The 10 Most Anticipated Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels of 2026
Every new year, we have to start compiling a list of new books we HAVE to read.
In 2026, there are so many sequels to our favourite books, and we can’t wait to dive in. From highly acclaimed Romantasy novels to our favourite science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries, we get to see what our favourite characters are up to.
Some BIG books are coming out in the new year that are must-reads for our sci-fi/fantasy book club. And some Maude Garrett has already added to her TBR.
The novels listed below are the books we are looking forward to!
Come and join our Discord to see if these books land on our Main Book List to read in 2026.
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Synopsis:
Everyone's favourite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells' bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series.
Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.
Having volunteered to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realises that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know.
Including human children. Ugh.
This may well call for... eye contact!
(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)
RELEASE DATE: MAY 5TH, 2026.
The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty
Amina al-Sirafi thinks she’s struck gold. Tasked with hunting down arcane artifacts for the council of immortal peris, she can savor the occasional rollicking adventure on the high seas with her cherished criminal companions while still returning home to raise her beloved daughter, Marjana. But when Raksh, the spirit of discord with whom she is reluctantly wed, provokes the council’s wrath, Amina is charged with a seemingly impossible quest: steal a spindle capable of rewriting fate from a mysterious sorceress on an island no one can escape.
Forced to leave Marjana—who is increasingly frustrated at being peddled what are clearly lies about her mother’s life and her own past—Amina finds her mission almost immediately thrown into peril. But deadly storms, an erratic poison mistress, and old enemies are the least of her worries. For the peris’ story is unraveling, hinting at a far deadlier game whose rules Amina must swiftly puzzle out. A game that sets her against an adversary more cunning and powerful than she has ever faced.
A game that not everyone on her crew wants her to win.
RELEASE DATE: MAY 19TH, 2026.
Innamorata by Ava Reid
A visionary and atmospheric gothic fantasy about necromancy, vengeance, and soul-consuming love, the first in a duology from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning and Lady Macbeth
Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy.
A conqueror’s blade brought them low, burning their libraries, killing their lords, and extinguishing their eldritch magic.
But defiant against the new order stands the House of Teeth and its last living members: beautiful Marozia, the heiress to the House, and her cousin, the uncanny Lady Agnes.
Though she has not spoken a word in seven years, Agnes is the true carrier of the House’s legacy. And she has her orders. She must recapture the secrets of death magic and avenge her family’s fallen honor. She must arrange the betrothal of her beloved cousin Marozia to Liuprand, heir to the conqueror’s throne, for access to the forbidden library in his grotesquely grand castle.
Revenge burns in Agnes’s heart but so do stranger passions—and it is Liuprand, the golden prince, who speaks to her soul. This passion is as treasonous as it is powerful, poisoning the kingdom’s roots and threatening to tear the already shattered realm in two.
For Agnes’s final order is the gravest: She must not fall in love.
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 17TH, 2026.
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White
Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing—doctor, scientist, and madman devoted to studying vampires—up until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body. A woman who leaves no trace behind, other than the dreams and nightmares that plague Anneke every night.
Spurred by her desire for vengeance and armed with the latest in forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch her mysterious serial killer. Because her father isn’t the only inexplicably dead body. There’s a trail of victims across Europe and Anneke is certain they’re all connected.
But during the years spent relentlessly hunting the killer, Anneke keeps some crucial evidence to infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to Anneke, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola. Devil. The obsession is mutual, and all the more dangerous for it.
The closer Anneke gets to her devil, though, the less sense the world makes. Maybe her father wasn’t a madman, after all. Diavola might be something much worse than a serial killer . . . and much harder to destroy. Because as Anneke unearths more of Diavola’s tragic past, she suspects there’s still a heart somewhere in that undead body.
A heart that beats for Anneke alone.
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 10TH, 2026.
We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
The road stretched out before them. No other cars, just the headlights on the blacktop. Above, the cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky….
Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A wandering black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.
Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.
On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how—impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, and new friends.
And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.
Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 28TH, 2026.
Seek the Traitor’s Son by Veronica Roth
Elegy Ahn did not ask for destiny to find her.
She is happy with her life as a soldier, defending her small country from the Talusar, a powerful nation who worships a deadly Fever. A fever that blesses half of its victims with mysterious gifts.
But then she’s summoned to hear a prophecy–her, and the most ruthless of Talusar generals, Rava Vidar. Brought face to face, they learn that one of them will lead their people to victory over the other…but they don’t know which. And at the center of both of their fates: a man. A man that, Elegy is told, she will fall in love with.
In just one day, Elegy’s old life–her job, her purpose, and her future–is over. She and Rava are destined to collide, with the fate of their nations hanging in the balance. And when they do, only one will be left standing.
Elegy intends to make sure it’s her.
RELEASE DATE: MAY 12TH, 2026.
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 24TH, 2026.
The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan
In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake.
Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel – who takes payment in living hearts – it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.
Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.
But Gévaudan is not as he remembers it, and Sebastian’s unfinished business is everywhere he looks. Years of misery have driven the people to desperation, and France teeters on the edge of revolution. Sebastian’s arcane activities – not to mention his demonic counterpart – have also attracted the inquisitorial eye of the French clergy. And the Beast is poised to close his jaws around them all and plunge the continent into war.
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 24TH, 2026.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean
When Mercy Chan washed up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money, and no memories, she was thrust into the horrors of World War II. She only survived by hiding in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatized civilians. Since the end of the war, she has rebuilt her life and found work with the local triad as a ghost-talker, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place. These days, the filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon feel like home.
But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy―and her forgotten childhood. As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
33 years before, mere days ahead of the Japanese invasion, Sung Siu Yin and her mother flee Hong Kong, intending to hide out on her mother's ancestral island home. It’s beautiful, tranquil, and remote. . . but also inhabited by ghosts ever since the entire village drowned in a storm many years ago. Still, it’s better than living under occupation.
But as the war drags on and isolation sets in, Siu Yin is increasingly drawn into the island's grim past―a past that may still have a hold on the present. There is a darkness lurking beneath that idyllic ocean, and it has been waiting many years for someone to return.
RELEASE DATE: MAY 5TH, 2026.
Twelve Months by Jim Butcher
One year. 365 days. Twelve months.
Harry Dresden has been through a lot, and so has his city. After Harry and his allies narrowly managed to save Chicago from being razed, everything is different—and it’s not just the current lack of electricity.
Harry lost people he cared about in the battle, and that’s the kind of loss that takes a toll. Harry being Harry, he’s doing his best to help the city and his friends recover and rebuild, but it’s a heavy load. He needs time.
Time is one thing Harry doesn’t have, however. Ghouls are prowling Chicago and killing innocent civilians. Harry’s brother is dying, and Harry doesn’t know how to help him. And last but certainly not least, the Winter Queen of the Fae has allied with the White Court of vampires—and Harry’s been betrothed to the seductive, deadly vampire Lara Raith to seal the deal.
It’s been a tough year. More than ever, the city needs Harry Dresden the wizard—but after loss and grief, is there enough left of him to rise to the challenge?
RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 20TH, 2026.
Have you added any of these books to your TBR? If you have, let us know which one is your most anticipated! If you have any recommendations, drop them in the comments below.
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