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Read a list of this year’s September 2026 fantasy new book releases!
September is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing month for fantasy lovers, as we’re getting 17 incredible new fantasy release books this month!
We’re getting exciting new series installments, exciting debut fantasy books, and standalone fantasy releases. A few standouts releasing this month are The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman, Big Bad Wolf by Laurie Gilmore, and The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace!
September 2026 Fantasy new book releases
A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin
Release date: September 1 2026
Lilith Legare’s life is unraveling. Since her mother’s death, strange things have been happening – plants turn toward her touch, animals linger in her path, and the birthmark on her arm has started tingling. Worse still is her recurring nightmare of being burned alive at the stake.
Her search for answers brings her from Savannah to England, to the decaying Brackenmere Manor where the past blurs with the present. There, Lilith discovers a legacy she never asked for and along with it, the threat of peril. History must be rewritten, or she too will die.
In 1645 Suffolk, Sybil Brantham stands accused as a witch. An educated, wealthy widow, she is branded a threat by men who fear her independence. As arrests begin and suspicion abounds, Sybil must protect her younger sister, even as betrayal takes root within her household.
Across centuries, Lilith and Sybil are bound by blood and by danger. To save themselves, and each other, they must confront the silence that has stolen women’s power for generations—and dare to claim their voices before it’s too late.
Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen
Release date: September 1 2026
Every family has its secrets . . .The Wester women live inside theirs.
For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir.
1976: Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.
Present day: Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family and realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them after all. A luminous novel filled with Sarah Addison Allen’s stunning prose and signature blend of romance, Southern charm, and wonder, Paper Ghosts reminds us that in order to have the future we really want, sometimes we need to live with the past, and not let go of it.
The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig
Release date: September 1 2026
Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead―and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith―and herself―in the process.
But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.
Under Story by Chloe Benjamin
Release date: September 1 2026
“We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday.”
At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?
A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself.
The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman
Release date: September 8 2026
The brand-new series from the bestselling author of Practical Magic, following two brilliant young women in 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they become immersed in a mysterious secret group of witches at Radcliffe known as the Lilith Society.
Once upon a time, women were drowned in the river and the only witnesses were the crows in the trees. The Puritans blamed Eve for the sins of the world. That was when we began to meet in the name of Lilith, Adam’s first wife—banished for refusing to do as she was told.
We Fly Together…
By the 1950s, Cambridge, Massachusetts feels far removed from the legendary witch trials that marked its early days as a colony. Ava, a bright young woman from a small town in Maine, arrives for her first year at Radcliffe College. There, she meets Lauren, her opposite in every way—the wild and brazen daughter of a wealthy and well-established Cambridge family. But the two have more in common than they think. Both are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret organization of witches at Radcliffe dating back to colonial times. As they learn more about their legacy, Ava and Lauren form a close bond that is put to the test as they learn to navigate their new power, friendship, and love.
While Radcliffe seems like a safe haven, the shadow of McCarthyism looms large, an ever-present threat to the flourishing creative and intellectual life in Cambridge. And as girls from the Lilith Society begin to go missing, Ava and Lauren realize the witch trials of the past may not be as deeply buried as they once believed.
Big Bad Wolf by Laurie Gilmore
Release date: September 8 2026
The darker the woods, the bigger the secrets…
Ruby Bellerose lives on the edge of the woods, in a cottage more akin to a fairy tale than modern day life. Her love life is practically non-existent, and she keeps away from the whispered gossip that travels through Maple Hollow.
Until a chance encounter with Rafe.
As mysterious as he is brooding, Ruby is drawn to the woodsman, curious to find out about the stranger who lives deep within the woods.
But Rafe is hiding a secret. And with something lurking in the shadowy forest, will Ruby find that Rafe is her knight in shining armor, or something altogether more dangerous…
Burn of the Everflame by Penn Cole
Release date: September 8 2026
The highly anticipated never-before-published final book in the Kindred’s Curse Saga, a slow-burn, epic romantasy series following one woman who must risk everything to save her family—and all of mortalkind.
