Holy moly, there sure are a lot of books coming out in July! After the still-ongoing pandemic inspired some postponements earlier this year, it seems like publishers are now realizing people are hungry for new reading material. And for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fans, this month is a bountiful feast. Read on!
Scarlet Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi
In a world where men are discouraged from practicing magic, a teenager keeps his emerging powers a secret—until he must call on them to protect his tribe, even if it means becoming an outcast. But will he be able to save his home from the enchantress on his trail? (July 1)
The Big Book of Mars: From Ancient Egypt to The Martian, a Deep Dive into Our Obsession With the Red Planet by Marc Hartzman
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission launches in July, so quite a few books on the Red Planet are out this month. This release uses “entertaining history, archival images, pop culture epherema, and interviews with NASA scientists” to examine how we’ve viewed Mars over the years, and how that might change in the future. (July 7)
The Book of Dragons edited by Jonathan Strahan
The mythical beast commands the spotlight in this collection of stories and poems by Garth Nix, Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky, Daniel Abraham, Peter S. Beagle, Theodora Goss, Ken Liu, Seanan McGuire, Sara Gailey, J.Y. Yang, and many more, with illustrations by Rovina Cai. (July 7)
Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
In a world set 200 years after Cinderella’s ascension from maid to royalty, a teenager seizes control of her own destiny when she’s nearly forced to marry a random nobleman—and finds a revolutionary ally in the last known descendent of the fairy-tale princess. (July 7)
The Damned by Renée Ahdieh
The sequel to vampire romance The Beautiful sees Celine and Bastien trying to figure out their complicated relationship, as a war between immortals brews around them. (July 7)
Faith: Taking Flight by Julie Murphy
The author of Dumplin’ presents the first of two novels tracing the origin story of Valient’s plus-sized teenaged superhero. (July 7)
Haunted Heroine by Sarah Kuhn
The Heroine series continues as mom-to-be Evie Tanaka faces another supernatural terror alongside her friends and half-demon husband, while contemplating what her life might’ve been like if she’d taken a more “normal” path. (July 7)
Hawk by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
Yep, it’s the James Patterson of “zillions of bestsellers” fame, here returning to the world of his YA heroine Maximum Ride with a new main character: teenaged orphan Hawk, who’s grown up in post-apocalyptic NYC hearing legends about a girl with wings. (July 7)
The Lost City: The Omte Origins by Amanda Hocking
Hocking returns to the world of her Trylle Trilogy for a new story arc, following a woman who was abandoned as an infant and sets out 20 years later on a magic-filled journey to discover her true heritage. (July 7)
Night Train by David Quantick
In this sci-fi horror tale, a woman awakens aboard a moving train with no memory of how she got there—or any understanding of why the mysterious locomotive is full of strange creatures, including tons of dead people. (July 7)
Or What You Will by Jo Walton
The Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author’s latest is about a veteran fantasy writer, whose go-to character develops his own consciousness beyond her pages—and hopes to figure out a way they can both live forever. (July 7)
A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer
The Nebula-winning author of Annihilation dives into YA fantasy with this story of a young man who inherits his eccentric grandfather’s mansion. Soon, he and his friends discover it holds a portal to a fanciful but sinister alt-Earth that threatens to creep into our world. (July 7)
The Princess Will Save You by Sarah Henning
This Princess Bride-inspired story flips the fairy-tale script and imagines that the princess must rescue her true love, a stable boy who’s been kidnapped by the royal family’s political rivals. (July 7)
The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World by Sarah Stewart Johnson
This book written by a Georgetown scientist takes a personal approach to exploring how researchers have studied the Red Planet for signs of life over the years, as well as how our perception of Earth has been influenced by how we see Mars. (July 7)
Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay
The author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts returns with another chiller, this time telling the story of a disease outbreak that’s turning people into vicious monsters. When her pregnant friend is bitten, a doctor races against time to try and save both mother and child. (July 7)
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
This space opera—described as a “gender-spun Alexander the Great on an interstellar scale”—follows the daughter of a formidable ruler as she struggles to outwit a deadly plot to remove her from the line of succession. (July 7)
The Unleashed by Danielle Vega
