2026 is right around the corner, so you know the drill! Here are my most highly anticipated fantasy, sci-fi, and horror book releases to add to your TBR. Among them you'll find: prowling beasts, eldritch gods, grad students regretting their life choices, and not one but two Moby Dick retellings in space.
The Swan's Daughter by Roshani Chokshi
Release: January 6, 2026
Prince Arris knows that marriage means murder. Thanks to a poorly worded wish to a sea witch, all one needs to rule the Isle of Malys is the heart and hand of the kingdom’s heir. Historically, this has been construed quite literally.
Thus, Arris expects that the day after his marriage and murder he will wake up as a sentient tree alongside the rest of his predecessors. His only chance at a long life is finding true and lasting love. When Arris's parents announce a tournament of brides to compete for his hand and heart, a slew of eligible, lovely and (possibly murderous) bachelorettes make their way to Rathe Castle. Amidst glittering balls in ozorald caves, strolls through menageries of daydream trees and pearl crocodiles, tea time on glass boats and kisses that leave his head spinning, Arris cannot tell who is here out of love for him…or lust for power.
Until he meets Demelza.
As a veritas swan, Demelza’s song wrings out the truth. Forced into hiding, Demelza strikes a deal. Arris will provide her with safekeeping in exchange for her truth-telling song to sort through his potential brides.
While Arris is used to dodging death threats and Demelza is accustomed to fighting for her voice to be heard, to survive the tournament of brides requires a different kind of bravery. And perhaps the bravest thing one can do is not merely protect one’s life, but find the courage to chase a life worth living.
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
Release: January 20, 2026
In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land consumed by famine, and poetry magic lost to all except the powerful.
Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.
Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel heir of the beautiful and brutal Azalea House.
But in a twist of fate, the palace stands on the knife-edge of civil war with Wei trapped in its center…at the side of a violent prince.
To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself. Even if it means becoming a poet in a world where women are forbidden to read—and composing the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of death...and love.
The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman
Release: January 27, 2026
Bisclavret is cursed: to live his life in exile; to take a wolf’s shape involuntarily; to lie to everybody he meets. And yet he has always dreamed of knighthood, of brotherhood and belonging. When the old king dies unexpectedly, Bisclavret travels to the royal court to seek his rightful inheritance and swear fealty to the new king. It’s here that he discovers the mysterious young warrior now wearing the crown is willing to offer him far more than just his father’s lands, and suddenly the life that seemed like an impossible fantasy is catapulted within his grasp. But can someone who is hardly a man ever truly be a knight?
The king is lonely: recently returned to court from an exile of his own to inherit a crown he never wanted. And yet he’s fascinated by his newest knight, a man who carries secrets along with his sword, and fascination quickly turns to longing. When Bisclavret is seemingly killed by a wolf, the weight of the king’s grief almost destroys him. He swears to have his vengeance, but at the height of the hunt he encounters an animal that seems too intelligent to be the violent beast he seeks. One might even say it has the mind of a man…
Greedy by Callie Kazumi
Release: February 3, 2026
They will kill me soon, Edward Cook thinks. And when the Yakuza are unable to collect what he owes, Ed realizes, theyʼll go after his wife and child next. Broke, desperate, and unemployed, he stumbles upon an unusual ad: Chef wanted! Private chef for a high-profile businesswoman. One million yen per day.
Ed accepts the job. He hasnʼt earned any Michelin stars, but he knows his way around a kitchen. Leaving his life in Tokyo behind, he departs for an opulent estate in the mountains owned by the enigmatic and reclusive Hazeline Yamamoto, a disgraced socialite with a predatorʼs smile and an exacting palate. Hazelineʼs world is one of taste, connoisseurship, and experimentation—she is a certified gourmand. But when you can afford filet mignon for every meal, you begin to seek out the strange and forbidden.
The closer Ed gets to Hazeline and the brighter future that she promises—if he remains loyal—the nearer he is to realizing the chilling truth about her altruism. In this shadow world of unimaginable wealth, there are worse monsters than two-bit gangsters. The wind blowing through Hazeline’s home carries the sound of screaming, and Ed finds himself feeding all kinds of beasts.
The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui
Release: February 3, 2026
Summer 1816: London is a hostile place for the newly disembarked Mehrunissa Begum, who’s come to deliver her brother’s letter of inheritance before returning to her comfortable life in Lucknow, India. Only, she can’t find her brother anywhere and has no money for the return trip. With nowhere else to go, Mehr finds refuge in a boardinghouse for Indian maids. If she can’t find her brother, she reasons, she will get a job and start saving.
