Must Read Fantasy Coming Out in April 2025

The second volume in the ground-breaking Library Trilogy, following THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN.

We fight for the people we love. We fight for the ideas we want to be true.

Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other’s reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she’s to return to her life. While Evar’s journey leads him outside into the vastness of a world he’s never seen, Livira’s destination lies deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

And all the while, the library quietly weaves thread to thread, bringing the scattered elements of Livira’s old life – friends and foe alike – back together beneath new skies.

Long ago, a lie was told, and with the passing years it has grown and spread, a small push leading to a chain of desperate consequences. Now, as one edifice topples into the next with ever-growing violence, it threatens to break the world. The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.

The Library Trilogy is about many things: adventure, discovery, and romance, but it’s also a love letter to books and the places where they live. The focus is on one vast and timeless library, but the love expands to encompass smaller more personal collections, and bookshops of all shades too.

Once upon a time in the land of Oz, a green little girl was born…

ELPHIE: A WICKED CHILDHOOD is the captivating coming-of-age story of the most iconic witch ever to grace our screens and bookshelves.

Young Elphaba is destined to be a witch, she bears the markings from childhood. But what happened before her powers took hold?

Elphie is a girl like any other and no other. Nothing like her parents – one beautiful, the other pious – nor her saintly sister, Nessarose. Her skin is green, her mind is cunning. One day she will command this strange and wonderful world. For now, her journey is just beginning.

The road ahead is full of lessons and heartbreak, the first bruising attempts at friendship – and tantalising whispers of magic.

It will lead Elphie to the doors of Shiz University, and to the girl who will change her life forever…

In a world where words are power, there is nothing more dangerous than an unnamed thing.

Enter an epic world of ghosts and monsters, magical trains and nameless wonders in this gorgeous lyrical fantasy, perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke, The Starless Sea and the films of Guillermo del Toro. 

When something fell from the something tree, all the words went away. And the world changed.

Monsters slipped from dreams. The land began to shift and ghosts wandered the world in trances. Only with the rise of the named and their committees―Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names―could humanity stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. Now, they build borders, shackle ghosts and hunt monsters. The nameless are to be fought, and feared.

One unnamed courier of the names committee travels aboard the Number Twelve train, assigning names to the people and things that need them. Her position on the train grants her safety in a world that otherwise fears her. But when she accidentally pulls a monster from a dream, and attacks by the nameless rock the Number Twelve, she is forced to flee. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the borders between realities, she sets out to look for her long-lost sister.

Her search for the truth of her own life opens the door to a revolutionary future―for the words she carries will reshape the world.

At once a love letter to the power of language and an exploration of its limits, The Naming Song is the perfect fantasy for anyone who’s ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.

A dragon queen, a vengeful sea witch, and a mythical titan converge on the underwater city of Tiankawi in this sequel to the no. 1 Sunday Times bestselling epic fantasy, Fathomfolk.

A tsunami and a dragon’s wish have wrought changes upon the city of Tiankawi that have never been seen before. But shared experiences have not healed the rift between the city’s fathomfolk and human citizens, and scars from years of oppression still remain.

Mira, a half-siren and activist, fights politicians and her own people to rebuild her city, and to uncover a deadly conspiracy. And Nami, the dragon princess, undertakes a daring ocean voyage alongside friend and foe, in order to convince a mythical Titan not to destroy Tiankawi for its crimes…

In the epic finale to the #1 internationally bestselling Fallen Gods trilogy that started with Godkiller, the fate of Middren hangs in the balance as mighty gods and mortal heroes clash in a final battle for supremacy.

War has come. The fire god Hseth is leading an unstoppable army south, consuming everything in her path. Middren’s only hope of survival is to unify allies and old foes against a common enemy.

Elo navigates an uneasy alliance with Arren; his friend, his enemy, and his king. Now they each must decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice to turn the tides of war.

