Want to bring some magic to your summer reading? We’ve got it covered with all the best fantasy books of July 2026! Whether you’re in the mood for something as light and bright as a summer day, or you’re in the mood for a darker, epic tale, this month’s new releases are the perfect addition to your sunny-day shelves.
See which new releases we’re most excited about in the month ahead! Are any of these on your TBR already?
The Farewitch of Foxe Holler by Ellen Pauley Goff
Release date: July 7
Read it if: You want a touch of kitchen magic in the best fantasy books of July 2026. A homespun witch reluctantly heals a warlock in exchange for access to his library.
Publisher’s synopsis: Honey Frost is Foxe Holler’s dependable Farewitch. With a dash of flour and a pinch of charm, Honey carries on her family’s legacy for healing any ailment with the right recipe. She just didn’t expect to inherit the role twenty years early.
When the Holler’s reclusive Warlock suddenly requests a Farewitch to cure his mysterious illness, Honey’s ordered life turns upside down. Honey is reluctant to help—witches and warlocks do not get along. Then he tempts her with the one thing she can’t resist: access to his infamous library of spellbooks and kitchen grimoires.
Soon, Honey is the newest resident of his moody farmhouse, which has one gorgeous kitchen. And a Warlock that maybe…isn’t so frightful after all. Or old. Or bad looking.
Healing the Warlock would be simple if he weren’t hiding a web of secrets. As Honey works to unravel his illness, a darker threat looms: the Widow Witch, who steals a soul from Foxe Holler every year, is due—and this time, she wants the Warlock.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Eye of Leviathan by M.A. Carrick
Release date: July 14
Read it if: You want to read about magical alternate histories in the best fantasy books of July 2026. In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, a faerie and a human seek to bring down the elite conquerors.
Publisher’s synopsis: In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the Otherworld’s most precious resources for their own gain. Estevan seeks to uncover their secrets, but he risks the exposure of his own: that he is a faerie, masquerading as a mortal.
The Hungry Girl is the human whose place he took. Lost among the fae and desperate to find some purpose for her existence, she leaps at the chance to help a group of Spanish explorers in the Sea Beyond … only to be horrified at the atrocities they commit.
A faerie pact has separated them—but only together can they bring down Spain’s worlds-spanning empire and save the homes they have both come to love.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by H.G. Parry
Release date: July 21
Read it if: You’d like a history-meets-legend tale in the best fantasy books of July 2026. Dreams of King Arthur spread through WWII-era Britain while one librarian dreams of something far darker.
Publisher’s synopsis: Wales, 1941. As the second world war ravages the globe and bombs fall from the sky, people all over the world begin to dream of King Arthur. The dreams spread like a fantastical plague, flooding people’s sleep night after night. Whispers arise of wonders and unexplained sights—dragons in the London Underground, and strange lights over Stonehenge. Self-proclaimed prophets claim they are miracles, heralding Arthur’s return at the time of Britain’s greatest need.
Elaine Ambrose has never dreamed of Arthur, and she doesn’t believe in miracles. A librarian at the British Museum, she wants only to protect the museum’s collection from the London Blitz, and is frustrated to be sent instead to catalogue a reclusive professor’s private library on the coast of North Wales. But all is not as it seems. Soon Ellie must confront what she’s tried to she dreams not of Arthur, but of Nimue—the Lady of the Lake. And her dreams promise not salvation, but a return to the darkness of the last days of Camelot.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Forsaken Prophecy by Stacey McEwan
Release date: July 21
Read it if: You like your romantasy books with messy political intrigues. A star-crossed pair set off in search of a treasure that could end a war — if it even exists.
Publisher’s synopsis: In Belavere Trench, the Artisans and the Craftsmen are at war. Patrick, the last Alchemist, and Nina, the world’s only known earth Charmer, have been captured by the Artisans, putting Patrick’s rebel union in a precarious position.
Though he hasn’t forgiven Nina her betrayals, Patrick has other things to worry about. He is finally reunited with his father, a prisoner of the Artisans, and the group lands a narrow escape only with the help of Nina’s first love, Theo. Decoding an ancient prophecy, they set off in search of an infinite supply of idium that will determine the course of the war, should it prove more than a myth. Fleeing across Craftsman towns on the brink, they will encounter old friends—and enemies—in search of answers.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Lord of the Wood by E.M. Anderson
Release date: July 21
Read it if: You want the best fantasy books of July 2026 to balance the creepy and the cozy. A clockmaker helps a slowly-transforming forest lord attempt to heal the woods.
Publisher’s synopsis: Clockmaker Arthur Throckmorton lives a quiet life with his sister and her children, only dreaming of adventure. So when a wealthy client offers him a job that involves traversing Shiftleaf—an enchanted forest that claimed his father decades ago—he reluctantly accepts. The forest is treacherous, but the money will change his family’s lives.
The journey quickly turns perilous. Fleeing from monstrous birds, Arthur stumbles upon a hidden vale where he meets the Lord of the Wood—a figure from his father’s many stories. Instead of the fairy prince Arthur always imagined, Ira is a morose man, slowly transforming into a beast, his power over a dying forest waning.
Arthur enjoys the safety of the vale, and Ira’s company. But he yearns for his family. To safely return home and rescue Ira from a cursed and lonely existence, Arthur and Ira must reach the heart of the wood to heal the forest. Except the further they venture from the vale, the more beastly Ira becomes. If they can’t complete their mission before he turns completely, Arthur could lose the man he’s falling for—and never see his family again.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Henry Tudor Must Die by Jillian Lange
Release date: July 21
Read it if: You know all the songs from Six. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn team up to get revenge (mundane and magical) on Henry VIII.
