Queer SF - August 2026
August 1, 2026
Savage as You — J.M. Weaver, Alice Callegari (illustrator)
Genre: YA contemporary fantasy
Rep: Trans
Bizarre creatures, enchanted objects, and impossible landscapes are merely a small taste of Hailey Stewart’s new reality. As if wading through the uncertainty of her senior year in high school wasn’t enough, now things have gotten much more complicated.
After receiving a mysterious package in the mail sent by an individual calling herself The Seamstress, Hailey soon realizes the object within allows her to enter a comely otherworld known as Lin J’Roe.
Escapism has always been a comforting temptation. Only this time, it threatens to consume her for good.
Link: Kobo
Tales of the Tongue — Nelka Mazur (ed.)
Genre: Anthology of folktales
Rep: Queer
Gather ’round the campfire and listen closely, as we pass on these fables of trapped gods, unsettled spirits, and ancient local legends. Take heed of our tales, and tread lightly through murky swamps, stormy coasts and the edges of quiet towns with dark secrets.
Tales of The Tongue is a siren call of original stories and artwork from all different backgrounds and identities that will immerse you in secret worlds and remembered lore from long-ago. Some of these stories are retelling, and some are unique to the author’s own fantasy world, some are tales you may be familiar with, and many are unique to the author’s or artist’s culture. From Greek myths, to American cryptids, Puerto Rican legends and Brazilian lore and much more!
Link: Goodreads
August 4, 2026
Survival Show — Juno Dawson
Genre: YA dystopian
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Survival Show
American Idol meets The Hunger Games in this campy, dystopian satire about a teen betting her life that her singing talent can make her a star from the celebrated author of This Book Is Gay, Juno Dawson.
The world just seems to take and take from Taryn Beck, but there’s one thing it’ll never have: her voice. Only when she’s singing does Taryn feel like she can escape her reality—free from the aftermath of the War, free from the Scottish refugee camps where she and her family now live, and free from the responsibility of making ends meet for the sake of her sick brother.
Taryn’s voice is her one ticket out, and that’s why she enters to be a contestant on the world’s most watched television program: Starmaker, where kids from the New Peace Global Alliance compete for the chance to join an all-singing, all-dancing pop group. Rise to the top, and a life of luxury, stardom, and money awaits.
There’s only one small catch. The lowest ranking face a televised public execution. Starmaker thanks their participants for their noble sacrifice to Project Population.
Taryn’s about to sing for her life.
Link: Goodreads
Level Up Lex — M.C. Hutson
Genre: Science fiction, post-apocalyptic
Rep: Lesbian
Strap up for cosmic lesbian mayhem.
Earth is dead. Not metaphorically—actually dead. The alien armadas didn’t bother with negotiations; they simply leveled every major city and drove humanity underground.
Lex never planned on being anyone’s champion. But when she’s chosen to represent Earth in the Cosmic Clash, an interstellar, battle-to-the-death tournament broadcast across the universe, she’s shoved into the spotlight with no chance to refuse.
The prize is a boon powerful enough to bring Earth back from its ashes, but the competition is fierce, and otherworlders have already decided Lex is irrelevant. Before the games even begin, all bets are on Zhyrelle, the beloved and beautiful princess of Seraphan.
Dragged across the universe, Lex must fight for survival, for her planet’s future, and for a heart she never expected to risk.
Link: Goodreads
Sunsplitter — S.A. MacLean
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: M/F; bi MCs
Series: Book 2 of Beasts of the Void
Fi has toppled immortal beasts. Antal welcomes being conquered.
After helping the Lord Daeyari reclaim his territory, semi-reformed smuggler Fi dons a daunting new role: rebuilding a city alongside her monstrous partner, a haven free from bloody sacrifice. So when Antal’s father unexpectedly summons him home, Fi’s first instinct is to ready her claws.
Only, claws won’t be enough for this adversary.
Antal faces his first homecoming in five decades, dreading two truths. From his father’s seat on the governing council, he could undo everything Antal has built. And their last argument ended with Antal’s lover dead on the floor.
But a greater danger lurks: the appearance of a creature that even the daeyari fear, burning its way through the Planes. With Antal’s father leading the hunt, he and Fi must ally with a team of immortals who could turn fangs on them at any moment.
Or worse, strain their still-fresh love until it snaps.
From the author of Voidwalker comes the conclusion to the Beasts of the Void duology where spicy monster romance meets the epic fantasy of the Cosmere.
Link: Goodreads
Devour Me — Emily Rath
Genre: Paranormal romance
Rep: Queer; polyamory (MMF)
Series: Book 1 of Devour Me
From New York Times bestselling author Emily Rath comes a dark, spicy MMF paranormal romance series set on a New England island about the entangled fates of a witch, wraith, and mortal...
Dáinn the Devourer has spent the last two hundred years of his undead life reluctantly bonded to a dark witch, doing her dirtiest work. Devouring corrupt souls may not be satisfying for a wraith, but it keeps him fed.
Sent on a job to Burr Island, Dáinn is forced by his mistress to devour the soul of a powerful rival witch, Jasper Prescott. Dáinn is busy devouring the witch when he’s interrupted by a human. With one word, this human does what no being has ever done…she takes his breath away.
Forced to stop feeding, Dáinn is shattered as the soul he was devouring slips back inside the dying witch. Who is this human? And what dark magic must she possess to stop a wraith? The more Dáinn learns about Birdie Rhodes, hapless historian and sometimes shop girl, the more determined he is to become part of her world.
Sweet Birdie works for the witch Dáinn was ordered to devour. Now Jasper Prescott is on the hunt too. For answers. As a powerful witch, with a coven at his command, Jasper will stop at nothing to find out what magical mischief is happening on his island. Why is a wraith haunting his tea shop? Which fellow witch wants him dead? And who the hell is Birdie Rhodes?
Dáinn, Jasper, and Birdie become entangled in a magical love affair which could lead to their ruin.
Link: Goodreads
Immortal Game — Allison Saft
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Every 100 years, a small group of chess players are invited to enter the glittering world of Faerie to compete for the honour of playing the King of the Otherworld himself. Whoever defeats him is granted one wish.
Nineteen-year-old Shea Fury intends to be the first to win—it’s the only way to win back her sister, who was taken by the king years before. But standing in her way is her longtime rival and faerie princess, Ciara.
As the tournament progresses and players start to drop dead at their boards, the two are forced together in an unlikely alliance, if they are to outwit the forces of fae magic and survive until the very last move...
Link: Goodreads
Dangerous and Well-Read — Rebecca Sky
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Enemy princesses plot to kill each other after they are forced into an arranged marriage to unite their kingdoms against a dangerous enemy.
Link: Goodreads
Be Still My Unbeating Heart — Josh Winning
Genre: Cozy paranormal mystery
Rep: M/M
A cozy vampire vacation mystery set in a seaside Italian village, featuring a reformed vampire, his magical talking cat, and a handsome, brooding detective.
Bastian may be a vampire, but he doesn’t bite.
Not anymore, at least.
These days, Bastian just wants to live his best undead life: visit charming Italian villages, maybe dance in the square with a cute boy, all with Whitby, his best friend (and magical talking cat) by his side. What he doesn’t want? To stumble across a dead body on the beach, a girl who appears to have been killed by a vampire.
It wasn’t Bastian. He swears—on his own grave.
