THROW AWAY THE KEY de Jason M. Hough

A former CIA locksmith turned glorified janitor is haunted by a botched Cold War operation with ramifications that extend to the present day. New York Times bestselling author Jason M. Hough pens a fast-paced thriller packed full of action, perfect for fans of Alma Katsu and David McCloskey.

THROW AWAY THE KEY
by Jason M. Hough
Crooked Lane, July 2026
(via Megibow Literary)

Lars Bergman is no ordinary janitor. He’s the CIA’s locksmith.

Formerly part of the CIA’s infamous Surreptitious Entry Team, Lars is now responsible for every padlock, safe, and secure door across the CIA headquarters. He’s never met a lock he couldn’t pick…except one, which he tried and failed to open during a botched mission in Warsaw at the end of the Cold War.

Cruising toward retirement, Lars’s life is upended when a senior CIA official dies and he’s called upon to open the safe in her office. Inside the safe is a clue only Lars would notice, left by someone he’d worked with in his heyday. As he investigates, Lars soon realizes that his failed Warsaw operation has come back to haunt him and perhaps give him another chance at picking the one lock that’s ever eluded him.

What Lars doesn’t realize is that what the lock is protecting could have dire ramifications for the organization he has spent his whole adult life safekeeping.

Jason M. Hough (pronounced « Huff ») is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including The Dire Earth Cycle, Instinct, and the near-future spy thriller Zero World, which Publishers Weekly called « a thrilling action rampage that confirms Hough as an important new voice in genre fiction.” In a former life, Jason was a 3-D artist, animator, and game designer (Metal Fatigue, Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, and many others). He has worked in the fields of high-performance cluster computing and mobile user interfaces and is named as coinventor on three patents related to mobile content and licensing. He lives near Seattle, Washington, with his family. When not writing, reading, or hanging out with his kids, he spends his time chasing espresso perfection (with mixed results) and taking long road trips in his electric car.

THE WATER TAKES de Sarah Walker

An unimaginable apocalypse. A scared young girl. A stubborn old woman. Neither will survive without the other.

THE WATER TAKES
by Sarah Walker
Summit/Simon & Schuster Australia, March 2026
(via Wolf Literary)

Pam is in her mid-seventies, widowed and hiding from the world behind a caustic sense of humour. Her health is declining, and she’s afraid of dying alone, but her most pressing concern is complaining to the council about her waterlogged garden.

When Pam’s ten-year-old neighbour, Charlotte, is foisted upon her, a tentative friendship begins to unfurl, cracking open Pam’s hard exterior.

But the puddles in the garden become pools, and then sinkholes. Nowhere seems safe. With no help coming, Pam and Charlotte can only shelter in place for so long – eventually, they know they must attempt to navigate a catastrophically altered world.

THE WATER TAKES is a work of astonishing literary imagination with the urgent page-turning propulsion of a thriller. Full of surprises and revelations, with a sense of humanity that is never clichéd or sentimental, The Water Takes will make you laugh and cry – and it will stay with you forever.

‘What do you do when the world starts drowning? THE WATER TAKES is haunting, terrifying and still somehow hopeful. Seventy-something Pam is one of the most vivid characters I’ve ever encountered – she made me laugh and roar and weep. I am in awe of Sarah Walker and this book.’ – Kate Mildenhall

‘The Water Takes is a beautifully written blend of looming menace and sharp humour, along with a tender and timely reminder that connection is what saves us when catastrophe hits. This is dystopian fiction that feels as real, as human, as anything I’ve read. A dizzyingly good debut.’ – Jacqueline Bublitz

Sarah Walker is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer and artist. Her first book, The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, a collection of non-fiction essays about the unruly body in late capitalism, won the 2021 Quentin Bryce Award. She was runner-up in the 2019 Calibre Essay Prize and received the 2020 ABR Victorian Rising Star award. Her work has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Walkley Awards, the Hammond House International Short Story Prize, the Nillumbik Prize, the Disquiet Literary Contest, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the Darebin Mayor’s Writing Award. She has been published in The Monthly, Overland, Meanjin, Island Magazine, Kill Your Darlings, the ABR, the AFR, and The Guardian. She is also an award-winning photographer and fine artist, whose work has been commissioned across multiple countries. She is a PhD candidate at RMIT.

