Two books worth your attention this week.
Daggerbound, by T. Kingfisher (Swordheart, Book 2)
Out August 25 from Tor Books, this returns to the world Kingfisher opened in 2018's Swordheart. Learned Edmund, a disillusioned scholar transporting a relic through bandit country, grabs for an ancient sword mid-ambush and gets a very different kind of help than he expected: the sword contains the Dervish, an immortal warrior who has spent centuries trapped in enchanted steel and is furious about it. Kingfisher's particular gift is writing found family and reluctant partnership without pretending either one is easy, and a story built on a talking sword with real grievances has room to be very funny and genuinely tender in the same scene. For readers who want the comfort of a long-running universe with a new door still open into it, this is that door.
The Calamities, by Chuck Wendig
Out August 18 from Del Rey, this is a different kind of family story, and the first book in a new duology called The Fiends. Mourning Mayne is the reluctant heir to one of the world's most powerful families, and has spent his life resisting what that inheritance actually is: the Maynes are fiends, half-human and half-demon, and the wealth and power built up behind generations of careful public image runs on dark magic fed by buying and trading human souls. Wendig has built a career on families and institutions that curdle from the inside, and this one asks what a family will actually cost you to belong to, and what you become if you decide to pay it. Readers who want their found family fantasy with real teeth, and who are willing to sit with a family that is not safe, have a clear next read here.
One of these is a reminder that a beloved fantasy universe can still open a new door for a reader who has never walked through it. The other is proof that family in fantasy does not have to mean safety to be worth the read.
Map's Edge Media pays attention to both kinds of family stories, the ones that shelter and the ones that cost something to belong to.