War has overtaken Emarion. In the north, Ophiucae and his army of bloodthirsty mortals seek to eradicate all Descended from the continent. In the south, the Guardians of the Everflame lie in wait, plotting a rebellion generations overdue.
In Lumnos, Realm of Light and Shadow, the Crowns are gathering. Caught between two deadly foes, they must form an unlikely alliance to save their people.
But the Crowns have a secret—and a heart without its mate will burn the world down to fulfill its fate.
Hatred reigns. Hope seems lost. With the future in darkness, can a flame emerge to bring the light?
The Incendiary by LJ Claren
Release date: September 8 2026
They thought she was powerless. Now she is unstoppable.
Everything that Ary thought she knew was a lie…
She has been caged and controlled, lied to by the ones she loved. Now she is finally free—with untamed magic sparking in her veins.
They say she is destined to lead an army against corrupted darkness. They say the man she loves is dangerous—that she will never see him again.
But Ary is done listening to what they say.
She will choose her own destiny.
It’s time for her to burn…
A Snake Among Swans by Hannah Kaner
Release date: September 8 2026
“Death is come to take you home, death of blood and thorn and bone…”
Tilde has always heard the whispers of the kithwood, the voices of her ancestors speaking through the mysterious forest of her homeland. But now both the kithwood and her kingdom are in danger, for Tilde is the only surviving heir of a conquered land. To stop the bloodshed, she must marry the aging Swan King, Liran, and bear him a son.
But the king’s court is dangerous. Liran’s older sons will do whatever it takes to remove Tilde. And her presence stirs conflict in the heart of Liran’s daughter, the princess Elise, who has only ever known loyalty to her family.
Yet none of them know that Tilde is a snake in their midst, with allies on her side and dark, forbidden power of her own. She wants her kingdom back, and she will sacrifice everything to claim it.
For the queen to rise, the swans must fall.
The Palace Beneath the Sea by Lauren Wiesebron
Release date: September 15 2026
A GREAT LOVE. A MYSTERIOUS KINGDOM BENEATH THE WAVES. A DEVASTATING BETRAYAL.
A doomed love story created the city of Ys, it’s fitting that another one would end it . . .
Nolwenn is sure that her life’s purpose is to defend her beloved coastal city of Ys as a lighthouse keeper. But when a dangerous, unnatural tide threatens Ys, the queen instead tasks Nolwen with collecting enough rare seasilk to shield the city from the deadly monsters who lurk deep beneath the waves.
Determined to fulfill her task, Nolwenn recklessly puts her life in danger, only to be attacked by the very creatures she’s trying to defend her city against. She’s saved by Morvan, a member of the korrigez people, with the torso of a human and the tail of a fish. Against her will, Morvan drags her deeper into the ocean to the coral palace of Below-Ys. Although Nolwenn is terrified and homesick, Below-Ys is also strange and beautiful…as is Morvan. The more time Nolwenn spends below the surface, the less she is sure she wants to leave.
As danger draws ever nearer to her homeland and Ys remains precariously unprotected, Nolwenn must decide between her heart and her home.
Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske
Release date: September 15 2026
At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam―a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future.
The list of exam rules includes:
- You will perform five practical cases.
- Your exam group is chosen at random.
- You pass together, or fail together.
It does not include:
- On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate’s dead body in the exam hall.
And as they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide… and all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class.
Five scholars. Five secrets. Five days in which to solve a murder, pass the most important exam of their lives, and uncover a secret larger than all of their own combined. One with the potential to change the world.
Are you ready?
Let’s begin.
Turncloak by L. K. Steven
Release date: September 15 2026
Revenge drove Saffron Killoran to go undercover in the Bloodmoon gang. But now, with any chance of retribution gone, she sees only one path forward: harnessing a long-dormant power to fix her ruinous mistakes.
