Sublimation, a novel from Isabel J. Kim about borders and personhood. What happens in the world of Sublimation isn’t science or magic, it just is—when someone leaves their homeland an “instance” is created, leaving one version of the self at home and one to venture abroad towards a different life. (For anyone part of a diaspora, this feeling will likely resonate, but I think it’ll also hit for anyone who’s felt distant from their family or parts of themself.) Soyoung has stayed in Seoul, while Rose has been living in New York all this time—both the same person, leading two very different lives. They don’t keep in touch until the day their grandfather dies, and he’d asked for both of them to be at the funeral. So Rose comes home to Korea, where Soyoung is waiting and hoping they’ll be able to reconnect. Maybe literally. Maybe no matter what. Sublimation is a TKO, emotionally speaking, and I for one am glad to be down for the count. (June 2, Tor Books)

In a tech-future San Francisco, the heir of the wealthy St. Claire family, Grayson, is kind of a hot mess (but in a way I really fuck with as someone who has also gotten drunk and ordered too many mozzarella sticks). Cy is Gray’s VALET (Verified Artificial-Learning-Enhanced Techbot), and though he’s a kind of outdated model, is doing his best to keep his charge in line. But when Cy learns that the company that made him (owned by the St Claires) is being bought out, not only does he have to find Grayson someone nice to date/marry (which proves harder that you’d think a tech company heir would have it), he also has to save himself by stealing the company’s tech secrets. Of course, hi-jinx ensue as Cy and Gray (along with the cloned golden retriever Sasha III) race to ensure both their futures. Infused with commentary on both AI and humanity, J.P. Lacrampe’s sci-fi take on Jeeves and Wooster is a delightful rollercoaster—high stakes but also plenty of humor and heart. (June 2, Saga)