The year 2026 offers plenty of talented Black debut writers in the SFF genre. These eight upcoming debuts are innovative, diverse, and highly distinctive, sure to make a splash with readers over the next twelve months.
If you're tired of reading and rereading the same names, try a new title and dive into these compelling works.
Witch Queen Rising
The title of Prime, or leader of the New Orleans witchkin, is meant to pass between two rival Houses of magic. Instead, it falls to Seraphine Barreau, the prodigal daughter of the former Prime who died under mysterious circumstances and an outcast nicknamed the Tick Queen for her ability to feed on other's magic and harness it.
Dragged into the battle of hierarchies and treachery, Phine must earn the respect of her people and hone her abilities before she takes the crown. To make things worse, her werewolf ex is back on the scene.
Death Card
During a customer’s tarot reading at her family’s occult shop, eighteen-year-old Mikaela Broussard turns over the Death card and envisions the beautiful stranger in front of her stabbing her in the heart. Why does this woman want her dead? Mikaela needs to find out, but she'll also need to keep the future killer, Joelle, close.
Things are only getting scarier as witches in the community have their magic stolen, and Mikaela, as the future Witch queen of her coven, is surely the next target. Hopefully, Joelle won’t kill her first, but the more time the pair spend together, the more their feelings change from confusion to love…
Black as Diamond
Asaru is a warrior of the winged eresh keyel. He has spent his life fighting in a crumbling war against a long-dead enemy. When his brother's squadron disappears from a border keep, Asaru travels into the human realm to investigate. When he inadvertently commits a terrible crime, Asaru is thrown into the path of Wren, an emotionally tortured former healer who is experimenting with the most dangerous kinds of magic. The pair are bound together by a spell gone wrong, and the Chronicler wants both of them dead. They must break the curse, uncover the truth, and stay alive.
Devil of the Deep
Lu watched Nnenna, the love of his life, walk the plank and sink into the ocean. Five years later, Lieutenant “Lu” Ortega, a fleet officer devoted to his work, embarks on a mission to hunt down a powerful talisman now in the hands of a runaway mermaid. On his quest, he discovers the Nnenna is still alive.
She has now become a ferocious pirate captain with the nickname "the Devil of the Deep." She has come to reject the system of order that Lu clings to, and she's ready to defy the might the sea gods who control the oceans she seeks to dominate.
Our Sister's Keeper
East Cobb seems like paradise, a wealthy all-Black free town completely untouched by white oppression and racist control. Thea Elliot and her husband have big plans to make their fortune in East Cobb, but soon, the dark truth of this idyll reveals itself to her. Marah knows East Cobb is more than it seems. She is one of the carriers—women with the ability to pull traumatic memories from men.
Populated by men entirely freed of their pain, East Cobb has flourished, but at the expense of the women. She and Thea's worlds collide and they must confront the rot concealed by the town's grand promises.
The Curse of Hester Gardens
Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, a community divided along lines of faith and criminality. Nona has devoted her life to ensuring her beloved boys do not follow in the footsteps of her imprisoned husband and murdered eldest son. Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He's a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. But then, strange things start happening to her youngest son, Lance.
Lance is hanging around with a bad crowd, and her boys soon feel like different people entirely. She fears that the guilt of her past has come back to haunt her, and now everyone in Hester Gardens is at risk of total annihilation.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers
When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she hoped she'd escaped her abusive mother and the trauma of her past. She ran into the forests of southern Georgia, finding solace in a dilapidated house she plans to renovate. This house, too, has its scars, and Jude soothes the ghosts within for 13 years as she hones her skills as a wisewoman and healer. But her own past won't leave her alone. A mysterious but beautiful woman shows up on her doorstep one night, stirring up feelings Jude had hoped to lay to rest. There is fear but also desire…
Bound by Fury
Harper's grandmother Gigi regaled her with stories of pretty brown girls from beyond the stars with magic in their veins, but she never imagined they could be true. After Gigi's sudden death, a strange power awakens in Harper's skin. Desperate for answers, she ventures to an elite boarding school in the Appalachian Mountains, the Black Mountain Academy. This school of magic and secrets has some skeletons in its closet, and when Harper uncovers a local legend involving the murders of 12 witches on campus, she knows she'll have to unearth the truth before she's next.
