I’m cheating with this list just a little because there are also two science fiction books in it. But I didn’t feel I included enough to really make it a “sci-fi and fantasy” list.
Castles in their Bones (Castles in their Bones, #1) by Laura Sebastian
Born to rule. Raised to deceive.
The plot: overthrow a kingdom. The goal: world domination. The plan: marriage.
Empress Margaraux has had plans for her daughters since the day they were born. Princesses Sophronia, Daphne, and Beatriz will be queens. And now, age sixteen, they each must leave their homeland and marry their princes.Beautiful, smart, and demure, the triplets appear to be the perfect brides – because Margaraux knows there is one common truth: everyone underestimates a girl. Which is a grave mistake. Sophronia, Daphne, and Beatriz are no innocents. They have been trained since birth in the arts of deception, seduction, and violence with a singular goal – to bring down monarchies – and their marriages are merely the first stage of their mother’s grand vision: to one day reign over the entire continent of Vestria.
The princesses have spent their lives preparing, and now they are ready, each with her own secret skill, and each with a single wish, pulled from the stars. Only, the stars have their own plans – and their mother hasn’t told them all of hers.
Life abroad is a test. Will their loyalties stay true? Or will they learn that they can’t trust anyone – not even each other?
Laura Sebastian stuns in this new trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of Ash Princess. A spellbinding story of three princesses and the destiny they were born for: seduction, conquest, and the crown.
Entwined (Blackwood Tale, #1) by H. Sulfwin
Set in a medieval, lightly fantastical land, Entwined follows the events of the war between the Court of Hamurfel and the Lords of the Orc Isles, split between three differing perspectives: Tara, messenger of the Hamurfelion King, who is tasked with infiltrating the Orcish lands; Val’Ur, daughter to the Chancellor of the Orcish Lords, whose love is out of reach and part of Hamurfelion Court; and the Hamurfelion Generals, who suspect a traitor is amongst them.
The first in the ‘A Blackwood Tale’ series, Entwined offers a look into the world of BLACKWOOD, and its colourful and varying characters full of countless possibility, in the Era before ‘The Count of Bahvil’.
Rise of the Mages (Age of Ire, #1) by Scott Drakeford
Scott Drakeford’s epic fantasy debut, Rise of the Mages combines gripping, personal vengeance with compelling characters for an action packed first book in a trilogy.
Emrael Ire wants nothing more than to test to be a weapons master. His final exam will be a bloody insurrection, staged by corrupt nobles and priests, that enslaves his brother.
With the aid of his War Master tutor, herself an undercover mage, Imrael discovers his own latent and powerful talents.
To rescue his brother, Emrael must embrace not only his abilities as a warrior but also his place as last of the ancient Mage Kings―for the Fallen God has returned.
And he is hungry.
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes’ Dead Silence, a SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn’t yet ended.
A GHOST SHIP.
A SALVAGE CREW.
UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS.Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.
What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2) by Sarah J. Maas
Sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller. Sarah J. Maas’s sexy, groundbreaking CRESCENT CITY series continues with this second installment.
Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar have made a pact. As they process the events of the Spring they will keep things … platonic … until the Solstice. But can they resist when the crackling tension between them is enough to set the whole of Crescent City aflame?
And they are not out of danger yet. Dragged into a rebel movement they want no part of, Bryce, Hunt and their friends find themselves pitted against the terrifying Asteri – whose notice they must avoid at all costs. But as they learn more about the rebel cause, they face a choice: stay silent while others are oppressed, or fight. And they’ve never been very good at staying silent.
In this sexy, action-packed sequel to the #1 bestseller House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas weaves a captivating story of a world about to explode – and the people who will do anything to save it.
Age of Ash (Kithamar Trilogy, #1) by Daniel Abraham
From New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author Daniel Abraham, co-author of the Expanse, comes a monumental epic fantasy trilogy that unfolds within the walls of a single great city, over the course of one tumultuous year, where every story matters, and the fate of the city is woven from them all.
Kithamar is a centre of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold. This is Alys’s.
When her brother is murdered, a petty thief from the slums of Longhill sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives.
Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots of Kithamar, where the secrets of the lowest born can sometimes topple thrones, the story Alys chooses will have the power to change everything.
Daughters of a Dead Empire by Carolyn T O’Neil
Seventeen-year-old Anna is running for her life. She barely escaped the massacre that killed her family, and now a relentless Red commander is after her to finish the job.