But the local police chief doesn’t trust Bastian, or any vampire, for that matter, so he assigns detective Nico De Luca to keep an eye on him until his trial. And while Bastian normally wouldn’t complain about having a gorgeous, mysterious man by his side, he has more important things to worry about, because the police chief has called the Vampire Council, and if the real killer is still at large when they arrive, the whole town could be in danger. As more bodies begin to pile up, Bastian, Whitby, and De Luca must get to the bottom of who in Vernazza is framing vampires, before it’s too late.
Charming, twisty, and laugh-out-loud funny, Be Still My Unbeating Heart by Josh Winning is a delightful romp through a swoon-worthy magical murder mystery.
Link: Goodreads
Find My Way Down to You — Julian Winters
Genre: YA fantasy romance
Rep: M/M
You’ve Reached Sam meets Hadestown in this enchanting, intoxicating romance across the mortal world and the underworld.
Eighteen-year-old August is trying to navigate life after the sudden death of his boyfriend left him devastated, aimless, and feeling guilty. Years after the tragic accident, August mistakenly stumbles into a world beyond his own—the Underworld.
Unlike his own gray existence, the underworld is a lavish extravagant place, full of mystery and a flurry of charismatic gods, all curious about August’s arrival in their world. Realizing right away the opportunity in front of him, August goes searching for his lost love, guided by Cary, the smoldering, broody ferrier of souls.
But the more time August spends down below, the more his intentions begin to blur. Is he visiting this realm to reunite with his soulmate? Or is he desperately, inexplicably, intoxicatingly drawn to Cary? With his own world in pieces and a dangerously seductive realm promising him a new existence at a heavy cost, August must a life with grief or a love that might destroy him.
Link: Goodreads
August 5, 2026
Hopefinder — Keir Hudson
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer; non-binary MC
Meric is part of a group of Hopefinders—magically powered humanitarians who follow the faith of the Light and travel the world seeking to help others. While on a mission in the town of Holtham, the group learns of an oncoming military invasion force from the Estolt Confederacy. Now Meric and their companions must balance their duty to protect the people of the town with their oaths of pacifism.
Yet the swiftly approaching battle isn’t the only ordeal Meric will face. The Estolt Confederacy is not only a military force to be reckoned with—it’s also Meric’s homeland. In order to keep Holtham and their fellow Hopefinders safe, they must also grapple with the shadows of their past.
Link: Kobo
August 6, 2026
Aliens in New Florida — Carmen Loup
Genre: Post-apocalyptic
Rep: Lesbian; polyamory
Mick’s a rogue journalist who's been trying to find her girlfriend since their village was raided two years ago. Her only clue is a note stuck to her machete: Meet me at The Kingdom. But The Kingdom is a far away, near-mythical city, and Mick has to get there in a solar-powered Shanty Van without reliable maps or roads.
Arriving in Welcome Center, she discovers that Rawr, the local cryptid, not only knows where The Kingdom is, but will pay Mick to drive them there to honor the dying wish of Madam Clandestina, an allegedly omniscient alien who tells Mick the exact circumstances of her own impending death. Drowned in two feet of brackish water.
As Mick and Rawr set out for The Kingdom, they get sacrificed by an alien cult; shot at by a homicidal diorama artisan; trapped in a liminal Waffle House run by what appears to be a blob of cheese; and chased by Putnam, mafia godmother and alien hunter.
All this cannot keep them from falling a little in love, but Rawr’s a walking biohazard, and Mick’s got a girlfriend waiting for her at The Kingdom. A girlfriend with a horrible secret. When Mick discovers the truth behind the raid, she must race against time and fate to rescue Rawr before Madam Clandestina’s prophecy comes true.
Link: Author’s Website
The Grand Shahala — Hypatia Rae
Genre: Romantic fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 1 of the Daughters of Sand duology
A deadly race could set them free... or sentence them to a lifetime in chains.
Everyone knows winning the monster-racing Shahals means status, riches, and for an indentured servant like Sabine, freedom—except only men can compete. As her only means to a better life, Sabine must disguise herself as a man and take her chances in the races. As an empath, Princess Ianthe is an abomination to her people. She’s desperate to find her mother’s tribe and learn to control the magic that could send her to an early grave.
Instead, her father orders her to wed the winner of the Grand Shahala, the final monster race.
Two women with no choices, and only one way out—forming an unlikely alliance to beat the races together, share the proceeds, and earn the freedom they both desire. Now Sabine is caught up in a web of lies and increasingly dangerous races—made all the more difficult by her growing attraction to the sheltered princess.
Winning means freedom. Failure means a life in chains. And the most dangerous race is still ahead...
Link: Goodreads
August 7, 2026
Erosion — M.C. Burnell
Genre: Urban fantasy, murder mystery
Rep: Queer; nonbinary MC
When magic is just another extraction industry, an average joe with student loans can’t afford to have principles.
Pherul Baker is a standard-issue lab technician at a corporation that harvests mana. The fact that he works with faerie-people is a secret from the public, but he’s had years to grow accustomed to them. When one turns up dead, it throws life at the isolated dig site into disarray: the humans didn’t know these beings were mortal, and it might have been foul play.
Faeries unknown appear on the scene, determined to find answers, and the company saddles Pherul with a menacing new roommate: a corporate spy who doesn’t care that the scientist he now lives with doesn’t want to be involved. It’s hard to judge what’s more likely to get him killed, the suspicious natively-magical people or his (boss’s boss’s boss’s) boss. She’s seen his face now and heard his name, both of which he would so much rather never happened.
This drone is about to learn the world is bigger and stranger than he guessed. There may even be parts of it that are worth taking risks.
Link: Books2Read
Tossing the Caber — Jem Zero
Genre: Fantasy romance
Rep: M/M; trans man MC
Series: Standalone in shared Marriage Market Misadventures universe
One introverted athlete. One colorful artisan. One extra part to make them a perfect fit.
Laurel Lushroot runs a gauntlet of extremes. After his apprenticeship as a blacksmith’s assistant ended abruptly due to an accident that maimed him, he redirected his creative focus toward magical body modifications. He’s made a name for himself—the Anatomancer—and elves travel from far and wide to seek his services. But his father resents supporting him, and the Everend Marriage Market is the perfect opportunity to make Laurel someone else’s problem.
Beacon Sure-of-Foot has long known that his preference for solitude is not compatible with his profession. He’s an elite athlete, especially famous for his performance in the caber toss. During competitions, the rush of attention from winning is invigorating. All other times, he wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, he’s the heir to the Sure-of-Foot clan, and societal expectations demand Beacon accept a spouse.
The first time Beacon and Laurel meet is just shy of a disaster. Despite that, both men find the other intriguing enough to proceed. The union neither of them wanted seems like it might work…
Except it’s not long before Beacon’s avoidant nature takes over. He struggles to tell Laurel that he was born different from other men, that his current appearance is due to magical intervention, and that he will be missing something Laurel is likely to expect in their marital bed.
Knowing their fragile connection will wither unless he can break through Beacon’s walls, Laurel must find a way to prove he’ll accept his intended no matter what. Fortunately, his creativity is unmatched.
Link: Goodreads
August 11, 2026
For the Love of the Quest — Alexandra Ammon Parthun
Genre: Historical romance, retelling
Rep: Sapphic
The search for King Arthur’s Excalibur invites danger—and potentially love—in this sapphic historical romance, perfect for fans of Cat Sebastian and Freya Marske.
