Most Anticipated Fantasy Releases of 2025

Our favorite thing about fantasy is the breadth of the genre. Below you'll find books about fae, witches, dungeon crawlers, ghosts, and more. Travel from subgenre to subgenre, visiting dark academia, historical fantasy, cozy feel-good stories. This year features releases from Amal El-Mohtar, V. E. Schwab, Guy Gavriel Kay, and R. F. Kuang.

Noticing a lack of world-spanning, epic conflicts? Check out this post that covers epic fantasy releases exclusively.

We've scoured publisher catalogs to compile our most anticipated fantasy releases. Several of the books on this list are later entries in series. To avoid spoilers for earlier books in the series we've taken the care to hide the majority of the jacket copy. To read more about any given book, simply click the dropdown arrow to view the whole jacket copy. 

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde #3

February 11

The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

March 4

The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman

March 11

Follow Carl, Princess Donut, and Mongo as they fight their way to the next level in the USA Today bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman--now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition!

The Antidote by Karen Russell

March 11

From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

Don't Sleep With the Dead by Nghi Vo

April 8

From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don't Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby.

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman

Dungeon Crawler Carl #5

April 15

Carl and Princess Donut refuse to be prey on this level in the USA Today bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman--now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition!

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman

Dungeon Crawler Carl #6

May 13

Carl and Princess Donut journey into insanity in the wildly entertaining sixth book in the USA Today bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman--now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition! 

Incandescent by Emily Tesh

May 13

Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay

May 27

From the internationally bestselling author of Tigana, All the Seas of the World, and A Brightness Long Ago comes a sweeping new novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France.

Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi

May 27

Award-winning author Tochi Onyebuchi's new standalone novel is hard-boiled fantasy noir: Raymond Chandler meets P. Djèlí Clark in a postcolonial West Africa

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

June 10

From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue:  a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.

The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar

August 5

The beloved author of Holes presents his first adult novel, a modern fantasy classic of forbidden love, a crumbling kingdom, and the unexpected magic all around us.

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher

August 19

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of "Snow White" steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind

The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time

The Hexologists #2

September 9

From one of the most exciting and original voices in fantasy comes the second book following the adventures of the Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, as they tackle a case that could redefine the nature of magic itself.

As the nation’s foremost investigators of the paranormal, Isolde and Warren Wilby are accustomed to bumping up against things that go bump in the night. They have made quite a name for themselves as the Hexologists: detectives of the uncanny, the monstrous, the strange. After a decade of wedded bliss and dozens of fantastical adventures, there is little in the world that can still surprise them.

 But when a famous artist dies under suspicious circumstances, Isolde finds herself investigating a murder that may not have happened, and a crime scene that seems to shift beneath her feet. Not one to be easily thwarted, Isolde is compelled to take greater and greater risks in pursuit of her elusive answers. Meanwhile, the laws that govern magic appear to be breaking, and those cracks are spreading to the everyday world.

 The mystery will carry the devoted duo to seedy underworlds, enchanted gardens, and subterranean military zoos. Old friends will come to the Wilbies’ aid as they infiltrate secret societies, battle vicious imps, and flee from a pack of venomous wolves. Equipped with Isolde’s hexes, Warren’s muscle, and an enchanted bag full of magical relics, the Hexologists will have to risk life and limb to unravel the riddle at the heart of A Tangle of Time.

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

August 19

In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.

Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

August 26

Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clarke's Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor's soul--perhaps at the cost of their own.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:

The story of a hero's descent to the underworld

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams....

Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.

With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don't even like.

But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn't always the answer, and there's something in Alice and Peter's past that could forge them into the perfect allies...or lead to their doom.

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree

Legends & Lattes

November 11

Return to the cozy fantasy world of the #1 New York Times bestselling Legends & Lattes series with a new adventure featuring fan-favorite, foul-mouthed bookseller Fern

Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson

December 9

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes Tailored Realities, a new short fiction collection including the never-before-published novella Moment Zero.