The sequel to The Haunted takes us back to Drearfield, where the kids are all looking forward to the school prom, except for Hendricks. She can’t shake what she went through in the spook-infested Steele House—or the feeling that her supernatural ordeal is far from over. (July 7)
Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim
The sequel to Spin the Dawn finds gifted tailor Maia Tamarin forced to don one of her spectacular gowns and pose as the emperor’s bride-to-be. It gets messy when her cover is blown, but even more worrisome is her realization that she’s transforming into something not quite human. (July 7)
Every Sky a Grave by Jay Posey
A new space epic begins with this tale of a “planetary assassin” who can destroy entire worlds with words, and whose incredible powers are put to the test when a long-lost language suddenly reappears on an out-of-the-way planet. (July 14)
The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune
This is a “queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves”—with those heroes including the actually superpowered, as well as the best friend-he’s-secretly-in-love-with. (July 14)
Hell Divers VII: Warriors by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
The military sci-fi series reaches a tense turning point after battles kill most of the human crew and injure the Vanguard Islands’ ruler—and that’s before enemies both demonic and mechanized start closing in fast. (July 14)
In the Kingdom of All Tomorrows by Stephen R. Lawhead
The Eirlandia Celtic fantasy series concludes with a huge final battle to decide the nation’s fate. (July 14)
Mayhem by Estelle Laure
In this supernatural YA tale set in 1987, a teen and her mother move to the California coast. There, she starts to learn the secrets of her magical heritage—and joins the search for a kidnapper who’s been stalking girls on local beaches. (July 14)
Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth by Kate Greene
The author writes about her day-to-day experiences and the broader insights into human nature she gained after spending four months living in NASA’s simulated Martian environment in Hawaii. (July 14)
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
A strange childhood experience bonds four Indigenous Americans; years later, they realize the malevolent entity they encountered as kids is still after them. (July 14)
Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
Professional wizard Harry Dresden is back for more adventures in Chicago’s supernatural underground in this latest entry in Butcher’s popular Dresden Files series. (July 14)
The Queen of Storms by Raymond E. Feist
The Firemane Saga continues as married-couple-who-are-also-secretly-assassins Hatu and Hava await their latest assignment, posing as innkeepers while Hatu also conceals his other secret identity: he’s a long-lost member of the royal family. (July 14)
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Hugo and Nebula award-winning Lady Astronaut series continues as Earth grapples with a climate disaster that will soon require a planetary evacuation—if the ongoing chaos in the space program doesn’t sabotage the plan first. (July 14)
Star Trek: Discovery: Section 31: Die Standing by John Jackson Miller
After the Terran Empire’s Philippa Georgiou joins Starfleet’s Section 31 to secretly serve her own less-than-heroic goals, she must figure out where her loyalties lie when she’s sent to investigate reports of a dangerous superweapon. (July 14)
Unstoppable Wasp: Built On Hope by Sam Maggs
Newly minted superhero and gifted scientist Nadia Van Dyne gets her own YA novel inspired by Marvel’s Unstoppable Wasp comics series. (July 14)
Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler
An epic fantasy trilogy begins as a brother tries to track down his long-lost sister, who was sold years ago by their parents to the magical Twilight Order. When he finds her, though, she’s been transformed by her warrior powers, and the siblings join opposing sides as their country heads toward a civil war. (July 21)
Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Shadow of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee
The second Kyoshi novel (read an excerpt from the first!) picks back up with the Avatar: The Last Airbender character as she continues to gain power, this time joining with her allies to protect the Four Nations when a new threat rises from the Spirit World. (July 21)
Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis
In this alt-history set in 2007, a man becomes a celebrity after claiming to have proof that the U.S. has made contact with extraterrestrials. When his daughter finds out his story is true, she becomes an interpreter for the aliens—a position that turns out to be far more dangerous than she’d realized. (July 21)
The Big Book of Modern Fantasy edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
The editors of The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (check out an excerpt) share 91 fantasy tales from an array of international authors who revitalized the genre after World War II, with contributions from Jorge Luis Borges, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett, and many more. (July 21)
I Come With Knives by S.A. Hunt
The Malus Domestica series continues as “punk YouTuber” turned witch hunter Robin tracks a troublesome local coven—as well as a serial killer and a gang of menacing magicians. (July 21)
