With the arrival of the autumnal equinox, the seasons officially switch over. Fall is here and with it, one of the biggest months in publishing. September marks the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season, in which publishers put out as many of their marquee titles in the hopes that list makers and early gift givers will be inspired to pick one up. And their arrival is the reason your TBR pile suddenly seems to have grown by an order of magnitude in the past two weeks. Especially if you’re a fantasy reader.
From buzzy debuts and new series from established favorites, with stories that run the gamut from spicy romance to dark political intrigue, there are fantasy books for every kind of reader arriving this month.
Here are the best fantasy books hitting shelves in September.
The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart
Release Date: September 3 from Orbit
Why We’re Excited: The first book in a new fantasy trilogy from The Bone Shard Daughter’s Andrea Stewart, The Gods Below swings for the fences with a bigger, more sweeping scope, more character POVs, and a literal war against the gods that sets two sisters at odds with one another.
Publisher’s Description: A divine war shattered the world leaving humanity in ruins. Desperate for hope, they struck a deal with the devious god Kluehnn: He would restore the world to its former glory, but at a price so steep it would keep the mortals indebted to him for eternity. And, as each land was transformed, so too were its people changed into strange new forms – if they survived at all.
Hakara is not willing to pay such a price. Desperate to protect herself, and her sister Rasha, she flees her homeland for the safety of a neighboring kingdom. But when tragedy separates them, Hakara is forced to abandon her beloved sister to an unknown fate.
Alone and desperate for answers on the wrong side of the world, Hakara discovers she can channel the magic from the mysterious gems they are forced to mine for Kluehnn. With that discovery comes another: her sister is alive, and only the rebels plotting to destroy the God Pact can help rescue her.
But only if Hakara goes to war against a god.
Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
Release Date: September 3 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: A dark academic fantasy that’s described as The Cruel Prince meets Ninth House, Immortal Dark is an intriguing, bloody new spin on the familiar vampire story.
Publisher’s Description: It began long before my time, but something has always hunted our family.
Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.
To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University—where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos—even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos at all costs.
When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat—and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires.
The Monstrous Kind by Lydia Gregovic
Release Date: September 3 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: A romantasy set in an alternate version of England surrounded that’s surrounded by toxic fog, The Monstrous Kind mixes a Sense and Sensibility-inspired plot with a zombie plague.
Publisher’s Description: Merrick Darling’s life as daughter of the Manor Lord of Sussex is better than most. Unlike the commoners, she is immune to the toxic fog that encroached on England generations earlier. She will never become a Phantom—one of the monstrous creatures that stalk her province’s borders—and as long as the fires burn to hold them back, her safety is ensured. She wants for nothing, yet she will never inherit her family’s Manor. She must marry smartly or live at the kindness of her elder sister, Essie.
Everything is turned on its head, though, when Merrick’s father dies suddenly. Torn from her New London society life of ball gowns and parties, Merrick must travel back to her childhood home, the Darling estate of Norland House, and what she finds there is bewildering. Once strong and capable, Essie is withdrawn and frightened—and with good cause. A recent string of attacks along the province’s borders has turned their formerly bucolic countryside into a terrifying and unpredictable landscape. The fog is closing in and the fires aren’t holding, which makes Merrick and Essie vulnerable in more ways than one. Because the Phantoms are far from the only monsters in Merrick’s world, and the other eleven Manor Lords are always watching for weakness.
Revealing her and her sister’s current state to the rest of the Manors is out of the question, but when Essie goes missing, it’s clear that Merrick needs help. Only, who can she trust when everyone seems to be scheming, and when all she holds true feels like it’s slipping right out of her grasp?
The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen
Release Date: September 3 from Entangled: Red Tower Books
Why We’re Excited: This buzzy romantasy is described as The Hunger Games meets Percy Jackson for adults, and revolves around a deadly competition in which a mortal girl must serve as a champion for the God of Death himself.
Publisher’s Description: The gods love to toy with us mere mortals. And every hundred years, we let them…
I have never been favored by the gods. Far from it, thanks to Zeus.
Living as a cursed office clerk for the Order of Thieves, I just keep my head down and hope the capricious beings who rule from Olympus won’t notice me. Not an easy feat, given San Francisco is Zeus’ patron city, but I make do. I survive. Until the night I tangle with a different god.
The worst god. Hades.
For the first time ever, the ruthless, mercurial King of the Underworld has entered the Crucible—the deadly contest the gods hold to determine a new ruler to sit on the throne of Olympus. But instead of fighting their own battles, the gods name mortals to compete in their stead.
So why in the Underworld did Hades choose me—a sarcastic nobody with a curse on her shoulders—as his champion? And why does my heart trip every time he says I’m his?
I don’t know if I’m a pawn, bait, or something else entirely to this dangerously tempting god. How can I, when he has more secrets than stars in the sky?
Because Hades is playing by his own rules…and Death will win at any cost.
