Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading.
Twitter: @MissLiberty
Hello, friends! ICYMI, we have an amazing post about the best books of 2025 so far. And that got me thinking about some of the great books that have been released this year that deserve more attention. So, I decided to point a few out for you!
These recommendations are of the sci-fi and fantasy flavor, of course. There’s a witch who has to work with Death, a woman who must literally search her husband’s mind to save the world, a young girl who must stop an evil group from ruining her school of magic, some weird and wild stories involving portals, and a magical pawnshop for people who want to sell their regrets.
The Witch Who Trades with Death by C.M. Alongi
Khana has been held captive by an evil emperor for four years when she finally escapes, and during her escape, discovers that the emperor obtained his powers by making a deal with Death. So she makes one, too! This grants her powers she doesn’t even fully understand, but there’s no time to figure them out. Khana flees the kingdom and winds up hiding in a small village. It’s there she will have to wrangle her magic and learn how to weaponize it, because the emperor isn’t going to just let her go without a fight. But she’ll have to continue working with Death if she wants the advantage.
Dissolution by Nicholas Binge
In this exciting sci-fi thriller, a woman must infiltrate her husband’s mind and unravel a mystery to save humanity. Maggie Webb is devastated by her husband Stanley’s decline. Over the years, he has been losing more and more of his memories. But then a stranger appears and tells Maggie something shocking: Stanley isn’t losing his memories—someone is taking them to keep him from revealing a secret. Using technology, Maggie will have to work with the stranger to stop the destruction of Stanley’s mind. But what she finds when she digs into his head are not just memories, but parts of reality that are keeping the world together.
Vanya and the Wild Hunt by Sangu Mandanna
Vanya Vallen has never felt like she belongs. She’s British Indian in a mostly white town, she talks to books (and they talk back), and she thinks her parents are keeping secrets from her. Spoiler: They are! When a mythological monster attacks her family, Vanya learns what they have been hiding and winds up at the magical school of Auramere. Suddenly, she feels like she belongs. But the Wild Hunt is working to destroy Auramere, and Vanya will have to figure out how to stop them if she wants to keep from going back home.
Swords and Spaceships
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Portalmania: Stories by Debbie Urbanski
This is an imaginative collection of speculative stories involving portals of all kinds. There are women driving white vans bringing children to portals and a narrator who is jealous she hasn’t been asked to go; a husband who is unhappy with his wife’s transformation and doesn’t acknowledge her wants and needs; a world where political divide literally opens huge spaces in the ground; plus portals in boarding schools, monsters in vents, and more! These will stay on your mind long after you have finished reading them.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
And, finally, for fans of the recent trend involving releases set in magical stores, restaurants, laundromats, cafés, and so on, is this cozy fantasy about a young woman named Hana who owns a pawnshop only visible to people who really need it, where they can sell their regrets. One morning, she discovers her store has been broken into and that her father is missing. And then, a handsome stranger appears and offers to help Hana find him, sending them off on a magical journey in this world and others.
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and on Instagram.
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