March, like the entire year, looks stacked. From hallucinogenic Leviathan hunts in Jupiter’s atmosphere to gothic folklore and razor-sharp fantasy, the month leans bold, strange, and unapologetically speculative. Here are the releases you should have on your radar.
Science-Fiction Releases
Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall
March 10
Billed as Gideon the Ninth meets Moby Dick, Hell’s Heart marks Alexis Hall’s science fiction debut, and it wastes no time thinking small.
Earth is a ruin. Humanity survives by harvesting spermaceti, a volatile hallucinogenic fuel extracted from the brains of colossal Leviathans drifting through Jupiter’s atmosphere. When the unnamed narrator signs onto the hunter-barque Pequod, she expects a job. Instead, she is drawn into the orbit of Captain A, a charismatic and increasingly unhinged Leviathan hunter whose obsession threatens to consume them all.
Hall appears ready to deliver a spacefaring tale of devotion, madness, and survival that feels both intimate and cosmic.
Burn the Water by Billy Ray
March 3
Set in the year 2425, Burn the Water imagines a drowned London where skyscrapers rise from the sea like bones and memory has become a luxury.
For three centuries, two Houses known as the Crowns and the Rogues have warred over what remains of England. Rafe and Jule are their most lethal soldiers, celebrated, feared, and sworn to destroy each other. Instead, they fall in love. In a world defined by inherited hatred and endless retaliation, their relationship is not just forbidden. It is catastrophic.
Written by the screenwriter of The Hunger Games, the novel promises high tension, brutal action, and a romance that aims to challenge the very logic of violence. If you are looking for dystopian novel with emotional urgency, this one should be on your list.
Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky
March 19
Adrian Tchaikovsky returns to his acclaimed Children of Time universe with another ambitious space opera set long after Earth’s fall.
Ark ships once scoured the stars in search of habitable worlds, rediscovering planets terraformed in humanity’s distant past. On one such mission, a crew of humans, uplifted spiders, and a combative mantis shrimp captain encounter a forgotten ark drifting above a mysterious world. Then crewmate Alis wakes to find most of the expedition gone, leaving only a handful behind to piece together what happened below.
Tchaikovsky has built a reputation on grand scale speculation about intelligence, evolution, and survival among the stars. Children of Strife looks poised to expand that vision once again.
Fantasy Releases
No Man’s Land by Richard K. Morgan
March 24
Richard K. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon, which was adapted into a Netflix series, returns with a brutal collision of trench warfare and ancient fae mythology.
As the Great War rages across France and Flanders, something even older awakens in the British countryside. Entire villages vanish into a spreading Forest where the Huldu, a monstrous and inhuman fae race, have decided humanity’s dominance must end. Duncan Silver, a scarred veteran armed with iron and fury, wages a personal war against them, determined to reclaim the children they have stolen.
When a missing girl named Miriam becomes the center of a far darker game, Duncan is drawn into a conflict that stretches beyond revenge. Expect violence, moral ambiguity, and the same hard edge that defined Morgan’s earlier work. As a French drawn to historical fantasy, I know this one will hit my shelf day one.
Green and Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons
March 3
Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings and the ambitious Chorus of Dragons series, returns with a new epic fantasy rooted in dangerous landscapes and uneasy power.
In Green and Deadly Things, nature itself has turned hostile. Forests swallow armies. Magic carries a cost few can afford to pay. As rival factions maneuver for dominance, older forces stir beneath the surface, threatening to unravel the fragile balance holding the world together. Survival depends as much on political cunning as it does on steel or spellcraft.
Lyons has built her reputation on layered mythologies and morally complex characters. Expect intricate worldbuilding, shifting loyalties, and stakes that feel both intimate and catastrophic.
Innamorata by Ava Reid
March 17
Ava Reid, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning, opens a new duology with a decadently dark gothic fantasy steeped in necromancy and ruin.
Once, seven noble houses ruled an island through death magic. Now their libraries are ash, their lords are dead, and only the House of Teeth remains defiant. Agnes, silent for seven years yet heir to forbidden knowledge, must reclaim her family’s secrets and orchestrate her cousin Marozia’s betrothal to the conqueror’s golden heir. Access to his grotesque castle means access to lost magic. It also means proximity to temptation.
Reid excels at haunting atmospheres and morally tangled desire. With necromancy, political revenge, and a love that threatens to undo everything, Innamorata looks poised to deliver gothic fantasy at its most sumptuous and dangerous.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
March 31
Ilona Andrews, the bestselling author duo behind the Kate Daniels and Hidden Legacy series, returns with a new fantasy that blends high stakes power struggles with razor sharp character dynamics.
In This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, survival means navigating a world shaped by volatile magic and competing factions that measure loyalty in blood. Alliances are fragile. Authority is contested. And the protagonist must carve out space in a kingdom that would rather see her controlled or destroyed. As tensions escalate, political maneuvering collides with personal ambition in ways that threaten to reshape the balance of power.
Known for fast pacing and emotionally charged confrontations, Ilona Andrews delivers fantasy that is both addictive and unapologetically intense. This one is likely to be a major March release.