Best Fantasy Books

A fantasy romance set in a war college for dragon riders, following a young woman who must survive her first year among the most dangerous cadets in the world.

In an alternative Napoleonic England where magic was once commonplace, two very different magicians attempt to restore English magic — with dangerous and unforeseen consequences.

A mortal girl raised in the world of the faerie courts must navigate dangerous politics and her complicated feelings for the prince who torments her most.

A war orphan from rural China passes the national imperial exam and attends the country's most elite military academy, where she discovers she has the power to channel the gods of war.

Jude Duarte returns to Elfhame to reclaim her throne and confront the curse that has fallen on Cardan, culminating in the resolution of the Folk of the Air trilogy.

In the West African-inspired land of Orisha, a young maji must complete a sacred ritual to restore magic before a ruthless king destroys it forever.

Violet Sorrengail returns to Basgiath War College for her second year, navigating deeper secrets, more dangerous enemies, and a relationship with Xaden Riorson that is tested by the truths they are both keeping.

Before Dorothy dropped in, the Wicked Witch of the West had a life. This is her story — a retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of Elphaba, a misunderstood girl whose emerald skin and sharp intelligence make her an outsider from birth.

A farm boy in the fantasy land of Alagaësia discovers a dragon egg, bonds with the dragon Saphira, and is thrust into a war against the tyrannical King Galbatorix and his empire.

A Maiden chosen by the gods and forbidden from human touch falls for her enigmatic new guard, whose true identity threatens to unravel everything she has been taught to believe.

When Meggie's father reads aloud from a book called Inkheart, characters tumble out of the story into the real world — and something from our world disappears into the book in exchange.

Lara is trained from birth to be a spy-bride sent to destroy the Bridge Kingdom from within, but when she arrives she must choose between the mission she was raised for and the truth she discovers.

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.

Tom Hazard was born in 1581 and ages so slowly he has lived through Shakespeare's London, Captain Cook's voyages, and 1920s Paris — now working as a history teacher in present-day London while belonging to a secret society that forbids its members from falling in love.

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.

Alice follows a White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and falls into Wonderland — a world where size is unstable, logic is inverted, authority is arbitrary, and language itself has become unmoored from meaning. Carroll's 1865 masterpiece is ostensibly a children's fantasy but operates simultaneously as linguistic philosophy, dream narrative, and one of the strangest and most sustained acts of imagination in the English literary tradition.

The Infernal Devices reaches its devastating, then beautiful, conclusion. Mortmain's clockwork army threatens every Shadowhunter, but it is the question of Will, Jem, and Tessa — and whether love can survive impossible choices — that makes this ending one of the most discussed in young adult fiction.

Shai is the greatest Forger in the world — able to rewrite the history of objects and grant them new properties. Caught attempting to steal the Moon Scepter, she is given an impossible ultimatum: secretly forge a new soul for the Emperor, who was left brain-dead after an assassination attempt, before the political deadline expires.

Percy and Annabeth fall into Tartarus while their friends fight to close the Doors of Death from the mortal side. Both storylines push the series into darker territory, with character revelations that changed how the fandom understood these heroes.

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.