Vilest Things by Chloe Gong
Release Date: September 10 from S&S/Saga Press
Why We’re Excited: In this sequel to Immortal Longings, Calla Tuoleimi got what she wanted—the death of tyrannical King Kasa—but at a terrible cost. Now she’ll have to deal with the consequences, and they promise to be even messier (and potentially bloodier). Featuring body swapping, betrayal, and the return of long-lost loves, Vilest Things is a wild ride.
Publisher’s Description: Calla Tuoleimi has succeeded in the impossible. Despite the odds, she has won San-Er’s bloody games and eliminated King Kasa, her tyrant uncle and the former ruler of Talin. She serves now as royal advisor to Kasa’s adopted son, August Shenzhi, who has risen to the throne.
Only Calla knows it isn’t really August.
Anton Makusa is still furious about Calla’s betrayal in the final round of the games. In an impossible feat, he took over August’s body to survive, and has no intention of giving up this newfound power. But when his first love, the beautiful, explosive Otta Avia, awakens from a years-long coma and reveals a secret that threatens the monarchy’s authority over Talin, chaos erupts. As tensions come to a boiling point, Calla and Anton must set their conflicts aside and head to the kingdom’s far reaches to prevent anarchy… even if their empire might be better off burning.
The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow
Release Date: September 10 from Orbit
Why We’re Excited: An epic political fantasy that’s not afraid to get dark, The Scarlet Throne explores themes of power and survival and features a deliciously morally ambitious antiheroine at its center.
Publisher’s Description: Binsa is a “living goddess,” chosen by the gods to dispense both mercy and punishment from her place on the Scarlet Throne. But her reign hides a deadly secret. Rather than channeling the wisdom of an immortal deity, she harbors a demon.
But now her priests are growing suspicious. When a new girl, Medha, is selected to take over her position, Binsa and her demon strike a deal: To magnify his power and help her wrest control from the priests, she will sacrifice human lives. She’ll do anything not to end up back on the streets, forgotten and alone. But how much of her humanity is she willing to trade in her quest for power? Deals with demons are rarely so simple.
Lucy Undying by Kiersten White
Release Date: September 10 from Del Ray
Why We’re Excited: With this Dracula-adjacent Gothic fantasy follows the story of Bram Stoker’s ill-served Lucy Westenra and a contemporary twenty-first-century human girl in London, Kiersten White once again takes a wronged female character from classic literature and uses the bones of her story to fashion something new.
Publisher’s Description: Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.
But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.
Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.
Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more.
Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
Release Date: September 10 from Tor Books
Why We’re Excited: House in the Cerulean Sea sequel! House in the Cerulean Sea sequel! (Does anything else even need to be said?)
Publisher’s Description: Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.
He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.
Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.
But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.
And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.
Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.
Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik
Release Date: September 17 from Del Ray
Why We’re Excited: This collection of short stories and ancillary tales from author Naomi Novik is a jewel box of multiple worlds, revisiting many of her popular novels from Spinning Silver to A Deadly Education. (As well as a glimpse of the setting for her next, upcoming fantasy series.)
Publisher’s Description: From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy, through the realms next door to Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories. Here, among many others, we encounter:
- A mushroom witch who learns that sometimes the worst thing in the Scholomance can be your roommate.
- The start of the Dragon Corps in ancient Rome, after Mark Antony hatches a dragon’s egg and bonds with the hatchling.
- A young bride in the Middle Ages who finds herself gambling with Death for the highest of stakes.
- A delightful reimagining of Pride & Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennet captains a Longwing dragon.
- The first glimpse of the world of Abandon, the setting of Novik’s upcoming epic fantasy series—a deserted continent populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural mysteries.
Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: wrestling with destiny, and the lengths some will go to find their own and fulfill its promise.
An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson
Release Date: September 17 from Ace
Why We’re Excited: Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching and The House of Hunger tries her hand at dark academia with An Academy for Liars, a story of a hidden magical school in Savannah that grants its students great power, but has a horrific (and often quite bloody) past.
Publisher’s Description: Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart.
Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because—like everyone else at the school—she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself.
After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power. But despite persuasion’s heavy toll on her body and mind, she is wholly captivated by her studies, by Drayton’s lush, moss-draped campus, and by her brilliant classmates. But even more captivating is her charismatic adviser, Dante, who both intimidates and enthralls her.
As Lennon continues in her studies, her control grows, and she starts to uncover more about the secret world she has entered into, including the disquieting history of Drayton College. She is increasingly disturbed by what she learns, for it seems that the ultimate test is to embrace absolute power without succumbing to corruption…and it’s a test she’s terrified she’s going to fail.
A Song of Ash and Moonlight by Claire Legrand
Release Date: September 17 from Sourcebooks Casablanca
Why We’re Excited: This sequel to Claire Legrand’s debut adult fantasy A Crown of Ivy and Glass seems poised to give us the Farrin and Ryder enemies-to-lovers romance we were all hoping for in the first book. (And Farrin herself as the lead POV character.)
