Most Anticipated Releases for 2025’s Fourth Quarter
Hello, book lovers! I’m so sorry this is later than planned—life has a way of reorganizing priorities and time often makes a fool of me during those seasons. Although it’s late, I did want to be sure to get it up for you! Check out all of the amazing books here and let me know—did I miss any?
For Fantasy Fans:
Heartmender (Heartmaker Trilogy | Book 1)
In the land of Barracks, the economy thrives on the barter of their citizen's most precious commodity-a human heart. Each year the Heart Reign festival is thrown for those who have become of age to trade their heart for their deepest desires. And this year is Adelaide Tye's year to trade.
After despising Heart Reign for years, Addie endures her Extraction and discovers that her heart isn't gray and dying, like all other hearts in Barracks, but bright red, alive, and teeming with power.
With a warning from the extractor of hearts, Addie rushes through Heart Reign to make her choice-trade her heart to Schism, the monster who took her brother years before, or go in search of the Mender-a mythical man said to purify hearts and save her own heart. Either decision will rip her away from the one man who has always been by her side.
Knowing there is only one real choice to make, Addie jumps through Schism's red door and is thrust into a dark and dangerous realm where she is faced with making a trade she may not survive.
📜 Young Adult Fantasy audiobook released October 7, 2025 from Quill & Flame Publishers
Glass Across the Sea (Realms of Allumeria | Book 1)
Light always finds a way to break free . . .
Noelle Perrault has felt drawn to the tales her glassmaker father told of the four Firefly artisans since she was a child. But when her mother falls under a curse, Noelle suspects the stories are more than mere fables. Their last hope is for her father to embark on a desperate journey to another realm, where he must seek a miracle. Alone but not defenseless, Noelle is forced to navigate battles that rise against her beloved home, while her dearest friend, the prince, vows to help her father.
Dante Marin is a prince prepared to bear the crown. But the king offers an ultimatum: find the fabled Firefly Vestiges, believed to hold the Lamplighter’s ancient power, or forfeit the crown. Only then will Dante be considered worthy of his birthright and given the freedom to choose his bride. But how does one hunt down a legend?
Connected by the past, but forced apart in the present, Noelle and Dante must discover the truth about the Firefly and Vestiges before they lose all hope—and each other—for good. But breaking a curse comes at a great sacrifice—one neither of them predicted. With a mysterious foe rising to power, will they survive, let alone succeed? Or will darkness shroud their future, shattering the light they’ve striven to restore?
📜 Young Adult Fantasy Retelling released October 21, 2025 from Enclave Publishing
Cinderella retelling with The Count of Monte Cristo nods.
Runaway (Banshee Song Series | Prequel)
Long before Caoine's story ever began, the Unseelie Realm needed a prince to lead the way. But who wants the job if it means certain death?
When woodsprite, Rohan, learns he’s a prince of the Unseelie Realm, he knows he’s in great danger. According to his mother, the women who have borne the king's children have gone missing, and their offspring, executed. Rohan must find a way to become invisible to his father or face the same terrible fate.
As the prince sets out to find a way to stay hidden, he discovers an unfamiliar world of faeries and makes the first friends he's ever known. But gaining obscurity isn't as easy as he’d hoped. Standing between Rohan and success are mind-controlling fae, a perilous quest up a mountain for a magical ingredient, and the struggle to convince a charm maker to craft the protective amulet he needs.
Before the end, Rohan will learn more about himself than he bargained for. Will he ever find a safe way back to his mother, or is he destined to become a part of his dreaded father's kingdom?
📜 Banshee Song Series prequel releasing October 28, 2025
Check it out here
The House Saphir
Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts, which is rarely as useful as one would think. She and her sister have maintained the family business, eking out a paltry living by selling bogus spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders took place.
Mallory is a self-proclaimed expert on Count Bastien Saphir - otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu - who brutally killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet Bastien's great-great grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine Sisters are as talented as they claim. The perfect mark. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu's ghost, she can’t resist. A paid vacation at Armand’s country manor? It’s practically a dream come true, never mind the ghosts of murdered wives and the monsters that are as common as household pests.
But when murder again comes to the House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the center of the investigation―and she is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.
But that all sounds relatively easy compared to her biggest challenge: learning to trust her heart. Especially when the person her heart wants the most might be a murderer himself.
📜 Young Adult Fantasy Retelling releasing November 4, 2025 from Feiwel & Friends
Bluebeard retelling
The Firebrand Chronicles
Book 1 - Spark: Brenna James wants three things for her sixteenth birthday: to find her history notes before the test, to have her mother return from her business trip, and to stop creating fire with her bare hands.
Yeah, that’s so not happening. Unfortunately.
When Brenna learns her mother is missing in an alternate reality called Linneah, she travels through a portal to find her. Against her will. Who knew portals even existed? But Brenna’s arrival in Linneah begins the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, including a royal murder and the theft of Linneah’s most powerful relic: the Sacred Veil.
Hold up. Can everything just slow down for a sec?
Unwilling yet left with no other choice, Brenna and her new friend Baldwin (Um, hello, Hottie!) pursue the thief into the dangerous woods of Silvastamen and beyond. Exactly what Brenna wanted to do for her sixteenth birthday. Exactly. When they spy an army marching toward Linneah, Brenna is horrified. Can she find the veil, save her mother, and warn Linneah in time?
