Fall just feels like a magical season, doesn’t it? The best fantasy books of September 2026 definitely live up to expectations, with several hotly-anticipated sequels hitting shelves throughout the month. But it’s not all familiar stories — we’ve also got some brand-new standalones and first entries in new series. It’s everything you need to start your fall reading on an enchanting note.
Check out all our favorite picks for the month below!
The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig
Release date: September 1
Read it if: You want gothic mystery and romantic yearning in the best fantasy books of September 2026. Captured and forcefully betrothed to a grasping king, a seer grapples with ways to bring him down — no matter the cost.
Publisher’s synopsis: Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead―and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith―and herself―in the process.
But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell by Mackenzie Reed
Release date: September 1
Read it if: You’ve had to deal with a corporate job from hell. An overworked office receptionist accidentally discovers her boss’s demon hunting.
Publisher’s synopsis: After her parents’ death, twenty-seven-year-old Brie has mastered the art of compartmentalization to survive her mind-numbing routine as a receptionist at a life insurance company. But when she accidentally catches her hot, uptight boss, Luke, performing an exorcism on Debra from accounting, her carefully ordered world implodes.
Swearing Brie to secrecy, Luke reveals he’s from a line of demon hunters and that demonic activity is spiking. But when her emotional support coworker vanishes, Brie is determined to find her. With nothing left to lose, she convinces Luke to let her join his rescue mission.
The problem? Their destination is hell. And the entrance is in Times Square.
Now Brie and Luke must navigate a corporate underworld of monsters and bureaucratic nightmares while racing to save their colleague and repair a tearing veil between worlds. All before their growing feelings become irrelevant and hell claims them forever.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin
Release date: September 1
Read it if: You want a multi-generational saga in the best fantasy books of September 2026. Centuries apart, two women discover their power and just what it has cost.
Publisher’s synopsis: Lilith Legare’s life is unraveling. Since her mother’s death, strange things have been happening – plants turn toward her touch, animals linger in her path, and the birthmark on her arm has started tingling. Worse still is her recurring nightmare of being burned alive at the stake.
Her search for answers brings her from Savannah to England, to the decaying Brackenmere Manor where the past blurs with the present. There, Lilith discovers a legacy she never asked for and along with it, the threat of peril. History must be rewritten, or she too will die.
In 1645 Suffolk, Sybil Brantham stands accused as a witch. An educated, wealthy widow, she is branded a threat by men who fear her independence. As arrests begin and suspicion abounds, Sybil must protect her younger sister, even as betrayal takes root within her household.
Across centuries, Lilith and Sybil are bound by blood and by danger. To save themselves, and each other, they must confront the silence that has stolen women’s power for generations—and dare to claim their voices before it’s too late.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Disenchanted by Lucy Jane Wood
Release date: September 8
Read it if: You connect with characters who protect themselves to protect others. A witch with a complicated past with magic must step up when a curse strikes.
Publisher’s synopsis: Sage Hemlock has no interest in embracing her witchy side. Magic has betrayed her before, bringing nothing but heartache, and she will not let something so foolish happen again.
Instead, Sage has thrown herself into her work and studies, running the local museum and largely preferring the company of her library and her cat to other humans. Her one goal is to fly under the coven’s radar so that she can finally shed her blasted powers forever.
But when a strange historical book accidentally sets off a curse, Sage’s quiet small-town life is suddenly overrun and magic is running rife. A beanstalk grows in her garden, and her friend and coworker Casimir starts to look an awful lot like a handsome prince. Fairy tales are coming true. . . .
Now, with the threat of the coven on her tail, Sage must confront the magic she’s always denied to solve the mysteries of the book and save everyone she’s come to love from being lost to a fairy tale forever. The question is, can she finally learn to be her own happily ever after?
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Tempest by Victoria Aveyard
Release date: September 8
Read it if: You want the best fantasy books of September 2026 to take you to the high seas. A noble widow is enlisted to hunt down the pirate leader she once loved.
Publisher’s synopsis: Cat Rose knows what it is to live in two worlds, in two times. Before—as Lady Catrine Rose of the Meridian Empire, chained to a loathsome lord with a dwindling fortune. And after—as the Widow Rose, queen of a pirate tavern in the Lyrian Sea, determined to be the master of her own fate.
But tides turn and winds change. The Meridian Empire looms on the horizon, the full weight of her navy falling on the Lyrian, bent on reclaiming the wealthy colonies and crushing the pirate republic once and for all. Ship after ship is captured, save for one, captained by a pirate who continually evades both noose and blade: the legendary Valerian Kane.
With his fearsome ship and uncanny connection to the song of the sea, Valerian is the only man who might rally the pirates who remain. The only man who threatens the Empire. And the only man Cat has ever loved, blazing in and out of her life like a star.
