Seasonal Fears is a companion novel to Middlegame (2019), adjacent to the alchemical world that led to the creation of Roger and Dodger. After 300 years of cheating the natural order of the seasons, William Monroe, the Winter King of North America, is dead, and a coronation has been called. Mel and Harry are, in some ways, a perfect high-school storybook couple--she's a cheerleader, he's the quarterback; they've been sweethearts as long as they've known how to be. When she collapses on the field the day of the Valentine's dance, so does Harry--and things only get stranger from there. A girl named Jack shows up in Mel's bedroom, claiming to be the Winter Ascendant, with news: Mel is the Winter Incarnate. If she can survive to the coronation, she'll be the Winter Queen. Harry isn't just along for the ride, though: he's caught up in his own destiny as a candidate for Summer. It is an epic road-trip novel, a meditation on the consequences of personifying nature and what happens when someone games the system, and a fitting return to McGuire's magical, alchemical world.

McGuire's intricate, dense companion to 2020's Middlegame delves ever deeper into the hidden alchemical history of her world, populating it with incarnate concepts and sinister agendas. Teen Harry March has been madly devoted to his girlfriend, Melanie Cosgrove, for as long as he can remember, though her heart condition means she likely won't live long enough to have a future with him. Indeed, she dies during a high school football game--and promptly reanimates, her death just the start of a strange new adventure. A young woman named Jack Frost explains that Melanie and Harry are now candidates for the thrones of Winter and Summer respectively, the concept of seasons incarnated. To claim their mantles, they must travel cross-country to prove their worthiness in a magical trial, while battling their rival candidates, often to the death, along the way. Succeed and they stay together; fail and they both perish. As they master their seasonal affinities, they uncover secrets that have shaped their lives and influenced their destinies. However complicated the premise and worldbuilding may be, it's all held together by Harry and Melanie's unwavering partnership, and the strength of family, both blood and found. The result is a worthy, highly intelligent, wholly satisfying expansion of the Middlegame mythos that will leave readers wanting more. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (May)

Awards-laden McGuire returns to the world of Middlegame, where the queen of summer is fading toward death and the king of winter bemoans his fate: a life without her sunshine. Then they see an alternative and take it, trailed by those who wish them harm. With a 175,000-copy first printing.