Mehr is soon hired at the English estate of Mary and Percy Shelley, young artists of burgeoning fame who are on the run from secrets of their own. Mary is brooding and quiet, but takes a curious liking to her new maid, asking her to accompany the Shelleys and her stepsister, Claire—as well as the eccentric Lord Byron and his physician, John Polidori—to Lake Geneva for the summer.
Almost immediately, Mehr notices strange, ghostly events at the villa. The walls breathe, portraits shift, and phantoms appear like unbidden guests who refuse to leave. The weather is fierce and foreboding, showing no signs of softening its relentless pall. And as Mary Shelley begins work on what will become her earth-shattering literary phenomenon, Mehr finds herself trapped in the villa as the rest of its inhabitants descend into madness.
The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox by Katrina Kwan
Release: February 24, 2026
Yue may be the last of her kind. At night, she stalks the streets of the capital city of Longhao, luring in unsuspecting victims with the mask of a beautiful woman, then consuming them in her true form of the nine-tailed fox.
When she is captured by a powerful demon hunter named Sonam and banished to Hell, she manages one final act of revenge: dragging him—and two of his subordinates—down with her.
Now trapped in an abyss with unimaginable terrors, they’ll need each other’s help to navigate Hell and bypass the gods who preside over each circle, each of whom presents the group with a unique and deadly challenge. Forced to depend on one another as they claw their way out of the underworld, both demon and demon hunter discover that there might be more to the other than meets the eye.
The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan
Release: February 24, 2026
In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake.
Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel – who takes payment in living hearts – it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.
Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.
Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall
Release: March 10, 2026
Earth is dead. Which leaves us stuck living in atmospheric domes on planets that will kill us if we blink wrong, or run out of fuel. And by “fuel” I mean “the cerebrospinal fluid of gargantuan, quasi-psychic space monsters”.
I joined the hunt hoping to get paid and maybe laid, but mostly paid. Instead, I followed a captain chasing abominations in the skies of Jupiter.
We battled the Möbius Beast itself, there in the red eye of the world.
Spoiler: we lost.
These Shattered Spires by Cassidy Ellis Salter
Release: March 10, 2026
Entombed beneath a tooth-filled sky, the world rots. Those who haven't yet decayed inhabit Fourspires Castle, home to arcanists from the four disciplines--blood, bone, stone and botany.
But when the king of Fourspires is assassinated, the castle is thrown into chaos. To crown a new ruler, the arcanists and their familiars must kill or be killed in a bloody fight to the top of the Fifth Tower. For the familiars, who are the arcanists' servants and sources of power, this will mean certain death.
Nixie, a botanical familiar, discovers that this fate can be avoided if she and familiars from each discipline find four cursed keys and take them to the Fifth Tower themselves. It's a dangerous and deeply illegal quest, and none of them has reason to trust one another. But with just forty-eight hours until the competition begins, four tenuous allies must decide if they can bear to work together long enough to save themselves.
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White
Release: March 10, 2026
Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing—doctor, scientist, and madman devoted to the study of vampires—until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body. A woman who leaves no trace behind, other than the dreams and nightmares that now plague Anneke every night.
Spurred by her desire for vengeance and armed with the latest forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch this mysterious serial killer. Because her father isn’t the only inexplicable dead body. There’s a trail of victims across Europe, and Anneke is certain they’re all connected.
But during the years spent relentlessly hunting the killer, Anneke keeps crucial evidence to herself: infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to her, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola.
The closer Anneke gets to her devil, though, the less sense the world makes. Maybe her father wasn’t a madman after all. Diavola might be something much worse than a serial killer . . . and much harder to destroy. Yet as Anneke unearths more of Diavola’s tragic past, she suspects there’s still a heart somewhere in that undead body.
A heart that beats for Anneke alone.
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher
Release: March 24, 2026
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.
Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence
Release: March 24, 2026
The Academy of Kindness exists to create agents of retribution, cast in the image of the Furies—known as the kindly ones—against whom even the gods hesitate to stand. Each year a hundred girls are sold to the Academy. Ten years later only three will emerge.
The Academy’s halls run with blood. The few that survive its decade-long nightmare have been forged on the sands of the Wound Garden. They have learned ancient secrets amid the necrotic fumes of the Bone Garden. They leave its gates as avatars of vengeance, bound to uphold the oldest of laws.
Only the most desperate would sell their child to the Kindnesses. But Rue … she sold herself. And now, a lifetime later, a long and bloody lifetime later, just as she has discovered peace, war has been brought to an old woman’s doorstep.
That was a mistake.
The Celestial Seas by T. A. Chan
Release: March 31, 2026
Ishara Ming is the sole survivor of a spacefaring whaler destroyed by the Ballena, a legendary sentient spacecraft that haunts the darkness between stars. The fatal encounter left her with a metal-plated arm, a faulty memory chip, and a burning need for revenge.
