April Debut SFF

Here's all the debut releases in science fiction and fantasy that you might have missed in the month of April!

Thank you to Reactor for compiling lists of new releases from which I pulled out the debuts.

Fantasy

Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean-Francois (Bindery Books)

Lu watched the love of his life walk the plank and sink into the inky-black depths of the sea. Nnenna was dead . . . or so he thought.

Five years later, Lieutenant “Lu” Ortega, dutiful fleet officer, embarks on a mission to hunt down a powerful talisman now in the hands of a runaway mermaid. On his quest, he discovers the Nnenna is still alive. Fierce and cunning, and as breathtaking as ever, Nnenna ’s won enough bloody sword fights as a pirate captain to earn the nickname “Devil of the Deep.” She has come to reject the system of order that Lu clings to, and worse, she’s protecting the very quarry he's Pearl Highwater, who has defied the all-powerful sea god and might hold a valuable key to finding her people’s lost island.

When the tides and fates bring them together, Nnenna, Lu, and Pearl must choose their loyalties, find their courage, and race to protect the island from false gods and forces of evil—or risk unleashing an ancient curse that could destroy them all.

Year of the Mer by L.D. Lewis (Saga Press)

A dark, bloody epic fantasy reimagining of The Little Mermaid that goes far beyond the fairytale to explore family legacy, war, and what we will sacrifice for vengeance—the perfect read for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Circe.

The fairytale mermaid Arielle might have gotten her happily-ever-after, but her granddaughter Yemi is having a much harder time. Her father, the king of Ixia, was assassinated years ago, her mother is slowly dying of a poisoned wound, and she faces whispers and slights from her own people. Yemi has been raised as the shield of the kingdom and is soon to inherit the throne, but she cannot shake her fury at how Ixia has treated her family after all they’ve sacrificed. Only her patient mother and steadfast personal bodyguard (and fiancée), Nova, help Yemi rein in that fury...most of the time.

When the kingdom’s discontented rumblings reach a fever pitch, a coup erupts and Yemi’s throne is usurped, stripping her of her family and forcing her into exile. Now, only one being has the power to help her: Ursla.

Like her grandmother before her, Yemi is tempted by a deal with the sea-witch. With powerful and ancient magic behind her, Yemi could avenge her family, take back her throne, and protect the love of her life. But she should know more than anyone that there is always a price. As much as Yemi wants vengeance, Ursla has been waiting a very, very long time for her own—and it may take more fortune than Yemi possesses to keep her from losing everything all over again.

The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains by Reena McCarty

Discover a world of enchanted contracts, faerie intrigue and French toast, in this delightful debut packed full of wit, charm, adventure and heart, with a dash of magical bureaucracy and a sprinkling of romance.

When Poppy Hill was a child, she was stolen from her family's Montana homestead and taken 'Otherside' to the land of the fae, where she spent more than a century as a cook in the Wild King's castle. Now back in the human world, she works for a company that brokers faerie bargains, checking for loopholes in their contracts.

But when a bargain that Poppy is negotiating goes disastrously wrong, she must return to the world she grew up in to try to rectify her mistake, facing danger, intrigue and a pesky ex-boyfriend along the way.

The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe (Saga Press)

In this spellbinding fantasy debut set in a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name.

Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.

At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.

Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—turns her world upside-down.

Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late?

Witch Queen Rising by Savannah Stephens (Ace)

A reclusive witch who fled the burden of her bloodline rises to be the greatest among them in this lush and haunting fantasy debut.

For New Orleans witchkin, there is no greater honor than to become the Prime—chosen to rule. But the title is meant to pass between two rival Houses of magic. Not to the prodigal daughter of the former Prime who died under mysterious circumstances.

As a girl, Seraphine Barreau was dubbed the Tick Witch for her ability to feed on magic and make it her own. Even among those who alter fate and manipulate reality, she was a powerful outcast feared and misunderstood by her people. Now dragged back to continue the legacy that nearly destroyed her, Phine has her work cut out for her. She must earn the respect of her people, navigate the politics of the paranormal communities residing in her city, and heal a broken heart all the while battling a parasitic curse poisoning witchkin. Between her werewolf ex, power-hungry vampires, and the skeletons in her family’s closet, Phine must learn to make peace with her past to save her—and all of witchkin’s—future.

Honor & Heresy by Max Francis (Harper Voyager)

Instagram sensation Max Francis makes his highly anticipated debut with this atmospheric, gothic, dark academic fantasy of two scholars racing each other to find answers to an invasion in a haunted library, perfect for fans of Katabasis and A Study in Drowning.

