Best Fantasy Books

Quentin Coldwater is admitted to Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, only to discover that mastering real magic does nothing to cure the depression and aimlessness he hoped it would fix — and that when Fillory, the Narnia-like world from his childhood books, turns out to be real, getting there exacts a price the fantasy never warned him about.

As Bella prepares to choose between Edward and Jacob, a mysterious series of vampire killings in Seattle and the return of a vengeful enemy raises the stakes for everyone she loves.

When seventeen-year-old Bella Swan moves to rainy Forks, Washington, she falls in love with the mysteriously compelling Edward Cullen — who turns out to be a vampire.

Bella and Edward's wedding triggers a chain of consequences — including an impossible pregnancy — that will draw the entire vampire and werewolf worlds into an explosive confrontation.

After Edward leaves Forks to protect Bella, she descends into depression — and finds unexpected comfort in Jacob Black, whose own supernatural secret will complicate everything.

A witch-historian at Oxford's Bodleian Library unearths an enchanted alchemical manuscript and finds herself at the center of a centuries-old conflict between vampires, witches, and daemons — and falling for a 1,500-year-old vampire geneticist.

A Sicilian girl makes a dangerous pact with a demon prince named Wrath to uncover who murdered her twin sister in 1800s Sicily, weaving Italian folk magic and Dante's Seven Princes of Hell into a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers mystery.

The second volume of The Stormlight Archive follows Shallan and Kaladin as ancient evils stir and the order of Knights Radiant must be reborn to face an apocalyptic threat.

Darrow must rebuild the revolution from almost nothing, rallying allies across the solar system for a final war to dismantle the Society and free the color castes from oppression.

The third Stormlight Archive novel follows Dalinar Kholin's attempt to unite the nations of Roshar as ancient evils return and the secrets of his past are finally revealed.

The Liveship Traders trilogy reaches its conclusion as the Vestrit family, the serpents migrating north, the sea-serpent wizards, and the full history of the Rain Wilds converge. Hobb resolves every storyline with characteristic emotional force, and the origins of the liveships are among the most devastating and most earned reveals in the entire Realm of the Elderlings.

As the world begins to end, Vin, Elend, and their companions race to find the Hero of Ages and uncover the true nature of the powers that have shaped their world from the beginning.

Darrow has risen within Gold society as a decorated student, but his mission to dismantle the Society from within deepens as he navigates treacherous political and military warfare across the solar system.

Percy must navigate the deadly Labyrinth of Daedalus to prevent Kronos's army from using it to launch a surprise attack on Camp Half-Blood.

Aelin Galathynius — the assassin formerly known as Celaena — returns to Rifthold with one goal: free her friend Aedion and destroy the king who murdered her family. But the city she returns to is darker than the one she left, and her old enemies have become new allies in ways she never expected.

The fourth Stormlight Archive novel follows the war against the Fused as Kaladin confronts depression, Navani discovers the nature of anti-Stormlight, and Eshonai's past is finally told.

The Vestrit family's liveship — a wizardwood vessel that becomes sentient after absorbing three generations of deaths at the helm — is contested between family members as debt, grief, and ambition pull it in different directions. Hobb's second Realm of the Elderlings trilogy expands the world of the Farseer books outward into the sea-trading culture of Bingtown.

Wax and Wayne pursue the legendary Bands of Mourning — a set of metalminds said to grant any user the full power of the Lord Ruler — leading them into uncharted lands and the revelation of a hidden civilization.

Maia, the half-goblin, despised youngest son of the elvish emperor, wakes one morning to learn that his father and all three of his elder brothers have been killed in an airship accident — making him, utterly unprepared, the new emperor of the Elflands.

The finale of the Wax and Wayne series pits Elendel against an existential threat while the Cosmere's larger machinations come into direct contact with the Scadrian world for the first time.

The Vivacia has been taken by the pirate Kennit, Althea and Brashen are fitting out the mad liveship Paragon to pursue her, and in Jamaillia the political situation threatens to destroy the Bingtown Traders' way of life entirely. The middle volume of the trilogy deepens every character and storyline, and Kennit's chapters represent some of Hobb's most complex and demanding writing.

Perrin Aybara finally confronts the Prophet of the Dragon while Mat Cauthon prepares a desperate mission to rescue Moiraine from the Aelfinn and Eelfinn. The Last Battle draws close as every major character moves into their final position.

Yumi is a yoki-hijo on a world of geothermal heat, summoning spirits through elaborate rituals. Painter is an artist on a world of perpetual darkness, holding back nightmare creatures with his brush. When their lives inexplicably intersect, each must learn from the other while solving the mystery of their connection.

Four months after the events of the first book, Kell is trapped in Red London, confined by King Maxim after the near-catastrophe of the black stone. Lila Bard is somewhere on the seas, pursuing her own ambitions. When the Essen Tasch — a magical tournament held every four years — draws competitors from all three Londons, their paths converge again.