Must-Have Monday #234
Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.
THIRTEEN books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Boricua MC with asthma, M/M, secondary Desi character with dwarfism
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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In Coney Island, true love rises to the surface. With lush illustrations and buoyant prose, Venessa Vida Kelley forges an unforgettable New York fairytale.
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. He invites Benny to join the show’s eclectic cast and share in their shocking secret: the tank will cage their newest exhibit, a live merman stolen from the salty banks of the East River.
More than a mythic marvel, Benny soon comes to know the merman Río as a kindred spirit, wise and more compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
Releasing Río could mean losing his found family, his new home, and his soulmate forever. Yet Benny’s courageous choice may just reveal a love strong enough to free them both.
Beautifully written AND gorgeously illustrated, my early copy has been giving me all the Feels! Would also like to draw special attention to Kelley’s mer-lore, which is relatively simple but really great!
Awakened by A.E. Osworth Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans cast, BIPOC trans MCs
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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A coven of trans witches battles an evil AI in the magical coming-of-middle-age romp about love, loss, drag shows, and late capitalism.
On a morning much like any other, 30-something queer Brooklynite Wilder makes the miraculous discovery: suddenly, as if by magic, they can understand every language in the world. Dazed and disconnected, Wilder is found and taken in by a small coven of trans witches who have all become Awakened with mystical powers of their own. Quibble, a handsome portal traveler, Artemis, the group’s caretaker and seer, and Mary Margaret, a smart-ass teen with telekinetic powers all work to make the cagey and suspicious Wilder feel comfortable, both within their group and with the knowledge that magic is, in fact, real.
Just as Wilder is finding their footing, a malicious AI threatens to dismantle the delicate balance of the coven and the world as they know it. Newly assembled and tenuously bound, the group scrambles to stay united as they parse the difference between difficult and dangerous, asking themselves continuously: is any consciousness—be it artificial, material, or magical—too dangerous to exist?
Awakened is an exhilarating, hilarious and thought-provoking reflection on the ways that we are responsible for creating our own realities , a story of finding community, and a meditation on what it means to have a body (and if it might be far worse never to have had one at all).
Do you want to read a novel about trans witches figuring out magic, Adulting, and what to do about a sapient AI??? Of course you do, who wouldn’t!
US cover; UK coverThe Floating World (The Floating World, #1) by Axie Oh Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Korean-coded cast and setting
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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From Axie Oh, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.
Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.
Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.
Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn't realize she's the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined...
I do not know the myth this one was inspired by, but that only makes me more excited!
One Way Witch (She Who Knows #2) by Nnedi Okorafor Genres: Adult, Science Fantasy
Representation: West African-coded cast and setting
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, One Way Witch is the second in the She Who Knows trilogy
The world has forgotten Onyesonwu.
As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy — until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she’d built was violently destroyed.
Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu’s teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter’s mother.
When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past — for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves.
This seems to be set decades after the first book, but we’re still following Najeeba! It’s going to be so interesting to see how much she’s changed.
Polynesian Myths & Legends: Tales of Heroes, Myths & Monsters by J.K. Jackson Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Polynesian cast and setting
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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The Polynesian triangle covers Easter Island, Hawaii, New Zealand and the many isles in between. The legends of the region are based on the creation of land, fish, sea, valleys and the volcanic outcrops scattered across the long stretches of the Pacific.
The beautiful myths of the ancient Polynesians are brought together in this new collection: from Hawaii the Rainbow Maiden of Manoa undulates through the valleys and rainbow mists; the creator Maui releases his fish hooks into the sea to raise the islands to the surface; and tales of Pele the Fire Goddess, who hurls fountains of molten rock into the air creating vast flows of lava. From the Maori of New Zealand come the strange fruit of darkness, the tales of Tiki and the Great Mother from whom the gods descend, then humankind. And from Polynesia, more legends of Maui creating the ancestors, and Hina the moon goddess. Such myth-making joy creates a rare unity in diversity as the ancient Polynesians strove to explain the beauty and darkness of their lush ocean worlds, now offered in this new selection of myths and legends.
Flame Tree Collector's Editions present the foundations of speculative fiction, authors, myths and tales without which the imaginative literature of the twentieth century would not exist, bringing the best, most influential and most fascinating works of myth and history into a striking and collectable library. Each book features a new introduction and a Glossary of Terms.
Flame Tree Publishing has created a series of collections of myths they’ve called Flame Tree Collectors’ Editions – there are the more common Greek and Roman myths, but also books collecting stories from the Ancient Near East, Korea, Ancient Egypt, Africa and a bunch of others. Possibly they’ve been out in the UK a while, but now the US is getting them too! I’m most interested in this one, the Polynesian, but I strongly encourage you to check out the whole series!
