It’s a new year, and you know what that means: more new books to love! The best fantasy books of January 2026 bring together elements of fairytales, myths, history, and — of course — tons of creativity. It’s a genre that just keeps growing, and we can’t wait to see what the year will bring.
Whimsical and romantic, dark and twisted, or just a hint of magical realism: it’s all here, and we love it all! Here are all our picks for the best fantasy books of January 2026.
The Swan’s Daughter by Roshani Chokshi
Release date: January 6
Read it if: You’d like a twisted fairytale among the best fantasy books of January 2026. A cursed prince enlists a magical maiden to sort through his potential brides.
Publisher’s synopsis: Prince Arris knows that marriage means murder. Thanks to a poorly worded wish to a sea witch, all one needs to rule the Isle of Malys is the heart and hand of the kingdom’s heir. Historically, this has been construed quite literally.
Thus, Arris expects that the day after his marriage and murder he will wake up as a sentient tree alongside the rest of his predecessors. His only chance at a long life is finding true and lasting love. When Arris’s parents announce a tournament of brides to compete for his hand and heart, a slew of eligible, lovely and (possibly murderous) bachelorettes make their way to Rathe Castle. Amidst glittering balls in ozorald caves, strolls through menageries of daydream trees and pearl crocodiles, tea time on glass boats and kisses that leave his head spinning, Arris cannot tell who is here out of love for him…or lust for power.
Until he meets Demelza.
As a veritas swan, Demelza’s song wrings out the truth. Forced into hiding, Demelza strikes a deal. Arris will provide her with safekeeping in exchange for her truth-telling song to sort through his potential brides.
While Arris is used to dodging death threats and Demelza is accustomed to fighting for her voice to be heard, to survive the tournament of brides requires a different kind of bravery. And perhaps the bravest thing one can do is not merely protect one’s life, but find the courage to chase a life worth living.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Younger Gods by Katie Shepard
Release date: January 13
Read it if: You want a mythology retelling in the best fantasy books of January 2026. A priestess seeks out her fallen love in this gender-swapped Orpheus and Eurydice tale.
Publisher’s synopsis: ona Night-Singer thought she’d overthrown the gods. Her mortal rebellion eked out a painful victory by using the gods’ own powers against them—though she lost her betrothed, Taran, in a final battle with the god of death. Months later, the war doesn’t feel over. Not with Taran gone. Especially not when the gods still answer the prayers she sings.
Angry, grieving, and with a gnawing dread that the gods will return, Iona strikes a deal with her former patron goddess: if Iona can convince Taran to follow her home from the Underworld, he’ll be free to live again. If she fails, they’ll both be trapped there forever.
No sooner does she find him, she makes a horrible discovery. The dead gods have been reborn, they are plotting revenge—and Taran, it seems, was always one of them. This reincarnated trickster god with Taran’s face no longer remembers her or the war they fought together, and she doubts not just his loyalties but his love.
Determined to stop the next war without revealing her part in the last one, Iona enters her deadliest battle yet, one where she fights to bring Taran home without him even knowing it.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
City of Others by Jared Poon
Release date: January 13
Read it if: You’re here for quirkier takes on fantasy tropes. A middle-manager in a supernatural department scrambles to stop an entire city from vanishing.
Publisher’s synopsis: In the sunny city of Singapore, the government takes care of everything—even the weird stuff.
Benjamin Toh is a middle manager in the Division for Engagement of Unusual Stakeholders (DEUS). His job is straightforward: keep the supernatural inhabitants of Singapore happy and keep them out of sight. That is, don’t bother the good, normal citizens, and certainly don’t bother the bosses. Sure, he’s overworked and understaffed. But usually, people (and senior management) don’t see what they don’t want to see.
But when an entire housing estate glitches out of existence on what was meant to be a routine check-in, Ben has to scramble to keep things under control and stop the rest of the city from disappearing. He may not have the budget or the bandwidth. But he has the best—if highly irregular and supernaturally inclined—team to help him. Together, they’ll traverse secret shadow markets, scale skyscrapers, and maybe even go to the stars, all so they can just do their goddamn job.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Into the Midnight Wood by Alexandra McCollum
Release date: January 13
Read it if: You’d like a dash of whimsy in the best fantasy books of January 2026. An upcoming wedding and encroaching forest magic threaten to upend two roommates’ lives.
Publisher’s synopsis: There are at least 100 things wrong with Meredith Schwarzwelder. In fact, keeping track of these things is the only way David Carew has managed to remain living with him for as long as he has. Meredith is an irredeemable eccentric who flirts with everyone in his path (#3 on the list), cries at anything (#35), makes the worst coffee in the world (#70), and talks to mice, or imagines he does (#50).
It’s bad enough living with such a person on the edge of the Midnight Wood. But when magic starts to seep from the wood and a dark being emerges with a sinister plan involving Meredith, David decides that it’s time to leave the cottage, and his roommate, behind. Then Meredith’s brother gets engaged to the daughter of David’s boss, and David sees an opportunity. If he can insert himself into the festivities, maybe he can advance his career and get himself out of a personal rut.