Lady Edith Darling is supposed to live a quiet life in her family’s manor. She is not supposed to go unchaperoned on a quest to find Excalibur. But Edith won’t let that stand in her way, especially not when she's on this mission to honor her beloved grandmother’s dying wish. Determined to prove her grandmother right, Edith packs her satchel with Arthurian legends, pastries, and her grandmother’s ashes and runs off to hire a mercenary.
Thomasin Shaw leads the most feared gang in London. For years, she had the constabulary safely in her pocket, until a scandal involving the chief inspector’s wife was brought to light. Now he’s demanding an enormous sum of money—without which Thomasin will lose the protection of the police along with her criminal empire. But when the rich Lady Edith waltzes into her life seeking an escort for a treasure hunt, Thomasin sees a willing kidnapping victim and a massive ransom.
As Edith’s clues lead them to underground chambers booby-trapped with arrows, doors locked with arcane puzzles, and even Arthur’s fabled round table, Thomasin finds herself swept up in the quest—and in Edith herself. Edith is also drawn to Thomasin, despite the ruthless mask she wears. But the chief inspector won’t let Thomasin forget her crimes, and Edith’s father is intent on bringing her home. Every legendary quest has an ending, but finding Excalibur might not be enough to make this a happy one.
Link: Goodreads
A Dance of Burning Blades — M.H. Ayinde
Genre: Epic fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 2 of The Invoker Trilogy
War rages on in the second novel in M. H. Ayinde’s relentlessly gripping epic fantasy series The Invoker Trilogy, a sweeping epic of revenge and rebellion set in a richly drawn world of warring clans and ancestor magic.
Tension simmers across Nine Lands. In the capital, the people of Lordsgrave seethe with resentment after the horrors of the greyblood attack. Clan Adatali is in open rebellion against the king, and as war in the Feverlands rages on, a humble tree feller—who looks a lot like missing invoker Jinao Mizito—has not forgotten the promise he made to avenge his brother.
Meanwhile, in the shadows, Lyela continues to move her pieces across the board. Can the people of the Nine Lands reclaim their stolen history and unlock the secrets that have been kept from them for centuries?
Link: Goodreads
A Trade of Blood — Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Fantasy, mystery thriller
Rep: Bi MMC
Series: Book 3 of Shadow of the Leviathan
In the canton of Sapirdad, two of the Empire’s most powerful families are moments away from going to war with each other, their hundreds of retainers gathered with swords drawn. If blood is spilled, the whole of the empire may be plunged into starvation and chaos.
To deescalate matters, someone must do the impossible: prove that one family’s eldest son is innocent of a gruesome and unforgivable murder, despite the incontrovertible evidence against him.
It is with this undertaking that the great detective Ana Dolabra is tasked, her assistant Din at her side—and the two find themselves racing with great speed and little dignity to the scene.
As ever, the impossible proves little obstacle for the deadly combination of Ana’s intellect and Din’s keen eye, and mere hours after riding into the dusty town, Ana glimpses the greater pattern behind the crime. A deeper, subtler web of death is being woven in plain sight, by a mastermind with an ancient magical technology at his disposal.
But even Ana’s uncanny insight is of little use when each new suspect she uncovers ends up dead—with each new killing calculated to bring tensions between the two rival clans past the boiling point. And as Din pursues their adversary through the canton’s wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses, he finds his loyalties divided in unexpected ways.
Link: Goodreads
She Haunts Me Still — De Elizabeth
Genre: Horror, fantasy, dark academia
Rep: Sapphic
These violent delights have violent ends.
After surviving a shadowed childhood, Mallory Webb is ready to start fresh as a theater major at her mother’s alma mater, a sanitarium turned liberal arts university in Rhode Island. Landing the lead role in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet feels like a dream—until the blood-soaked wraith that caused her mother’s death resurfaces after years of quiet. With nothing to go on but cryptic symbols in an old college notebook, Mallory hopes the reason behind her mother’s haunting lies somewhere on campus, and resolves to find answers before she meets the same fate.
She’s surprised to make an unexpected ally in Ezra Pierce, the magnetic fourth year directing the play, and takes solace in their undeniable chemistry. But Ezra is a master secret keeper, and it’s clear he knows more than he’s letting on about Saskia Garin, Mallory’s elusive understudy whose past eerily mirrors her own.
When an ancient, bloodthirsty evil calls to collect a bargain that dates back to the New England vampire panic, Mallory, Ezra, and Saskia will have to untangle the tragic ways in which their histories are linked—and face the devastating consequences of their own star-crossed love story.
Link: Goodreads
Our Crimson Cage — Ladz
Genre: Horror, retelling
Rep: Sapphic
From the Indie Ink Award nominated author of The Fealty of Monsters and The Cradle of Eternal Night comes a new, blood-soaked tale of vampires and selfish desire, in this folk horror retelling of Carmilla, taking place in 19th Century Poland.
Laura Toperz’s husband will be only gone for a week. Despite hiring a new maid to pick up her duties, she expects the days to go by as they do when her husband is present: mundanely and without incident. She is not prepared to solve a murder.
Elżbieta dreams of riches. Being hired as a maid for the wealthy Toperz household might just be her ticket to security. After one of her shifts, she sneaks into the manor’s forbidden basement in search of treasure, hoping for valuables or jewels. Instead, she discovers something starving and solitary, begging to be unleashed. Elżbieta can only give in.
Soon, sanguinary terrors descend upon the town. Unaware of her maid’s transgression, Laura remembers the bloodthirsty woman trapped below: Karmila, who comforted her in her youth. Karmila, whom her late father swore was just an imaginary friend. Karmila, who now paints the town and its maidens red.
Having escaped under her watch, Laura must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to bring back peace and quell the lustful frenzy entrancing everyone around her.
Even if it means herself.
Link: Books2Read
We Were Eternal Once — Katryna Lalock
Genre: Vampire fiction
Rep: Sapphic
On the roof of Cologne’s Dom Cathedral, an ancient vampire prepares to kill the woman who made her immortal.
Melinoë was turned in 150 BCE and loved her maker for centuries—until devotion became jealousy, and eternity turned grief into something feral. Told across eras of war, fire, and ruin, this gothic romance traces five stages of loss through ancient temples, revolutionary Paris, and the modern world, asking what it means to survive love when death is no longer an escape.
Link: Goodreads
Hollow Magic — Mars Lauderbaugh
Genre: YA fantasy graphic novel
Rep: Queer
Seventeen-year-old Rosefinch has been traveling along the weather-beaten coast for two years on a quest to find a witch strong enough to help her control her magic. Her magic is volatile, hard to wield, and Rosefinch is tired of the pain of magical backlash. When she’s directed to the sea-side village of Harp, she discovers the ancient castle of a long-lost Witch Queen with the inhabitants long gone; the only remaining soul is a knight encased in solid ice guarding the door.
When she attempts to lift the curse, she frees Thierry, a human with no memory of who they are, wrapped in cursed magic so strong that they cannot leave the castle. Thierry is soft spoken, strong, and in possession of a fey sword that should be impossible for them to have. But they have secrets of their own, as do other members of the Harp family still hidden within the walls.
