Future Fiction #357- Cover Reveals & Newly Discovered SFF Books

Welcome to Future Fiction, my reimagining of the Waiting on Wednesday meme! There are so many amazing new books coming out, that I can no longer pick just one. My goal with Future Fiction is to share at least three new books each week, a combination of recent cover reveals and books that I’ve recently added to my TBR pile. I’m still going to be linking up with Wishful Endings/Can’t Wait Wednesday, and I also want to give a shout out to Jill at Breaking the Spine for starting the original Waiting on Wednesday meme. I hope you’ll find some new books to add to your TBR piles, and as always, I look forward to hearing what YOU’RE looking forward to:-D

This week I have a variety of genres, something for everyone! Take a look:

From the author of The Afterlife Project: One woman’s quest to find her father pushes her beyond the boundaries of space, time, and the human mind.

Two decades ago, Esme Weatherhead’s archaeologist father wrote a bestselling book on the use of hallucinogens in ancient Mesoamerican shamanism―and then disappeared. Convinced he’s still alive, Esme has never stopped searching for him. And when she stumbles upon notes about a hidden cave on their rural Vermont property, her quest gets a new focus.

Esme hires geological consultant Lucas St. Pierre to help locate and explore the cave, and her hunch that it has something to do with her father’s disappearance quickly pays off. Inside the winding passages they discover an ancient artifact, left there by the missing man and the indigenous healer who taught him how to access a portal to a secret underworld through the use of psilocybin mushrooms.

And when Esme and Lucas attempt to recreate their hallucinogenic pilgrimage, the journey brings them glimpses of otherworldly landscapes and even, occasionally, Esme’s father. But their discovery of the artifact hasn’t gone unnoticed. An old family friend―now a tech entrepreneur―wants to harness its power, and he’ll destroy anyone who stands in his way . . .

Perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, Tim Weed’s The Gatepost blends modern science and ancient cosmology to take readers on a mind-bending odyssey, offering glimpses into worlds beyond our own.

The Gatepost by Tim Weed. Releases in May 2026 from Podium Publishing. After discovering Tim Weed earlier this year and being blown away by The Afterlife Project, I will read anything this man writes! I was thrilled to see he has a new book coming up in 2026, and I have no doubt it’s going to be just as unique and brilliant.

A young mermaid is forced to choose between her old life above the waves and her new life below them in this eerie, romantic queer fantasy duology from debut author Shannon K. English.

Eppie has never quite understood why the world hates her—all she did was kiss a girl. Must that mean she suffers isolation, with whispers and glares following her at every turn? She tries to focus on her duty to her family, but options are limited for a woman alone, and life in the seaside village of Hwenfirth is agonizingly mundane.

One day, as Eppie walks along the beach, she spies someone drowning in the shallows. Without thinking, she runs to rescue the poor soul—but when she gets up close, instead of a sputtering victim she finds an inhuman creature smiling up at her with rows of sharp, white teeth that snap closed on her arm and drag her beneath the waves.

When Eppie awakes in a deep ocean cave, she finds her own body has changed: she can breathe underwater, her skin is turning scaly, her teeth have been replaced by fangs, and she is suddenly ravenous for human flesh.

She has become a dreaded creature of the ocean—a mermaid.

Things aren’t all bad, though. The mermaid colony is mesmerizing and Eppie’s new sisters are fiercely loyal. And when Eppie meets Marie, a stunningly beautiful mermaid with a past as shadowed as her glossy, raven-black scales, she finds she no longer needs to resist the desires that were denied to her on land.

But the mermaid hunters are coming, and Eppie must decide whether to protect the new, monstrous family she’s found or leave it all behind for a chance to live above the waves once again.

Endless Blue Beneath (Daughters of Athena #1) by Shannon K. English. Releases in June 2026 from Orbit Books. I’m in love with this cover, and I’m always drawn to mermaid stories, so this is one I’m keeping on my radar.

A dazzling dystopian novel about the fall of a troubled rockstar, her long-lost solo album, and her daughter’s epic search for redemption in the ruins of New York City.

“Combines the spellbinding worldbuilding of Station Eleven with a rock-and-roll heart . . . A luscious, awe-inspiring, and gorgeously written novel about love and how it will save us, no matter what the future holds.”—Amanda Eyre Ward

Jenny Sweet’s marriage is ending—and with it her band and maybe even her fragile relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Neko. A reluctant wife and mother, Jenny plans a new journey of self-discovery after one more gig at Burning Man. But when Neko disappears amid the chaos of the festival, Jenny fears that everything that mattered to her has been lost. As she races against the dark, Jenny finds herself thrown into the past, and into the heart of a gathering storm.

Now twenty-five, Neko is a a trained recruit who braves the rival factions and feral survivalists in the ruins of a crumbling, flooded Manhattan for resources that grow scarcer by the day. When she stumbles upon the master of her mother’s long-lost solo album and later hears that someone else is searching for it—someone who could be her mother, missing for over a decade—she embarks on a perilous adventure with a ragtag crew that will take her from treetop societies to decadent raves to the underground bunker where she will, finally, confront her mother’s fate—and her own.

A profound tale of resilience set in a future wracked by calamity and buoyed by hope, Mudlark is an unforgettable novel that explores how love and art persist as beacons of humanity.

Mudlark by Mary Helen Specht. Releases in July 2026 from Ballantine Books. This sounds like my kind of literary sci-fi/dystopian: the music/band element, the emotional relationship between a mother and her daughter, and the near future setting. I cannot wait!

What do you think of this week’s Future Fiction picks? Let me know in the comments!