Sabaa Tahir concludes her Heir duology, Seth Ring’s Battle Mage Farmer gets a new hardcover, and Adalyn Grace makes her adult fantasy debut in this week’s fantasy and science fiction releases.
The September 20–26 lineup also includes The Wandering Inn’s next paperback, an illustrated Stephanie Garber story, and a LitRPG adventure about working off student debt in a world full of monsters.
If you missed last week’s batch, our September 13–19 roundup includes Dead Beat, The Fires of December, and Star Wars: Edge of the Abyss.
Empire by Sabaa Tahir
Release Date: September 22, 2026
The war at the center of Heir reaches its conclusion in Empire. With the Martial Empire losing ground, crown prince Quil Farrar must find help while searching for the missing Sirsha. Her own struggle involves an ancient power whose hold on her threatens far more than her freedom.
Sabaa Tahir brings the duology’s competing loyalties and rebellions together as its characters confront the costs of preserving their homelands. This is the second half of an ongoing story, so readers should begin with Heir before picking up the finale.
Domestication by Seth Ring
Release Date: September 22, 2026
John Sutton has survived a decade of war and wants to spend his retirement tending a small farm. Unfortunately, his growing tally of Doom Points is counting toward an apocalypse, and the countryside has its own problems. Bandits, wary neighbors, and secrets in the mountains keep drawing the powerful mage back into danger.
Domestication opens Seth Ring’s Battle Mage Farmer series, combining everyday farm work with LitRPG progression and large-scale magical threats. This week’s release is the new AETHON: Vault hardcover of the existing first novel, making it a starting point for print readers rather than a new installment.
No Killing Goblins by pirateaba
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Erin Solstice’s inn welcomes guests the nearby city would rather turn away, including goblins. The discovery of a dungeon brings adventurers to Liscor, creating business for Erin and trouble for the people she protects. Elsewhere, an injury threatens Ryoka Griffin’s running career just as the strange arrivals from another world begin attracting powerful attention.
This paperback continues Harper Voyager’s print editions of The Wandering Inn. It contains the second half of the original first book, so existing ebook and audiobook readers should expect familiar material. For readers collecting the story in print, it follows Book One, Part One.
The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Knight Aurelie Chantelune has trained to defend her kingdom against demons, with an inherited bond to the angel Yuriel offering the power to do it. When people she loves begin transforming into the creatures she hunts, she turns to the demon Severin and enters a second, dangerous bond.
Their search for a way to reverse the transformations forces Aurelie to reconsider everything she believes about the war. The Belladonna author’s adult debut begins a new fantasy series, with its central romance entangled in the uneasy partnership between a human, an angel, and a demon.
The Mirror of Infinite Endings by Stephanie Garber
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Stephanie Garber returns to Jacks and Evangeline Fox in the Magnificent North, where their life in the Hollow looks reassuringly settled. A hidden secret threatens that peace, with consequences that could reach into the shape of their story itself.
The Mirror of Infinite Endings is a new companion to Once Upon a Broken Heart, with appearances from returning characters and more than twenty full-page illustrations by Lotusbubble. Readers should finish the original trilogy first. The illustrated format makes this a return visit to a familiar cast and setting, with a new story for those already invested in the pair.
I Can’t Believe I Have to Defeat the Demon Lord to Pay Off My Student Loans by Harmon Cooper
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Dylan Ryan never attended college, but in this world he has inherited his parents’ enormous student debt. An employer’s promise to clear it leads him straight into a monster-filled realm, where killing creatures, collecting loot, and surviving assignments are all part of the job. His equipment is poor, his teammates are desperate, and the company’s relationship with the Demon Lord raises questions of its own.
Harmon Cooper launches Welcome to the Rift with a comic LitRPG adventure built around workplace exploitation and a very literal struggle to get out of debt. The ebook and audiobook arrive together this week.
Fold Catastrophes by Peter Watts
Release Date: September 22, 2026
The Blindsight author returns to short fiction with stories about minds that can be manipulated, intelligence that may outgrow its makers, and life in places humans can barely imagine reaching. The collection moves between ecological collapse, brain-computer interfaces, and engineering on a stellar scale, often questioning how much control people retain over their own behavior.
Fold Catastrophes is Peter Watts’s first short-story collection since 2013. It brings previously published fiction together with an unpublished work and an introduction by Richard K. Morgan. Readers looking for hard science fiction have a particularly direct option here.
The Sweetest Fiend by Raven Kennedy
Release Date: September 22, 2026
In Raven Kennedy’s new fantasy romance, the monsters that once threatened the world are dead, but their plagues remain. A woman with both fae and monstrous ancestry survives on the margins until the Pied Piper saves her city and claims people as payment. She is among those taken, with a family at home depending on her return.
Escaping becomes more complicated as the Piper’s magic draws her closer and the danger extends beyond her captivity. The Sweetest Fiend begins the adult Played by the Piper duology, reworking the familiar folktale through the darker romantic fantasy of the Plated Prisoner author.
Revolution in the Heart edited by Jonathan Strahan
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Jonathan Strahan gathers fifteen new stories inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing and her challenge to imagine other ways of living. Contributors include Ann Leckie, Kelly Link, Charlie Jane Anders, Ai Jiang, and Karen Joy Fowler, bringing several generations of speculative fiction writers into the same collection.
The stories explore their own worlds rather than extending Earthsea or Le Guin’s Hainish settings. Revolution in the Heart is a new anthology of original fiction honoring her influence, with both science fiction and fantasy represented. It offers a way to sample established authors and discover unfamiliar ones in a single volume.
Kiss of the Black Flame by Helen Scheuerer
Release Date: September 22, 2026
Bookbinder Saige Grayson works through chronic pain while trying to repay a debt she cannot escape. When her creditor trades her to an immortal warrior race, she finds a possible ally in Archer, a disgraced general held in the same stronghold. His offer of freedom depends on her helping him recover and repair an ancient magical book.
The bargain exposes both of them to a power capable of far more than either can safely control. Helen Scheuerer, author of the Legends of Thezmarr books, begins The Bookbinder’s Bargain trilogy with a romance built around captivity, forbidden magic, and a fragile alliance.
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