Publisher’s Description: The curse plaguing the Ashbourne and Bask families has finally been broken, but Farrin, the eldest Ashbourne daughter, still struggles to find peace. Unflappable and tireless, her composure masks a seething sorrow. Since her mother abandoned the family, Farrin has been their rock—managing her father’s temper, running the estate, keeping tight control over her dangerous musical power, and ignoring her own need for rest, distraction, and most of all, love.
In Ryder Bask, Farrin’s stubborn strength has met its match. The man infuriates her. He’s coarse, arrogant, annoyingly handsome. He’s as tired of their feuding parents as she is, and he brims with some secret anger that mirrors Farrin’s frustrated rage.
But Farrin must work with every ally she can—even the man she has been raised to hate. With every rising dawn, the Middlemist weakens further. Anointed magicians are disappearing. A fiery Olden creature is stalking Farrin. Strange visions haunt the High Queen Yvaine. And as Farrin and Ryder race to find stolen loved ones, they begin to realize a horrifying
The gods are not dead. They’re waking up. And someone is hunting them.
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
Release Date: September 17 from Del Ray
Why We’re Excited: The adult debut from Allison Saft, author of such excellent YA titles as A Fragile Enchantment and Down Comes the Night, A Dark and Drowning Tide mixes dark academia with political intrigue to create a fraught and wildly compelling enemies to lovers fantasy
Publisher’s Description: Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. The magical spring promises untold power, which the king wants to harness in order to secure his reign over the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself and make her wildest, most impossible dream come true: to become a naturalist, able to travel freely to lands she’s only read about.
The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are the five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest.
But there are other dangers lurking in the dark: forests that rearrange themselves at night, rivers with slumbering dragons hiding beneath the water, and shapeshifting beasts out for blood.
As Lorelei and Sylvia grudgingly work together to uncover the truth—and resist their growing feelings for each other—they discover that their leader had secrets of her own. Secrets that make Lorelei question whether justice is worth pursuing, and if this kingdom is worth saving at all
The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
Release Date: September 24 from The Feminist Press at CUNY
Why We’re Excited: The first installment in the Daughters of the Empty Throne trilogy is described as an own voices story of trans witchcraft which follows Lorel as she embraces her dream of being a witch, despite being born a boy.
Publisher’s Description: Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch: learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy.
When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind. She soon discovers the dark powers threatening the kingdom: a magical blight scars the land, and the power-mad Duchess Helte is crushing everything between her and the crown. In spite of these dangers, Lorel makes friends and begins learning magic from the powerful witches in her coven. However, she fears that her new friends and mentors will find out her secret and kick her out of the coven, or worse.
The Thirteenth Child by Erin A. Craig
Release Date: September 24 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: The latest novel from the author of the House of Salt and Sorrows series, The Thirteenth Child is loosely based on the Grimms’ fairytale “Godfather Death,” and follows the story of a young healer who must save the life of a king even as she is forced to navigate complicated families, dysfunctional deities, and impossible bargains.
Publisher’s Description: Hazel Trépas has always known she wasn’t like the rest of her siblings. A thirteenth child, promised away to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her godfather—Merrick, the Dreaded End—to arrive.
When he does, he lays out exactly how he’s planned Hazel’s future. She will become a great healer, known throughout the kingdom for her precision and skill. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blesses Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick.
But all gifts come with a price. Hazel can see when Death has claimed a patient—when all hope is gone—and is tasked to end their suffering, permanently. Haunted by the ghosts of those she’s killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court, where she meets Leo, a rakish prince with a disdain for everything and everyone. And it’s where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet—to save the life of a king marked to die. Hazel knows what she is meant to do and knows what her heart is urging her toward, but what will happen if she goes against the will of Death?
Bringer of Dust by J.M. Miro
Release Date: September 17 from Flatiron Books
Why We’re Excited: This sequel to J.M. Miro’s fantasy doorstopper Ordinary Monsters is bigger in almost every way—including its page count. Darker and messier all around, this follow-up is not for the faint of heart.
Publisher’s Description: Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine—long-hidden thought lost—which might not even exist.
But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they’d feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will—and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs—an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.
So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together—if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend.
A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan
Release Date: September 24 from Avon
Why We’re Excited: This adults-only prequel Sophie Jordan’s YA Firelight series checks every box a romantasy fan could want, from forbidden marriage to a kingdom in crisis.
Publisher’s Description: Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous…especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it’s her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig, Captain of the Guard…though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship.
When Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, descends on her home, Tamsyn’s world becomes even more dangerous. To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, she is commanded to don a veil and marry the brutal warrior. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she’s ever known, behind.
The wedding night begins with unexpected passion—and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride…but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors—secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist? For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone.
Magic is not dead…it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB