Winter 2024-25 Dragon Slayer Books
dream on
As the cold creeps in this winter season Dragon Slayers may find their minds wondering to more fantastical worlds than the hibernating reality before them. They may dream of kingdoms oozing with magic, battlefields locked in grand conflict, or perhaps a royal court filled with drama.
Whether it be supernatural thrills, regal romances, or fantastical lands, these upcoming winter releases are sure to have exactly what Dragon Slayers are looking for. So, find a cozy little nook to relax in and get ready to dream on with our picks for the top winter releases for the Dragon Slayer reader types out there.
february new release
Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales
by Heather Fawcett
Book Three of the Emily Wilde Series
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 yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm--as its queen.
The Bones Beneath My Skin
by Tj Klune
A spine-tingling standalone novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune--a supernatural road-trip thriller featuring an extraordinary young girl and her two unlikely protectors on the run from cultists and the government.
There's nothing more human than a broken heart.
In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his only brother wants nothing to do with him, and he's been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington, DC.
The Outcast Mage
by Annabel Campbell
In this glittering debut fantasy, a mage bereft of her powers must find out if she is destined to save the world or destroy it. Perfect for fans of Andrea Stewart, James Islington, and Samantha Shannon.
In the glass city of Amoria, magic is everything. And Naila, student at the city's legendary academy, is running out of time to prove she can control hers. If she fails, she'll be forced into exile, relegated to a life of persecution with the other magicless hollows. Or worse, be consumed by her own power.
The Dark Mirror
by Samantha Shannon
The highly anticipated fifth novel in the New York Times bestselling Bone Season series-an epic and spellbinding fantasy from the author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 By: Goodreads * Barnes & Noble * Screen Rant * The Nerd Daily * Paste Magazine * Book Riot
Everything is about to change.
Paige Mahoney is outside the Republic of Scion for the first time in more than a decade-but she has no idea how she got to the free world. Half a year has been wiped from her memory.
Her journey back to the revolution soon takes her to Venice, where the Domino Programme has uncovered evidence of a secret Scion plan. Before Paige can return to London, she must help the network unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist, which threatens to bring Europe to its knees in weeks.
Old Soul
by Susan Barker
The Historian meets Under the Skin in this searingly provocative literary horror novel about one woman's determination to stay alive at any terrifying cost.
In Osaka, two strangers, Jake and Mariko, miss a flight, and over dinner, discover they've both brutally lost loved ones whose paths crossed with the same beguiling woman no one has seen since.
Hungerstone
by Kat Dunn
A Rolling Stone 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Year - A Town & Country Must Read Book of the Winter - A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Horror Novel of the Year - A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of the Year - A Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of the Year - A Them 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Year
A compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the queer novella that inspired Dracula.
It's the height of the industrial revolution and ten years into Lenore's marriage to steel magnate Henry, their relationship has soured. When Henry's ambitions take them from London to the remote British moorlands to host a hunting party, a shocking carriage accident brings the mysterious Carmilla into their lives. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night. Carmilla, who stirs up something deep within Lenore. And before long, girls from the local villages fall sick, consumed by a terrible hunger . . .
january new release
Babylonia
by Costanza Casati
From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history, painting the brutal and captivating empire of gods and men, and the one queen destined to rule them all.
A common woman. The governor she married. The king who loved them both.
Babylonia across the centuries has become the embodiment of lust, excess, and dissolute power that ruled Ancient Assyria. In this world you had to kill to be king. Or, in the case of Semiramis, an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire: Queen.
Immortal
by Sue Lynn Tan
A young ruler must forge a delicate alliance with the untrustworthy yet magnetic God of War to protect her kingdom in this stunning romantic fantasy filled with dangerous secrets, forbidden magic, and passion, from Sue Lynn Tan, bestselling author of Daughter of the Moon Goddess
The young heir to a mortal crown, Liyen ascends a precarious throne when her grandfather dies, vowing to end her kingdom's obligation to the immortals and take vengeance against those she feels responsible for his death. When she is summoned to the Immortal Realm, she seizes the opportunity to learn their secrets and to form a tenuous alliance to safeguard her people, all with the one she should fear and mistrust the most: the ruthless God of War. As they are drawn together, a treacherous attraction ignites between them--one she has to resist, to not endanger all she is fighting for.
Motheater
by Linda H Codega
In this nuanced queer fantasy set amid the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, the last witch of the Ridge must choose sides in a clash between industry and nature.
