6 of the Best New Book Releases Out June 30, 2026
Article excerpt
The best new books out this week include sci-fi dystopian horror from Paul Tremblay, a queer D&D romantasy book from C. L. Polk, and more.
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Beiko, S.M.: The Sleuth of Ferren City (ECW Press 978-1770416970, $17.95, 376pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Young-adult fantasy novel, third in the Brindlewatch Quintet. Monstros have emerged in various places, looking for acceptance, but Camillite Sable is suspicious as she tries to find her missing friend.
Berman, Steve: Witchcraft in Your Lips (Lethe Press 978-1590215524, $20.00, 284pp, formats: paperback, 07/01/2026)
Anthology of six novellas (one reprint) about witches and queer love, ranging from bog spirits to Bloody Mary. Authors are Steve Berman, Mia Dalia, L.A. Fields, Joachim Heijndermans, Audrey R. Hollis, and Ivy L. James.
Bianco, Julia: Witch Season (St. Martin’s 978-1250384393, $30.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Urban fantasy romance novel, first in the Broken Coven series. Katherine, enforcer for the LA Aestas coven, is forced to put up with Silas, the rich heir to the Noctis coven who tries to interfere with her methods.
Bourne, Brianna: Meet Me at Midnight (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 979-8217225552, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
YA fantasy romance. Aria keeps meeting the same boy in her midnight dreams, meeting him in beautiful locations every midnight.
Broaddus, Maurice: A City Dreaming (Tor 978-1250265166, $32.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/30/2026)
SF novel, third in the Astra Black trilogy. A new empire approaches the Muungano empire, a collection of city-states that spans the solar system.
Castle, Jayne: Enter the Nightmare (Penguin Random House/Berkley 979-8217187379, $30.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Science fiction thriller, part of the Harmony series. After staying at the Hotel of Dreams, Alice’s life is falling apart again, with a dead body in the shower and a mysterious man rescuing her. Castle is a pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz, who also writes as Amanda Quick.
Codega, Linda H.: Pasha the Storm (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1645661825, $27.34, 560pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Fantasy novel. Exiled pirate queen Pasha is guarded hostage by nobleman Atle, but as the ambitions of Atle’s necromantic queen turn dangerous, Atle draws Pasha into his own treasonous plans.
Eudave, Cecilia & Myers, Robin: The Summer of the Serpent (Soho Press 978-1641295826, $27.00, 144pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Supernatural novel. In 1977 Guadalajara, children start seeing bizarre apparitions, while listless adults wander through the summer.
Hathaway, Amber: Hallowed Deadly Seeds (Deadly Seeds Press 978-1967381043, $16.99, 306pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Horror novel, second in the Little White Flowers series. Alice Drayton and her brother get trapped in isolated Evanston, Maine, where the twisted religious community is determined to assimilate them.
Hofstatter, Eric: Pain Is a Chain. Move, and I’ll Hear You (Aqueduct Press N/A, $5.95, 109pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/01/2026)
Prose-poetry book with fantasy and horror elements. Part of the Conversation Pieces series.
Hur, Angela Mi Young: The Loom Tree (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1645660880, $27.48, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Dark academia fantasy novel. Korean American teenager V crawls into a tree trunk whose powers unlock the diary of her mother, Sharon, who attended the terrifying magical boarding school Alvsdahl.
Hurwitz, Gregg: The Delivery (Amazon/Thomas & Mercer 978-1662539343, $19.99, 251pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/01/2026)
SF novella. Struggling parents Rebecca and Mark accept “Mr. Man,” an AI companion, into their home to help, but violent incidents start to plague the neighborhood.
James, V.V.: Redhaven (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399635547, £12.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/02/2026)
Fantasy novel, part of the Sanctuary universe. Sarah and her daughter Harper flee a government crackdown targeting witches in America. Author also writes as Vic James.
Kim, Sophie: The Winged Game (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593983362, $32.99, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Sports fantasy romance novel. Taissa, a former player of magical airborne sport Carriwitchet, is offered a chance to return to the game by Kion, the rival who destroyed her career. Simultaneous with the UK (Hodderscape) edition.
