The 10 Most Anticipated Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Rest of 2025

This fantastic series that began with Her Majesty’s Royal Coven features queer, badass protagonists fighting for their right to survive as dark forces threaten the world, and it officially snips all the loose ends and comes to a close this summer. Book two ended with a whole lot of cliffhangers that become big, worrying questions for this third volume. (Spoilers for book two ahead) Questions like: How long has Lucifer been in the coven’s lives? What game is he playing? And who exactly has Theo summoned in the closing pages? Dawson is the absolute queen of twists, and I am equal parts psyched and terrified for this series to end.

Alessa is forced to attend the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted. Most of her fellow students, who are divided into Anti-Christs (world-eaters) and Ragnaroks (apocalypse-starters), were also forced in. They’re promised that the school is their best chance of survival. Except that on graduation day, the faculty starts feasting on students… which puts the surviving thing into question. Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth and The Salt Grows Heavy were both knock-out novellas, and I can’t wait to see what bloody, monstrous, dreadful things they bring to the world of dark academia.

Cañas has become well-known for her gothics set in historical Mexico (most recently Vampires of El Norte) and a new one arrives on bookshelves this August. It’s the mid-18th century, and Alba, her fiancé, and her family are fleeing the city to escape the fast-spreading plague. They move to her fiancé’s isolated property beside a silver mine. But something is very wrong there too. As Alba begins to feel like something else is in her brain with her, her fiancé’s cousin Elías might be her only hope to figure out what’s wrong and save them all in the process.

After Babel and Yellowface, it’s clear that anything R.F. Kuang releases is going to be fire. This book is no exception. Two students desperate for academic success go rogue, traveling into the underworld to retrieve their advisor, an acclaimed professor, to ensure that all their torturously hard work was worth it and their needed recommendation letters come through. It’s unhinged in all the best ways, exposing the brightest and worst of the academic world, all while giving intriguing characters, a magical system based on crafting paradoxes, and an impeccably shivery version of hell.

Pitched as Leverage x Parasite x Six of Crows, this gaslamp fantasy features a capitalist dystopia and stars a wild group of characters who perform their art as orchestrated heists full of narrow escapes and clever twists for the entertainment of moneybags-rich people. The Canarviers are very talented, but they begin to grow apart as they get older. When the King goes missing and their dad is a prime suspect, the family comes back together to perform one last important heist. This is a suspenseful, fun book that takes place in a familiar-feeling dystopian world where the rich entertain themselves on climate-disaster rubble.

Agnir is a hostage. Her presence in the enemy’s camp maintains the peace between the two clans that have been warring for decades. But as reasonably well-treated as Agnir might be, the daughter of the chieftain is not supposed to be falling for her. The two of them find a secret stream deep in the boggy fens that has serious magical possibilities. While they originally hope the two clans will use the power to unite against common enemies, it quickly becomes clear that the power also has the potential to reignite all-out war. This soft, sapphic novella is a much-anticipated tale by the author of The Unbroken.