With wedding bells sounding and the dangers of the Midnight Wood encroaching, David realizes there’s much more hiding beneath the surface of his roommate’s seemingly carefree charm. And perhaps his own exasperation carries more fondness than he’d like to admit.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez
Release date: January 13
Read it if: You were a history nerd growing up (or still are). A sculptor with hidden powers enters a contest in an alternate version of Renaissance Italy, ruled by immortals.
Publisher’s synopsis: As a sculptress, Ravenna Maffei has always shaped beauty from stone. But she has a terrible secret. Desperate to save her brother, she enters a competition hosted by Florence’s most feared immortal family, revealing a dark power in a city where magic is forbidden.
Now a captive in the cutthroat city of Florence, Ravenna is forced into a dangerous task. Failure meets certain death at the hands of Saturnino dei Luni, the immortal family’s mesmerizing but merciless heir. But as he draws her closer, Ravenna realizes the true threat lies beyond Florence’s walls.
The Pope’s war against magic is closing in. And Ravenna is no longer just a prisoner but a prize to be claimed. As trusting the wrong person becomes lethal, Ravenna must survive the treacherous line between a pope’s obsession and the seductive immortal who might be the end of her ― or surrender her power to a city on the brink of war.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
Release date: January 20
Read it if: You’re searching the best fantasy books of January 2026 for some epic, dangerous worldbuilding. To save her family, a young woman joins a blood-soaked noble house and learns poetry magic in secret.
Publisher’s synopsis: Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.
Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel, dissolute heir of the blood-gutted Azalea House―where poetry magic is power, but women are forbidden to read.
But in a twist of fate, the palace now stands on the knife-edge of civil war, with Wei trapped in its center. . . with a violent prince.
To save herself and the nation, she must survive the dangers of court, learn to read in secret, and compose the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of love. . . and death.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Wild Radiance by Maria Ingrande Mora
Release date: January 20
Read it if: You love steampunk fantasy with a dystopian bent. In an industrial-inspired society, a young woman with electrical powers questions the system that raised her.
Publisher’s synopsis: Josephine Haven is about to find out exactly where she fits into the march of Progress. Her outbursts are infamous at the House of Industry, the school for children who can wield radiance, an electricity-like magic. She’s tried to follow the rules. But her fiery nature is at odds with the core tenet of the House: never form attachments. If she is meant to feel nothing, why are her emotions so volatile?
No one is surprised when, upon graduation, Josephine is banished from the city to a remote Mission. In Frostbrook, she must work under standoffish Julian, the former golden boy of the House of Industry who seems determined to watch her fail. And then there’s Ezra, the flirtatious stranger who’s a little too curious about how the Mission operates.
But there are bigger problems than Julian and Ezra’s secrets. A deadly disease is spreading across the countryside. And in Frostbrook, not everyone is eager to embrace Progress. As Josephine questions the system that raised her—and gives in to desire she’s been taught to suppress—she must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to expose not just corruption within the House, but the devastating truth about the radiance in her core.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus
Release date: January 20
Read it if: You’d like the best fantasy books of January 2026 to have a folklore-inspired angle. A widow teams up with sea smugglers as she seeks the truth about her legend-inspiring past.
Publisher’s synopsis: Destitute and forced to leave her home in London, Isabel, a young widow of the Napoleonic Wars, returns to the village on the rugged Cornish coast where she was found as a small child, dripping wet and alone. Hoping to learn more about her enigmatic origins, she’s shocked to find herself at the center of a local legend claiming that she is the daughter of a sea spirit.
As Isabel adjusts to life in her rented cottage, the coast is rife with smugglers and the Revenue Officers who hunt them. One evening, a group of dangerous raiders arrives at her door, carrying their wounded captain, Jack. Remembering her late husband’s fatal injuries, Isabel decides to care for Jack and soon feels a powerful connection to him. Even after Jack recovers, Isabel finds herself unable to forget him. Meanwhile, the sea calls to her. And a Revenue Officer who likes to hang smugglers poses a threat in more ways than one. Before long, Isabel finds herself caught on the wrong side of the law, with violence and heartbreak looming.
From the coves of Cornwall to the wild coast of Brittany, during perilous raids at sea and society dinner parties, Isabel fights to understand her kinship with the ocean while seeking answers about her past. But when the threat catches up with them and Jack’s life hangs in the balance, she must draw on all her courage and delve deep into the mythical heart of the Cornish coast. For only a sea child can turn the tide.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao
Release date: January 20
Read it if: You like wistful, dreamlike fantasy books more than grand epics. A magical train seeks out those who have lost their way in life.
Publisher’s synopsis: You can’t buy a ticket for the Elsewhere Express. Appearing only to those whose lives are adrift, it’s a magical train seeming to carry very rare and special cargo: a sense of purpose, peace, and belonging.
