I can’t believe quarter three is almost upon us – that means the year is almost half over. It also means that I probably should have spent the time it took me to put this post together working on my dissertation, but alas the sacrifices I make for this blog (hehe).
Last quarter I made quite a few anticipated releases posts, but I decided to consolidate a bit this time around by picking out a favourite or two from each section and then just briefly touching on some other selections.
Feel free to use this table of contents to jump around to genres you are interested in:
Release dates are taken from Waterstones and therefore reflect the UK release date, unless otherwise stated. Clicking on covers will take you to the Bookshop.org UK page – these are affiliate links but do not affect the price you pay (plus you get to support independent bookshops). If you are not based in the UK, please consider placing a preorder via a local independent shop.
Fantasy
29/9: The Thief and the Traitor Bride by V. L. Bovalino
Nore is a successful wine merchant and favoured spy of the Lindle crown. Tasked with infiltrating enemy lands in search of a powerful relic, Nore is forced to engage the services of a great thief. Unfortunately, the only person for the job is her estranged husband Caspian. Both Nore and Caspian bear the scars of the disastrous end of their marriage, but if they are to survive their deadly new assignment, they must pose as a happily married couple.
The Second Death of Locke was one of my favourite 2025 releases, and this is a standalone set in the same world, so how can I not be excited about it?
4/8: The Castle and the Cloister by Laura E. Weymouth
At the last remaining cloister of the sun goddess, a young postulant seeks safety for her child but discovers that sanctuary comes at a heavy price. In the castle on the mountain, a queen treads a knife’s edge between loyalty and betrayal, desperate to shape a gentler future. And deep in the mountain’s heart, a blinded priest waits in the darkness, biding his time…
Together, they will risk the wrath of gods and kings – and decide the fate of a kingdom.
There are a lot of exciting fantasy titles coming out this summer, with something for everyone. Try a classic Korean fantasy with The Heart of Nhaga (translated by Anton Hur), a high-stakes romantasy with The River She Became, something a little cosier with The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance, or travel back to 1940s Hong Kong in Fishbone Cinderella.
Theodora’s Tea Shop promises cosy vibes and TEA (how can I not be excited?!) and A Trade of Blood (Shadow of the Leviathan #3) and Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint Vol. 4 promise an exciting continuation to some excellent series. And if you’ve been waiting (impatiently) for the next standalone in T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart series, then August will be your lucky month, since Daggerbound comes out on the 25th.
Science Fiction
1/9: Under Story by Chloe Benjamin
At an isolated research station in Antarctica, biologist Laurel Salter washes dishes for a living ten hours a day, six days a week. She tells no one why she left her career, or why her marriage ended. But when a strange light appears across the ice, her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind.
Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade Eli to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them – to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?
And this time, live it differently.
This almost seems like a take on a sort of “time travel fix-it” (this is a huge genre in Korean web novels… and fanfic… but it looks like we don’t have a mainstream name for the genre in English). I very much enjoy these Storie so I’m interested to see a more sci-fi take.
It’s slim pickings on the sci-fi front for the summer – I swear I’ve got almost all the releases here and it’s still not many. Slightly more in September, but still… A Planet Called Happy promises an exploration of hedonistic capitalism in outer space, whilst Scion takes us to a cyberpunk cityscape. Emily St. John Mandel, of Station Eleven fame, is back with a near-future literary sci-fi epic. Finally, Fold Catastrophes is a collection of sci-fi short stories.
And of course – the UK release of Platform Decay (the next instalment in the Murderbot Diaries) goes on the 16th of July.
Translated Fiction
27/8: Cafe. Waiting. Love. by Giddens Ko (Taiwan)
Translated from the Chinese by Shanna Tan
In a small café in Hsinchu, Taiwan, everyone is waiting for something. More than just an ordinary coffee shop; this is a place for serendipitous encounters. Si-ying, a young woman working at the café, befriends the quirky and earnest Ah Tuo. He takes her on adventures and introduces her to an eclectic mix of people who aren’t what they seem to be – a triad boss who is a cinephile and a laundrette owner who whips up exquisite dishes worthy of Michelin stars (but only on a Sunday!).