After her best friend dies in a coal mine, Benethea "Bennie" Mattox sacrifices her job, her relationship, and her reputation to uncover what's killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in a dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it's right--but also because she hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs.
Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can't remember her true name, or how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she's a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum and snake, with power in her hands and Scripture on her tongue.
Onyx Storm
by Rebecca Yarros
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.
A Sea of Unspoken Things
by Adrienne Young
In this captivating atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow, a woman investigates her twin brother's mysterious death while confronting the ghosts of her own haunted past.
James and Johnny Golden were once inseparable. For as long as she can remember, James shared an almost supernatural connection with her twin brother, Johnny, that went beyond intuition--she could feel what he was feeling. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she's alone--truly alone--for the first time in her life.
When James arrives in the secluded town of Six Rivers, California, to settle her brother's affairs, she's forced to revisit the ominous events of their shared past and finally face Micah, the only other person who knows their secrets--and the only man she has ever loved.
Water Moon
by Samantha Sotto Yambao
A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical quest when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike fantasy novel.
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only 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 its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
by Seanan McGuire
Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.
Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.
Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she'd been missing from birth.
It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.
It wasn't her.
December New Releases
The Voyage Home
by Pat Barker
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy comes the powerful third installment to the Women of Troy series. - In The Voyage Home, Pat Barker skillfully reimagines Greek mythology, chronicling a perilous journey undertaken by the enslaved healer Ritsa and her cruel mistress Cassandra.
"One of contemporary literature's most thoughtful and compelling writers." --The Washington Post
I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to observe her ruthlessness than most. I was in her power, you see. I was her slave.
Pat Barker has crafted the latest in a brilliant reimagining of Greek mythology, and The Voyage Home is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. In this third outing, she follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people's belief in her abilities.
The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
by Chelsea Iversen
A lush, enchanting story of a woman who must use the magic of the fantastical plants that adorn her crumbling estate in Victorian London to thwart the dark plots of the men around her...
Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she'd rather keep buried. She doesn't often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she's been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. This solitary life suits her fine, though - because, in her garden, magic awaits.
Sister Snake
by Amanda Lee Koe
A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters--one in New York, one in Singapore--who are bound by an ancient secret
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.
A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her--but she soon begins to worry that Emerald's irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.
Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Reimagining the Chinese folktale "The Legend of the White Snake," this is a novel about being seen for who you are--and, ultimately, how to live free.
I Made It Out of Clay (Original)
by Beth Kander
In this darkly funny and surprisingly sweet novel, a woman creates a golem in a desperate attempt to pretend her life is a rom-com rather than a disaster.
Nothing's going well for Eve: she's single, turning forty, stressed at work and anxious about a recent series of increasingly creepy incidents. Most devastatingly, her beloved father died last year, and her family still won't acknowledge their sorrow.
With her younger sister's wedding rapidly approaching, Eve is on the verge of panic. She can't bear to attend the event alone. That's when she recalls a strange story her Yiddish grandmother once told her, about a protector forged of desperation...and Eve, to her own shock, manages to create a golem.
One Last Rainy Day
by Kate Stewart
"We love rainy days, don't we, baby?"
The deliciously steamy, internationally bestselling Robin Hood retelling that set Tiktok on fire continues with the first in The Ravenhood Legacy, an irresistibly edgy spin-off series shedding a new light on the secret, morally gray brotherhood - this time from the brooding and magnetic perspective of Dominic.
Dominic King doesn't want or need anything . . . except his freedom.
The key to his cage is tucked in the suit pocket of his overbearing, overprotective, older brother, Tobias--the leader of a secret vigilante group Dominic helps govern.
Their mission? Destroy Roman Horner. And what better way to start than with their target's daughter?
The problem is, the moment Cecelia Horner arrives in Triple Falls, plans and motivations change. For Dominic, she's a potent reminder that there's still good in the world. With Tobias away for the summer, things start to quickly heat up until she's not just a want, she's a need. With the Ravenhood's fate on his shoulders, Cecelia becomes Dom's only solace, and a light for his tortured soul. Because he knows, better than anyone, that a choice is coming. And once the decision is made, there'll be no coming back . . .
Mirror Me
by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
A psychiatric patient's desperate search for answers reveals peculiar memories and unexpected connections in a twisty and mind-bending novel of love, family, betrayal, and secrets.
Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother's fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can't imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn't been himself lately.
Eddie's anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he's too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär's increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie's best chance for piecing together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his inexplicable memories of another man's life. But Montgomery's methods trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can't contain, bringing Eddie closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.