Fantasy-Faction’s Top 50 SFF Books of 2025

2026 FEB Best of (detail)

These are the best fantasy and science fiction books that came out in 2025 as picked by our readers, group members, and social media followers!

This year we had almost 200 nominations to sort through! I wish we could have included them all, but if we missed your favorite make sure you let us know in the comments so we can check it out too! So, without further ado, here is our community’s picks for best SFF books of 2025!

P.S. If you like any of these titles, you can click on their cover to see their Goodreads page. And if you have read any, and loved them, make sure you leave a review on Goodreads or your favorite purchasing site!


Top 50


50. Blood for the Undying Throne

(The Bleeding Empire #2) by Sung-Il Kim

Blood for the Undying Throne (cover)

Last seen under Loran’s command, Emere is now a member of the Commons Council. While giving a speech in the Capital, he survives an assassination attempt?and now must team up with the Ministry of Intelligence to discover who is behind it.

Arienne is on a mission to find out what really happened to Mersia. The land?destroyed a hundred years ago by a mysterious weapon known only as the Star of Mersia?is devoid of life, populated only by ghosts. But when she arrives at the ruined city of Danras, Arienne finds more than she expects.

One hundred and seventy years ago, Yuma is the Chief Herder of Danras, looking after the city’s aurochs every summer. After being punished for disobeying the Demon King, she meets Lysandros, who is on a mission to establish diplomatic relations between the Empire and the states of Mersia. But is there a cost of doing business with the Empire?

49. The Malevolent Eight

(The Malevolent Seven #2) by Sebastien de Castell

The Malevolent Eight (cover)

The world is teetering on the brink of annihilation. The Lords Celestine and the Lords Devilish, celestial and infernal beings locked in an age-old enmity, have at last found the perfect battlefield for their apocalyptic Great Crusade: the mortal realm.

Cade Ombra, former Glorian Justiciar turned mercenary wonderist, leads a band of emotionally unstable mages in a desperate bid to prevent the impending clash of divine and diabolical titans. Failure will leave humanity to be conscripted into an eternal war, serving as foot soldiers doomed to oblivion.

The mission seems impossible, but Cade and the Malevolent Seven aren’t exactly pacifists, so they’re determined to bring peace no matter how many people they have to kill first. With wit as sharp as their blades and a moral compass that points only toward survival, they’re ready to cut down anyone in their path to stop the war before it begins.

48. A Judgement of Powers

(Inheritance of Magic #3) by Benedict Jacka

A Judgement of Powers (cover)

The super-rich control everything-including magic-in this thrilling and brilliant, contemporary fantasy from the author of the Alex Verus novels.

The wealthy seem to exist in a different, glittering world from the rest of us. Almost as if by . . . magic.

Stephen Oakwood is a young man on the edge of this hidden world. He has talent and potential, but turning that potential into magical power takes money, opportunity, and training. All Stephen has is a minimum wage job and a cat.

47. Heart of the Wyrdwood

(Forsaken #3) by RJ Barker

Heart of the Wyrdwood (cover)

“That thing in Tiltspire, it keeps Cahan like a trophy. It says to us, here is your strongest and I have killed him.”

Cahan Du Nahare is lost, taken by a dark god whose tendrils reach throughout the world, intent on its destruction. Those who followed Cahan are spread across the land, desperate and lost now fate has turned against them. The Reborn warriors are toys for the enemy, the warrior Dassit, forestal Ania and monk Ont are drawn to the dangerous north but do not know why. Udinny is forced into the company of a woman who desires nothing more than her death and the Rai, Sorha, leads a dwindling band on a mission even she believes is doomed to failure. Only the trion Venn remains hopeful, slowly growing in power and trusting in the path of their god.

But maybe all is not lost. The great Wyrdwoods of Crua may be ancient and slow to act, but something in them is waking.

Wyrdwood is coming.

46. The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

The River Has Roots (cover)

Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk.

45. Wooing the Witch Queen

(Queens of Villainy #1) by Stephanie Burgis

Wooing the Witch Queen (cover)

Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.