(In fact, just click around on their website; this is far from their only series on world myths!)
The Sea Gives Up the Dead: Stories by Molly Olguín Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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The Sea Gives Up the Dead is a collection of stories sprinkled into the soil of fairy tale, left to take root and grow wild there.
A lovesick nanny slays a dragon. The devil tries to save her mother. A girl drowns and becomes a saint. Three kids plot to blow up their dad, a grieving mother sails the sea to find her son’s grave, a scientist brings a voice to life, and a mermaid falls into the power of a witch. Here, historical fiction, horror, and fantasy tangle together in a queer garden of love, grief, and longing.
Fantastical, queer, and clearly weird? I’m in!
Manzakar (The Slave-Soldier Series Book 1) by R. Laham Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Pansexual (?) MC
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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The Gohari are a race of nomadic, pansexual people with inherent magic who are suffering at the hands of the Kingdom of Anzor’s angry god, Cenk. By harnessing the nomads’ skills in horsemanship and archery, Anzor has built a powerful, elite class of slave-soldiers who are above and beyond any other kingdom’s army: the Manzakars.
Sold into slavery to save his nomad family from starving, Tikran becomes a Manzakar believing that they are warriors of justice. However, as he campaigns in Gohar, the land of his birth, he realizes that not only is Anzor using the Manzakars to persecute the nomads, but it’s also exploiting the Gohari by enslaving them and stealing their magic—the Essence—to be the most powerful kingdom on the Continent. As the most celebrated Manzakar in Anzor and the king’s personal bodyguard, Tikran must decide if he’s willing to forfeit his dreams of glory—as well as his own life and the lives of those he loves—to stand up for what he
I haven’t been able to learn much about this one, but I’m curious enough to want a look!
The Lilac People by Milo Todd Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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For readers of All the Light We Cannot See and In Memoriam, a moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves
In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.
In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies’ vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation becomes fleeing to the United States.
Brimming with hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community, The Lilac People tells an extraordinary story inspired by real events and recovers an occluded moment of trans history.
The reviews for this have been overflowing with praise, and I am EXTREMELY happy to see a novel showcasing a) the Institute of Sexual Science, which I think most people who are not nerds about queer history have never heard of, and b) how fucking awful the Allies were in their ‘clean-up’ of the Nazis’ prisoners.
Love at Second Sight by F.T. Lukens Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: M/M, Hispanic love interest
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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When a teen has an unexpected vision about a future murder, he must juggle newfound interest from the supernatural community with trying to prevent the murder from happening in this new romantic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author F.T. Lukens.
Tired of being known as the artsy oddball, fifteen-year-old Cam Reynolds hopes to fly under the radar when he changes high schools as a sophomore. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering he’s a human going to school with kids who have super-cool paranormal powers, like his best friend and witch, Al, and longtime werewolf crush, Miguel.
Then Cam has a psychic glimpse of the future in front of most of the student body, seeing a gruesomely murdered teen girl from the point of view of the killer. When Cam comes to, he knows two things: someone he goes to school with is a future murderer and his life is about to change. No longer a mere human but a clairvoyant, one of the rarest of supernatural beings, Cam finds himself at the center of attention for the first time.
As the most powerful supernatural factions in the city court Cam and his gift, he’ll have to work with his friends, both old and new, to figure out who he can trust. Because the clock is ticking, and Cam and his friends must identify the girl in the vision, find her potential killer, and prevent the murder from happening. Or the next murder Cam sees might be his own.
I think this will be my last try at a Lukens book; if I don’t get along with Second Sight I’ll accept that this author isn’t for me!
Dreamslinger (Slinger #1) by Graci Kim Genres: Fantasy, MG
Representation: Korean setting (Korean MC?)
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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Amari and the Night Brothers meets Pokémon in this thrilling start to Graci Kim’s brand-new fantasy series where dragons and phoenixes roam the skies of Seoul; meals magically appear based on your mood; and dreams literally come to life
Fourteen-year-old Aria Loveridge lives at the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers, a safe haven for children born with a genetic mutation that transports them to a powerfully magical realm while they sleep. But this magic can be unpredictable—even deadly. After all, it was only ten years ago when members of the Royal League of Dreamslingers caused the Great Outburst—a tragedy that killed hundreds of people, including Aria’s mom.
Since then, Aria’s dad has become leading expert on Dreamslinger Welfare, which means Aria knows better than most what it takes to keep society safe from her, and others like her: separation, identification, and most importantly, power suppression.
