New Book Releases: 4/15/2025

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New science fiction, fantasy, and horror books for the week of April 15, 2025. 

 

Abdullah, Chelsea: The Ashfire King (Orbit US 978-0316369060, $30, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/14/2025)

Fantasy adventure novel, second in the Sandsea trilogy and sequel to The Stardust Thief. Loulie, a merchant, is stranded in the realm of jinn, where the cities below the Sandsea are sinking and war is brewing.

 

Ambrose, West: The Last Boy On Earth (Rebel Satori US/Queer Space 978-1608643714, $21.95, 316pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Lyrical fantasy novel. When two boys from Illyrian, Julian and Vern, are lost, a ship sets sail to find them. The newfound crewmates of the Clarel navigate murky waters and each other, in a race against time to help both Julian and Vern return to where they were born.

 

Anderson, Kevin J.: Horn Dogs (WordFire Press 978-1680577440, $27.99, 262pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, 04/15/2025)

Urban fantasy novel, 11th book in the Cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series. Dan Shamble deals with more eccentric cases in a world where supernatural creatures walk the earth. Except no one has seen a unicorn, and Dan discovers a secret society of Horn Brothers who kill them.

 

Asher, Neal: Dark Diamond (Start/Pyr 978-1645060895, $28.99, 688pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

SF novel, a first in the world of the Owner trilogy. Forces are trying to kill space captain Blite, but the device he possesses, a dark diamond, always turns back time to a moment before his death. The crablike Prador are seeking this power for themselves.

 

Callender, Kacen: Chaos King (Tor Teen 978-1250890283, $25.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Young-adult fantasy novel, second in the Infinity Alchemist series. Ash has saved New Anglia, but he’s haunted by nightmares of his dead mother trying to warn him of something. Then he’s captured by a radical group of anti-alchemist believers, who are inspired by his father.

 

Elliott, Julia: Hellions (Tin House 978-1963108064, $17.95, 272pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Short story collection. It blends folklore, fairy tales, Southern Gothic, and horror, reveling in the collision of the familiar with the wildly surreal. Tales feature a nun working on a forbidden manuscript, a sorceress resisting a shape-shifting professor, and wood-dwelling orphans.

 

Ellis, Sara K.: If the Stars Are Lit (Luna Press Publishing UK 978-1915556592, $25.99, 202pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

SF mystery novel. Joss, a woman alone on a damaged starship, struggles to find out who blew up her ship and re-establish communications, but starts having hallucinations. The ship’s AI creates an AI version of her wife in an attempt to help.

 

Emezi, Akwaeke: Somadina (Penguin Random House/Knopf 978-0593309070, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, possess magical powers for which Jayaike is adored and Somadina is feared. When he vanishes, Somadina must track him down, even if it means entering the Sacred Forest.

 

Fellman, Isaac: Notes from a Regicide (Tor 978-1250329103, $27.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Queer historical fantasy novel. Trans man Griffon, wanting to learn more about his second parents’ lives before him, looks into his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. There Griffon finds a fraught story about wonderful and strange people.

 

Hampson, Robert E.: Across an Ocean of Stars (Baen 978-1668072547, $18, 416pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

SF zombie novel in John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series. When the zombie apocalypse comes to Hawaii, survivors, scientists, ranchers, pirates and more must struggle to survive and rebuild.

 

Hodgson, Antonia: The Raven Scholar (Orbit US 978-0316577229, $21.99, 672pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Epic fantasy novel, the first in the Eternal Path series. The emperor Orrun dies, and contenders compete to replace him. When one of them is murdered, Neema Kraa, the emperor’s idiosyncratic High Scholar, must find the killer.

 

Ide, Rebecca: The Gentleman and His Vowsmith (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668070932, $19.99, 464pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Lord Nic Monterris is trapped in a marriage of convenience with the daughter of his father’s rival. Worse, their vowsmith is his old flame, Dashiell. All three of them are confined together and must figure out a dastardly plot.

 

Ireland, Amelia: The Seven O’Clock Club (Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0593952634, $29, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Magical realism/fantasy novel. Four strangers are brought together to participate in an experimental treatment designed to heal broken hearts. But their group leader is unnervingly observant, and they wonder: why were they chosen? A first novel.

 

Jiang, Ai: A Palace Near the Wind (Titan Books UK 978-1803369389, $£12.99, 192pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Science fantasy novella, the first in the Natural Winds duology. Princess Liu Lufeng is part of a race of tree people, who must marry a human king to stop the threat of expansion. Lufeng plans to kill him and end the system of marriages.