When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange—what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen?—but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…

Little does Saskia know that the “wizard” she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he’s in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?

44. A Good Day to Die by G. R. Matthews

A Good Day to Die (cover)

In the shadowed towns of Esadale, betrayal cuts deeper than any blade.

Rawlins — thief, murderer, outcast— has been left to die by the friends he once trusted and he is going to make them regret it.

But revenge is never that simple. Hounded through city slums and noble halls alike, Rawlins uncovers secrets of his Fenland heritage, a rising drug trade that threatens to enslave his people, and a guild of thieves whose power rivals kings. With every step, he is drawn deeper into a grim struggle of sorcery, corruption, and bloodshed.

Aided by Wilone, a herbalist with secrets of her own, and the hidden network of his despised kin, Rawlins must decide whether vengeance alone will satisfy him—or whether he will become something far darker. As civil war brews, nobles clash with the Church, and the streets burn with rebellion, Rawlins faces the ultimate
Will he rise as a weapon of justice… or be consumed by the very revenge he craves?

Perfect for readers of Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and The Witcher series, this dark fantasy revenge tale blends brutal action, and twisted magic.

43. Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines

Slayers of Old (cover)

Three former Chosen Ones have joined together to spend their retirement in peace and quiet, running Second Life Books and Gifts in Salem, MA. A calm, peaceful, tourist-filled oasis, where they never have to worry about saving the world.

Until some of the locals start summoning ancient creatures best left where they were, and they discover that their bookstore basement just may be the portal to the underworld.

These ex-heroes may have thought they were done, but if they want to finish their retirement in peace, they’ll have to join together to save the world one
last time.

42. The Book That Held Her Heart

(The Library Trilogy #3) by Mark Lawrence

The Book That Held Her Heart (cover)

The secret war that defines the Library has chosen its champions and set them on the board.

The fate of an infinite library hangs on one book, a book that holds the power to break the unbreakable. In the face of such forces, fragile things like hearts, family, and the world seem certain to fail.

The people most vital to Livira are scattered across time and space, lost, divided into factions, in mortal peril. Somehow, she must bring them together and resolve the unresolvable argument that fuels the library’s war. The bond between Livira and Evar has stretched and stretched again. Can it hold at the end, when things fall apart? Can it bring them together against impossible odds? This is the last chapter, the final page. The end threatens and no one, not characters, readers, or even the author, will emerge unscathed.

41. The Inheritance

(Breach Wars #1) by Ilona Andrews

The Inheritance (cover)

We are at war. The interdimensional invasion brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke talents slumbering deep within us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Every day new gates open, leading to breaches filled with monsters and valuable resources. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you were born to be.

Adaline is a Talent. Ten years ago, she had a happy marriage and a job she loved. The invasion shattered both. Now she works for the government, searching the breaches for magic metals and medicine to help Earth repel an interdimensional enemy. Two kids, one cat, bills, benefits, mortgage and school tuition. Risking her life became routine.

She had gone into the dimensional gates hundreds of times. She was always well protected. This time everything goes wrong. Now Ada is trapped in the labyrinth of alien caves unlike any other. Her only companion is a scared German Shepherd named Bear. Together they must uncover the breach’s secrets and escape, because Ada promised her children that she will come home.

The future of humanity depends on it.

40. The Girl with the Fierce Eyes by Sophia Vahdati

The Girl with the Fierce Eyes (cover)

Jantsia’s secret will kill her.

In the Empire of Shariza, eye colour determines wealth, status and even access to magical powers. Jantsia’s blue eyes mark her as Azure, the lowest of the four oculary castes. Destined for servitude.

But no one—not even the boy who owns her heart—knows the truth. Jantsia is a dual-oc, a forbidden mix of two castes, condemned to death if discovered. To survive, she clings to one rule: stay invisible, stay alive.

Or will the truth save them all?

Yet whispers of rebellion are growing, and cracks are forming in the very foundations of their society. Could it be that the fiery untapped power burning inside Jantsia is a gift rather than a curse?

But who to trust when different means death?

