Save It for Later: 5 of My Most Anticipated SFF Books of 2025

This is a queer debut fantasy set in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. When Bennie’s best friend dies in a coal mine, she will stop at nothing to find out why it happened. But an investigation inside the mines unearths more questions than answers. There, Bennie finds a woman half-drowned in mine slough. She says her name is Motheater, but she doesn’t know anything else about herself except that she’s the last witch of Appalachia and she’s been fighting industry on Kire Mountain for over a century. Bennie hopes that with the help of Motheater, she can prove the mines are dangerous. But they’ll need a lot more than magic to fight the industry.

After over twelve years, fans of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series are getting a new book in the series…and it’s the last one. Dark Reading Matter is to be the eighth and final book in the delightful sci-fi series about Thursday Next, a literary detective. Not much is known about the book right now, except the publisher description mentions that the plot was teased in the last book. I wish I could remember that far back! Looks like I’m going to have to read all the books again before this one comes out.

If you like your fantasy novels on the darker side, Cassandra Khaw is a great author to know. This upcoming hella-dark fantasy sounds absolutely bananpants! It’s about The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, where the all-powerful and enormously evil powers of the world attend. Alessa Li is a student there, kidnapped and forced to enroll. When the faculty eats most of Alessa’s class on graduation day, she and the other survivors become trapped in the library, where they must send out a sacrifice every day to stay safe.

Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor returns with this imaginative story of a disabled Nigerian American writer and features a book-within-a-book! Zelu has always felt like her Nigerian family disapproves of her decision to be a writer. She’s not so sure she approves anymore, either, since none of the literary fiction she has written has been published. After losing her job, Zelu decides to take the time to write something just for herself: a wild sci-fi epic about AI and androids in a war against humanity. Little does she know that when she finds a publisher for her new work, the book will change the world.

V.E. Schwab has a few amazing series under her belt now, and I freak out every time a new book comes out. But I am extra excited right now because next year, we are getting a rare treat: a stand-alone novel! The publisher description doesn’t tell us much, just that there are three young women, in three different centuries, whose bodies are all planted in soil. Each grows in a different way, but “all of them grow teeth.” I have so many questions! And I am so excited!