And more importantly, why on earth doesn’t this alternity have Belgian waffles?
📜 Young Adult Christian Portal Fantasy set releasing November 10, 2025
The Penny Lich
Elliot Penniman, a nerdy cleric, never planned on running a tavern—let alone teaming up with his best friend, a paladin with big guild ambitions. But between drinking, witch hunts, bandits, and monsters, small business ownership is proving to be more dangerous than dungeon delving.
With a ragtag crew of old friends and new allies, Elliot must navigate love, combat encounters, and, of course, endless bureaucracy. And lurking behind it all? A sinister plot that could lead to the whole kingdom being taken over by darkness.
Can Elliot balance adventuring with managing a business—or will he end up as just another unpaid intern in the afterlife?
📜 Fantasy Sitcom releasing December 5, 2025
Tailored Realities
Spanning the genres of fantasy and science fiction, this collection features stories from beyond the bounds of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe.
Along with the new novella "Moment Zero," Tailored Realities includes nine works of short fiction never before gathered into one volume, many available here in print for the first time:
• “Snapshot”
• “Perfect State”
• “Defending Elysium” (from the world of Skyward)
• “Firstborn”
• “Mitosis” (from the world of the Reckoners)
• and four other stories
Also including author’s notes and stunning interior illustrations for each story, this visionary collection is a must-read whether you’re new to Sanderson or a longtime fan.
📜 Fantasy Short Fiction collection releasing December 9, 2025 from Tor Books.
Shades of Black: Origins Anthology
The Shades of Black Origins Anthology brings together six captivating novellas from acclaimed fantasy author Jonathan Shuerger, revealing the secrets and beginnings that shaped the series' richly woven narrative, plus a short story not available in any other Shades offerings.
- Son of Anak
- Ashes
- The Raising of Ermog Grei
- Desolate
- Blood of Anak
- Einherjar
- Extra Short Story: Ember Knight
📜 Dark Christian Fantasy releasing December 2025
For Science Fantasy Fans:
The Dogs of War (The War Games | Book 1)
“Look kid, it's like this. The Iron City's one of your one-way streets. Only one direction this thing goes, and that's down. If you get lucky—real lucky—and that street goes two ways for even a split second, you go. You don't stop, you don't think, you don't hesitate. You run for it.”
Industry, glory, and the Games are the coinage of the Empire, but here in the Iron City, there is no glory. Factories run on despair, office doors hide criminal corruption, and the Iron City Wolves have no chance at victory in the glittering world beyond—until the day they do.
When Jackson Van of the Golden City Toros finds himself exiled to the Iron City in disgrace, he resolves not to go down without a fight. After meeting down-and-out captain Atlas Bolton, once the toast of the Black Town Stags, Van joins him in lighting a fire in the hearts of the Wolves, who are now determined—despite brutal odds—to put the Iron City back on the map.
📜 YA Science Fantasy releasing October 14, 2025.
For Fairytale Romance Fans:
Mirrors (Heartbooks | Book 3)
MAYBE THE TREASURE IS REAL
Nineteen-year-old Paige Wrenley will do anything to protect her father—even if it means returning to the old castle where her mother died. With their home and her papa’s shop at risk of being foreclosed by the bank, Paige is blackmailed by their landlord, Lenora Hayes, and has a mission to follow rumors of a buried treasure at the abandoned castle, Fairhavens.
Chased by dark memories of a great fire that ruined his family’s ancestral castle, Nolan Hayes has finally returned home to Gabreville to stop his uncle, Declan Hayes, from taking over stewardship of the abandoned castle lands. Up on a mountain in a dark forest, the estate of Fairhavens has long been stewarded by the Hayes family, since the true lords who built the castle disappeared a hundred and fifty years ago. But Nolan is convinced those old lands should belong to someone else, if a true heir to Fairhavens can be found.
Scouring the antique library in the abandoned castle, Paige and Nolan must work together to find an old book called the Oirdera and if the rumors are true, find clues to a buried treasure before the first day of spring. Time is running out and threats from all sides push Paige and Nolan closer to finding the truth at the castle that holds the secrets to both Nolan and Paige’s past, but will uncovering the story of the fire that awful night that changed both their lives be a truth too heavy to bear?
📜 Young Adult Fairytale Romance releasing December 2, 2025 from Quill & Flame Publishers
A fairytale reimagining of Beauty & the Beast, Red Riding Hood, and Snow White
Book 3 in the Heartbooks series
For Christmas Lovers:
Once Upon a Sleigh Ride: An R.H.S. Anthology
Step into a world where snowflakes carry whispers of wonder, laughter fills the frosty air, and the magic of Christmas changes everything.
Once Upon a Sleigh Ride is a heartwarming collection of stories that celebrate the season in all its forms—from hard-won hope to hilarious holiday mishaps, from first love beneath twinkling lights to the quiet enchantment of winter magic. Whether it’s a long-lost dream finally coming true, an unexpected adventure on Christmas Eve, or a touch of the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary, these tales will transport you to cozy firesides, snow-covered streets, and the most unexpected places where holiday miracles unfold.
No matter the genre, each story captures the joy, wonder, and transformative magic of Christmas—because sometimes, the most unforgettable journeys begin with a sleigh ride.
Climb aboard. The season of miracles awaits.
📜 A Christmas Anthology releasing December 2, 2025 from The Writer’s Sanctuary