Demon Sacrifices and Sailing the Fae Seas: July’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
New Summer SFF reads from M.A. Carrick, Eliza Chan, Seth Haddon, and More
There’s nothing like a summer reading challenge to get you into the proper mindset for the season. Many of us grew up on personal pizzas as the reward for reading a certain number of books; these days, my kids get coupons for ice cream and drive-in movie theaters for their efforts. No matter what the incentive, let’s bring that energy into compiling this month’s SFF books. Your options include a graphic novel about lady knights, retellings of Rapunzel (with amnesia and anthropomorphized hair) and Cinderella (in 1940s Hong Kong), Spanish explorers meeting the fae on the high seas, and a futuristic cli-fi fable inspired by Portuguese folklore. Plus, don’t forget to check out august clarke’s The Felicity Complex and H.G. Parry’s The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood from our 2026 most anticipated list.
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Fiona Marchbank, Ladies of the Knight
(Oni Press, July 7)
I grew up on Tamora Pierce’s lady knights and especially loved the intergenerational mentorship in her Protector of the Small series—the same energy that exists in the Oni Press collection of Fiona Marchbank’s delightful webcomic. Serafina is one of the realm’s most talented lady knights, but she’s no good at showboating in tournaments like her rival Aethelberg and would rather keep to herself. George is a clumsy wannabe squire too small for anyone to take the risk on…until Serafina’s wife (and patroness) pushes her to train the girl in the ways of the sword. We love a prickly mentor and scrappy protégée!
Joan Tierney, Misery’s Wife
(Flatiron Books, July 14)
In this post-industrial cli-fi fable inspired by Portuguese folklore, Elixane’s village is ravaged by storms and her elder sisters are married off to magical husbands: the King of the Air, the King of the Sea, and the King of Misery. Despite hardly remembering her sisters, when Elixane receives a dire message from a toad, she ventures out to rescue her favorite sister Dores from the Kingdom of Misery. Aided by trickster siblings the Marquês Boaventura and Marquesa Jinx, she will need both luck and misfortune to shatter unbreakable curses and reunite her family.
M.A. Carrick, The Eye of Leviathan
(Orbit Books, July 14)
An alternate-history Spanish Golden Age is the human-world mirror to the faerie realm in M.A. Carrick’s latest, which explores the ripple effect of a changeling swap. Long ago, Estevan escaped the fae’s Sea Beyond for the human Otherworld, taking the place of a young girl. But when Spanish explorers cross over into the Sea Beyond, the Hungry Girl—the human whose life Estevan stole—becomes their cautious ally, looking to hitch a ride back with them but horrified by the atrocities they commit. Now the two must find one another again through their faerie pact in order to save their adoptive homes and discover their respective purposes. And did we mention that M.A. Carrick is the pen name for the author duo Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms? Double the reason to read.
Seth Haddon, Null Entity
(Tordotcom Publishing, July 21)
Seth Haddon concludes the Volatile Memory duology with this sequel novella following scavenger Wylla and her beloved Sable, the digital consciousness she discovered in an AI mask. Now that Wylla has donned an off-grid mask and become the eponymous “null entity,” the two seek to dismantle the dystopian corporation known as VisorForge. But their attempted hack gets interrupted by the Edenic Order, a radical eco-resistance organization led by a plant/human hybrid. With the Order offering competing promises to each of the two minds in one body, Wylla and Sable may not be able to continue coexisting unless they can find a new way that combines revenge with revolution.
Andrea Eames, A Tangled Magic
(Erewhon Books, July 28)
Rapunzel has gotten several clever new retellings recently, including Tia Tashiro’s “For Whom the Hair Grows,” Theodora Goss’ “The Parsley Girl,” and your humble list curator’s “Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar.” Andrea Eames’ novel offers an intriguing new take through Netta, a young woman who understands her own life only in bits and pieces. There is her magical red Hair, impossibly long and imbued with power and opinions; the Tower, her home filled with books whose secrets are closed to her; and her mother, buried in the life’s work of her spellbook. But when her mother disappears, Netta must find a way out of the Tower and decide which strangers—con men, book sellers, magicians—she can trust as she unknots the secrets hiding the truth of her life.
Elizabeth Lim, Fishbone Cinderella
(Del Rey, July 28)
YA author Elizabeth Lim makes her adult debut with a historical fantasy inspired by the Chinese version of Cinderella, where magical fish bones take the place of a fairy godmother. The multigenerational tale is related in dual timelines: In 1940s occupied Hong Kong, young Ha Yut Ying saves her own life through the power of invisibility but also suffers as the unwanted stepchild with her father and his second wife, forced to work in a shoe factory and falling in love with the heir to a soy milk empire. Decades later, in 1960s San Francisco, Yut Ying cannot stop flickering in and out of reality. Her adult daughter Marigold races back to Hong Kong to uncover the truth behind the family curse by way of a missing fish bone bracelet.
Jesse Aragon, The Demon Star
(DAW, July 28)
The chosen one narrative of Dune meets Gideon the Ninth-esque exorcism in this suspenseful science fantasy debut set on a world teeming with gods and demons. Former Knight Candidate Ysira Naktis was supposed to be a human sacrifice but survived thanks to the healing powers of a demon. Now a mercenary, she sees fate catching up with her when her son Neri is chosen for demonic possession—and if she saves him, she will doom millions. Her best chance and unlikeliest ally is Brother Jacen Kheris, once a gifted exorcist in the Church of the Black Sun and now a purposeless addict following the death of his trainee. Their attempts to regain control over their world will take them from demon-infested canyons to a distant satellite, battling human cultists and the gods themselves.
Eliza Chan, Harbour of Hungry Ghosts
(Orbit Books, July 28)
Still smarting over the Buffy reboot not getting picked up? Scratch that monster-hunter itch with this new series from Eliza Chan, set in 1850s Hong Kong. As the eldest daughter of the demon-hunting Au clan, Kiamling bears the pressure to continue her family’s protection of the city, battling monsters from Cantonese folklore. But a new strain of evil has infested the city, drawing their powers from unfamiliar British fables—and one of them snatches her beloved grandmother and mentor, Por Por. Kiamling must assemble her own Scooby gang consisting of her little sister Jingling (harboring her own family secrets), her childhood sweetheart-turned-pirate Hoi gor, and a civil servant named Archie. This sounds fantastic.
Natalie Zutter
Natalie Zutter is a New York-based writer and pop culture critic whose work has appeared on Reactor, Lit Hub, NPR Books, and elsewhere. Her SFF short fiction has been published at PodCastle, Adventitious, and The Icarus Writing Collective. Find her on Bluesky @zutsuit.