Laben, Carrie-Edmund: Smoke Season (Word Horde 978-1956252125, $22.99, 326pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Cosmic horror novel. Searching for his estranged sister Helen, now a worshipped figure in a remote Montana commune, Justin ends up contending with a government agency set on wiping her out.
Mason, Ruthy: Death Do Us (Hachette/Union Square & Co. 978-1454965152, $18.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Body horror novel. Young archaeologist Bea, feeling increasingly constrained by her imminent marriage, and notices her skin and hair falling off. A first novel.
McGuire, Seanan: Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions (Subterranean Press 978-1645243069, $95.00, 608pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Collection of 33 stories featuring the superheroine, including 16 never-before-published. There is a signed limited edition of 1000.
Modesitt, L.E.: Last of the First (Tor 978-1250349057, $32.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Fantasy novel, 26th in the Sage of Recluce series. Mirror Lancer Alyiakal is promoted to Subcommander, though high command on Cyador is full of treachery.
Newton, Ruth: The Carrier (Penguin Random House UK/Bantam UK 978-0857508126, £18.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/02/2026)
SF thriller novel. People can avoid emotional pain by paying to give it to others, but those Carriers end up dead. A first novel.
Paxman, Emily: All We Have Left (Titan Books UK 978-1835417591, $18.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Post-apocalyptic romance novel. Survivor Kayla brings her ailing sister to an exclusive community with a functioning hospital, where she’s courted by local politician Sid, whose marriage would help her chances of entry.
Rirdan, Daniel: The Woman Who Touched the Sun (Corino Press 979-8992609073, $13.99, 24pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, 06/30/2026)
SF novel. A woman from Nebraska with a samurai bloodline builds herself a spaceship in her barn, traveling to distant fiery reaches of space.
Shipton, Liz: Mother & Slaughter (Tyrannosaurus Yes 979-8295553233, $15.99, 380pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/01/2026)
Fantasy novel. In Draconia, where women must choose between being mothers and gladiators, star combatant Eleanor finds herself pregnant and takes a risky journey to find a witch outside the kingdom. Illustrated by Daniel Lorca.
Simmons, David: Fetty on the Switches (Clash Books 978-1968043117, $18.95, 198pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Collection of 21 crime, horror, and love stories. In an alternate Baltimore where the dead rise, citizens struggle with phantasmagoric situations like biology-class vivisections and serial-killing monsters. A first collection.
Swift, Dana: When Dealing with Dragons (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250402431, $20.99, 339pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Young-adult romantic fantasy novel. Farren Walsh is determined to become a dragon veterinarian like her father, but her arrogant rival James Murphy interns at her family’s sanctuary.
Szal, Jeremy: Wolfskin (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1473227521, $32.00, 672pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
SF novel, book 3 of The Common series. Vakov is a Reaper, an elite soldier injected with alien DNA that makes him stronger and faster, and has to fight a cult and the Shenoi, the genocidal race who gives him his powers.
Thorne, Rebecca: Moss’d in Space (Tor/Bramble 978-1250414144, $17.70, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Cozy SF novel, first in the Moss’d in Space series. Torian buys an abandoned alien starship, and discovers that it houses an organic computer entity named Moss, abandoned inside by its former owner. Simultaneous with the Bramble UK edition.
Tremblay, Paul: Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep (HarperCollins/Morrow 978-0063398467, $30.00, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Near-future SF horror novel. Gamer Julia gets a temp job “remote-controlling” a comatose man across the country for the company that owns the AI tech in his brain, and he starts to wake up.
Varga, Emily: The River She Became (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250878694, $22.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
YA romantic fantasy novel. Scholar Yaseema archives fae relics by day, and tries to unlock their magic at night, and finds an ancient key to the fae realm where she can save her land.
Verne, Jules: From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for Our Spacefaring Age (MIT Press 978-0-262553865, $30.00, 334pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)
Reprint of the classic 1865 SF novel, with detailed annotations. Translated by William James Miller. With essays by Samit Basu, Jordan Bimm, Erika Nesvold, Adam Oyebanji, Malka Older, Adam Roberts, and Asif Siddiqi.
Walton, Jo: Everybody’s Perfect (Tor 978-1250314055, $29.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)
Fantasy novel. In a fantasy mirror city to Venice, laborer Tiry is one of many citizens who has a dream that his city Serenissima will have a doge and marry the sea.
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