This very much looks like a book in the cosy fiction niche that we’ve seen a lot in translated works from East Asia, but they tend to be Japanese or Korean, so it will be interesting to read a Taiwanese take. I also hope that this might indicate more opportunities for Taiwanese works to be translated into English following the success of Taiwan Travelogue.
The second of July appears to be a big day for translated fiction – all the other works on my list are coming out then!
First, from Belgian author of I Who Have Never Known Men, we have a short story collection entitled We Were Forbidden.
Then we have three very different Korean works: a new edition of an out-of-print novella about two brothers who live very different lives after their family is condemned as traitors (The Poet), a cult feminist novel about the bond between six women undergoing IVF (Hello Baby), and a psychological horror/thriller about dangerous obsession, misogyny, and a serial killer with a green thumb (Plant Lady).
(Also, side note, Cafe. Waiting. Love, The Moon Glow Bookshop and Plant Lady are all translated by Shanna Tan… I googled it and apparently she works from *four* source languages. Insanity, and SO much respect.)
Finally, if you’re in the middle of some cosy Japanese series, watch out for Matcha on Monday (sequel to Hot Chocolate on Thursday) and Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop (book 3 in the Full Moon Coffee Shop series), both also coming out on the 2nd of July.
Other Fiction
Finally for fiction, we have the section for all the things that don’t belong anywhere else – this quarter, we’ve got a mixture of literary fiction, historical fiction and contemporary romance.
8/9: Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang
When Yale student Lily arrives in Taipei for a summer’s study at the National Taiwan University, she’s looking forward to working on her Chinese language and finding her Chinese self. If only it was that simple. When her grandfather suddenly dies, Lily discovers a past so profoundly heartbreaking that she finds herself stuck, unable to move forward. But her grandfather’s story is not her own; none of it happened to her. How can Lily reconcile who she is, with where her family are from, when she is caught between their past and her present?
This is probably one of the biggest if not *the* biggest quarter three release this year, and it probably wouldn’t usually make my priority list simply because I already have a R. F. Kuang book on my physical TBR that I haven’t gotten to (Babel). That being said, I lived in Taipei from November 2024 to June 2025, so I’m really feeling books about/set in Taiwan at the moment, which is massively bumping it up my list. I must admit to significantly preferring the US cover, however, (and this so rarely happens), so I might have to try and source it.
This is, naturally, my most all-over-the-place selection: Ask Me What I’m Reading is a bookish contemporary romance. Meet Me in the Garden* is a sapphic historical fiction family epic set in 20th century America and inspired by the author’s Creole family. The Body of the Thing is a collection of literary short stories by a British Indian author, and Odette Rising is another historical fiction set in turn-of-the-(20th) century France.
*A note for my UK readers: It looks like Meet Me in the Garden does not have a British publisher and may only be available as an import in the UK – it is currently available to order from Blackwell’s but at a higher price, which likely reflects this. It is not listed on Waterstones.
Nonfiction
27/8: Tales of Green Tea by Miyako Watanabe
Translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano
At the 300-year-old Ippodo tea shop in Kyoto, time passes at the gentle pace of green tea leaves brewing in a kyusu teapot. Written by the store’s current owner, Miyako Watanabe, Tales of Green Tea offers an account of everyday life at this beloved spot, but also of the knowledge, encounters, and discoveries that come with a life steeped in tea.
If it’s about tea, you can bet I’ll be jumping on it. (If you’re new here – in case you hadn’t already realised, I’m just a little bit obsessed with tea.)
My attention was drawn by a lot of travel and nature-related titles this quarter, such as The Restless Coast, an exploration of the British coast and what defines us as an island nation. I also wanted to give a quick shout out to An Inconvenience of Penguins, the memoir of a travel writer in search of penguins, which came out in 2025 but is releasing in paperback on the 16th of July and sounds (and looks) amazing.
Apart from that, we have a history of shooting stars and how humans have interpreted them (When the Sky Falls), as well as a literary essay about writers facing loss, starting with the author’s own experience and then expanding to unveil the loss-facing of other well-known authors (A Time of Loss, translated from the German by Ben Fergusson).
Are any of these on your list of anticipated releases? Let me know, and let me know if I missed any of your most anticipated as well!
Keira x
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