Meanwhile, the new kingpin of the Bloodmoons has discovered Saffron’s true identity as a Silvercloak—and her ultimate goal of bringing his empire down. As old wounds resurface and fresh enemies close in, he finds himself torn between the cause to which he has devoted his life and the fate of the traitorous mage he loves.
Hot on their heels is an ambitious rookie detective sent to stake out the Bloodmoons’ growing rivals. She will stop at nothing to destroy both gangs—and anything or anyone who dares to stand in her way.
Caught in a cat-and-mouse game of trust and betrayal spanning continents, Saffron must choose where her loyalties lie—and determine if her quest to unmake time itself is worth becoming a villain to the whole world.
The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace
Release date: September 22 2026
Aurelie Chantelune was born to serve. Raised as a knight in a kingdom ravaged by demons, she’s spent her life honing her blade, driven by the memory of the monsters who tore her family apart and by the knowledge that she’s one of the few who can stop them.
If Aurelie can claim her first kill, she’ll inherit a legacy passed down through the Chantelune bloodline: a soulbond with Yuriel, an angel whose power is vital to her kingdom’s survival. But when those she loves begin turning into the very monsters she’s sworn to destroy, Aurelie is forced to seek help from the last place she ever imagined. Desperate, she forges a second and far more dangerous bond with Severin, a demon she can hardly trust, but who claims to know how to end the war for good.
Witch Daughter by Tanaz Bhathena
Release date: September 22 2026
Rumors of witchcraft follow Princess Tahmineh like a storm cloud, making it impossible for her to secure herself a marriage or any kind of future. With her father, the king’s, health in question, it becomes shockingly clear how desperate her situation will soon become in his absence. If she doesn’t act now, she will quickly find herself destitute and desperate.
Tahmineh seeks out a prophecy, from which she learns she will fall in love with a warrior of great renown named Rostam and bear him a son. However, she is warned this match is a dangerous one for her. Heedless of the warnings, Tahmineh boldly orchestrates a meeting with Rostam and the two develop a close friendship and ultimately fall in love and marry. At the peak of her joy, Tahmineh gives birth to Sohrab, Rostam’s son.
The Sweetest Fiend by Raven Kennedy
Release date: September 22 2026
It’s time to pay the Piper.
Our world cracked open like an egg. Power burst out, and with it, nine monstrous Banes ready to destroy everything. The powerful Core fae finally slayed them all, but each Bane left a Plague to punish us.
But that’s not the only thing they left behind.
I’m half Bane, half fae, and wholly hated. Survival means enduring every vicious glare and cursed outbreak. Until one day, a Plague descends upon my city that means certain death.
Then he comes. The Pied Piper.
The Court of Venus by Bel Banta
Release date: September 29 2026
The Court of Venus is an ensnaring romantic fantasy in which a moon-blessed magician is summoned back to the deadly, Tudor-inspired magical court she thought she had escaped; where power is determined by the stars―and the closer you are to the king, the more likely you are to die. Perfect for fans of The Knight and The Moth, The Familiar, and A Darker Shade of Magic.
In Alvion, magicians have always ruled beside kings. Blessed at birth by one of the seven planets, their abilities are miraculous and extremely rare. Magicians born under Jupiter influence luck. Saturnborn can speak to the dead. Venusborn read the desires of the living.
Beyond the Graves Waits Mist and Sea by Kathleen Kaufman
Release date: September 29 2026
A marine biologist’s search for an undiscovered species of octopus leads her to an isolated island where long-buried memories rise like specters from the deep, intent on dragging her darkest truths to the surface…
Twenty nautical miles off the coast of Boston lies Bell Island, shrouded in fog, mystery, and legend. Historically a refuge for women fleeing the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s and a way station on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves in the 1800s, the island is isolated and rumored to be haunted by spirits and . . . other things.
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