So when the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk—home of the Dreamslinger League—announces the first Dreamslinger trials where teenage slingers from around the world are invited to compete for a chance to join the League and learn how to use their powers, Aria knows what she must join the trials and take down the League from the inside.
But the Trials introduce Aria to a world of wonderous magic and friendship, a world where she finally feels like she belongs. And as dark secrets from the past are revealed—ones that make Aria question her very identity—she becomes even more determined to discover the truth for herself. She just has to survive the trials first.
Korean magic school where you GROW your beastie companion? Like a flower??? I approve!
Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold (Abeni's Song #2) by P. Djèlí Clark Genres: Fantasy, MG
Representation: West African and African Diaspora-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 29th April 2025
Goodreads
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Return to the world of Abeni's Song in Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold, the action packed sequel by P. Djèlí Clark.
“Lush and magical.” —KWAME MBALIA • “Astonishing.” —MARK OSHIRO • "Abeni's story will sweep you away." —AMANDA FOODY
The Children of the Night are free.
Abeni and her spirit friends rescued them from a terrible fate in the Witch Priest’s army of monsters. But when Abeni is asked to return home to rebuild her village, she refuses. She must carry on with her mission until all of her people are safe.
When Abeni is captured and imprisoned by the legendary Kingdom of Gold Weavers, she must win her freedom by retrieving the mystical Golden Throne—or risk becoming a living statue of gold forever! Legend says the throne is guarded by a dragon who can only be defeated by a magic sword.
But stories are not always what they seem. And the truth can change everything.
To reclaim the throne, Abeni and her spirit companions must travel to a city of light high in the mountains and a lost kingdom beneath the sands, fight frightening monsters and a golden army, all while evading the Witch Priest’s daughter, who hunts them at every turn.
Without courage and strength, even a kingdom of gold will fall to darkness. Will Abeni and her song be enough to save them all?
Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold is the second epic adventure in Abeni’s tale of magic, monsters, friendship, and courage.
This series is HIGH on my Middle Grade tbr, and now we have a sequel that sounds freaking epic!
The Sun Blessed Prince by Lindsey Byrd Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 1st May 2025
Goodreads
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On a hotly-contested battlefield, a prince whose touch creates life meets a soldier chosen by death. But can they forge a future together, from opposite sides of a great war?
A lyrical and character-driven queer fantasy for those who loved She Who Became the Sun, The Song of Achilles and Sistersong.
Prince Elician is a Giver – a closely-guarded secret. He can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country wage an endless war. Reapers can kill with a single touch. And when one attacks Prince Elician near a hotly contested battlefield, the Reaper expects a terrible punishment. Instead, Elician offers him a new life on enemy territory.
Cat, as Elician calls him, hadn’t realized he could ever find someone who would make life worth living. Yet Elician’s enemies plan to turn his kindness against him. As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. The fires of conflict burst into new flame – but can those who wield the powers of life and death find peace?
A powerful and richly-imagined tale from a bold new voice in fantasy fiction, Lindsey Byrd's The Sun Blessed Prince is a sweeping, enemies-to-lovers, found-family adventure.
The US has to wait another week, but UK readers can grab Sun Blessed Prince this May Day! (Which is the perfect holiday for a sun title, imo!)
Little Wolf and the Witch by Wendy Palmer Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 4th May 2025
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After being exiled in his youth, Feilan has earned a comfortable, complacent life in the Siftar trading post. He has very little to worry about...
...aside from a would-be emperor with covetous eyes on Siftar’s trade network, the Vaer raiders who insist on camping nearby every summer, the warrior who got him exiled all those years ago – and the jolterhead who thinks it’s perfectly reasonable to walk the new child-queen of Seven Hills into the raiders’ camp to beg for help.
Renart is young Queen Adeline’s uncle, and he’s trying to save her from a dangerous regency. They desperately need champions for a monster hunt, and Renart is not exactly grateful to Feilan for diverting them for their own safety.
He’s very grateful to Feilan for falling for the trick he tries next.
Feilan finds himself accompanying Renart home, under orders to win the monster hunt to earn Adeline a throne and Siftar a trade deal. The monster’s more than even a Vaer warrior can handle alone, so he’ll need to pull together an unlikely alliance to stay in the game.
Meanwhile, he has a marriage to fake, and he soon finds spiky, provocative, lonely Renart to be a man of secret depths and unsung courage.
But there’s more than one monster in Seven Hills, and the one who wears the human mask is far too accustomed to power to let an interfering barbarian take it away...
If you for some strange reason did NOT nab Palmer’s newest release from her Payhip, you can buy it from all the usual places come the 4th! (Currently in the middle of reading this and enjoying myself IMMENSELY!)
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
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