Want to add some urban fantasy novels to your to-read list? Here are ten books that are coming out in 2023, in order of releasing soonest to farthest off. Browse the descriptions, check out any previous books in the series, and preorder them now.

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Special Monsters Unit (Earth’s Nexus Book 1)

by Eve Langlais

Trouble is brewing in Nexus, and for some reason, they think I can stop it.

Some people are born to greatness. My mother wanted to strangle me at birth.

I’ve not had an easy life, not in a world that thrives on magic. Spells to reinforce buildings. Hexes to give you the face of a supermodel.

Or so I’ve been told.

No one can hide their true face from me, and people get ugly when they find out my presence is the reason magic shrivels and dies.

It’s not as cool as it sounds, so when I’m offered a job with the Special Monsters Unit, I take a chance and join a misfit crew to find out why the town of Nexus is a magnet for cryptids.

At least I’m part of a team. I’m making friends. I’m—

Finding out secrets about my past that are hard to handle.

But my emotional scars will have to wait until after we deal with the monsters. Especially those with human faces.

Release Date: February 14th

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Tempered Illusions (Shadows of Otherside Book 6)

by Whitney Hill

Arden Finch’s big dreams for her future risk becoming nightmares.

After stopping the Wild Hunt and preventing the end of the world, Arden thought she could take a break. But the mundane backlash against supernaturals is getting worse, and Otherside abhors a power vacuum.

When someone dumps a vampire-bitten corpse at the North Carolina governor’s mansion, tensions boil over. With rioting humans on one side and invading vampires on another, Arden must decide how far she’ll go to secure her authority as Arbiter.

A step in the wrong direction will bring war to the Triangle and threaten everything Arden has built. And with the trickster gods stirring, all her illusions about power will be tested to see if they can stand the weight of this new world—or if they’ll shatter under the pressure.

Arden, Troy, Maria, and your other favorites are back in the first book of the Shadows of Otherside Trickster Cycle. The stakes are higher and the danger is greater than ever before, forcing Arden to lean into new powers and leave the Triangle to deal with new threats.

This book is set a year after the epilogue in Eternal Huntress and continues Arden Finch’s story in the Otherside universe. If you’d like to start at the beginning of the series, read Elemental.

Release Date: February 14th

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Backpacking through Bedlam (InCryptid Book 12)

by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the twelfth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us.

Reunion, noun:
1. The state of being united again.

Reconciliation, noun:
1. An act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amiable truce.
2. The process of making consistent or compatible.
3. See also “impossible.”
 
Alice Price-Healy gave up her life for fifty years to focus completely on the search for her missing husband. The danger of focus like that is that it leaves little room for thinking about what happens after…and now that she’s finally managed to find Thomas, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do next. The fact that he comes with a surrogate daughter who may or may not have some connection to Alice’s recently adopted grandson is just icing on the complicated cake.

So the three of them are heading for the most complicated place in the universe: they’re going home.

But things on Earth have changed while Alice, Thomas, and Sally have been away. The Covenant of St. George, antagonized by Verity’s declaration of war and Sarah’s temporary relocation of an entire college campus, is trying to retake North America from the cryptids and cryptozoologists who’ve been keeping the peace for the past hundred years. And they’re starting in New York.

Alice and company have barely been back for an hour before the Ocean Lady and the Queen of the Routewitches are sending them to New York to help, and they find themselves embroiled in the politics of dragons, kidnappings, and of course, the most dangerous people of all: family.

Getting “back to normal” may be the hardest task Alice has undertaken yet.

Release Date: March 7th

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Collision Course (Arcane Transporter Book 4)

by Jami Gray

A last-minute Guild delivery, a cursed treasure, and a nefarious revenge scheme sets Rory on a collision course with one of Arcane’s most wanted mages.

When the Arcane Guild requests a last-minute delivery run from Transporter, Rory Costas, she figures earning some extra cash is better than spending her evening binging another DIY show or dodging the pesky Chipmunk Mafia. After handing off a unique engagement present to a happy, well-connected Arcane couple, she returns to what she believes is business as usual, only to encounter a series of unexplained hazards that have her jumping at shadows.

With her business picking up speed, the last thing she expected was to have a formidable member of the Arcane Council drag her into an informal investigation of a horrific accident. Now, with the sexy and intimidating Arbiter, Zev Aslanov, riding shotgun, she’ll have to wade through a mix-bag of money woes, broken hearts, and a legacy of cursed treasure to uncover the truth of what drove a romantic celebration to veer into tragedy.

In her race to expose the vindictive heart at the center of the Family drama, can Rory avoid the inevitable collision with one of the Arcane’s most notorious mages?

Buckle up and find out in this adrenaline-charged urban fantasy continuation of the Arcane Transporter series!

Release Date: March 14th

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Death Maker (Lark Morgan Book 1)

by J. C. McKenzie

Most people think my life as a certified necromancer is filled with raising the dead to resolve estate disputes and make the rich richer. And they’re not wrong. But I’ve added illegal raisings and consulting with the police to my résumé.