Sixteen-year-old Evgenia is poor and pissed off about it. And her Red soldier brother badly needs a doctor. Evgenia will do anything to raise the money — even selling a wagon ride to a spoiled bourgeois girl who’s hiding secrets.
As the girls flee across the war-torn Russian countryside, they find more in common than their prejudices led them to expect. To survive, Anna must trust a revolutionary who wants to destroy her world. And Evgenia must decide whether the life of her new friend is worth more than the change she so passionately believes in.
The Misfit Soldier by Michael Mammay
Ocean’s Eleven meets John Scalzi in this funny, action-filled, stand-alone sci-fi adventure from the author of Planetside, in which a small team of misfit soldiers takes on a mission that could change the entire galaxy.
Sergeant Gastovsky—Gas to everyone but his superior officers—never wanted to be a soldier. Far from it. But when a con goes wrong and he needs a place to lay low for a while, he finds himself wearing the power armor of the augmented infantry.
After three years on a six-year contract, Gas has found his groove running low-level cons and various illegal activities that make him good money on the side. He’s the guy who can get you what you need. But he’s always had his eye out for a big score—the one that might set him up for life after the military.
When one of his soldiers is left behind after a seemingly pointless battle, Gas sees his chance. He assembles a team of misfit soldiers that would push the term “ragtag” to its limits for a big con that leads them on a daring behind-the-lines mission, pitting him not only against enemy soldiers but against the top brass of his own organization.
If he pulls this off, not only will he save his squadmate, he might just become the legend he’s always considered himself. He might also change the way the entire galaxy looks at this war. But for any of that to happen, he has to live through this insane plan.
And charm rarely stops bullets.
Only a Monster (Monsters, #1) by Vanessa Len
With the sweeping romance of Passenger and the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song, this standout YA contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, the first in a planned trilogy, is utterly fresh and unique.
Monster. Hero. Villain. Savior.
To save her family, Joan must become them all.
Half-human and half-monster, Joan Chang-Hunt discovered her heritage the same night her family was brutally murdered in front of her.
Joan’s monster heritage means she can steal life from humans with just a touch. Her human heritage means she swore never to use this power.
But to bring her family back, Joan will have to use her deadly abilities to journey deep into the monster world—and confront the shocking truth at its heart, and the dark fate that awaits her there.
Dive deep into the world of Only a Monster, where hidden worlds dwell in the shadows, beautiful monsters steal life from humans with just a touch, and secrets are the most powerful weapon of all.
Scorpica (The Five Queendoms, #1) by G. R. Macallister
A centuries-long peace is shattered in a matriarchal society when a decade passes without a single girl being born in this sweeping epic fantasy that’s perfect for fans of Robin Hobb and Circe.
Five hundred years of peace between queendoms shatters when girls inexplicably stop being born. As the Drought of Girls stretches across a generation, it sets off a cascade of political and personal consequences across all five queendoms of the known world, throwing long-standing alliances into disarray as each queendom begins to turn on each other—and new threats to each nation rise from within.
Uniting the stories of women from across the queendoms, this propulsive, gripping epic fantasy follows a warrior queen who must rise from childbirth bed to fight for her life and her throne, a healer in hiding desperate to protect the secret of her daughter’s explosive power, a queen whose desperation to retain control leads her to risk using the darkest magic, a near-immortal sorcerer demigod powerful enough to remake the world for her own ends—and the generation of lastborn girls, the ones born just before the Drought, who must bear the hopes and traditions of their nations if the queendoms are to survive.
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
High Fantasy with a double-shot of self-reinvention
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.
However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.
A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.
The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf, #1) by Richard Swan
NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW
The Empire of the Wolf simmers with unrest. Rebels, heretics and powerful patricians all challenge the power of the imperial throne.
Only the Order of Justices stands in the way of chaos. Sir Konrad Vonvalt is the most feared Justice of all, upholding the law by way of his sharp mind, arcane powers and skill as a swordsman. At his side stands Helena Sedanka, his clerk and protege, orphaned by the wars that forged the empire.
When the pair investigate the murder of a provincial aristocrat, they unearth a conspiracy that stretches to the very top of imperial society. As the stakes rise and become ever more personal, Vonvalt and Helena must make a choice: will they abandon the laws they’ve sworn to uphold in order to protect the empire?
Introducing an unforgettable protagonist destined to become a fantasy icon, The Justice of Kings is an unmissable debut where action, intrigue and magic collide.
Looking for more releases?
You can see a full list of February 2022 fantasy releases on Bookhype.