 

Jones, Emily: Nahia (Holiday House 978-0823458356, $18.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Young-adult prehistoric fantasy novel. Headwoman’s daughter Nahia, vocal about invasion, is sent off to the woods and apprenticed to the enigmatic shaman Eneko. But there, her foresight grows into prophetic powers and visions about encroaching danger.

 

Kakmi, Dmitri: The Woman in the Well (IFWG Publishing International 978-1923382114, $15.99, 300pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Literary horror novel. A van trip to the Central Australian desert goes wrong when an unstoppable ancient force wants to claim the kids and adults inside.

 

Kincaid, Paul: Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction (Briardene Books UK 978-1738561728, $£15.00, pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 04/17/2025)

Non-fiction collection of reviews and essays on sci-fi criticism. It brings together reviews and essays that look at various histories, theoretical works, biographies, and author studies.

 

 

Knighton, Andrew: Forged for Destiny (Orbit Works 978-0316587877, $19.99, 446pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Anti-heroic fantasy novel. Raul seems like the chosen one, with a birthmark that looks like the dead king’s, and a special sword. But his determined parents have been preparing him for this, and as he starts a rebellion, he starts to wonder if fulfilling the prophecy just means following someone else’s plans.

 

Lapinska, Lucy: Some Body Like Me (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399623025, $£20.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/17/2025)

SF romance novel. Abigail is David’s wife, but not really. She’s a replacement, built in the image of the real Abigail, who died sixteen years ago. When the law changes, Abigail is freed from David, but she’s never lived for herself before.

 

Magistrale, Tony & Blouin, Michael J.: King Noir: The Crime Fiction of Stephen King (University Press of Mississippi 978-1496852748, $110, 258pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Non-fiction, a critical exploration of the crime and detective fiction of Stephen King, and how the genre, particularly hardboiled detective fiction, finds its way into King’s horror. Includes illustrations and a chapter by Stephen King.

 

Malfi, Ronald: Senseless (Titan Books UK 978-1803365664, $29.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Horror novel with supernatural elements. A woman’s mutilated body is found in the desert outside LA. Sundry weird characters, from the detective in assigned to the case to a Hollywood newlywed to a guy known as the Human Fly, all find themselves drawn towards converging factors in the case.

 

Murata, Sayaka: Vanishing World (Grove/Atlantic/Grove Press 978-0802164667, $27, 240pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

SF novel set in a Japan where married couples no longer have sex and children are all born through artificial insemination. Amane and her husband decide to live Experiment City, where all children are raised communally without names, and every person is considered a Mother. Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

 

Nguyen, K.T.: You Know What You Did (Penguin Random House/Dutton 978-0593473856, $28, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/16/2025)

Annie, dealing with her mother’s death and spiraling OCD, has dread about horrible things happening. And when an art patron disappears, and she wakes up naked in a hotel next to a corpse, she’s worried that her fixations are coming true.

 

Rhei, Sofía: The Deep Forest (Aqueduct Press 978-1619762749, $16, 190pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Collection of dark, folkloric short stories that take place in the Deep Forest, where myths and haunting enchantments about. Will-o-the-wisps, dryads, glowing springs, and people who aren’t quite human populate these tales.

 

Ryan, Lindy: Another Fine Mess (St. Martin’s/Minotaur 978-1250324238, $28, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Vampire mystery-horror-humor novel, sequel to Bless Your Heart. The Evans women keep the undead in their Southeast Texas town from rising, but after the undead kill two of them, the remaining two have to dig deep into family lore to figure out what’s going on.

 

Simpson, W.A.: The Hatter’s Daughter (Flame Tree Press UK 978-1787589117, $16.95, 272pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 04/15/2025)

Fantasy novel, the third in the Tales from the Riven Isles series. On the night Faith was born, her mother died but sent her to safety in the realm Underneath. The Mad Hatter takes Faith home to raise as his own. When the Rot invades the Underneath, Faith determines to stop it.

 

Soledad, Ishmael A.: Diatheses (Temple Dark (Ireland) B0DSGB9DQ6, $5.21, 302pp, formats: ebook, 04/18/2025)

SF novel, the first book in the Descent series. Maria Rodrigues becomes involved in environmental activism, and entangled with a genius with quesionable ethics. Meanwhile, turmoil surrounds Earth’s first crewed interstellar probe and the ambitious people around it.

 

Ward, Matthew: The Lie That Binds Them (Orbit US 978-0316477062, $23.99, 576pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 04/15/2025)

Fantasy novel, second in the Soulfire Saga series. The kingdom of Khalad is ruled by a brutal despot with the rebels scattered. With folk hero Vallant missing, the thief Kat is now the leader of the rebellion.

 

 

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