What I love about this spring’s new sci-fi and fantasy is how pressing the stakes feel in each, regardless of the myriad settings. Three magitech company heirs fighting over their inheritance. A socially awkward scholar must solve an imperial murder and save her own neck. Nick Carraway wants one last wild night with Jay Gatsby. A journalist seeks to know his revolutionary parents, even posthumously. Family ties or the foundations of an empire are at equal risk of being destroyed, and you get to choose if you’re exploring an epic fantasy land, a far-future dystopia, or the speculative present.

*

Olivie Blake, Gifted & Talented
(Tor Books, April 1)

Supernatural Succession sounds very fun, as the three adult children of Wrenfare Magitech CEO Thayer Wren fight over his estate and their family legacy following his death. Imagine the squabbling Roys, but if they had telepathy and telekinesis in addition to being not serious people: biotech founder Meredith (the eldest girl!), who cured mental illness but is still a fraud; congressman Arthur, losing both his marriage and a second term; former ballerina Eilidh, who seeks to redeem her mistakes through controlling Wrenfare. Which one will win a (telepathic) kiss from daddy?

Natalia Theodoridou, Sour Cherry
(Tin House Books, April 1)

This gothic debut is a reimagining of Bluebeard, starting not with his doomed wives but with the woman who raised him: Agnes, a wet nurse still grieving the loss of her own baby, who nurses the local lord’s heir but can’t help being repelled by this strange child. As the boy grows into a man and takes wife after wife after wife, there emerges an unnamed narrator to track the cycles of love, marriage, children, death, abuse—and how the cycles restart, each time with a new ghostly voice added to the chorus.

Nghi Vo, Don’t Sleep with the Dead
(Tordotcom Publishing, April 8)

If you’ve ever yearned for a sequel to The Great Gatsby, Nghi Vo has you covered: This companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her magical queer reimagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, takes place a decade after Jay Gatsby’s sinful parties and damning (supposed) end. While the novel was told through Jordan Baker’s eyes, Nick Carraway returns to narrate this installment—and the fact that it’s being comped to The Talented Mr. Ripley is very intriguing.

Ai Jiang, A Palace Near the Wind
(Titan Books, April 15)

Really digging multiple Bluebeard interpretations on the same list. In Ai Jiang’s (I AM AI) science fantasy novella, Wind Walker and eldest princess and Liu Lufeng dreads a political marriage to the human king—in part because of its necessity for curbing humans’ expansion into her people’s land, but also because her mother and sisters have already been lost to the same agreement. But Lufeng’s plans for her nuptials-turned-regicide instead reveal how precarious the Wind Walkers’ safety actually is.

Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar
(Orbit Books, April 15)

Crime writer Antonia Hodgson applies her experience writing twisty murder mysteries to an epic fantasy setting with the first book in a new trilogy. Seven warriors, each representing a different animal guardian (Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, Hound) and monastery, compete for the opportunity to become the new emperor of Orrun. But when the Raven contender is murdered, Emperor Bersun the Brusque brings his High Scholar into the tournament. Brilliant but socially awkward know-it-all Neema Kraa must investigate the murder while taking the Raven’s spot in the competition… and that’s before the surprise eighth candidate, the Dragon proxy, will be revealed.

Rebecca Ide, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith
(Saga Press, April 15)

This Regency-era queer romantasy sounds like the perfect story to fill the Last Binding-shaped hole in my heart. Lord Nicholas Monterris must fulfill his family duty with a marriage of convenience, arranged between himself and a fellow Brilliant (or magically-inclined person), Lady Leaf Serral. That her family and his are longtime rivals is secondary to the fact that he must carry on the family lineage. That the vowsmith assigned to negotiate their marriage contract is Nic’s ex-lover, Dashiell sa Vare? That could certainly complicate matters, especially as all parties must be confined to the manor for the entirety of the negotiation. Finally, the fact that the pre-nuptials create a locked-room murder mystery when a dead body turns up creates the most delicious-sounding premise for love, lust, magic, and all sorts of vows.

Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide
(Tor Books, April 15)

This far-future memoir is composed of journalist Griffon Keming’s memories of his parents Zeffre and Etoine, ex-revolutionaries who adopted him as a teenager and helped him transition, even as their family unit was not always the most stable. Those recollections both dovetail and contrast sharply with the found material of Etoine’s jail-cell journal, the titular notes from a regicide, a political and personal confession whilst awaiting an execution. While this saga is set far enough from our present that familiar cities are flooded and/or constantly rechristened by their latest conquerors, it’s rooted in relatable notions of choosing who to love and who to be.