Harp castle was left in ruins for a reason, and Rosefinch must find a way to cure the curse or lose Thierry—and the chance to learn the truth about the Witch Queen—forever.
Link: Macmillan
Stay Buried — Jennifer McMahon
Genre: Horror
Rep: Queer
From the New York Times bestselling author of Children on the Hill comes a queer folk horror in which a woman must confront decades of secrecy and superstition to learn the truth about her mother’s death.
Some towns stay isolated for a reason.
1919: Frankie O’Massey has always been the black sheep of isolated Boone’s Ferry, Vermont. Her uncle, Dr. Thomas Endicott, has been training her in the science of medicine, something the townspeople are wary of. When a mysterious illness strikes the town, and the community suspects supernatural forces, the two desperately search for a logical explanation. Patient zero seems to be the town’s knackerman—a recluse who collects dead and dying farm animals to make use of their parts.
2016: Siblings Ashley and Malcolm lost their mother two years ago. When their grandmother dies, they inherit a property in Boone’s Ferry—a place they’ve heard of but their grandmother has always refused to talk about—and embark on a trip to their ancestral home. The idyllic town is full of autumnal décor, picturesque farmland, and small-town charm. But some of the townspeople aren’t very welcoming—and they have some unsettling traditions, like leaving offerings to a vengeful spirit four times a year.
Link: Goodreads
In What World — Bridget Morrissey
Genre: Speculative contemporary romance
Rep: Sapphic
Two high school rivals begrudgingly reunite as adults to investigate the disappearance of their beloved former teacher, only to wind up traveling through a series of alternate realities together.
Total opposites, Marlowe Jenkins and Priscilla Covington-French hated each other in high school. Now in their thirties, Marlowe is barely scraping by while Priscilla is wildly successful. Their rivalry should be long dead, yet both women remain connected through their mutual mentor, drama teacher Dallas Winthrop. Their unending tension has nothing to do with the fact that they’ve kissed. More than once.
When Dallas goes missing, each woman believes she can figure out where he is. Except this is no ordinary disappearance. Dallas has found a way to explore alternate versions of reality. While trying to follow him, Marlowe and Priscilla find other versions of themselves instead, surprised to learn not all Marlowes and Priscillas are fueled by hate. In fact, some Marlowes and Priscillas have very different strong feelings for one another...
The more Marlowe and Priscilla are forced to rely on each other, the harder it becomes to ignore their simmering attraction. But with every alternate reality they search, they only get further from their real life and responsibilities. Do they play it safe and hide behind their rivalry, or take a chance on each other that could permanently change the world as they know it?
Link: Penguin Random House
Winterborne — J.D. Netto
Genre: Epic fantasy
Rep: Bi MMC
Series: Book 1 of Winterborne
Treacherous politics, deadly secrets, ancient magic, and forbidden romance: The battle for ultimate power has begun in the first book of this epic fantasy.
Even before his mother’s mysterious murder, Henric Sabio never felt at home in his small town or at his private high school. He figured that was because of his cynical personality and tendency to daydream about dragons. But when a sudden supernatural attack transports him, his father, and his sister to a frozen magical world, Henric quickly learns he is different in ways he never imagined. He is Henric Iceheart, son of a disgraced prince and heir to a throne that desperately needs to restore the glories of a lost age.
Plunged into the elegant hierarchy of court life, Henric starts to discover hints of a secret history beneath the kingdom’s glistening surface. As he navigates ruthless nobles, sacred laws, and a rival family hungry for his family’s throne, his dormant powers―a deadly command of ice and a bond with an ice dragon long thought extinct―ignite. And soon rumors are spreading, naming Henric the prophesized Prince of Winter who will unite the land, albeit at a terrifying cost.
With help from the gentle elf Hundarian Silvermore and his ambitious twin sister, Kellenen, Henric attempts to prove himself worthy of this moniker and change his foretold fate. But his growing and complicated attraction to the Silvermore twins reveals long-buried prejudices that threaten his path to the crown. As rebellions rise and enemies close in, he must decide whether to claim his newfound destiny or reject it and face the consequences.
Some legacies save kingdoms. Others destroy them. Henric’s might be destined for both.
Link: Goodreads
Death Card — Jasmine Smith
Genre: YA romantic fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
A dark contemporary fantasy featuring witchcraft, tarot, death, and a bit of romance that’s perfect for fans of Immortal Dark and Cinderella Is Dead.
On an ordinary Monday morning, eighteen-year-old Mikaela Broussard receives the shock of her life. During a customer’s tarot reading at her family’s occult shop, she turns over the Death card and envisions the beautiful stranger stabbing her in the heart.
In order to determine why the girl, Joelle, wants to kill her, she’ll have to keep her close. But the more time Mikaela spends with her soon-to-be murderer, the more irresistible she finds her.
As if imminent death isn’t worrisome enough, witches are turning up with their magic stolen. And it’s clear some very dark magic is at work. Mikaela, as the next Witch Queen of her coven, is tasked with figuring out who’s behind the horrific acts—a mystery that will put her and her power to the test.
Death Card is a dark, pacy, and romantic fantasy about one witch’s journey to find the strength to fight for herself, her future, and her beloved community.
Link: Goodreads
The Barbarian at Dream’s End — Steve Hugh Westenra
Genre: Science fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of A Tale of San
An amnesiac mercenary. His robot companions. A deadly fungus transmitted via centaur-like Knightspiders. As the warrior San risks the peril of the spiders’ realm to locate a cure, his visions of a world of technological wonder promise an answer to the infection and taunt him with a possible link to his lost past. But the tighter San’s tether to the visions, the more tenuous his hold on the world he knows.
Link: Publisher’s Website
August 14, 2026
A Match Made in Slumber — Kasia Bacon
Genre: Fantasy romance
Rep: M/M
Series: Standalone in shared Marriage Market Misadventures universe
Kidnapping an interdimensional warlord is a crime. Marrying him is a get–out–of–dungeon–free card.
Commander Keălhem Reñyés is mid-swing—about to storm a fortress—when the battlefield dissolves into the scent of candyfloss. Instead of headbutting an enemy, he crash-lands face-first into a heap of silk ribbon talismans, yanked across dimensions to Everend by an alchemist desperate for some shut-eye.
Elian Fountenblym, a genius matchstick maker with a cataclysmic track record of magical mishaps, is plagued by sensual dreams of a mysterious soldier. Every night, they leave him randy, pining and knackered—all in the run-up to the Great Midsummer Market—the busiest event of the year. To kill the longing once and for all, he invents the Match of Tranquillity, only to unwittingly trigger a forbidden summoning enchantment that delivers his dream man straight into his waking world. That’s one more whoopsie he could’ve done without.
With High Arbiter Cholerius—Elian’s former Academy rival—sniffing around for unauthorised magic, the stakes are high. Bound by the volatile constraints of the spell and forced to share a bed to keep Keălhem from flickering out of existence, the pair must turn to an ancient legal loophole to save Elian from a one-way trip to the dungeons on interdimensional kidnapping charges.
Navigating a fake marriage that begins to feel dangerously real, they have until the Midsummer Moon wanes to decide: part ways or let the flame of their accidental match burn forever?
Link: Goodreads
August 16, 2026
The Ink Eater — Alice G. Brooks
Genre: Gothic romantic tragedy
Rep: Queer
Baird Cardall is perfectly content with never leaving the manor. For over 200 years, he's written and eaten thousands of stories, keeping the house alive and pleased as its vessel—alone, codependent, and devoted.