Publisher’s synopsis: Anne Boleyn is going to die, and neither her cleverness nor her witchery can save her. So when her late rival, Catalina de Aragón, miraculously appears in her cell at the Tower of London on the eve of her execution, very much alive and offering a daring escape plan, no one is more surprised than Anne.
Lina doesn’t have Anne’s magic—but she has just as much hate for England’s wretched king. Severed from her daughter and stripped of all her influence, Lina breathes only for the Hellebore Sisterhood, a clandestine and powerful society with a vested interest in keeping both queens alive . . . and using their particular skills to advance womankind.
Anne and Lina’s old rivalries pale in comparison to a common enemy. And they’re not alone. Anna von Kleve, Kat Howard, and even Catherine Parr all have their own bones to pick with the king. One by one, they capture their pawns, infiltrating the court and eliminating the men who plotted against them. Always inching closer to their true target . . .
And they want his head.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst
Release date: July 28
Read it if: You want cozy marine vibes in the best fantasy books of July 2026. A seafaring supply runner rescues her friend from a rebellion, so he agrees to pose as her boyfriend.
Publisher’s synopsis: Betrayed by love, Marin lives and works as a supply runner, sailing from island to island, delivering an array of goods with Perri the sea serpent and Ree the sailor shrub as her crew.
On one of her routine trips to the capital, Alyssium, Marin finds a revolution underway―and her friend Dax in the line of fire.
What starts as a rescue evolves into a deal: Marin will keep Dax on as a member of her crew if he pretends to be her boyfriend at the End-of-Harvest Festival back home.
But against her better judgment, Marin finds herself intrigued by his stubbornness, his passion for stories, his charming smile―and realizes that perhaps she isn’t saving him. Maybe it’s the other way around.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Harbour of Hungry Ghosts by Eliza Chan
Release date: July 28
Read it if: You love fantasy books built around historical settings and folklore. In a colonial-era Hong Kong, the daughter of demon hunters must lead the charge against new monsters.
Publisher’s synopsis: The Au family serve the people of Hong Kong: blessing shrines, honouring the dead and dealing with dangerous monster incursions. The expectations on eldest daughter Kiamling are high, which is not something her strict grandmother will let her forget.
When the British disrupt the Hungry Ghosts festival and her grandmother is seized by a strange new monster, Kiamling must step up and lead the search. She is aided by unexpected allies: Archie, an earnest civil servant, Hoi gor, childhood sweetheart turned merchant-pirate and Jingling, her younger sister keeping secrets of her own. Kiamling must figure out who is behind the incursion and more importantly, how to defeat them.
With British fables mingling with local Chinese monsters, can Kiamling prove herself, when the old rules no longer seem to apply?
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim
Release date: July 28
Read it if: You want the best fantasy books of July 2026 to span generations. A mother and daughter attempt to break their family’s curse amidst Cinderella-tinged struggles.
Publisher’s synopsis: 1940s Hong Kong. When Japanese soldiers invade her hometown, Ha Yut Ying makes an unlikely escape—by turning invisible. But her miraculous survival is only the beginning. After the war is over, she’s sent to Hong Kong to live with her distant father and glamorous stepmother, who end her dreams of becoming a singer and turn her into the family’s servant. As the years pass, Yut Ying learns the hard truths of betrayal and ambition, of forbidden love and devastating loss, and discovers that sometimes the only way to endure is to disappear.
1960s San Francisco. Marigold has always had a knack for uncovering secrets, but nothing prepares her for the day she accidentally witnesses her mother vanish before her eyes. The moment fractures their bond, leaving questions that shadow her entire childhood. But when her mother’s condition suddenly deteriorates, Marigold is convinced she’s the only person who can save her. To do so, she must journey into the secrets her mother never shared and uncover the tragic, fairytale-tinged history their family has fought to forget.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Tangled Magic by Andrea Eames
Release date: July 28
Read it if: Tangled is your favorite Disney movie (but you’d love a not-so-cuddly version of it). An isolated young woman searches for her lost mother, only to walk into a kingdom at war with itself.
Publisher’s synopsis: All her life, Netta has only known the Tower—its musty shelves of books she cannot read, ink-splattered quills, and endless scrolls of paper. Her mother, ambitious and analytical, has spent decades perfecting her greatest masterpiece: a spellbook of unspeakable power. Netta’s only companions are her long red Hair, which moves of its own accord, and a telepathic raven named Baldbeak. Her only amusement lies in crafting intricate embroidery from scraps of silk and thread.
When attackers storm the Tower, her mother and the spellbook vanish. Determined to find her, Netta ventures into a kingdom on the brink of civil war. The monarch lies dying, while pious Temple fanatics and the noble elite scheme for the throne, forging secret alliances and building hidden armies. For reasons she cannot yet fathom, all these factions seek Netta—and the dangerous, uncontrollable magic in her Hair.
But whom can she trust? The sharp-eyed pickpocket bent on revolutionizing the use of magic? The elusive black market trader known only as the Book Man? The charming magician who slips between shadow and light? From masked carnivals to opulent ballrooms, from hidden monasteries to catacombs, Netta must untangle a web of lies and intrigue – not only to find her mother, but also to uncover the true nature of the power that has shaped her life.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
