Best Fantasy Books

The Mortal War is over, but Clary and Jace's happiness is short-lived. Someone is murdering Shadowhunters and turning their bodies into weapons. As Jace struggles with dark visions that threaten his relationship with Clary, a new and terrifying enemy emerges — one whose connection to Valentine's legacy runs deeper than anyone suspected.

The Cinderella story retold from the perspective of Iris, one of the stepsisters — set in seventeenth-century Haarlem among Dutch painters and tulip merchants, asking who is really the beautiful one and what beauty costs.

Harry Dresden investigates a series of brutal murders during the full moon — and discovers that werewolves in Chicago are far more complicated than folklore suggests.

Jorg Ancrath, thirteen years old and already a murderer leading a band of road brothers, pursues a path of calculated brutality toward the throne of the Hundred Kingdoms in a dark post-apocalyptic world where the remnants of modern civilization lie buried beneath a medieval fantasy veneer.

An orphaned soldier discovers she harbors a rare power that could end a centuries-long darkness threatening her country — and draws the attention of a mysterious and dangerous commander.

The second All Souls novel — Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont timewalk to Elizabethan London, where Diana must learn witchcraft and retrieve the enchanted manuscript that holds the secrets of all creatures.

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard and private detective, investigates a pair of murders that required enormous magical power — and discovers something far darker than a simple killer.

Tracker, a hunter with a nose that can follow anyone anywhere, is hired to find a missing boy across a mythological Africa of shapeshifters, witches, and ancient gods. The first volume of the Dark Star Trilogy, told as Tracker's interrogation-room account of what happened and why the boy is now dead.

Multiple storylines converge around the aftermath of Rand's cleansing of saidin, each character reacting to a distant magical event they witnessed but did not understand. The series' most divisive entry for its pacing, yet a necessary bridge to the series' final acceleration.

A giant squid specimen disappears from the Natural History Museum, and Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is drawn into London's hidden world of apocalyptic cults, squid-worshippers, and magical London underbelly.

Six magicians are recruited into the Alexandrian Society, a secret organization that guards the world's most dangerous knowledge — but only five will be initiated.

The conclusion of the All Souls trilogy — Diana and Matthew return to the present, the mysteries of Ashmole 782 are resolved, and the conflict between creatures and the Congregation reaches its conclusion.

Ten years after the events of Wicked, Liir — possibly Elphaba's son — stumbles out of the wilderness near death and must piece together what happened to him and what he is meant to do. The Wicked Years sequence continues as Oz descends further into political darkness.

The Cowardly Lion — here called Brrr — tells his life story to the oracle Yackle, revealing a history of cowardice, survival, and self-deception that reframes the familiar character as a study in moral failure and its long consequences.