This month’s database comes to you from smoky orangish skies and toxic lettuce, truthful what amended clip to distract ourselves with haunted seaside villages, mysterious brackish pillars, and demon hunters? Robert Jackson Bennett’s phantasy detectives are connected a caller case, portion caller mothers combat to prevention their realm successful Laura E. Weymouth’s latest fantasy. Meanwhile, Suyi Davies Okungbowa brings his Nameless Republic trilogy to an end, portion C.L. Clark bides their clip betwixt epic bid with different novella that packs truthful galore punches into a tiny package. And don’t miss K.S. Shay’s debut Portrait of a Witch Undone from our 2026 SFF preview!
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Laura E. Weymouth, The Castle & the Cloister
(Saga Press, August 4)
Give maine each the epic phantasy successful which women scope crossed antithetic stations to enslaved implicit shared experiences and pledge their allegiances successful times of instability. Young parent Fia is simply a postulant of Honoria’s prima goddess Raea, but she indispensable beryllium her loyalty by delivering a connection to Honoria’s queen—a three-day errand, and past she tin instrumentality to her babe kid with the warrant of protection. But erstwhile Fia arrives astatine court, Queen Ariana is recovering from a hard labor; upon recognizing her from their shared work arsenic battlefield nurses, Fia agrees to go Ariana’s bedewed nurse. But Ariana’s hubby threatens Honoria’s fragile bid with the conquering Inver clan. And let’s not hide the Inver Priest plotting wrong the bosom of a mountain…!
Kim Bo-Young (translated by Sophie Bowman), A Plagued Sea
(Tor Nightfire, August 11)
The English translation of Kim Bo-Young’s taut novella transplants a acquainted Lovecraftian communicative successful Korea: the isolated seaside colony devastated by an earthquake, and the otherworldly transformations wrought upon its inhabitants. Bodyguard Mu-young winds up trapped successful Haewon Village erstwhile she insists connected accompanying her niece there; 3 years later, the miss is dormant and Mu-young reluctantly works arsenic security, enforcing the island’s quarantine against fishy monsters. But erstwhile a bureaucrat from Seoul arrives, stubbornly ignoring each warnings to debar the infection, Mu-young indispensable determine who she is genuinely meant to protect.
Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Season of the Serpent
(Orbit Books, August 11)
As his West African-inspired Nameless Republic trilogy draws to a close, Suyi Davies Okungbowa writes to his readers, “We travel to epic phantasy due to the fact that we tendency a book—nay, a trilogy of books—where magic meets mayhem, wherever wonderment meets monsters, wherever bid meets disorder.” On the cusp of the Third Great War, helium volition seal the fates of the trio of characters introduced successful Son of the Storm: student Danso, caught up successful war; warrior Lilong, searching for her mislaid powers; and fixer Esheme, dabbling successful acheronian destinies. The continent of Oon is entering a caller property of uncertainty and change, wherever characters’ relationships tin reshape the continent connected a expansive scale.
Robert Jackson Bennett, A Trade of Blood
(Del Rey, August 11)
It’s been a infinitesimal since we’ve had a due ongoing SFF bid that doesn’t wrapper up successful a trilogy, and the 3rd (but by nary means final) installment of Robert Jackson Bennett’s fantasy-mystery bid Shadow of the Leviathan keeps things intriguing without immoderate motion of stopping. Detective duo Ana and Din initially stoop to analyse the seemingly elemental execution of a gentry girl, but each item gets much bloodily fascinating: she and her paramour were star-crossed lovers from rival clans; he’s accused of her murder, yet Din tin consciousness with his enhanced abilities that immoderate of the transgression was staged postmortem; and past the suspect’s siblings commencement dropping similar flies.
Natasha Pulley, The Salt King
(Bloomsbury, August 18)
A clergyman inexplicably turns into a pillar of salt, but is it a biblical occurrence oregon a harbinger of the extremity times? In Natasha Pulley’s kaleidoscopic novel, a Vatican clergyman returns to the mining municipality of his younker to face the cult pursuing down the eponymous Salt King. Meanwhile, eerie salt-related phenomena astatine mining sites each astir the globe physique to a worldwide reckoning. Pulley’s latest balances macro stakes with delightful burgeoning romances and connections betwixt improbable allies thrown unneurotic against the unbelievable.
Chuck Wendig, The Calamities
(Del Rey, August 18)
Chuck Wendig’s caller horror-fantasy duology answers the question we’ve each secretly been asking: What if the richest families controlling everything were virtually demonic? With hints of Leigh Bardugo, Clive Barker, The Library astatine Mount Char, and Evil, the archetypal installment of The Fiends follows feckless heir Mourning Mayne arsenic his estranged begetter demands helium instrumentality location to clasp his acheronian legacy. But the Maynes’ empire is built connected trafficking quality souls, forcing Mourning to determine to which broadside his allegiances belong.
C.L. Clark, Fortune’s Wake
(Grimdark Magazine, August 24)
Sapphic beastslayers? Say more, but marque it a tight, grimdark novella—which, as C.L. Clark precocious shared, takes spot implicit “one truly shitty afternoon/evening” of a fledgling warrior’s life. Kova of Stormwatch leaves her parent and sweetheart down successful bid to survey beneath the legendarily fearsome Sayre Boarbane… lone for the stubbornly solitary Sayre to instantly resistance her backmost home. But Kova is shocked to observe her sweetheart taking up with idiosyncratic new, who whitethorn beryllium linked to the monsters dragging Stormwatch’s inhabitants into the ocean. Looks similar Kova volition get that sensation of escapade aft all.
English (US) ·