STRANGE ANIMALS de Jarod K. Anderson

An ordinary man discovers a hidden world of supernatural creatures—and an unexpected home—in this enchanting contemporary fantasy debut.

STRANGE ANIMALS
by Jarod K. Anderson
Ballantine, February 2026
(via Wolf Literary)

Green trips on the curb, falls flat into the street, and sees the city bus speeding toward him. And then . . . blink. He’s back on the curb, miraculously still alive. A five-foot-tall crow watches him from atop a nearby sign, somehow unseen by the rushing crowd of morning commuters.

Desperate for answers and beset by more visions of impossible creatures, Green finds his way to a remote campsite in the Appalachian Mountains, where he meets a centuries-old teacher and begins an apprenticeship unlike anything he could imagine.

Under his new mentor’s grouchy tutelage, Green studies the time-bending rag moth, the glass fawn, and the menacing horned wolf. He begins to see past hidden nature’s terrors and glimpse its beauty, all while befriending fellow misfits—and finding connection and community.

Along the way come clues about the forces that set him on this path—and, most incredibly, a sense of purpose and fulfillment like nothing he’s felt before.

But Green’s new happiness promises to be short-lived, because alongside these marvels lurks a deadly threat to this place he’s already come to love.

Creepy, cozy, and beautiful, Strange Animals is a fantasy about home, belonging, and the fearfully wonderous nature all around us.

“Unique, haunting, riveting, and beautifully magical—this is the kind of strange and wonderful book that you carry around in your heart. You’re in for a special and wondrous ride!”—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

Jarod K. Anderson is a strange mix of fantasy nerd, nature writer, podcaster, poet, and erstwhile academic. He once accidentally picked up a rattlesnake and has slept in the branches of a maple tree more than most writers. He created and voices The CryptoNaturalist, a podcast about real love for imaginary nature, and has published three books of poetry as well as a memoir about his lifelong struggle with depression and the healing power of the natural world. He has an MA in early modern English literature and insists he’s more fun than that makes him sound. He lives with his wife and son in a little white house tucked between a park and a cemetery.

TANGLED ROOTS de S.T. Gibson

In this lush, sin-stained sequel to the Sunday Times bestselling Savage Blooms, Eileen, Finley, and Nicola embark on a quest to rescue kidnapped Adam from the faery underworld, plunging into a centuries-old power struggle between humans and the fae.

TANGLED ROOTS
(Unearthly Delights, Book 2)
by S.T. Gibson
Orbit, February 2027
(via KT Literary)

There is only one rule they must follow in the faery court, where pain and pleasure are elevated to art: entertain the king, or suffer the consequences of his boredom.

Getting close to the enigmatic and alluring faery king isn’t just a matter of survival; it is the only hope Eileen and her lovers have of escaping Craigmar’s curse.

Adam, Nicola, Finley and Eileen must scheme and seduce their way through court, all in the name of breaking the others free. But it’s so hard to want to be a hero when the faery king offers them each the fulfillment of their wildest desires… for a price.

Voir le résumé du premier tome, SAVAGE BLOOMS (Orbit, octobre 2025)

S.T. Gibson is the British Fantasy Award-nominated and Goodreads Choice -nominated author of the USA Today bestseller Evocation and Sunday Times bestseller A Dowry Of Blood. She holds a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from UNC and Masters of Theological Studies from Princeton Seminary.

EX ROMANA TRILOGY de Sophie Burnham

Perfect for readers of Saara El-Arifi and C. L. Clark and stories with strong, queer voices, this is a speculative imagining of a world on the brink of revolution. Here, Rome never fell, but the apocalypse is coming—if it hasn’t arrived already.