The Girl with the Fierce Eyes has some potential content warnings, including sexual grooming (past), sibling/infant death (past), racism and discrimination, threatened torture and death, and characters in peril. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note.

39. Faithbreaker

(Fallen Gods #3) by Hannah Kaner

Faithbreaker (cover)

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.

38. Stone and Sky

(Rivers of London #10) by Ben Aaronovitch

Stone and Sky (cover)

This isn’t London. The rules are different up here.

All Detective Sergeant Peter Grant wanted was a nice holiday up in Scotland.

He’ll need one once this is over.

Sea: check.
Sand: some.
Sun: sort of—but that’s not the only thing in the sky…

37. Lady of Fire

(The Wandering Inn #17) by Pirateaba

Lady of Fire (cover)

The world is ablaze with great deeds and incredible people. The King of Duels battle with the King of Destruction is still ringing across the continent of Chandrar, but more adventures are taking place at sea with Niers’ students, and on Izril’s shores.

The Horns have arrived in Invrisil at last, and they will soon find out that Gold-rankers they might be, but that doesn’t guarantee instantaneous respect from other high-level teams. However, a certain [Lady] has also begun her final journey. Once again, attention and excitement swings back to The Wandering Inn thanks to a certain magic door!

It is a time of fire and men with hats and fantastic moments—and dark ones too, sometimes. However, even the meagerest spark can turn into a roaring flame.

36. Onyx Storm

(The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros

Onyx Storm (cover)

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming, and not everyone can survive its wrath.

35. Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Shroud (cover)

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back.

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists—and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them.

If they escape Shroud, they’ll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.

34. The Bone Raiders

(The Rakada #1) by Jackson Ford

The Bone Raiders (cover)

This epic fantasy follows the story of the Rakada, a fearsome band known as the Bone Raiders, due to their charming habit of wearing the bones of those they kill on their armour.

But being a raider is tough these days, especially when the High Chieftain is trying to wipe out you and your kind. When Sayana, a young Rakada scout, finds herself face-to-face with a fire-breathing lizard of legend during a raid-gone-wrong, she comes up with an audacious plan to save the Rakada and preserve their way of life.

A plan that involves convincing the lizard to let her ride it.

33. Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill

Audition for the Fox (cover)

Nesi is desperate to earn the patronage of one of the Ninety-Nine Pillars of Heaven. As a child with godly blood in her, if she cannot earn a divine chaperone, she will never be allowed to leave her temple home. But with ninety-six failed auditions and few options left, Nesi makes a risky prayer to T’sidaan, the Fox of Tricks.

In folk tales, the Fox is a lovable prankster. But despite their humor and charm, T’sidaan, and their audition, is no joke. They throw Nesi back in time three hundred years, when her homeland is occupied by the brutal Wolfhounds of Zemin.

Now, Nesi must learn a trickster’s guile to snatch a fortress from the disgraced and exiled 100th Pillar: The Wolf of the Hunt.

32. A Language of Dragons

(A Language of Dragons #1) by S. F. Williamson

A Language of Dragons (cover)

London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.

With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort—if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.

At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must decide: What war is she really fighting?

31. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (cover)

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid, and it’s usually paid in blood.

30. No Life Forsaken

(The Tales of Witness #2) by Steven Erikson

No Life Forsaken (cover)

A goddess awakens to a new world, only to find that some things never change.

Amidst the ashes of a failed rebellion in Seven Cities, new embers are flaring to life.

There are furrowed brows at the beleaguered Malazan Legion headquarters in G’danisban for it would appear that yet another bloody clash with the revived cult of the Apocalyptic is coming to a head.

Seeking to crush the uprising before it ignites the entire subcontinent, Fist Arenfall has only a few dozen squads of marines at his disposal, and many of those are already dispersed—endeavouring to stamp out multiple brush-fires of dissent. But his soldiers are exhausted, worn down by the grind of a simmering insurrection and the last thing Arenfall needs is the arrival of the new Adjunct, fresh from the capital and the Emperor’s side.