Normally, I ask the recently departed “whodunit” for the cops, but in a recent string of gruesome killings, the dead aren’t helping. And while my consulting job is becoming a convoluted mess, the vampires think I’m key to untangling their problems. To complicate everything, I also keep getting sucked into the veil—the magical realm where spirits rest and a mysterious castle keeps appearing.

All I want in life is to do my job, help my mom pay her medical bills and not murder a certain arrogant detective. But if I don’t figure out how the murders, the veil and the vampires are connected, all while keeping my less-than-legal activities from the cops, I might go from making sacrifices to becoming one.

A deliciously dark Urban Fantasy tale with a flawed necromancer trying to survive a harsh supernatural world by International Bestselling Author, J. C. McKenzie.

Release Date: March 31st

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Unholy Magic: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Charm Collector Book 3)

by Melissa Erin Jackson

War is coming … and she doesn’t know which side she’s on.

A powerful foe has accomplished the impossible, threatening life inside the hub system and out. And now the Collective—the bane of Harlow’s existence—is asking her and her companions for help. She and Kayda have their work cut out for them, but with the sentient sword, their growing list of allies, and each other to rely on, they’ll come out on top. Or die trying.

Release Date: May 10th

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Demons of Good and Evil (Hollows Book 17)

by Kim Harrison

Rachel Morgan will learn that the price of loyalty is blood in the next Hollows novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison.

Rachel Morgan, witch-born demon, suspected that protecting the paranormal citizens of Cincinnati as the demon subrosa would be trouble. But it’s rapidly becoming way more trouble than even she could have imagined.

While Rachel and her friends may have vanquished the trickster demon Hodin, his mysterious associate known only as “The Mage” is eager to finish what Hodin started, beginning with taking down Rachel’s power structure piece by piece.

With her world falling apart, Rachel desperately needs help. But with all of her supporters under attack, her only hope is to make a deal with the unlikeliest of allies. . . .

Release Date: June 13th

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Ebony Gate (The Phoenix Hoard Book 1)

by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle

Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle’s Ebony Gate is a female John Wick story with dragon magic set in contemporary San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Emiko Soong belongs to one of the eight premier magical families of the world. But Emiko never needed any magic. Because she is the Blade of the Soong Clan. Or was. Until she’s drenched in blood in the middle of a market in China, surrounded by bodies and the scent of blood and human waste as a lethal perfume.

The Butcher of Beijing now lives a quiet life in San Francisco, importing antiques. But when a shinigami, a god of death itself, calls in a family blood debt, Emiko must recover the Ebony Gate that holds back the hungry ghosts of the Yomi underworld. Or forfeit her soul as the anchor.

What’s a retired assassin to do but save the City By The Bay from an army of the dead?

Release Date: July 18th

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Big Demon Energy: An Enemies-to-Lovers Urban Fantasy (Bedeviled AF Book 1)

by Deborah Wilde

Aviva Fleischer lives in a world where vampires are celebrated like rock stars, but demons, their kissing cousins, are reviled and hunted. Talk about a double standard.

Also, talk about how screwed she’ll be if anyone ever learns her secret—that she’s half demon. To all appearances she’s a paragon of the magic community. She’s from a respected family and has become a top supernatural operative policing crimes committed by magic humans.

In fact, Aviva is about to be promoted to head up her own unit, all by the age of thirty. Exactly as planned. Then a rash of bizarre murders break out and the Powers That Be opt to make her co-leader of a special new squad. One that mixes humans with their vampire counterparts—investigators who hunt down rogue vamps and demons.

Co-leader? Seriously? That major wrench in her leadership plans is bad enough, but even worse? She’s being partnered with Ezra Cardoso, jet set vamp and playboy extraordinaire. Aviva should know—he broke her heart six years ago.

Ezra is also the only one other than her mom who she’s trusted with her secret. Will he betray her to get ahead? Try it: she’s got a wooden stake with his name on it.

Release Date: August 21st

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An Inheritance of Magic

by Benedict Jacka

The ultra-rich control not only the world’s money, but also its magic, in this thrilling and brilliant contemporary fantasy from the author of the Alex Verus novels.

Wealth, education, resources—some people seem to exist in a glittering world on a different plane from the rest of us. Almost as if by…magic.

Stephen Oakwood knows there’s a magical world hidden from view.  Before his father disappeared, he taught Stephen how to create and use sigls to channel power. But unlocking the full potential of drucraft takes money, power, and training. All Stephen has is a minimum-wage job and a cat.

When a chance meeting leads to Stephen’s skill being recognized by a member of House Ashford, everything changes. For centuries, the vast corporations and aristocratic Houses of the magical world have grown impossibly rich and powerful by hoarding their knowledge, and for a brief moment it seems as though all of that is about to be offered to Stephen. 

But this isn’t that kind of story.

House Ashford have no more interest in sharing their privileges with Stephen than they do with anyone else. What they are interested in is increasing their own power, and now Stephen’s been thrust into a world he doesn’t understand. To survive he’ll have to take his talent and build it up into something greater—for only then can he beat them at their own game.

Release Date: October 10th

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What upcoming urban fantasy novel are you looking forward to the most? Shout it out in the comments!