Roy Dawnseve cares more for philosophy than battle. But, in a society that shuns literature in favour of their ongoing war, Roy must face a difficult choice: brave the front lines or investigate the identity of their foes in the Orphic Basilica, an ancient, abandoned library.

When Roy chooses to unravel the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the Orphic Basilica isn’t without its own horrors. Strange voices echo down the halls, ghosts roam the bookshelves, and those who stepped foot in the library have either emerged insane or were driven to their own demise.

Roy’s partner in the investigation is Percival Atherton, a manipulative, enigmatic and distractingly charming scholar who has no qualms about belittling Roy. As a fierce snowstorm isolates them from civilisation, Roy and Percival must grapple with their tormented pasts, an unexpected romance, and an age-old conspiracy whose secrets are certain to wipe Northgard from history.

Filled with all the yearning of a rivals-to-lovers romance, the intrigue and fear of a dark academia, and the wonder and discovery of an epic fantasy, Honour & Heresy is ultimately a story of self-discovery amidst the chaos of war and a long, cold winter.

Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari (Bindery Books)

To protect her homeland, one queen must fight her people’s historic enemy―once and for all.

Abbakka Chowta never expected to be queen. The youngest of Ullal’s two rajkumaris, Abbakka has spent years in rigorous combat training to become her sister’s blade. But when the monstrous Porcugi attempt to lay claim to Ullal, Abbakka’s world―and fate―are upended.

The Porcugi―giant half-men, half-snakes who attack from the sea―haven’t been seen in Ullal since their failed invasion more than fifty years ago. But now, they’re back with vengeance and a choice: pay their tithes or suffer total devastation. Soon, Abbakka’s definitions of strength, subterfuge, and statecraft are put to the test. Will marriage to a neighboring king give her the resources she needs to protect her people . . . or will she watch her homeland be crushed beneath the waves of would-be colonizers?

A lush historical fantasy that reimagines the Portuguese attacks on South India in the 1500s and the fierce real-life queen’s story, Burn the Sea is an electrifying exaltation of female power and the value of freedom.

An Accident of Dragons by Cheri Radke (Erewhon Books)

An unlikely lord finally meets a problem he can’t flirt his way out of in this adventurous and light-hearted queer cozy fantasy featuring pirates, dragons, kidnapping, tea, and other high-fantasy delights for readers of Rebecca Thorne, TJ Klune, Sarah Beth Durst, and Travis Baldree.

In theory, the dragoness of Summer can make any resident on her island the ruler, if the previous Lord Summer is so careless as to die without an heir. In practice, absolutely no one expected her to choose Teddy, the last lord’s middle-aged fancy man. With his quick wit, heaps of charisma, and excellent dress sense, Teddy brings plenty of virtues to his new role, but statecraft, pedigree, and decorum are not among them. That’s all he’s done his duty to the island, and his five-year-old daughter, Zinnia, will make a brilliant Lady Summer when her time comes.

Except when a ship of desperate mainlander thieves arrives, Zinnia’s caught in the fracas and taken hostage. Teddy jumps into the rescue mission without delay, even though his days of adventures on the mainland are long buried with his lover. But his sailors have never seen their destination, and worse, the hard-liner admiral who leads them thinks Teddy’s a worthless dandy. Against a conniving robber baron, a sorceress who’s tamed her own dragon, and ordinary people with everything to lose, the crew faces terrible odds. But with all he loves in danger, Teddy must prove there’s more to him than he’d ever intended to show.

The Café of Infinite Doors by Zara Marielle

In a mythical Scotland of long ago, a goddess’s mortal surrogate dies in childbirth and leaves behind a vindictive firstborn daughter who seethes in the shadow of her new divine sister, leading to a violent clash that leaves both sisters imprisoned in separate worlds.

Millennia later in San Francisco, sheltered, isolated twenty-three-year-old Marceline is desperate for a job, longing for a temporary escape from her controlling, toxic husband, Baxter. One evening, a magical café appears after a nasty fight. Run by a quirky, mysteriously feathered woman named Lucretia, her partner, Kilda, and a gentle Tahitian man named Sylvan, the café holds the safety, comfort, and companionship Marceline has craved. Upon learning that the café’s door is a protected portal that opens to those in need, she joins the cafe’s staff behind Baxter’s back.