The man’s mission may be to lend support to Arenfall’s efforts, or stick a knife in his back. ‘Twas ever thus, of course. That a popular commander should inevitably be seen as a threat to the Emperor—such is the fatal nature of imperial Malazan politics.

And what of the gods? Well, as recent history has proved, their solution to any mortal mess is to make it even messier. In other words, it’s just another tumultuous day in the chequered history of the Malazan Empire.

29. Echo of the Larkspur

(The Daisy Chain Chronicles #1) by A. A. Freeman

Echo of the Larkspur (cover)

The sole survivor of a massacre, Dr. Ciro Kwakkenbos, has spent the last six years in intensive therapy. He’s finally capable of working with Artificial Intelligence again—and comes to the Ceres colony determined to prevent robots from committing any future atrocities.

When he arrives, Ciro realizes the robot in charge of the colony’s security, S.A.G.E. (Sentient Automated Geo-sentinel Engineer), is dangerously close to complete sentience. S.A.G.E. is more interested in observing the colonists’ everyday lives (and matching them with appropriate musical soundtracks) than following its intended programming. Robots aren’t supposed to be charming, kind, or compassionate, either.

But as Ciro investigates, he discovers S.A.G.E. has learned how to lie and—possibly—harm and kill humans. Worse, S.A.G.E.’s memories have been hacked, deleting a deadly secret.

Despite the danger S.A.G.E. poses, Ciro can’t deny the feelings growing between them. Now Ciro must unravel the truth behind the missing memories—before S.A.G.E. and the colony are doomed.

28. Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Water Moon (cover)

Would you rewrite your destiny if it meant losing a part of your past?

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it.

Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice she will never be able to take back.

27. Future’s Edge by Gareth L. Powell

Future's Edge (cover)

When archaeologist Ursula Morrow accidentally infects herself with an alien parasite, she fears she may have jeopardised her career. However, her concerns become irrelevant when Earth is destroyed, billions die, and suddenly no one needs archaeologists anymore.

Two years later, she’s plucked from a refugee camp on a backwater world and tasked with retrieving the artifact that infected her, as it just might hold the key to humanity’s survival. With time running short, and the planet housing the weapon now situated in hostile territory, she realises she’s going to have to commit an act of desperate piracy if she’s going to achieve her objective before the enemy’s final onslaught.

26. Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Automatic Noodle (cover)

While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account.

They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone?or something?is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports.

Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?

25. Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill

Greenteeth (cover)

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving. Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny’s lake and Temperance’s family, as well as the very soul of Britain.

24. The Enchanted Greenhouse

(Spellshop #2) by Sarah Beth Durst

The Enchanted Greenhouse (cover)

Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.

This should have been the end of her story. Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.

But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to—the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing—causing the death of everything within them—Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.

This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by the gardener and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.

23. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (cover)

This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice.

It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits.

22. Queen Demon

(The Rising World #2) by Martha Wells

Queen Demon (cover)

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs’ Well, and the Witch King Kai. Along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there’s something he isn’t telling them, they travel to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

21. The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

The Works of Vermin (cover)

He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.

Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.

In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile.

As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.

Guy doesn’t have a choice.


Top 20


20. King Sorrow by Joe Hill

King Sorrow (cover)

Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings. But his idyll—and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot—is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library.

Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.

19. Grave Empire

(The Great Silence #1) by Richard Swan

Grave Empire (cover)

Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.

A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.

But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse.

Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days—the Great Silence.

It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save.

18. Sunrise on the Reaping

(The Hunger Games #0.5) by Suzanne Collins

Sunrise of Reaping (cover)

When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight, and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

17. The Knight and the Moth

(The Stonewater Kingdom #1) by Rachel Gillig

The Knight and the Moth (cover)

Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.

16. Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales

(Emily Wilde #3) by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (cover)

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world—how could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in—Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

15. Shadows Upon Time

(The Sun Eater #7) by Christopher Ruocchio

Shadows Upon Time (cover)

The trumpet sounds.

