After a long, dark, not very warm spring here in the UK, we’ve finally had a few warm days – in a row! – that has me turning my thoughts to summer… and fantasy novels set in warm climates. We have a number of books publishing this year that are set wholly or in part in hot seasons or hot climates, including Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s July noir thriller, The Intrigue, and Christina Liu’s gothic fantasia, The Manor of Dreams. If you’re anything like me and dreaming of warmer days, here are a few more recommendations:

• A Game Of Thrones, George R. R. Martin. It’s easy to forget the worldbuilding premise of the series, given all the [gestures wildly] other stuff, but A Song of Fire and Ice is set in a world where seasons last for years, even decades. When the weather’s nice, everything’s pretty great… but the threat of winter – long, cold, dark and hey, very long – is always just around the corner. You could do your best to forget the *everything* and just reread that original novel and bask in that lovely setup.
• The Night Field, Donna Glee Williams. Another extraordinary epic set in a rainforest: to save her people, Pyn-Poi must leave the safety of her village and seek the cause of the poisonous gasses that are killing her way of life. An exceptional ecological fable; you will feel every drip of sweat that rolls down Pyn-Poi’s face.
• When There Are Wolves Again, EJ Swift. Set in the near future, this speculative novel makes the words “heat dome” feel like a threat – as they should. Come for the poetic writing; stay for the message of hope.
• Dune, Frank Herbert. There are other great novels set in the desert, but are there any as great as Dune? It’s another one to revisit with a reread, trying to forget the discourse and films and tv shows, and instead just sink into that delicious heat. The spice will flow.
• The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri. A luxuriously humid rainforest setting, sprawling worldbuilding, epic fantasy and plenty of yearning makes this a modern classic.

And if the heat gets to be too much for you (even in the safety of your own imagination)… try out James Logan’s The Blackfire Blade, set in a very cold city indeed…

That’s all for now!

Anne Perry

Publishing Director, Arcadia Books