EX ROMANA TRILOGY
by Sophie Burnham
DAW, 2024 – 2027
(via KT Literary)

Book 1: SARGASSA (DAW, October 2024)

An unlikely group of rebels are ready to burn down the Roman empire like you’ve never imagined it before. From the halls of the Senate floor to the bloody sands of the gladiatorial pits, Sophie Burnham’s debut is full of riveting political danger, thoughtful worldbuilding, and a tightly-knit group of conspirators.

The role of Imperial Historian is Selah Kleios’s birthright, but she was supposed to have more time to learn the role from her father, the previous Historian. In the wake of her father’s sudden and shocking assassination, Selah finds herself custodian of more than just the Imperial Archives when an old flame returns intending to steal the Iveroa Stone—a seemingly harmless artifact containing secrets that could destroy the empire.

Theo Nix is a damn good spy, and they know it. By day, they work in Senator Naevia Kleios’s office; smart, unobtrusive, and grateful, they’re the model of a perfect plebeian. By night, their time belongs to Griff: master strategist, commander of the Revenants, the spider at the center of a very large and very dangerous web. When Griff gives Theo an assignment, they move, no questions asked, so it’s really no surprise Theo is flirting with Arran Alexander—Selah’s low-caste half brother is an obvious target. It is a surprise, however, that they’re enjoying it so much.

After a year away in the legions, Arran has recently returned home, only to find the cracks beneath his feet widening. Struggling with his own identity and purpose, drawn into an underground independence movement through his growing feelings for Theo, Arran must choose between the sister he loves and the chance to take control of his own life for the very first time.

SARGASSA is the first book in a new speculative trilogy that is equal parts political intrigue, queer romance, and revolution.

« Sargassa is a masterclass in world-building, with its realistic politics, complex and brutal caste system, and gorgeous settings. It takes time to get the lay of the land, but the payoff is worth the effort. The expansive scope multiplies the emotional and conceptual weight of the narrative. » —Shelf Awareness (starred review)

Book 2: BLOODTIDE (October 2025)

The fate of the empire hangs in the balance in the second installment of the genre-bending Ex Romana trilogy.

Cracks are forming in the empire’s facade.

In the wake of startling revelations and personal betrayals, Tair finds herself the Iveroa Stone’s new custodian as she embarks on a battle for Luxana’s streets. As the fallout of the fighting pit massacre leads to a rise in legionary crackdowns and vigilante justice, Tair is determined to find a better path forward for Sargassa’s future. Up in the Imperial Archives, meanwhile, Selah tries to make sense of her family’s tangled history within the Imperium’s shadowed beginnings.

Elsewhere, in the far-flung reaches of Roma Sargassa’s badlands, Arran and Theo undertake a covert mission for the Revenants, one that could tip the scales between victory and defeat in Griff’s upcoming war. But long-laid plans and careful maneuvering are nothing compared to the forces of nature, and Sargassa’s future might just be determined by the coming storm.

Book 3: DAWNLANDS (October 2027)

In the third and final installment of the Ex Romana trilogy, the battle for Sargassa’s future has arrived. As skirmishes break out across the eastern seaboard, Selah and Tair fight to hold Luxana’s tenuous alliance together against both the Imperium and the looming threat of reinforcements from Roma. But the return of long-missing friends and unexpected allies also brings news that will force them to contend with impossible questions: Just how much are they willing to sacrifice for a different tomorrow? And is it already too late to try?

Sophie Burnham is a queer, nonbinary novelist and screenwriter, backed by an Acting BFA and a concentration in playwriting from Syracuse University. Honored with a We Need Diverse Books writing grant and a placement in ScreenCraft’s 2020 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Screenplay competition, Burnham’s debut novel promises to enthrall and enlighten readers. Follow them on Twitter at @sophielburnham.