Malorie by Josh Malerman
Twelve years after the events of Bird Box—adapted into a hit Netflix movie—lead character Malorie is still doing her best to survive and find hope in a world filled with creatures that poison the mind of all who look at them. (July 21)
Quantum Shadows by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
In a far-future world divided into 10 lands governed by 10 new religions, ancient gods begin to rumble, signaling their desire to end things once and for all. Can a keeper of humanity’s collective memory intervene before it’s too late? (July 21)
Savage Legion by Matt Wallace
The Hugo-winning author’s latest epic fantasy imagines a city that presses its poor citizens into service as Savages, forced into fighting wars for the empire. One woman, a warrior who’s not really a Savage, infiltrates their numbers hellbent on exposing the injustice of the system. (July 21)
The Sin in the Steel by Ryan Van Loan
Just gonna let the official description of this debut novel do the talking: “a fantasy set in a diverse world, featuring dead gods, a pirate queen, shapeshifting mages, and a Sherlockian teenager determined to upend her society.” Ahoy! (July 21)
A Summoning of Souls by Leanna Renee Hieber
In early-1900s New York City, medium Eve Whitby and her squad of spiritualists help the police solve supernatural crimes within the Ghost Precinct. But Eve becomes a target herself when a sinister tycoon tries to exploit her psychic powers for his own gain. (July 21)
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
As World War II looms, a young Harlem woman with badass knife skills is drawn into Manhattan’s underworld. A decade later, the ghosts of her past haunt her as she grapples with her path in life in a “magical love story” that’s described as “a compelling exposure of racial fault lines.” (July 21)
The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey
The author of Ghostland returns with this insightful non-fiction history of fringe beliefs, from aliens, to Bigfoot, to the Loch Ness Monster, and many other weird avenues in between. (July 21)
Uranus by Ben Bova
Bova’s new Outer Planets trilogy begins with this sci-fi adventure set on an orbital habitat above Uranus filled with many people—scientists, billionaires, religious types, hustlers—who don’t necessarily see eye to eye about a lot of things. (July 21)
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
A girl living in an oppressive land is forced to submit to laws grounded in a strict religion, as well as weather the disapproval of people in her community who can’t handle that she’s biracial. Things begin to change, however, when she encounters the powerful spirits of four witches who have unexpected ties to her family history. (July 21)
Afterland by Lauren Beukes
After a pandemic kills most of the men on the planet, a mother fiercely protects what’s suddenly become a rare, valuable resource: her 12-year-old son. A safe haven is out there, but it’ll require a tense cross-country journey with the boy disguised as a girl, and enemies following them every step of the way. (July 28)
Automatic Reload by Ferrett Steinmetz
The good kind of sparks fly when a mercenary meets a genetically engineered assassin in this cyberpunk rom-com. (July 28)
Baron of Magister Valley by Steven Brust
The Count of Monte Cristo gets a retelling, or “mirror image,” in this story of a nobleman who’s betrayed and imprisoned, and then plots an elaborate escape in the name of revenge. (July 28)
Crossings: A Novel by Alex Landragin
Fans of ghost stories, tales of resistance in World War II-era Paris, fantastical memoirs, and noir romances, take note of this genre-blending “novel in three parts, designed to be read in two different directions, spanning 150 years and seven lifetimes.” (July 28)
Deal With the Devil by Kit Rocha
When a mercenary librarian trying to help save America from total ruin meets a supersoldier on the run, the last thing they expect to do is join forces. Even more unlikely: they start to fall for each other. (July 28)
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
Dubbed “a rip-roaring read” by Margaret Atwood, this contemporary tale of a woman searching for her missing husband—who then has reason to suspect he’s not the same man he used to be when she finds him—takes inspiration from the Rogagrou, a werewolf-like creature drawn from a traditional Canadian Métis legend. (July 28)
The Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen
The sequel to The Merciful Crow finds new Crow chieftan Fie facing a plague unleashed by a witch queen, as well as perilous intrigue from within her own ranks. (July 28) Update: this release has moved to August 18.
Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings and Ellen Datlow
This Australia-set blend of mystery and fairy tale focuses on a young woman determined to find out the truth about her brothers’ strange disappearance. (July 28)
Relentless by R.A. Salvatore
Iconic Dungeons & Dragons character Drizzt Do’Urden returns for more magical adventures in this final book in veteran author Salvatore’s latest trilogy. (July 28)
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