Until one of his stories escapes.
Hemming is a shapeshifter written into existence to keep Baird company. Gorgeous, part ink, and infuriatingly desirable, his mere presence is a disruption. Having broken away from his story, he causes harm to the manor—and thus, to Baird. And, yet, the magnetic pull between them is undeniable, even as Hemming digs up the ugliest parts of Baird's past.
But the house wants Hemming dead. It’s awfully hungry, and it won’t stop demanding until its cravings are satisfied. As his bond to the manor grows more hostile, Baird must choose between protecting all he has lived for—or destroying it for good.
Link: Goodreads
August 18, 2026
The Last Infinity — Alexis Ames
Genre: Science fiction, time travel
Rep: Queer
Cal Hunter is a cryo, a person who was cryogenically frozen after his death in the 22nd century. Resurrected four hundred years later, he now lives in the 26th century and works as a time traveler for the time agency on Mars.
After a mission goes disastrously wrong, Cal returns to his present to find that he’s seriously altered the timeline. All life on Earth and the Moon has been wiped out, leaving only a failing settlement on Mars of fewer than two thousand people. Even worse, Cal can no longer time travel due to his injuries.
The only person who can fix the timeline is Renata Carr, a teenager from the 20th century. She’s brought out of cryogenic suspension, and a reluctant Cal is put in charge not only of her training, but also her well-being. Meanwhile, Renata grapples with the grief of waking up in a strange century on another world while also coming of age—and falling in love with the daughter of one of Cal’s friends.
When disaster strikes the settlement, the timeline for humanity’s demise rapidly speeds up. While Cal knows he must send Renata on a mission she isn’t ready for, and which will likely kill her, he is torn between saving humanity’s past, present, and future, or the girl he’s come to see as a daughter.
Link: Goodreads
Dragon’s Liberty — K.B. Diaz
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Dragon’s Liberty
War is not needed to kill a nation.
Princess Wanda was never meant to rule. After the violent death of her older brother, her father has forbidden her to leave the castle for the last seven years. Her only steadfast friend is her cousin Stach, who tells her tales of the sky on dragonback. When rumors spread of a sorcerer with the power to kill dragons, Wanda takes flight to capture them to prove to her father that she is worthy of being sovereign. But when she forges a friendship in the most unlikely of places, Wanda begins to see the cruelty in her father’s love—and wonders if everything she knows is a lie.
Stach’s satisfaction with the establishment is shaken when a diplomat is found dead under mysterious circumstances. He traverses the perilous world of court politics to investigate their death, forced to reckon with the corruption of the nobility in every coin embezzled and every law circumvented. As he uncovers a treasonous plot and a disaster brings him to his knees, he must come face-to-face with the restrictions of royal authority—and questions if there should be any limits at all.
Both cousins must grapple with decisions, loves, and betrayals that will unravel the Republic. When their land descends into war, Wanda and Stach must ask how to save their nation when its system is irredeemably broken.
Link: Goodreads
The Halls of the Dead — S.M. Hallow
Genre: Gothic horror romance
Rep: Sapphic
London, December 1849
Irene Shallcross Haley has dedicated her life to necromancy, a forbidden, reviled art that is passed along through sentient grimoires bound in human skin. With her undead husband St. John—a marriage of kindred spirits and platonic convenience—she has been protecting the knowledge of generations of witches that came before her. Like any magic, it has come at a her reputation, her relationship with her sister, and her soul. But when Irene’s love, Agnes, is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to let Agnes be one more thing that is taken from her.
A true resurrection has not been achieved in two thousand years, but Irene is determined. With the help of St. John, Irene bangs on the doors of the Halls of the Dead, demanding the third part of their triumverate back... or did she? Because the Agnes that awakens comes with both a hunger for raw flesh and a malignant ghost tied to her soul.
Necromancy is the art of saying no—no, I won’t let you go; no, I won’t let you be destroyed—and Irene’s work is not yet done. She must find a way to bring Agnes back to her true self, she must navigate her feelings for her resurrected lover as well as St. John, and she must do all of this without catching the attention of Sir Silas Underhill, the man who sentenced Agnes to death.
Death is not the end of love. But Irene may realize it can actually be the beginning.
Link: Goodreads
Vicious Miscreations — Jenn Neal
Genre: New adult fantasy
Rep: Queer
One treacherous conspiracy. Five reckless outcasts. Survival will make monsters of them all.
On the surface, Topensi is a bustling hub of interworld trade, but a cesspool of crime and desperation boils underneath. Trapped by an indenture to the brutal Ripper Gang, Lux does whatever he must to claw his way free. When he discovers a monster controlled by the city guard, he plans to capture the creature and exchange it for his freedom.
Lux assembles a volatile team: a naïve Earthborn mage whose violent magic festers under his skin, a fugitive with a score to settle, a revolutionary who has lost his way, a criminal princess who leaves a trail of ruin in her wake, and a troublemaking tabby cat.
Lux and his crew may be the only ones who can defeat the terrifying power that threatens to devour their world, if they don’t betray each other first.
Link: Goodreads
Homeward for a Spell — Jamie Pacton & Rebecca Podos
Genre: Romantic fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
In this cozy queer romantic fantasy from the award-winning authors of Homegrown Magic, two members in a motley crew of adventurers must confront monsters, hostile landscapes—and their growing attraction for each other.
Sage has made her living as a ranger, moving constantly between adventuring parties, but has never had the chance to lead one. So when she’s offered the chance to hire a crew of her own in pursuit of a rare magical artifact, it seems a dream come true—until she learns that they’re headed into the most inhospitable part of the kingdom with winter looming. Still, it’s a chance to finally put her name on the map… and how bad could it really be?
Araphi has always loved music, in defiance of her powerful family’s priorities. All she wants is one last chance to perform before she’s married to a man she does not love for the good of the family. So when she sees a poster seeking a bard for a party, she eagerly sneaks away to audition. Only to discover that the party in question is no festival, but an adventuring party, led by a woman she’s been fascinated with since she first laid eyes on her. It’s an unexpected twist, but if she takes the job, she’ll still be back in time for her own wedding… and how bad could it really be?
What follows is a life-altering journey for them both, filled with danger and misfortunes as their ragtag band of adventurers—most of whom have just met—must learn to work together to overcome the many obstacles before them. Not the least of which is the explosive chemistry between the rugged party leader used to watching her own back, and the pampered city-girl bard who may be far out of her element but is beginning to feel at home for the very first time.
Link: Penguin Random House
The Salt King — Natasha Pulley
Genre: Fantasy, apocalyptic
Rep: M/M
A novel about belief, religion, and the power of myth that blends the gripping, end-of-the-world storytelling of The Passage with Natasha Pulley’s biting wit and queer romance.
Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken was born into a mining family in Hreodwater, a small, isolated salt town in England. At 16, after a mining disaster killed his family, he fled.
When a fellow priest is miraculously healed only to then be turned to salt after a visit to Hreodwater, Avelyn is sent to investigate. When he arrives, the town’s doctor, Jericho, tells him that the priest is not the only one experiencing strange cures—and may not be the only one in danger from a substance in the mine that the locals call “salt light.”