Raya is one of those lost souls. She had dreamed of being a songwriter, but when her brother died, she gave up on her dream and started living his instead.
One day on the subway, as her thoughts wander, she’s swept off to the Elsewhere Express. There she meets Q, an intriguing artist who, like her, has lost his place in the world.
Together they find a train full of wonders, from a boarding car that’s also a meadow to a dining car where passengers can picnic on lily pads to a bar where jellyfish and whales swim through pink clouds.
Over the course of their long, strange night on the train, they also discover that it harbors secrets—and danger. A mysterious stranger has stowed away and brought with him a dark, malignant magic that threatens to destroy the train.
But in investigating the stowaway’s identity, Raya also finds herself drawing closer to the ultimate question. What is her life’s true purpose? And is it a destination the Elsewhere Express can take her to?
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Silver and Blood by Jessie Mihalik
Release date: January 27
Read it if: You’re here for fairytale-inspired romantasy among the best fantasy books of January 2026. A woman confronts the beast terrorizing her village, only to discover the curse (and the man) behind it.
Publisher’s synopsis: When a vicious beast begins attacking her fellow villagers, Riela reluctantly agrees to enter the forbidden forest and kill the monster as she’s the only mage available. Or so she thought.
Untrained and barely armed, Riela is quickly overwhelmed when one beast turns into two. She fears her death is at hand until the unexpected arrival of a scarred, strikingly handsome man with gleaming moonlit magic changes her fate—and provides a rare opportunity to learn more about her own fickle power.
After being rescued and healed from the beast’s poison, Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. She soon learns Garrick is both more powerful and far deadlier than a mere mortal mage. But thanks to a century-long curse, his powers are weakening.
Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the treacherous woods, the spark of attraction between Riela and Garrick slowly ignites into fiery desire. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets and lies connecting Riela’s past to Garrick’s, the tenuous threads of trust between them start to fray.
Because Riela’s life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything Garrick has lost.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
We Who Have No Gods by Liza Anderson
Release date: January 27
Read it if: You love stories of secret societies and dangerous powers. A magic-less woman accompanies her brother when he’s recruited to a witches’ academy.
Publisher’s synopsis: Vic Wood has her priorities. Scrape by on her restaurant wages, take care of her younger brother Henry, and forget their mother ever existed. But Vic’s careful life crumbles when she discovers that their long-missing mother belonged to the Acheron Order—a secret society of witches tasked with keeping the dead at bay. What’s worse, Henry inherited their mother’s magical abilities while Vic did not. And he has been chosen as the Order’s newest recruit.
Determined to keep him safe, Vic accompanies Henry to the isolated woods in upstate New York that host the sprawling and eerie Avalon Castle. When she joins the academy despite lacking powers of her own, she risks not only the Order’s wrath, but also her brother’s. And then there is the imposing, ruthless, and frustrating Xan, the head Sentinel in charge of protecting Avalon. He makes no secret of wanting Vic to leave.
As she makes both enemies and allies in this mysterious realm, Vic becomes caught between the dark forces at play, with her mother at the heart of it all. What’s stranger is that Vic is beginning to be affected by the academy—and Xan—in ways she can’t quite understand. But with war between witches threatening the fabric of reality, Vic must decide whether to risk her heart and life for a world where power is everything.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis
Release date: January 27
Read it if: You’d like a touch of irreverent romantasy in the best fantasy books of January 2026. An infamous and dangerous queen finds her (im)perfect match in a virtuous general.
Publisher’s synopsis: Queen Lorelei is a notorious fae seductress, with a trail of broken hearts in her wake. But behind her glamorous lifestyle and sparkling mask lurks a dangerously intelligent woman who’d do anything to keep her people safe. Including kidnap the empire’s most famous hero.
The virtuous high general Gerard de Moireul represents all that is moral and true. He has to, after his parents were executed for treason. The last thing he needs is the Queen of Balravia, who showers glitter and rainbow-colored sparkles everywhere she goes without the slightest regard for good taste, decorum, or royal dignity.
They’re opposites in every way. But when they’re swept up together in a grand (and deadly) fae tournament, they discover all of each other’s most hidden truths — and how perfectly they might be suited for each other after all.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose
Release date: January 27
Read it if: You want the best fantasy books of January 2026 to also have real-world parallels. A dragon-riding student returns home to see a colonial presence in her people’s land.
Publisher’s synopsis: Anequs has not only survived her first year at Kuiper’s Academy but exceeded her professors’ admittedly low expectations—and passed all her courses with honors. Now she and her dragon, Kasaqua, are headed home for the summer, along with Theod, the only other native student at the Academy.
But what should have been a relaxing break takes a darker turn. Thanks to Anequs’s notoriety, there is an Anglish presence on Masquapaug for the first time ever: a presence that Anequs hates. Anequs will always fight for what she believes in, however. And what she believes in is her people’s right to self-govern and live as they have for generations, without the restrictive yoke of Anglish rules and social customs. And fight she will. Even if it means lighting a spark that may flare into civil war.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
