The Once and Future Spring: 10 Marvelous New SFF Books Out March 2025
Happy almost-spring, sci-fi and fantasy lovers! Hopefully you have had a successful year of reading so far and are ready to weigh your TBR down with more upcoming books! This month is so jam-packed with amazing new science fiction and fantasy that it was remarkably hard to narrow it down to just 10. But oh, what a fabulous 10 books they are!
There’s a story of sisters living near a faerieland; a doctor with magical abilities who returns home to her ancestral lands to recuperate; a young genius hiding a space robot from the authorities; an eerie empty AI home that houses a mysterious dead body; a space janitor who gets involved with smugglers while trying to fence a valuable piece of tech; two incredible new books in beloved YA series; and of course, a story about the moon turning to cheese.
Now my little space mice, grab your nibbles and your kibbles, and get ready to learn more about these incredible books!
The Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Out in March 2025
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom, March 4)
This is the debut solo novella from Amal El-Mohtar, co-author of the hugely popular novella This Is How You Lose the Time War! It’s about the two Hawthorn sisters, who live on the edge of Faerie, and what happens when one of them puts their lives at risk by falling for a Faerie man. Holly Black calls it “Half delicious murder ballad, half beguiling love story.” YES, PLEASE.
The Anatomy of Magic by J.C. Cervantes (Park Row, March 11)
Fans of The Enchanted Hacienda will be happy to learn that J.C. Cervantes has a new book out this month! This time, the Estrada family member at the center is Lilian Estrada. She’s a doctor with the ability to manipulate memories. But when something terrible happens at the hospital, it sends Lillian and her powers into a tailspin. Looking to heal, she returns to the Estrada familial home in Mexico where she bumps into Sam, her first love, and things continue to make her head spin.
Malinalli by Veronica Chapa (Atria/Primero Sueno Press, March 11)
And this historical fantasy is a retelling of Malinalli, the Nahua interpreter who assisted Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in communicating with the Native people of Mexico. At first, believed to be a goddess, Malinalli was later branded a traitor for helping an invader take over Mexican lands. In Veronica Chapa’s debut, we learn all that and more, following Malinalli in a tale of magic and survival that gives her story the justice it deserves.
Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Tordotcom, March 11)
A finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novella, Rose/House is a gothic sci-fi tale about an AI-infused house. Architect Basit Deniau built his final work, Rose House, in the remote Mojave desert, with all the AI bells and whistles. But Deniau has been dead for over a year and his former protege is out of town when a dead body is discovered inside by Detective Maritza Smith. With no occupants and no visitors, who is the dead person, and how did they get inside? And the even more chilling question soon becomes, “Who killed them?”
Space Brooms! by A.G. Rodriguez (Angry Robot, March 25)
Johnny Gomez is a much-maligned custodian aboard the Kilgore Station, where species from all over the galaxy dine, gamble, and enjoy entertainment while relaxing. While cleaning the poop deck (literally), Johnny comes across a small data-chit, which is obviously worth a lot. Soon he’s entangled in a space adventure with smugglers in an attempt to sell the data-chit, while all the known criminals in the galaxy try to capture him and claim the data-chit for their own. One could say the chit really hits the fan. (Sorry, not sorry.)
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When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (Tor Books, March 25)
It’s exciting enough that Tor Books is slowly rolling out new editions of the books in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series this year. But we also get a brand-new novel! It’s a sci-fi comedy about the billions of inhabitants of Earth and what happens when the moon turns to cheese. No, really. The pie in the sky is now a giant cheese sphere, and the humans are seriously in trouble.
The Best New Children’s and YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Out in March 2025
Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle) by Tracy Deonn (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (March 4)
It’s here, the third book in the Legendborn Cycle trilogy, and holy cats, it’s HUGE. Seriously, it’s 656 pages! Without spoiling the first books for you, if you haven’t read them, let’s just say Oathbound is the continuation of an Arthurian retelling. It’s about a magical Black girl named Bree, in the South, who learns of her ancestral connections to a legendary order, and must learn to control her powers to help fight the evil in the world.
Vanya and the Wild Hunt by Sangu Mandanna (Roaring Brook Press, March 11)
While we continue to wait for the follow-up to Sangu Mandanna’s adult romance The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (it’s called A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping and is out July 15), enjoy this middle grade fantasy! It’s about a young British-Indian girl in England who can talk to books, and is taken to an enchanted library to learn how to fight monsters after they attack her family. In other words, Vanya is living the dream.
Sunrise on the Reaping (A Hunger Games Novel) by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press, March 18)
One of the biggest YA series of all time is back with a fifth book! And like the last one, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, it’s a prequel. This time, Suzanne Collins brings readers back to learn about young Haymitch Abernathy of District 12. He’s in the Capitol to fight in the fiftieth Hunger Games, but he soon realizes the odds are most definitely not in his favor, and he may never make it back to his family and the girl he loves. (But the biggest challenge of this book might be whether it can top the sales of Onyx Storm this year!)
The Girl and the Robot by Oz Rodriguez, Claribel A. Ortega (Disney Hyperion, March 25)
And last, but not least, is this heart-filled little sci-fi story about Mimi Perez, a clever 12-year-old girl who can fix just about anything. She’s looking to enter a robotics competition to win $50,000 to help her family. Her life gets complicated when a space robot crash-lands in her Brooklyn neighborhood. Mimi befriends the robot and hides her from the federal agents who want to capture her. But how long can even a robotics expert keep a real space robot hidden in her home?
Bonus New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Out in March 2025
Because I can’t just stop at 10 books: in March, be sure to also watch for The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson, The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao, Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite, The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi, Idolfire by Grace Curtis, and The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau.
There are also a bunch of amazing sci-fi and fantasy titles out in paperback this month, including The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, Flux by Jinwoo Chong, Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston, She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor, and Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo.
And don’t forget the sequels! Amazing continuations of great stories are hitting the shelves, like Elphie: A Wicked Childhood by Gregory Maguire, The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, Emberclaw by L. R. Lam, Children of Useyi by Moses Ose Utomi, and Tea You at the Altar by Rebecca Thorne.
If you want to learn about more sci-fi and fantasy books, check out 8 of the Worst Fantasy Worlds to Live In and 5 Great Romances in SFF Books. And be sure to sign up for our SFF newsletter, Swords and Spaceships!
Finally, you can also find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index, carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors, organized by genre and release date.