As Avelyn and Jericho team up to protect the Hreodwater from salt light, strange happenings occur at mines around the world. At an archaeological dig on the Dead Sea, electrical devices froth salt, while at a huge salt works in Poland, communication is lost, and rumors circulate of total annihilation.
As salt light devastates cities around the world, Avelyn must decide what to believe—and whether his faith is strong enough to withstand an apocalypse.
Link: Goodreads
The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium — Lexie Sharabianlou
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
A magical witness protection program, a town in need of saving, and a sorceress-in-training... oh, and the human woman she’s not supposed to fall for. The Blue Moon Café has a little bit of everything (except, you know, decent coffee).
In the tiny town of Pine Hollow, barista and fledging sorceress Talula Smith runs The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium, aka the worst coffee shop in town. The café’s horrible reputation hides its true purpose: providing new identities and safe passage to at-risk magical beings while keeping humans far, far away. That is, except for town local Dahlia. Dahlia’s devastating dimples, addiction to Talula’s cocoa recipe, and keen observation skills keeps the smitten barista scrambling to ensure that her magical abilities (or lack thereof) stay a secret.
But when big game hunters start preying on magical beings, her powerful sorceress mother is called away to track them down, leaving Talula and her barely-there magic in charge of The Blue Moon. With the impending Samhain festival to organize, magical refugees to help, half of the town turning against her, and her ever-growing feelings for Dahlia, Talula’s magical destiny feels further away than ever. But as the hunters set their sights closer to home, it’ll be up to Talula to master her craft, trust her heart, and bring her magical and human communities together... before she loses everything she loves.
Link: Goodreads
The River Devours the Moon — Kaya Skovdatter
Genre: Horror
Rep: Sapphic
Yuehua lives in the shadow of the serial killer who claimed multiple lives close to her fifteen years prior, including her mother—whose restless spirit has haunted Yuehua ever since. A killer who used Toronto’s Don River to display their work to the world. Before they vanished. Yuehua’s spent those last fifteen years hunting them down.
But when her girlfriend is killed by what appears to be the same murderer finally resurfaced, the vengeance Yuehua sets in motion will rain down destruction on everyone she cares about. Because there are a great many things Yuehua’s made herself forget, including the identity of the killer, the truth of her family history, and how thin the line between the living and the spirit world truly is. And as her understanding of reality falls apart and that line blurs into oblivion, what’s left is the knowledge that no river gives up its secrets easily, and that every river is hungry.
Your next feel-bad read of the summer, The River Devours the Moon is a queer (WLW) Toronto ghost story/crime/horror novella for fans of Sara Gran’s Come Closer, and Talk to Me and Shikoku.
Link: Itch.io
The Divine Gardener’s Handbook — Eli Snow
Genre: Science fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Perfect for fans of Tamsyn Muir and Rebecca Thorne, this joyful debut follows a gardener fighting to secure her dream job in the Divine Gardens―manipulating God, antagonizing her attractive rival, and running afoul of a brewing rebellion along the way.
Cyprin grows perfect apples.
No other worker tends the orchards like she can. Sick of living in a Jenga-esque megacity where she’s never alone (there’s always a rat), Cyprin dreams of a job in the Divine Gardens, tending to the plants overseen by God.
Her only way in is winning an annual flower pageant―one that’s been dominated by the Divine Gardens’ head gardener for five years running: an insufferable woman with an undeniable affinity for plants. When Cyprin plays dirty (criminally dirty) and wins, she jumps headfirst into life in the gardens and her rivalry with the head gardener, who she just can’t stop thinking about.
Pranks, backstabbing, and a lot of heated glaring unite them, until they’re both drawn into a plot to take down God―who’s really just some guy with a great garden. As they spiral through layers of the city’s history and underground rebel group, Cyprin and her rival will find they understand each other like no one else does, even if there can only be one head gardener in the end.
But rise or fall, at least Cyprin will always have the rats.
A chaotically queer exploration of love, ambition, and toxic work culture, The Divine Gardener’s Handbook is a romp of a science fantasy that will leave you gasping for more.
Link: Goodreads
Tapeworm — A.P. Thayer
Genre: Horror
Rep: Queer
From Dusk till Dawn if the characters hooked up with The Thing in this twisted, gory horror debut, where a group of friends must confront questions of identity, aging, and desire during a vampire infestation in an isolated Californian desert.
It needs to feed.
After the recent separation from his wife Trish, Victor hopes his friends’ annual weekend retreat to the Californian desert town of Superstition will loosen him up and reforge the group’s fraying bonds. But something is waiting underneath Superstition, crawling its way into their group and feeding into their desires.
Victor knows too well what it means to repress his desires. He’s always attempted to be the perfect partner, yet often found himself lacking. With Trish skipping the trip, he begins falling into the wild underbelly of Superstition in new ways. When the leader of the town’s Welcoming Committee approaches him with a romantic, sexually charged offer, Victor wonders if it’s too good to be true.
But the Welcoming Committee expects a price to be paid for its services. One that cannot be fulfilled by willing bodies alone. By the end of the weekend, group bonding will have developed a whole new meaning.
Because something is hungry for Victor and his friends.
Link: Goodreads
A (Dead) Thing Like Me — E.G. Young
Genre: YA paranormal
Rep: Queer
A teenage ghost in love with life becomes bound to the house of the grieving artist who summoned her via Ouija board in this darkly funny YA paranormal.
One hot dog with banana peppers. That’s all Hot Dog wants. An invisible teenage ghost, she haunts a food cart outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Until one night, she’s accidentally summoned via Ouija board to a house party in Florida... where finally finally finally, people can see her.
All the party guests scatter, except for Logan: the cool artist girl who doesn’t just see Hot Dog, she actually wants to talk to her. Logan, who isn’t scared of Hot Dog’s stitched mouth or chattering dress. Logan, who’s grieving her own dead BFF—and called Hot Dog by mistake.
Hot Dog wants to prove it’s not a mistake.
She can be Logan’s new best friend. She can go to Logan’s Halloween party. She can eat snacks, have sleepovers, and hang out. She can definitely smile without scaring people. Exactly like a real, human girl.
There’s one problem: Hog Dog’s not a real, living human girl, and something in Logan’s sprawling house knows it. It scratches like rats in the walls. It opens a secret door in Logan’s attic. It wants to drag Hot Dog into the nothingness where dead things go. And unless Hot Dog can confront the dark truth of how she died, it will unmake Logan too.
Gorgeously strange and stunningly written, this YA paranormal masterfully melds camp and creep into a beyond-the-grave coming-of-age.
Link: Goodreads
August 21, 2026
The Early Adventures of Rune & Brand: The Hex Vault — K.D. Edwards
Genre: Urban fantasy
Rep: Bi+ and gay characters; queernorm culture
Series: Prequel to The Tarot Sequence
Ten years before the events of The Last Sun, Rune Saint John and his Companion, Brand, are just starting out: they’re in a new home called Half House, a decade into serving Lord Tower, and on their first solo assignments—no backup team, no magical armory, no room for mistakes.
Which is unfortunate, because they’re young enough to make a lot of them.
Now Lord Tower is sending them undercover to live and work in Lord Magician’s portal warehouse, the Hex Vault, where some of New Atlantis’s most priceless and most dangerous artifacts are stored. Someone on the inside has plans to sabotage the operation. Rune and Brand must identify the saboteur before the damage turns deadly.