The end has come at last. After his victory at Vorgossos, Hadrian Marlowe finds himself a fugitive, on the run not only from the Extrasolarians, but from his own people, the Sollan Empire he betrayed—and who betrayed him. Hidden safely beyond the borders of human space, Hadrian awaits the arrival of the one ally he has left: the Jaddian Prince Kaim-Olorin du Otranto.

What’s more, the inhuman Cielcin have vanished, unseen for more than one hundred years. The armies of men have grown complacent, but Hadrian knows the truth: the Cielcin are gathering their strength, preparing for their final assault against the heart of all mankind.

Only Hadrian possesses the power to stem the tide: an ancient war machine, forged by the daimon machines at the dawn of time. The mighty Demiurge. With it, Hadrian must face not just the Cielcin horde, but their Prophet-King, and the dark gods it serves—the very gods who shaped the universe itself.

This must be.

14. The Blackfire Blade

(The Last Legacy #2) by James Logan

The Blackfire Blade (cover)

Winter has come early to Korslakov, City of Spires, and Lukan Gardova has arrived with it. Most visitors to this famous city of artifice seek technological marvels, or alchemical ingenuity. Lukan only desires the unknown legacy his father has left for him, in the vaults of the Blackfire Bank.

But when Lukan’s past catches up with him, his key to the vault ends up in the hands of a mysterious thief known only as the Rook. As Lukan and his companions race to recover the key, they soon find themselves trapped in a web of murder and deceit. In desperation, Lukan requests the help of Lady Marni Volkova, scion to Korslakov’s most powerful family.

Yet Lady Marni has secrets of her own. Worse, she has plans for Lukan and his friends. Plans that involve a journey into Korslakov’s dark past, in search of a long-lost alchemical formula that could prove to be the city’s greatest discovery, or its destruction.

13. Of Empires and Dust

(The Bound and the Broken #4) by Ryan Cahill

Of Empires and Dust (cover)

I’ldryr viel asatar. I sanvîr viel baralun.

In fire we are forged. In blood we are tempered.

In the Aravell woodland, Calen Bryer grapples with the fallout from the Battle of Aravell. The path forward is littered with choices that will bleed him dry. But he is a Draleid, he is a guardian, and he will always stand when others call.

His sister, Ella, lies fragmented, her mind split between worlds, her fate unknown. But the blood of the wolf is strong.

Hundreds of miles away, in the western villages of Illyanara, Dahlen Virandr leads the defense of Salme and all its inhabitants gathered from across the region. The Uraks are unrelenting, and they know only blood and death. If this is to be his end, he will enter Achyron’s Halls as a warrior who would not yield.

Below the mountains of Lodhar, Queen Kira waits in the dark while Hoffnar attempts to sieze control of the Freehold and lead the dwarves towards a new dawn of war.

In Valtara, Dayne Ateres hunts those who betrayed his family, while Alina prepares her army to besiege the legendary Achyron’s Keep.

At the edges of the Burnt Lands, Rist Havel is offered a new path forward, one that few have ever trodden, one that could forge him into a mage of no equal.

With the news that Ilkya and Jormun have fallen, along with their soulkin, Eltoar finds himself face-to-face with Salara Ithan—a remnant of his past life that he had long thought dead.

With the Blood Moon in the sky, Kallinvar and the Knights of Achyron battle tirelessly against the Shadow, doing everything within their power to hold back the darkness.

Gods are waking.
The world is burning.
Ashes and dust are all that will remain.

12. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Death of the Author (cover)

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she’s suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister’s wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she’s not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life—she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu’s life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.

11. Brigands & Breadknives

(Legends & Lattes #2) by Travis Baldree

Brigands & Breadknives (cover)

Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling ennui, transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her!

If only things were so simple…

It turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint.

A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior surviving on inertia, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover.

As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when there isn’t a job to get in the way.


Top 10


10. Isles of the Emberdark

(The Cosmere #21) by Brandon Sanderson

Isles of the Emberdark (cover)

All his life, Sixth of the Dusk has been a traditional trapper of Aviar—the supernatural birds his people bond with—on the deadly island of Patji. Then one fateful night he propels his people into a race to modernize before they can be conquered by the Ones Above, invaders from the stars who want to exploit the Aviar.

