Summer has its own kind of magic, and the best fantasy books of June 2026 would definitely agree! This month’s new fantasy reads go beyond classic fantasy to create worlds tinged with horror, history, mythology, and romance. When you’re ready to escape on an adventure, these books are here to bring you wherever you want to go!
Here are all our picks for June’s best fantasy books — which will you add to your TBR?
Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez
Release date: June 2
Read it if: You want some gothic horror in the best fantasy books of June 2026. When a young heiress falls ill, a working-class witch must break the dark spell over her.
Publisher’s synopsis: It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.
Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?
As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden
Release date: June 2
Read it if: You love when the line between history and fantasy is blurred. In hopes of saving her kingdom, a duchess makes a daring gambit in a magical forest.
Publisher’s synopsis: Anne of Brittany was a child when France invaded and drove her royal father to his death. Now she is a young woman, sovereign duchess of an occupied realm, and France means to crown their conquest by marrying her to their king. Such an alliance would put her title, her lands, and her body forever in the hands of her enemies.
But Anne refuses to be the last duchess of Brittany.
Her only hope of resisting conquest is another alliance sealed with marriage, so Anne arranges a daring last gambit: a secret betrothal to Charles of France’s greatest rival. But secrets are hard to keep in a world where rival courts spy on each other with diviners.
The forest of Brocéliande was once the haunt of Merlin the Enchanter and the long-lost faerie queen. But magic is long gone from Broceliande, except for the occasional sight of a unicorn and one critical quirk: This ancient forest is completely hostile to divination.
While pretending compliance with France, Anne plans a unicorn hunt in Brocéliande. A bit of pointless pageantry. A diversion so she can wed in secret.
Or so she thinks.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Dawn Throne by Tara Sim
Release date: June 2
Read it if: You want a darker vibe in the best fantasy books of June 2026. When the god of light attacks, a band of heirs set out to take the battle to his own realm.
Publisher’s synopsis: In the aftermath of the chaos and tragedy of Godsnight, the recovering heirs struggle to determine their next moves. But when Phos, the god of light, stages an attack on their home in a bid for cosmic control, the heirs decide to take the fight to Phos’s own realm of Solara.
Yet Solara hasn’t gone unscathed. It is being terrorized by an assassin named the Sunslayer targeting those in Phos’s bloodline, whose methods are troublingly familiar. As tensions run high and the Solarians prove reluctant to trust outsiders, Nikolas, Rian, and Julian set off to capture the Sunslayer to forge a delicate truce. Meanwhile, Angelica, Risha, and Dante search for a way to defeat Phos for good. But with adversaries closing in from every direction, the heirs will need to trust in one another if they want to survive long enough to take down a god.
That is, if they can survive the Sunslayer first.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Reimagining of Thornwood House by Jaleigh Johnson
Release date: June 9
Read it if: You’re yearning for cozy vibes and found families in the best fantasy books of June 2026. A witch and her adopted daughter try to win over a sentient (and grumpy) house.
Publisher’s synopsis: Evelyn Sharpe is accustomed to dealing with natural disasters as a land witch, but she longs for a life with a little less danger for her and her adopted daughter, Ruby. So when the opportunity to take over as Caretaker of Thornwood House—a sentient home that acts as the magical heart of the village of Iskendra—arises, it seems almost fated.
When they arrive in sunny Iskendra, Evie and Ruby find the house is nothing like what they expected: First of all, it has walked away from the address. Thornwood House is also grumpy, guarded, and extremely hesitant to allow the two witches through its doors.
Armed with gentle hearts and wild magic, Evie and Ruby begin to form tentative bonds with the house and the citizens of the small town. But there’s something deeply damaged about the building seeping into the forests surrounding Iskendra, and Evie will have to use all her power to protect the roots she’s started to grow.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones by Lex Croucher
Release date: June 9
Read it if: You longed to step into a fantasy book but questioned what happened to the “regular” characters left behind. Years after being separated, two former friends reunite at a magical academy, only to discover one has become a villain.
Publisher’s synopsis: For as long as they can remember, Briar Jones dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy. Behind its looming ornate gates, the elite boarding school—the place that has produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in British history—is whispered to be magical.
Briar’s best friend, Sebastian Wolfe, never cared about Temple. He just wanted them to stay together forever.
When, at age eleven, Seb gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn’t, their childhood friendship is shattered. Seb vanishes onto Temple’s grounds and Briar resigns themself to a mundane life. But they can’t completely forget their yearning for Temple, for the extraordinary, to be one of the chosen in the ivory tower.
Seven years later, Briar secures a temp job sorting through the junk in Temple’s attics. And when Briar takes it, they discover that quiet, sensitive Seb, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become Bastian: a beautiful, arrogant villain feared by the entire school. And worse, the secrets Temple is hiding might not be so enchanting after all.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Letters from the Last Apothecary by Bita Behzadi
Release date: June 9
Read it if: You want the best fantasy books of June 2026 to remind you a bit of You’ve Got Mail (yes, really!). Sparring coworkers in a magical apothecary don’t realize they’re each other’s pen-pal study buddies.