Link: Patreon (releases as a Patreon serial beginning August 21)
August 24, 2026
Fortune’s Wake — C.L. Clark
Genre: Science fiction
Rep: Sapphic
Kill the beast. Earn some coin. Get the girl.
Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Kova of Stormwatch made a promise when she left her mother and sweetheart weeping on the shore back she’d earn her fortune slaying the beasts that haunt the woods and the horrors that lurk in the shadows, or she would die trying. But to do that, she needs an apprenticeship with a master monster hunter. The best of the Sayre Boarbane.
Pity that Sayre works alone.
When Sayre drags Kova home by the ear, they’re both in for a rude awakening. Kova’s mother? Missing. Kova’s lover? Taking long walks on the beach with a stranger.
And all those monsters Kova wanted to slay? They’re back in Stormwatch, dragging villagers into the ocean.
Link: Goodreads
August 25, 2026
Hellbound — Stephanie Binx
Genre: Dark romantic contemporary fantasy
Rep: M/F; queer characters, including MMC
Dying is all in a day’s work for a Hell-diver like Marian—until a routine round-trip to the afterlife goes wrong—for fans of The Wren in the Holly Library and TV’s Lucifer.
Hell is empty, and all the devils are here, but nobody knows why—not even the devils themselves. Now, sadistic demons roam the earth, offering small fortunes to any mortal sucker dumb or desperate enough to die on their behalf as they retrieve artifacts from a Hell they can’t recall. Washed-up journalist Marian Meyer is one of those mortal suckers dying for a living as she fetches clues for a demonic puzzle that she doesn’t care to solve.
Riddled with debt she’ll never be able to pay off and guilt over her mother’s death, Marian made her first lucrative deal with a demon and never looked back. Never mind that being a Hell-diver means that she must voluntarily drown herself—or that the human body wasn’t meant to die more than once—and she’s definitely feeling it.
Unfortunately, the last time Marian went to Hell, she came back wrong. Memories of that night are missing, and she’ll do anything she can to find them, including teaming up with one of her mysterious (and oddly alluring) demonic patrons, Mr. Vale. But when their tenuous alliance thrusts Marian even deeper into a world of betrayal, humans with strange powers, and demonic politics, she’ll have to decide if allying with Mr. Vale is her ticket to freedom or damnation in disguise.
One part slow-burn romance and one part acerbic wit, Hellbound is a dark, romantic contemporary fantasy perfect for readers who prefer their casts morally grey and the stakes sky-high.
Link: Goodreads
Summer Coven — Kat Hillis & Rosiee Thor
Genre: Cozy paranormal mystery
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 2 of A Dead & Breakfast Mystery
Everyone’s favorite vampire odd couple is back for another bloody good time in this new supernatural mystery from the authors of Dead & Breakfast.
Arthur Miller (no relation to the playwright) and his beloved, Salvatore Conte, are settling into their (para)normal lives in Trident Falls. Finally, everything seems to be going swimmingly… business is booming at the inn and Arthur is hard at work on his first case as a private detective: finding their friend Brody’s missing mom.
But when a pet psychic is felled by a poisoned potion she (somehow) didn’t see coming, Arthur’s investigation takes an enchanting turn—and not in a good way. It turns out the psychic was a member of the Celestine Coven, a powerful group of witches who sell their charms for a price. Did the pet psychic find herself on the wrong side of the coven? Or did she trigger someone’s pet peeves with her predictions? It will require all of Arthur’s wit and Sal’s whimsy to solve this murder, find their missing person, and avoid becoming part of the witches’ wicked brew.
Link: Kobo
Daggerbound — T. Kingfisher
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 2 of Swordheart
New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher returns to the cozy fantasy world of Swordheart in this deliciously charming sequel.
Four hundred years ago, three warriors were trapped inside enchanted swords, cursed to be immortal servants of whoever wielded the blade. One of them is the Dervish, a restless, fiery soul who hates his captivity and hates his wielders even more, but has never found a way to escape the sword’s magic.
Then one day, a disillusioned scholar named Learned Edmund is tasked with delivering the sword to a distant city, and, in the greatest of peril, draws the blade. The Dervish finds himself bound to a sweet, brilliant, and above all kind young man. And while he 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.
Link: Goodreads
A Viper Among Kings — Sydney Olivia
Genre: Epic science fantasy
Rep: Queer; bi FMC; polyamory
Brace yourself for an exhilarating epic fantasy trilogy with a diverse cast, polyamory, and chaotic sentient magic, for fans of V.E. Schwab and Antonia Hodgson.
In the twisted city of Amaris, magic spawns from chaos. Prone to driving humans mad, it can only be wielded safely by the Wraiths—seven immortal beings magically bound to obey the king.
Esme is the most notorious Wraith. She has spent the last century forced to kill on behalf of the nation that stole her from her homeworld while building a secret life for herself and her wife away from violence.
That is, until the current king turns up murdered, and a magical will demands his successor be chosen through three trials. Esme cannot break the magical shackles that bind her, but she will suffer no more tyrants. She rigs the king’s succession trials in favour of her chosen candidate: the righteous General Balthazar, who she can’t help but fall for.
As Esme weaves together the threads of the court on Balthazar’s behalf amid a strange tide of sentient magic in the city and a growing war on the horizon, she will come face to face with Balthazar’s bloody past, troubled present, and countless betrayals.
He isn’t the man Esme thought he was—but she was born to make and break kings.
Link: Goodreads
Fruits of Our Labor — Ian Patterson
Genre: Science fiction
Rep: Queer
A new world is emerging, one parthenogenetic birth at a time.
It’s 2049 and American women have legally recognized human asexual reproduction. Samara yearns for freedom from her dying relationship, and a child of her own—fully her own. Yet as parthenogenetic birth takes hold and the role of men in the survival of the species wanes, protest and outcry sweep across the nation.
It’s 2062 and Sierra, one of the first “partho princesses,” is bullied relentlessly as she grows up and seeks her own place in this new pressure cooker of evolving gender roles and norms.
It’s 2085—the aftermath of the “Days of Horror,” a period of violent backlash from displaced men—and a professor of history looks back on the rise of PG birth in an attempt to understand, and communicate, the full impact of this era of genetic and political upheaval.
Together, these three converging perspectives tell the story of a profound societal transformation that asks what it means to have autonomy, who reaps the rewards, and who the future is for.
Link: Goodreads
The City of Slaughter — Aden Polydoros
Genre: YA historical fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 2 of The City Beautiful
The World’s Fair has packed up, the tents and food stalls disappeared. And the dybbuk, a restless spirit that possessed Alter, is gone. Life returns to normal for Frankie and Alter, as both boys inspire each other to start a detective agency—using skills from Frankie’s dark past and Alter’s desire to do good in their community. But when children start to go missing, Frankie is certain the supernatural is once again to blame, as they race to track down a sheyd, a demon-like entity. But in order to save his future with Alter, Frankie will have to confront his past.
Link: Goodreads
Whispers of Shadows and Gold — Meghan Saint
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 1 of The Shadowborn Saga
Failure will cost her more than love. It will cost her freedom.
Avelina Wright swore she would never return to Terridon—the city ruled by the Ruthless Divine Order. Her home.
But love has a way of making you break vows.