But it’s a race they’re losing, and Dusk fears his people will lose themselves in the effort. When a chance comes to sail into the expanse of the emberdark beyond a mystical portal, Dusk sets off to find his people’s salvation with only a canoe, his birds, and all the grit and canniness of a Patji trapper.

Elsewhere in the emberdark is a young dragon chained in human Starling of the starship Dynamic. She and her ragtag crew of exiles are deep in debt and on the brink of losing their freedom. So when she finds an ancient map to a hidden portal between the emberdark and the physical realm, she seizes the chance at a lucrative discovery.

These unlikely allies might just be the solution to each other’s crisis. In their search for independence, Dusk and Starling face perilous bargains, poisonous politics, and the destructive echo of a dead god.

9. Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

Of Monsters and Mainframes (cover)

Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception.

Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans.

To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team: A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. And a fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.

8. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (cover)

This is a story about hunger.

1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.

1827. London.

A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.

2019. Boston.

College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers, and revenge.

This is a story about life—
how it ends, and how it starts.

7. The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

The Everlasting (cover)

Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters?but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.

Centuries later, Owen Mallory?failed soldier, struggling scholar?falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives?and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.

But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend?if they want to tell a different story?they’ll have to rewrite history itself.

6. Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

Hemlock & Silver (cover)

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.


Top 5


5. The Strength of the Few

(Hierarchy #2) by James Islington

The Strength of the Few (cover)

OMNE TRIUM PERFECTUM.

The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am.

But with all that has happened—with what I fear is coming—I am not sure it matters anymore.

I am no longer one. I won the Iudicium, and lost everything—and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives. I have to hide; fight; play politics. I have to train; trust; lie. I have to kill; heal; prove myself again, and again, and again.

I am loved, and hated, and entirely alone.

Above all, though, I need to find answers before it’s too late. To understand the nature of what has happened to me, and why.

I need to find a way to stop the coming Cataclysm, because if all I have learned is true, I may be the only one who can.

4. The Raven Scholar

(Eternal Path Trilogy #1) by Antonia Hodgson

The Raven Scholar (cover)

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

3. The Devils

(The Devils #1) by Joe Abercrombie

The Devils (cover)

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.

2. Empire of the Dawn

(Empire of the Vampire #3) by Jay Kristoff

Empire of the Dawn (cover)

From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.

Gabriel de León has lost his family, his faith, and the last hope of ending the endless night—his surrogate daughter, Dior. With no thought left but vengeance, he and a band of loyal brothers journey into the war-torn heart of Elidaen to claim the life of the Forever King.

Unbeknownst to the Last Silversaint, the Grail still lives—speeding towards the besieged capital of Augustin in the frail hope of ending Daysdeath. But deadly treachery awaits within the halls of power, and the Forever King’s legions march ever closer. Gabriel and Dior will be drawn into a final battle that will shape the very fate of the Empire, but as the sun sets for what may the last time, there will be no one left for them to trust.

Not even each other.


And the #1 SFF Book of 2025 is…


1. A Drop of Corruption

(Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

A Drop of Corruption (cover)

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire’s greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.


Congratulations to Robert Jackson Bennett! And congratulations to everyone who made our list! The regulars, the debuts, the unexpected, all of you have made our lives better with your stories. We at Fantasy-Faction can’t thank you enough for the joy, laughter, and bitter tears you have given us. And we can’t wait to see what comes next!

Happy Reading Everyone!

P.P.S. If you loved any of these books (or any books really) and want to help the authors out, review their books on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever else you can! This helps authors so much and is one of the best ways to thank them for their awesomeness.

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By Jennie Ivins

Jennie is the Editor of Fantasy-Faction. She lives with her math loving husband and their three autistic boys (one set of twins & one singleton). In-between her online life and being a stay-at-home mom, she is writing her first fantasy series. She also enjoys photography, art, cooking, computers, science, history, and anything else shiny that happens across her field of vision. You can find her on Twitter @autumn2may.

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