Meanwhile, Inara joins her mother on their ship, the Silverswift, to seek aid. Still grappling with her powers, Inara must reconcile who she is and where she belongs, while Skediceth has to question if their bond will be enough to keep them safe.

Kissen has no allegiance to the old ways of Middren. But, as she tries to find her family, she is forced to question what, and whose, future she is fighting for.

In Faithbreaker, Hannah Kaner delivers a powerful conclusion to the Fallen Gods trilogy, masterfully weaving together love and sacrifice, loyalty and betrayal, and the true meaning of faith.

The war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore the mortal realm apart. Now it is an increasingly dangerous place, falling into eternal night where ravenous demons roam and every day is a fight for survival…

The Immortality Trials offer a second chance in this brutal world and are open to any mortal willing to risk the journey to the immortal realm. The prize for completing them is eternal life…

However, first they must survive.

Àn’yīng knows the prize can heal her dying mother and that she’ll need all the help she can get if she’s to complete them.

But when a rival contestant, both powerful and handsome, promises protection and a chance of survival for both Àn’yīng and her mother, she will need to find out quickly whether she can truly trust the stranger she’s falling for or if he’s the most dangerous player of all … for herself and for all the realms.

Coming April 2025

One curse. Two destinies. A thousand stolen gods.

Two women embark on an epic journey in this sapphic fantasy with a slow-burn romance inspired by the fall of Rome, from the author of the Frontier and Floating Hotel.

ON ONE SIDE OF THE WORLD, Aleya Ana-Ulai is desperate for a chance. Her family have written her off as a mistake, but she’s determined to prove every last one of them wrong.

ON THE OTHER, Kirby of Wall’s End is searching for redemption. An ancient curse tore her life apart, but to fix it, she’ll have to leave everything behind.

Fate sets them both on the path to Nivela, a city once poised to conquer the world with the power of a thousand stolen gods. Now the gates are closed and the old magic slumbers. Dead – or waiting for a spark to light it anew . . .

Coming April 2025

In the first book of this touching and darkly comic duology, a paladin, a forger, an assassin and a scholar ride out of town on an espionage mission with deadly serious stakes.

When forger Slate is convicted of treason, she faces a death sentence. But her unique gift for sniffing out magic (literally) earns her a reprieve—of sorts.

Along with a formerly demon-possessed paladin named Caliban, her murderous ex-lover, and an irritating sexist scholar, Slate sets off on a mission to learn about the Clockwork Boys, deadly mechanical soldiers from a neighboring kingdom who have been terrorising their lands. If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but they must survive a long journey through enemy territory to reach Anuket City. And Slate has her own reasons to dread returning to her former home.

Slate and her crew aren’t the first to be sent on this mission. None of their predecessors have returned, and Slate can’t help but feel they’ve exchanged one death sentence for another. Her increasing closeness to Caliban isn’t helping matters: for the first time in a long while, Slate might actually care about surviving.

Howl’s Moving Castle meets The House in the Cerulean Sea in Andrea Eames’ debut cosy fantasy: a cheeky butcher’s daughter, a befuddlingly handsome sorcerer, and his clever talking cat unlock magical secrets in the dark heart of their kingdom – and just might discover the meaning of true love.

Everyone in Foss Butcher’s village knows what happens when the magic-workers come; they harvest human hearts to use in their spells. That’s just how life in her kingdom works. But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone would want hers.

When a sorcerer snags a piece of Foss’s heart without meaning to, she is furious. For once a heart is snagged, the experience is … well, unpleasant. So, Foss finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted House and demands that he fixes her before she keels over and dies, or whatever happens when hearts are Snagged.

But the sorcerer, Sylvester, is not what she expected. Petulant, idle, and new to his powers, Sylvester has no clue how to undo the heart-taking, or how to do much of anything really, apart from sulk. Foss’s only friend is a talking cat and the walls themselves have moods.

As Foss searches for a cure, she accidentally uncovers that there is much more to the heart-taking – and to the magic-workers themselves – than she could have ever imagined…