Already reeling from the death of her closest friend, when a warlock binds her sorceress lover to a lethal bargain, Avelina accepts a mission to save her. To do so, she must steal a forbidden artifact locked deep within Terridon's vaults.
Gathering a team along the way—including a Fae warrior bound to her past, Avelina must risk becoming ensnared once more in the cult's grip, uncover truths while guarding her own secrets, and face a power awakening within her that may prove just as dangerous as the enemies she faces. All to save the woman she loves.
But even love cannot overcome the truth.
Link: Goodreads
Love Me Like a Rock Song — Shelly Jay Shore
Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Rep: Queer; nonbinary MC; Jewish
Delilah is a lyricist looking for a muse. Emmett is a golem ready to be unmade.
When Delilah Cohen’s much more famous fiancée leaves her at the altar right before Delilah is supposed to start recording her first solo album, she finds herself with a notebook full of love songs that no longer make sense. Picking up a hitchhiker two hours into the road trip that was supposed to be her honeymoon seems as good a way as any to get her groove back. The last thing she expects is to start falling for her mysterious new passenger, but what’s more inspiring than a rebound with a built-in expiration date?
But there’s more to Emmett than meets the eye. Emmett is a golem, a human-ish being of Jewish mythology who was created from clay to serve a now-deceased master. No longer needed, their final task is to make their way back to the California cave where they were made in order to undo the magic that brought them to life in the first place. But the longer Emmett spends with Delilah—who has plenty of secrets and insecurities of her own—as they cross the country to visit historical queer locales from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, the more their ending feels like something to fight, rather than something set in stone.
As the California coast brings Delilah’s writing deadline—and Emmett’s fate—closer with every passing mile, Delilah has to decide just what song it is she wants to write… and whether writing the album of a lifetime is worth losing a love she never expected to find.
Part road trip romcom, part epistolary exploration of America’s vibrant queer culture, and all a love letter to the phrase “it’s about the journey, not the destination,” Love Me Like a Rock Song is a glorious love story about discovering who we are and what we want, and what it means to be human.
Link: Goodreads
The Burn Line — Jonathan Sims
Genre: Horror
Rep: Queer
From the dark and twisted mind behind the podcast sensation The Magnus Archives comes a suffocating, socially charged nightmare that reveals how fear festers in the cracks of everyday life…
Beneath the streets of London, it hungers…
It’s the hottest summer on record and the city is suffering. Prices are high, pay is low. And on one fateful morning five travelers find themselves trapped in a tube car deep in the London Underground.
It will change their lives forever.
By the time they leave the train they will be bound together as witnesses to a single horrific event. Something terrible, irreversible, and monstrous. Something hungry.
But they can’t remember what it is.
On their own, they each begin to experience strange dissociative events. Time gets lost. Friends disappear. Something stalks them in the shadows. They make an unlikely team, but to remember what they encountered that day on the train, they will have to work together. Because now it’s up to them to understand what horror they saw—and stop it in its tracks before it drags everyone else down below.
Link: Kobo
August 26, 2026
Folk of the Foundling — Liv Evans
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Foundling Folk
Paloma thought that coming home to the Foundling Inn would mean warm meals, familiar faces, and a chance to grieve her father’s passing.
Just when it feels like life might get back to normal, a horde of skeletons bursts through the front door and ruins it all.
But the attack is more than just a random act of violence. The dead are rising, small towns are falling, and the power-hungry regent is too busy preparing for his coronation to do anything about it. Luckily, Paloma’s mother and her best friend are no strangers to fighting. Once, they stood alongside their fellow adventurers to stop the regent from seizing control of the realm. Their rebellion might have failed, but their courage did not. After rising from the ashes of their defeat to build the Foundling Inn, a sanctuary for misfits and free spirits, they refuse to let a little something like necromancy tear it down.
Together with old family, new friends, and a talking skillet, Paloma sets out to uncover the cause of the undead threat. Because while the thought of saving the realm may seem a bit too ambitious, protecting their home is non-negotiable.
Link: Goodreads
August 27, 2026
Earthbound — Saara El-Arifi
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: M/F; F/F
Series: Book 3 of Faebound
Broken by love. Trapped by war. Bound by magic.
Lettle is on a quest to uncover the truth. Along with the human Alder, the last of his kind, she sets off on an arduous journey of discovery. But after a painful separation from King Rayan, she is struggling to find her way.
Alder is determined to learn more about his origins. With no memories of his childhood, he retraces his steps to the cave where it all began. But what he finds there may shake him to the core.
Back in the fae court, Yeeran has other priorities. The warrior-turned-ambassador must negotiate a peace treaty with the elven army to save them all. But it’s hard to bargain with a duplicitous enemy. And it’s even harder to negotiate with a broken heart.
Secrets ripple like an earthquake across the land, and love and power is at the core of them all…
Link: Goodreads
The Haunting of Avis Lovelock — M.K. Hardy
Genre: Supernatural historical mystery
Rep: Sapphic
A professional sceptic must join forces with the professional spiritualist who has a knack for getting under her skin in this supernatural Victorian mystery for fans of Voyage of the Damned and The London Seance Society.
Avis Lovelock is a professional sceptic. Using her sharp insights and powers of observation, she sets out to debunk every nefarious spirit medium and psychic she can find. When American businessman Carlton Brooksbank invites her aboard the ocean liner Excambion to take her skills to America, Avis discovers she has been hired to prove to potential buyers that the vessel is not haunted.
As she begins her investigations, she runs afoul of the famous twin spiritualists onboard, Gideon and Rachel Duquesne. They are her polar opposites, and Rachel especially has a knack for getting under her skin. The more Avis works to discredit her adversaries and absolve the ship of its haunted reputation, the more she starts to have visions of water filling her cabin, drowned bodies on decks, and flickering lights on the sea. Then someone is found dead.
To discover the truth, Avis must join forces with her opponents, and confront some haunting secrets of her own.
Link: Geni.us
August 28, 2026
The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps — Elizabeth Hrib
Genre: Cozy romantasy
Rep: F/F
Series: Book 1 of Ember Ridge
When a burn nurse with a fear of dragon fire meets a gorgeous but reckless dragon wrangler, things burn hot enough to light their small mountain town on fire.
Burn nurse Eden has accepted a job from her old mentor at the Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps, hoping for peace and quiet in Ember Ridge—a charming mountain town famous for singed tourists and reckless dragon riders. Instead, she arrives to find the infirmary in chaos.
Her mentor is stranded out of town, wild dragons are causing havoc and Eden is left running the infirmary on her first day. Worse, she keeps crossing paths with Vaela, the town’s dragon wrangler, whose talent for surviving impossible situations is matched only by a talent for getting under Eden’s skin.
Vaela is everything Eden hates: brooding, reckless and arrogant.
But when local dragons begin acting strangely and the kingsguard descends on Ember Ridge, whispers spread of the Wretch—the most feared dragon in the realm. Eden and Vaela are forced into an uneasy partnership to save the town, but every argument between them sparks into something hotter and far more dangerous than they expected.
Because falling for a dragon wrangler was never part of Eden’s plan. But neither is watching Ember Ridge—and her guarded heart—go up in flames.
Filled with cozy taverns, chaotic dragons and a fiercely lovable found family, this cozy romantasy is the perfect escape for readers who like their fantasy warm, whimsical and fiery.
Link: Goodreads