To take on the Ballena, Ishara assembles a crew of capable misfits. Among them is Quinn—her trusted first mate, the girl with wildfire eyes, and the only person who always stands by her side, even when everyone else thinks Ishara is a delusional captain who hallucinated the Ballena.
That is, until Augustus, a ship mech armed with his own mysterious reasons for vengeance, convinces Ishara to let him join the crew. He brings the one thing Ishara’s never had before: a tracking method tailored for finding the Ballena. Pulled between Quinn’s and Augustus’s gravitational forces, the pressure to issue increasingly risky orders, and the feeling that her past is rapidly catching up with her future, Ishara has to decide what—or who—she is fighting for before she loses another ship.
Monumental by Adam Nevill
Release: April 2, 2026
Disaster strikes quickly and without warning. What should have been a glorious weekend of kayaking and camping, in a secluded beauty spot, is transformed by a scream. The first crisis, initiating a deadly momentum that accelerates as the valley reveals itself to Marcus and his five companions.
They're trespassing on strictly private land. There's only one way out. An escape route closed until the next high tide fills the estuary. In twelve hour's time.
Recreation becomes survival.
Marooned, unable to summon help, harassed by dire and worsening circumstances, the ties that bind the expedition are stretched taut. If they snap, vital cooperation will unravel and the group member's damning secrets will be revealed.
Only the most courageous and committed have any chance against the area's inhabitants. But is any mind strong enough to endure a confrontation with the most hideous revelation of all? An ancient evil that coils beneath the valley's sinister folklore.
A story of life and death in the wilderness, and a horrifying tale of extreme survival against supernatural powers, from the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.
Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai
Release: April 14, 2026
As a priestess paid to guide the deceased home, Kang Siying has never feared death. But when her beloved father collapses, Siying realizes that even she is not free from the cruel grasp of mortality. Desperate to provide her father with the medical aid he needs, Siying accepts a dangerous job that promises a generous commission, and travels to a hostile state to retrieve the corpse of a missing prince.
But the moment Siying places her reanimation talisman on the dead prince's head, rather than make the corpse obedient to Siying's commands, the talisman brings the prince back to life. Worse, he won't stay alive for long—not unless he absorbs enough qi, or life force, to keep his soul anchored to his body.
In return for a reward worth twice her original commission, Siying agrees to aid the frustratingly handsome prince in finding and purifying evil spirits for their qi. But as they journey across the countryside, encountering vengeful ghosts and enemy spies alike, they gradually uncover dark secrets about the prince's death—secrets that could endanger both Siying's father and their entire kingdom.
A Dark and Wild Wood by Sarah Nicole Lemon
Release: May 12, 2026
Ever since she was a child, Salomé has been plagued by visions of spirits and dangerous powers she can’t control. After watching her foster mother burn as a witch, she and her beloved sister Rochelle are raised together in a convent, a grim and dreary existence. Until one day, Rochelle vanishes.
Determined to find a way to save her, Salomé runs: first to a brothel, and then, after a terrible accident, away from the village and into the woods. Deep amongst the trees of the wild Black Forest, she comes face-to-face with Lord Death.
Rather than taking her life, he brings her to his home at the heart of the woods, a strange manor full of locked rooms and mysterious corridors, crumbling one moment, magnificent the next. He promises to make her his apprentice and teach her how to harness her mind and magic. His words are as seductive as his presence—but should one trust Death?
The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham
Release: June 2, 2026
One hundred years have passed since the last heir of Gyldan fell into eternal slumber and doomed the once-mighty kingdom to poverty and invasion. At least, that’s what the fairy tales claim.
Corin is a jaded thief who doesn’t believe in fables, even when she searches Gyldan’s underground tunnels to find her younger sister, Elly, who ran away to find the sleeping princess in hopes of a better life. Corin's conviction is challenged when she discovers the ruins of the ancient castle, maintained by beings from the kingdom's golden age, who protect a hidden portal into Princess Amelia's subconscious. Following Elly’s voice, Corin jumps in the portal and seals the entry behind her.
Inside the lush world of Amelia's dreams, the sisters reunite for a new adventure as they meet Briar Rose, Amelia’s whimsical alter ego, and Malicine, a sharp-tongued demon with a gift for magic. But as they explore ice castles, sunflower mazes, and star-filled oceans, Corin suspects Briar Rose is hiding darker secrets behind her "perfect" paradise – and that there are some things her subconscious can’t bury forever.
The Sea Hides Its Dead by Megan Bontrager
Release: July 14, 2026
Grad student Caro has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but when an opportunity arises to act as a research assistant on an anthropological expedition for her professor and lover, Edward Beck, she doesn't hesitate.