Unfortunately, soon after Marceline has found her safe haven, the portals to the café begin closing one by one and the cafe’s sourceless light goes from warm and honeyed to dim and shadowy. Evil is looming that will endanger not only the café but the world at large; if Marceline is to protect herself and her newfound family, she must choose herself for good and escape her marriage once and for all . . . or say goodbye to her hard-fought freedom forever.

Science Fiction

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (Tor Books)

The Subtle Art of Folding Space, is the exhilarating debut science fiction novel from Nebula and Hugo-winning author John Chu channels unhinged physics, generational trauma, and the comfort of really good dim sum. This isn’t your usual jaunt through quantum physics.

Ellie’s universe, and this one, is falling apart. Her ailing mother is in a coma; her sister, Chris, accuses her of being insufficiently Chinese between assassination attempts; and a shadowy cabal of engineers is trying to hijack the skunkworks, the machinery that keeps the physics of each universe working the way it’s supposed to.

Daniel, Ellie’s cousin, has found an illicit device in the skunkworks—one that keeps Ellie’s comatose mother alive while also creating destabilizing bugs in the physics of this universe. It’s not a good day.

If she can confront her mother’s legacy and overcome her family’s generational trauma, she just might find a way to preserve the skunkworks and reconcile with her sister…but digging into her family’s past is thornier than it seems, and the secrets she uncovers will force Ellie to choose between her family and the universe itself.

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored by Justin Feinstein (Tachyon Publications)

This compulsively readable novel wrestles with vital questions of our time: sentience, purpose, life, death…and how to make a really good commercial. Told entirely through questionably obtained company emails, chat messages, TED Talks, bot trainings, and more, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored presents an all too plausible near future in which emotionally intelligent AI go up against emotionally stunted humans.

Megacorporation UniView is poised to cement their reputation as “the most trusted name in AI.” After pioneering self-driving and HR bots, UniView is now barreling toward an audacious new launch. That is, if they can pull it off in time.

Enter Noah. A down-and-out copywriter reeling from a midlife crisis, he isn’t the typical hire for a groundbreaking tech company full of brilliant engineers and run by a cutthroat CEO. But Lex, UniView’s Head of HR and one of their greatest successes, makes no mistakes—her algorithm ensures it.

UniView’s latest venture—a bot named Quinn that creates revolutionary personalized advertising—needs expert training. Noah needs to teach Quinn—who is a much better student than he ever could have hoped for—the finer points of consumer motivation and the art of writing a catchy tagline. But when corporate competitors force UniView to accelerate their timeline to market, guardrails around the AI loosen just as Quinn seems to be learning a bit too much.

Addictively readable and ridiculously entertaining, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored is a page-turning, hilarious science fictional romp through the promise and perils of an AI-driven future that we probably deserve.

If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, trans. Anton Hur (Saga)

Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead

Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities.

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

Sanctuary by James Cleary (Berkley)

“The meek shall inherit the Earth, unless the rich get there first.” That’s the reality of the post-apocalyptic world in this electrifying debut thriller.

The near future…

Climate disasters have crippled the United States. With half the country under water and the other half a dust bowl, civil unrest would soon escalate into something darker, something unstoppable. Billionaire John Brandt anticipated this and channeled his money, power, and influence into being prepared for the great unraveling.

Now Brandt, his family, and his security team must retreat to Sanctuary, their underground bunker—a vast luxury mansion beneath the parched earth of the Nebraskan Great Plains. But they are not alone. Above ground a group of raiders are desperate to survive and will use any means possible to accomplish that goal.

As tensions mount both inside and out, battle lines are drawn— between the haves and the have-nots, between decency and expediency, between life and death. In this game, everyone's a loser.

Crossover SFF

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Knopf)

A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Hexes of the Deadwood Forest by Agnieszka Szpila, trans. Scotia Gilroy (Pantheon)

An explosive, jaw-dropping debut about a woman who loses her job as an oil company CEO after she’s filmed having sex with a tree in her sleep, a calamity that unravels her mind, spiraling her through history until she’s united with a centuries-old coven of ecstatically revolutionary women.

Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers and the idiotic eco-warriors—after all, she’s the CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But then she finds herself in a trance, sleepwalking into the woods and making love to a tree, manically—all caught on camera. Her career ends and, in the fallout, she discovers her husband’s disturbing secret. Her mind splinters until she is no longer Anna Frenza, CEO. Now—whether by delusion or possession of spirit—she lives in the Duchy of Nysa, a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.

