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10 Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of Summer 2025 You Need to Pre-Order Now
From sweeping epics to dark mythic tales, this summer's fantasy lineup offers unforgettable journeys, emotionally resonant storytelling, and magic that lingers long after the final page.
Fantasy in 2025 is more daring than ever — bending tropes, deepening character arcs, and reimagining the boundaries between wonder and realism. The season’s standout titles blend literary ambition with immersive world-building, and while many come from familiar names, a few new voices are already drawing quiet buzz.
We’ve handpicked ten of the most promising fantasy novels releasing between mid-June and the end of September 2025. These are books to pre-order now — not just to secure the lowest launch price, but to support authors during the crucial window that determines whether their stories reach the audiences they deserve.
Dark & Gothic Fantasy
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
10th June 2025
A lesbian vampire finds both love and identity in a small town steeped in secrets. Schwab blends gothic tradition with emotional vulnerability in a haunting story of hunger—both literal and metaphorical.
From the author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, this lyrical return to darker waters is rich in atmosphere and ache.
The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson
11th September 2025
A queer horror fantasy tied to a cursed southern theatre, where grief, legacy, and vengeful spirits collide.
Jackson’s debut in fantasy horror balances dread with tenderness, delivering a slow-burning narrative steeped in cultural inheritance and identity.
Epic Fantasy
Sub-Majer’s Challenge by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
26th August 2025
In the next entry of the Recluce saga, a Sub-Majer’s grasp of order and chaos is tested as unrest builds on all fronts.
Modesitt continues to deepen one of fantasy’s most philosophically rich series — where thought and magic are intertwined.
Modern & Romantic Fantasy
The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar
5th August 2025
Princess Tullia falls for a quiet scribe — a choice that defies her father’s command and entwines her fate with a mysterious magician whose presence shifts the balance of the kingdom.
Best known for Holes, Louis Sachar’s first adult novel is a romantic and whimsical modern fantasy inspired by The Princess Bride and Renaissance storytelling. It’s charming, strange, and unexpectedly profound.
Urban Fantasy
Bones at the Crossroads by LaDarrion Williams
29th July 2025
Back at Caiman University, Malik unearths buried legacies and magical truths that threaten to reshape everything he thought he knew.
Blending Black Southern folklore and coming-of-age magic, this sequel deepens both world and heart.
Pre-order now: Hardcover
Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire
30th September 2025
Ghosts haunt the ruins of post-industrial Ohio, where a reluctant medium must reckon with the dead — and her past.
McGuire’s urban gothic fantasy wraps folklore in contemporary unease, grounding grief and magic in rustbelt beauty.
Pre-order now: Hardcover
Romantasy
Alchemised by SenLinYu (Editor’s Choice)
30th September 2025
Enemies. Witches. A world built on fragile alliances and burning secrets. When ancient magic resurfaces, two rivals must decide if trust is even possible.
Slow-burn, devastating, and utterly absorbing — this romantasy debut is already stirring buzz for its emotional complexity and lush setting.
What Fury Brings by Tricia Levenseller
25th September 2025
A demon hunter sworn to the light falls for the very darkness she’s meant to destroy. Romance collides with revenge in this sizzling tale of forbidden power.
Levenseller brings her signature blend of banter, romantic tension, and high-stakes danger into a new magical realm.
Fantasy Thriller
Glorious Rivals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
July 29, 2025
Seven players. One island. A game that tests not only strategy but survival, where the stakes are written in ancient riddles and bloodlines.
With her signature blend of high-stakes tension and clever twists, Barnes shifts from thriller to fantasy without losing a step.
Dark Academia Fantasy
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
August 28, 2025
A brilliant historian is exiled to an underground library—where buried texts may hold the key to forbidden knowledge, and power is paid in memory.
Kuang follows Babel with another intellectually fierce, emotionally loaded exploration of knowledge, control, and consequence.
Looking Ahead to a Summer of Magic
Whether you’re drawn to vampires, rebels, riddles, or richly imagined cities, Summer 2025 is quietly stacking up to be a landmark season for fantasy fiction. These ten releases — full of danger, beauty, and soul — promise to meet you where you are and take you somewhere entirely new.
Pre-ordering not only guarantees your copy at the best price, but helps these stories reach the readers who need them most — at the moment it matters most.
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— The Page Sage
Thumbnail Photo by Kevin Bosc on Unsplash
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