Publisher’s synopsis: Josephine Pinova doesn’t believe in fate. Yet, it must be fate when she walks into one of the last magical apothecaries in the city and they offer her a job after she’s just been fired.
Struggling against a tide of anti-magic sentiment amidst the city’s rapid industrialization, the shop is slated to close in six short months unless Josie can save it. Luckily, she’s no stranger to impossible odd—she’s applying to study magic at the local university, something women are typically excluded from—even as the shop’s prickly apothecarist, Aufidius Reid, seems determined to dislike her.
Reid finds her unbearably insistent. She finds him infuriatingly uptight—nothing like the sensitive scholar Josie has been exchanging anonymous letters with as they study together for entrance to a graduate magic program. A scholar who just so happens to be Reid himself, unbeknownst to either of them.
Letter by letter, they fall in love. But at work, Josie and Reid clash constantly about the direction of the business. As pressure rises, they discover the threat to the shop is more dangerous than they could have ever imagined, and working together to save it might be their only chance at true purpose, and at each other.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Shrouded Queen by Ashley Tropea
Release date: June 16
Read it if: You’d like some Egyptian mythology behind the best fantasy books of June 2026. An enslaved woman and a princess switch places when the enemy attacks, sending them both on journeys for survival.
Publisher’s synopsis: As a slave to the Ashoran royals, Samira has always known she was expendable. So when the vicious Kaldfolk attack the palace, she is ready to die as a decoy for her princess. But when she’s captured instead, she’s forced to impersonate the princess and survive through brutal trials designed to awaken her divine powers—all under the watch of her dangerously intriguing, shape-shifting captor.
Amunet Khada—now queen of Ashorah—is on the run following the king’s death. With only her guard-with-benefits, Jasim, by her side, she must evade treacherous allies while racing to contact her father—the god of the underworld—before her long-promised powers slip beyond reach.
While Amunet embarks on a quest through the wastelands, Samira learns the true reason for the attack and unlocks secrets in her past that could change everything. And with threats growing on all sides, Samira and Amunet must decide…who can they trust?
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Shape of Monsters by Tessa Gratton
Release date: June 16
Read it if: You love magical intrigues and torn loyalties. A heretic must trust the emperor she loves (and betrays) when she lands in a city of monsters.
Publisher’s synopsis: Iriset—prodigy, outlaw, now sunderer—has broken the Moon-Eater god’s prison at the heart of the empire. But the consequences of her actions land her in a city of monsters where the heretical magic of human architecture is freely practiced, and the only person she knows—and can trust—is Lyric, the emperor she’s lied to and loved in equal measure.
As scheming kings and capricious gods drive them towards different extremes, they soon realize that to find their way home, they must remake the world … at the risk of breaking it forever.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Nemesis Mine by Amy Archer
Release date: June 23
Read it if: You want some comic and cozy vibes in the best fantasy books of June 2026. A villain and hero agree to a fake feud to boost their reputations, the fall for each other instead.
Publisher’s synopsis: Nobody is more surprised than Cyrus to learn that he’s no longer considered the greatest villain in the land of Athaca. Sure, he’s lying about the fact that his magical power is making flowers grow. And maybe lately he’s spent more time embroidering pillowcases than tormenting the locals. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to be yesterday’s evil news.
Enter the hero Maximillian: the realm’s golden boy, complete with a blinding smile, chiseled abs, and an infuriating habit of spreading hope and joy. (Gross.) If Cyrus wants to be taken seriously, he’ll have to take this guy down.
But Maximillian isn’t quite as perfect as he seems. When he proposes a scheme to fake an epic rivalry and increase their fame, Cyrus can’t resist. Stage the battles, soak up the spotlight, share the spoils—it’s a villainously good marketing plan.
There’s just one hitch. Pretending to hate your nemesis becomes a lot harder when you start falling for them instead.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The River She Became by Emily Varga
Release date: June 30
Read it if: You love the idea of a reverse Indiana Jones. A scholar by day secretly repatriates fae artifacts in hopes of saving her people.
Publisher’s synopsis: Yaseema is a brilliant scholar and loyal servant of the Empire―or so they think. By day, she catalogs the fae relics of her conquered kingdom. But by night, she reclaims the artefacts in secret to restore magic to her dying land.
Until she finds the long lost key to cross the River into the fae world and save her people. But a ruthless realm awaits her there, ruled by monsters wearing beautiful skin―especially the cold-eyed captain who sees through her lies. But even he isn’t what he seems―under the guise of upholding a cruel regime, he works to overthrow it from the inside. To succeed, he needs the same lost relic Yaseema seeks: the crown of an ancient Fae Queen.
With magic that is a mystery even to her, Yaseema can help him find the crown and save his family from a fate worse than death. Unless she steals it first to help her own.
To survive, they must work together to outwit ancient curses, battle creatures born of nightmares, and find a power that could resurrect their worlds. But as secrets unravel and loyalties blur, they face the greatest danger of all: losing their heart to each other.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