Desperate for victory, the Empire offers Cat a devastating choice. Bring them Valerian or hang. In truth, no choice at all. But Cat Rose is nothing if not a survivor.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske
Release date: September 15
Read it if: You love dark academia and magical mysteries. Five would-be healers discover their classmate’s body on the eve of an all-important exam.
Publisher’s synopsis: At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam―a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future.
The list of exam rules includes:
- You will perform five practical cases.
- Your exam group is chosen at random.
- You pass together, or fail together.
It does not include:
- On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate’s dead body in the exam hall.
As they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide. And all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class.
Five scholars. Five secrets. Five days in which to solve a murder, pass the most important exam of their lives, and uncover a secret larger than all of their own combined. One with the potential to change the world.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo
Release date: September 15
Read it if: This buzzy sequel is already on your wishlist for the best fantasy books of September 2026. A few stalwart allies face down corrupt secret societies, their own secrets, and literal demons.
Publisher’s synopsis: Alex Stern made it to hell and back more than once, but this time she left the door open behind her. Demons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus, feeding on the souls of the living, terrifying the dead. Alex and her allies can hunt them, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it, they’ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies, and discover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood.
While she struggles to hold onto the dream of a future Yale once offered, Alex must contend with the machinations of a corrupt Lethe Board and a deadly vampire with his own connection to the societies. But for the first time in her life, she won’t have to face the fight alone. Dawes, Turner, Mercy, and even Tripp will have a role to play, none more so than Alex’s mentor Darlington, the golden boy who lived so long in her head, now back in the flesh and cursed with dangerous powers of his own. Hell itself is stalking the delegates of Lethe House, and they’re all about to learn that demons don’t play by human rules.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Emperor’s Enemy by Jasmine Mas
Release date: September 15
Read it if: You’re in the mood for dark romantasy with characters who are just the right level of unhinged. A warrior with secrets must work with a dangerous mage amidst a war.
Publisher’s synopsis: Zora Ravenal didn’t join the Crimson Army to be a hero. She joined to destroy the empire.
A skilled hunter hardened by loss with a concerning capacity for stubbornness, Zora claws her way into becoming a Knight Mage: the Commonwealth’s deadliest defense against the Empire’s storm magic and her people’s only hope.
It almost works.
Now she’s stuck in a war she can’t walk away from, hiding dangerous secrets, and shoved into very close quarters with the one man she should never be alone with.
He’s a Royal Mage with a body count, a temper, and an unsettling obsession… withher.
Now they’re partners.
Sort of.
If “partners” means being forced to train together, trust each other with their lives, and somehow not kill each other in the process.
But the Royal Mage isn’t just dangerous—he’s paying attention. And the longer they’re forced to remain in each other’s orbit, the more twisted everything becomes. Who’s hunting who?
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Bright and Broken Things by Ryan Graudin
Release date: September 22
Read it if: You’re up for some alt-1920s-history in the best fantasy books of September 2026. A traumatized soldier discovers the secret magic lurking beneath glitzy society.
Publisher’s synopsis: Ezra Bright has returned to London after serving in World War I but, like many surviving soldiers, he’s haunted—by the horrors of the front lines, the loss of his adoptive brother and the strange magic flickering at the edge of his vision. Desperate to outrun his past, Ezra falls into a dazzling new world of socialites known for their elaborate costume parties and sprawling scavenger hunts.
But these Bright Young Things are hungry. And none more than Celia, a disgraced heiress, who warns Ezra that these parties are only a glittering façade for a secret society of magicians. For centuries, the Order, at the behest of its mysterious leader, has plundered magical relics. Their ultimate prize lies buried in Egypt, and unlocking it requires ancient magic—one Celia believes Ezra alone possesses.
When a note in his room is mistaken for the opening clue of a scavenger hunt, Ezra and his friends are launched into high stakes race across Egypt. As secrets are unearthed and the dead refuse to stay buried, Ezra must confront the truth of his heritage—and the full cost of his power—before the Order claims it first.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Thief and the Traitor Bride by V.L. Bovalino
Release date: September 29
Read it if: You love spy heists and begrudging allies with a past. A pair of exes must pose as a couple while in search of a powerful relic.
Publisher’s synopsis: A ruthless spy. A deadly mission. A thief who could ruin it all.
Nore Gordon is a woman of many talents: she can speak a variety of languages, disguise herself in plain sight, and has made a name for herself as a successful wine merchant. But unbeknownst to those closest to her, it is all a front for Nore’s true role as the 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 to avoid detection. As danger closes in, Nore finds herself tangled in a web of lies and deceit. And though Caspian is at the centre of it all, she may not hate him as much as she once did. But Caspian has betrayed her before, and trust can be far more deadly than deception.
Get it on Amazon or support local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