Beck assembles a team of academics and professionals to study the ancient sea-based Cult of the Leviathan, and the expedition descends into the sea caves where the cult are said to have dwelt.
But when the cave entrance collapses, trapping them inside, the expedition will find they are not alone in the darkness. Surrounded by strange artefacts and scattered bones, an ancient trial has been set in motion. One by one, the members of the expedition will be tested and forced to atone for their greatest sin. . . or die.
A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-young
Release: August 11, 2026
While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Mu-young gets a disaster alert on her phone. TVs throughout the station report breaking news of a massive earthquake on the eastern coast. Despite the danger, Mu-young boards the train with her she’d rather face the earthquake than leave the girl in her mother’s care. That choice haunts her for the rest of her life.
Three years later, Haewon Village is home to horrors. The earthquake unleashed an ancient plague that transforms its victims into fishy monsters, and the government’s lockdown has cut off any hope for help. Mu-young’s niece is dead, and all that’s left for her is to hunt villagers who break isolation. When an officious bureaucrat from Seoul arrives in the village, he stirs up even deeper trouble. Will Mu-young survive? Does she even deserve to?
Reliquary by Hannah Whitten
Release: August 11, 2026
When Claire’s fiancé mysteriously dies of an unknown neurological illness, she’s prepared to sink back into the lonely life she lived before. Orphaned by a freak boating accident in her childhood, she never expected to find connection like she did with Elias, anyway. Their relationship wasn’t perfect—his coldness, his secrets, his strange aversion to the ocean—but what relationship is?
When Elias’s family reaches out—his incredibly wealthy family, from whom he was estranged—and invites Claire to a three-day wake at Harrow Point, their family home on a private island, Claire is given the chance to find family again. To belong to something, just like she’s always wanted. Just like Elias knew she was desperate to have.
Even if that family is a little strange. Even if their coastal home stirs up memories of the accident that killed her parents and sister. Even if Ash, Elias’s older brother, seems insistent on Claire leaving as soon as possible.
As she dives deeper into the world of Harrow Point, she will uncover the nature of her own traumatic connection to the ocean. There is something swimming in the bowels of Harrow Point, and it is hungry…
Scorpion Deep by C.G. Drews
Release: October 27, 2026
The only thing Jonathan Covey wants from the gloomy, moldering isle of Kelcarrow is to leave it. Summer is ending, and his friends are looking forward to college on the mainland, unaware that Jonathan was not accepted to join them. He'll be left behind with nothing but the ocean's haunts and a rising dread of being abandoned.
In an act of wild desperation, Jonathan pays a tithe to Scorpion Deep, an eldritch sea god who many of the locals have dismissed as myth. He wants to forget the past, he wants to follow his friends, and most of all he wants to finally escape.
To his shock and horror, the ritual works—Scorpion Deep awakens. And despite his terror, Jonathan can't help but feel drawn toward the ageless entity that seems just as mutually obsessed with him. As scales start growing down his spine and Scorpion Deep's adoration of him turns bloody, Jonathan realizes the only way to end the nightmare is to destroy the monster one way or another.
But once a god has awoken, the only way to be free is to pay a price of blood.
The Forest Bleeds by Rachel Kitch
Release: Fall 2026
Saige Chambers is constantly anxious and chronically over-prepared. From determining the best application of her blood witch magic in her bioengineering Ph.D. to figuring out how to fit in with her cohort, she’s desperate to find structure in a life full of open-ended questions. So when Saige and her fellow doctoral candidates depart for a conference, she has planned and anticipated every last detail.
She’s not prepared for the moment their bus turns off the highway and takes them to a remote mansion in the Appalachian mountains, the gates sealing shut behind them.
The mansion’s owner, Arius Medea, issues a simple mandate: fix his injured leg or die. But it’s no ordinary injury – the flesh melts off the bone, emitting waves of foul magic that set Saige’s blood alight.
Saige’s colleagues want to fight back and escape. Saige thinks their best chance is to fix him fast and get out.
As tensions rise, Saige finds herself growing closer to Vaishnavi Sri, a poison witch and Saige’s long-term crush. But first impressions can be misleading, and as Saige’s reluctant attraction to Arius grows, she begins to wonder if there’s a better life waiting for her in the walls of this mansion.
And then, one by one, her colleagues start to disappear.
As Saige struggles to unravel the twisted magic of Arius’s affliction in hopes of saving their lives, she starts to think that dying may not be the worst option – because there are far worse fates lurking in the woods.
Honorable Mentions: The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig, The Rouse by China Mieville, and Florescentia by I.V. Ophelia.
OK, that's a wrap! Which upcoming releases are you most excited for? Did I miss any that should be on my radar?
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