From her psychiatric bed, Anna falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of the Earthen Ones—a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy, instead engaging in ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Through Mathilde, Anna learns to love the forest, preaching and practicing the emancipatory rituals of the Earthen Ones . . . until the Church decides to fell the forest and all the women within it.

Bold and entirely unexpected, The Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion and a collective orgasm, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; patriarchy is coming to an end.

Love Galaxy by Sierra Branham (DAW)

A romantic science fiction thriller in which a young woman from a dead-end planet gets cast on a reality TV show to compete for the hand of the prince—or princess. But not everyone is there for the right reasons…

Smart, sexy, compulsively readable and fun, this is for fans of Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit and Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire

Temmi, a young trash collector stuck in a dead-end job on a garbage planet, finds herself with a golden ticket she never expected: an opportunity to compete in an intergalactic dating show starring the brother and sister heirs to the galactic empire. Twenty-four women will compete on a televised program to marry the prince and princess—and future emperors—and to win the dynasty’s favor for their home planet.

Temmi may have been hand-picked to date the quiet, bookish prince, who is immediately taken by her brash personality and their shared passion for the sciences. But she can’t seem to keep away from the princess—and even though it couldn’t be a worse idea, their chemistry is undeniable.

But when contestants start turning up dead, and conspiracies begin to swirl around anti-imperial motivations of several contestants, Temmi among them, so much more than feelings are at stake.

In fact, very few of the participants of Love Galaxy have come on the show to find love. Sexy, snarky, and revolutionary, this fast-paced thrill ride will hook lovers of reality TV, fans of thoughtful sci-fi, and anyone who lives for drama.

Underlake by Erin L. McCoy (Doubleday)

When a mother claims her missing daughter is alive beneath a lake in a flooded valley, a marine biologist descends into a hidden underwater settlement where those who refused to leave have built a sealed-off world—and where the consequences of that choice are beginning to surface.

Twelve years ago, Otta escaped her small town, determined to become a marine biologist. Now she’s returned, carrying the guilt of a friend’s disappearance during a deep-sea dive and unsure she’ll ever be able to dive again. Then a stranger, May, appears at her door, insisting that her daughter who ran away is under the nearby lake—alive.

It turns out the small-town legend is true: Three decades ago, the entire valley was flooded to build a dam, but the people who lived there refused to leave. These “refugees of a world obsessed with change” now inhabit an underwater realm. To find the missing girl, Otta and May come face-to-face with communities that have lived in isolation for decades, breeding extremes of delusion and nostalgia. As they push their bodies to the mortal limit, the women must confront the fear, control, and suspicion born of the misguided quest to construct a purer world.

Hypnotic and arresting, Underlake brings a poet’s attention to language, evoking the ethereal work of Marilynne Robinson, Lauren Groff, and Emily St. John Mandel and the imaginative brio of Margaret Atwood. In taking her place as a major new voice in American fiction, McCoy shrewdly explores the American obsession with land, inheritance, and race, asking what we cling to when the world changes—and who gets erased in the name of preserving it.

Hex House by Amy Jane Stewart (Titan Books)

A feverishly told, dark and unsettling Scotland-set fairy-tale about a safe haven for women which transforms them into vessels of revenge, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, A. G Slatter and Julia Armfield

ELLY

Elly is running. Pregnant and still in her wedding dress, she flees the cottage that her new husband has rented for their wedding night. Because he’s not what people think he is – and she knows that, one day, he’ll hurt her in a way she can’t fix. Freezing and lost in the dead of night, Elly begins to lose hope.

A woman in the woods alone is never the beginning of the story. It’s usually the end.

So, when a beautiful house appears out of nowhere and a woman beckons her inside, it almost feels too good to be true.

Welcome to Hex a refuge, a home, a sanctuary. A place that can only be found by those who truly need it; a place that promises to teach Elly how to access a power more incredible – and more terrifying – than anything she could have imagined.

SIOBHAN

Four years after Siobhan meets Elly at Hex House, her life is in ruins. Once a promising filmmaker invited to the house to make a documentary with her brother, Theo, she’s given up on her dream after witnessing unspeakable horrors there. Now, she spends her time drinking too much, toying with an older man in increasingly dangerous ways, and trying to get Theo to speak to her again. She ignores the scar on her stomach that never fully heals.

That is, until someone reaches out with news about Hex House that could change everything.

And Siobhan knows, deep down, that she was always destined to return.