In a genre replete with stock Arthurian templates, it’s refreshing to see myths and legends taken from a different culture, in this instance Malay. In Natasha Ngan’s third YA novel, Girls of Paper and Fire (Hodder, £14.99), the citizens of the lavishly portrayed world of Ikhara are divided into three castes: Moon, the ruling demons; Steel, demon-human amalgams; and Paper, subjugated humans. Narrator Lei is a Paper girl, taken from her family to become a concubine, with eight other girls, of the Demon King. What follows her initial submission is the slow-burning story of the iniquity perpetrated by the ruling elite and Lei’s affecting love affair with her fellow Paper girl Wren, a liaison forbidden by the powers-that-be. The book works on several levels, as a satisfying glimpse into a different fantasy world, as a compelling narrative of personal rebellion, and as a timely reminder that, in the right hands, the fantasy genre has things to say about injustice and abuse of power in the real world.

Another rich fantasy novel with a non-European background, Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand (Orbit, £8.99) draws inspiration from medieval India and the Mughal empire. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of a ruling-class father and an outcast, nomad mother reputedly descended from djinns, and from whom Mehr has inherited magical powers. Forced into an arranged marriage to utilise her magic in the service of the Amban empire, Mehr learns that her husband is also enslaved. Together they work to overcome the wiles of the immortal who founded the empire – the Maha, an evil mystic. Suri writes convincingly about the role of the oppressed, and tells a thrilling tale set against a beautifully rendered desert backdrop. In Mehr she has created a believable, fully rounded heroine, by turns vulnerable and yet full of guile and agency, who will get readers cheering. Empire of Sand marks an impressive debut.

James Lovegrove brings the story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson’s prolonged fight against the monsters of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos to a rousing conclusion in the third book of the Cthulhu Casebooks, Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils (Titan, £12.99). Drawn out of retirement on his farm near Eastbourne to investigate the grisly death of his brother Mycroft, Holmes detects the involvement of his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty. The evil Professor has entered a pact with the outer god R’luhlloig, and together they have assumed the form of Baron von Herling, German ambassador to Britain. After much thrilling derring-do, cunning detective work and close encounters with death, Holmes and Watson are abducted and taken via submarine to the Pacific island of R’lyeh, dwelling place of the old god Cthulhu. There, R’luhlloig and Cthulhu do battle in a fine set piece finale. One strength of the novel is the depiction of Holmes and Watson’s relationship in the face of old age. Lovegrove is a grandmaster of the Sherlock Holmes homage, and no slouch when it comes to describing Lovecraftian horrors: Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils is thoroughly compelling.

We’re in a near-future America where religious fundamentalism rubs up against brain-invading technology in Amanda Bridgeman’s eighth novel The Subjugate (Angry Robot, £8.99). Peace in the tightly knit religious sect known as the Children of Christ has been shattered by the depredations of a merciless serial killer. Detectives Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville must work out whether the murderer is a member of the Amish-like community or an escaped inmate of the nearby Solme Complex, a prison where hardened criminals are technologically lobotomised to become harmless Serenes. Brentt and Grenville have troubled pasts that come to plague their investigations, and one of the novel’s pleasures lies in Bridgeman’s gradual peeling back of her protagonists’ fragile psyches as the story nears its thrilling climax. The Subjugate is a compelling seat-of-the-pants murder mystery and a fascinating inquiry into good and evil and the possibility of redemption.

First published in the US in two volumes, The Archived and The Unbound appear here as The Dark Vault (Titan, £9.99) by VE Schwab. At the age of 12, Mackenzie Bishop’s grandfather initiated her into the secret of the Archives, an afterlife realm where the dead reside like books in a library. He was the Keeper of the Archive, and his job was to track down and return the awoken dead from the Narrows, a realm between the Archive and the real world. Now 16, Mackenzie has inherited her dead grandfather’s role of Keeper, with the many burdens this entails – not least of which is the danger to her own life from malign supernatural forces and the lies she must tell to friends and family, who know nothing of her secret role. Mackenzie is a complex character, struggling with loneliness and grief after the death of her brother, and with ambivalent feelings for two male acquaintances. Schwab successfully melds contemporary gothic with a moving coming-of-age tale.

• Eric Brown’s latest novel is Buying Time (Solaris). To buy these books go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.