Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book reviews and excerpts from exceptional speculative, sci-fi, fantasy & alternate history novels.

Speculative, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alt. History

Recommended books found: 326

UnWorld

A Novel

by Jayson Greene

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From the author of Once More We Saw Stars comes a gripping novel about four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy. Set in a near-future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur, the story challenges our ...

The Dream Hotel

A Novel

by Laila Lalami

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a "maestra of literary fiction" (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's ...

How to Dodge a Cannonball

A Novel

by Dennard Dayle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride.

Song of the Six Realms

by Judy I. Lin

Hardcover: Apr 2024 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Judy I. Lin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Magic Steeped in Poison, weaves a dreamy gothic romance worthy of the heavens in Song of the Six Realms.

Katabasis

A Novel

by R. F. Kuang

Hardcover: Aug 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clarke's Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put ...

The Compound

A Novel

by Aisling Rawle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Love Island meets Lord of the Flies in this must-talk-about-it read, as bingeable as the best reality TV.

Meet Me at the Crossroads

A Novel

by Megan Giddings

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.

Angel Down

A Novel

by Daniel Kraus

Hardcover: Jul 2025 | Paperback: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The critically acclaimed author of the "crazily enjoyable" (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

Seek the Traitor's Son

by Veronica Roth

Hardcover: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

An epic, romantic dystopian fantasy begins in Seek the Traitor's Son, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth.

Homebound

A Novel

by Portia Elan

Hardcover: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Five interlocking lives. One beloved story. A dazzling adventure across centuries and continents in search of the things that hold us together.

Gliff

A Novel

by Ali Smith

Hardcover: Feb 2025 | Paperback: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From a literary master, a moving and genre-bending story about our era-spanning search for meaning and knowing.

Eat the Ones You Love

by Sarah Maria Griffin

Hardcover: Apr 2025 | Paperback: Apr 2026

Critics' Consensus:

This is a story about desire, dreams, decay―and working retail at the end of the world.

The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!

Recently Viewed

No books viewed yet

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
Who Said...

The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.